Apparently that nice Mr. Key is less than enthusiastic about the economic recommendations for his former rival Don Brash. Gasp! Shock. Horror. Not. Without even looking at Brash’s recommendations I could have told you that they will be rejected out of hand by Key. The entire taskforce was never designed to produce any viable suggestion. [...]

I see the thrill of Phil is fading fast. The latest Colmar Brunton poll sees him sliding down four points to 5%. That’s barely above the margin of error. I don’t think I recall even Bill English ever dipping below double figures in a Colmar Brunton poll. And Labour is now on 31%, which is [...]

If ever there was a good illustration of the parochial nature of New Zealand’s media, it is the furor over Bill English’s government limo parking on a dotted yellow line. In the grand scheme of things, I would rate this as a 0.5/10 – right up there with “cat gets stuck in tree” (Daring Rescue [...]

Force Quit is what you do on a Mac when a program freezes to remove the offending program from memory. Force quit also appears to be what the DHBs have in mind to achieve their goal of 80 per cent of hospitalised smokers be given advice and help to quit. Most DHBs are way under [...]

Dame Margaret Bazley has released her damning report on the legal aid system and it is everything we feared – and more. Not only does it appear that some lawyers are ripping off bith the taxpayer and their legal aid clients, it also appears that they are a considerable part of the reason why the [...]

Over at SciBlogs, Gareth Renowden and Ken Perrott are commenting on my post Global Warping. As the comments are interesting and should not be missed, I have pasted them here. You are welcome to go over to SciBlogs and add your comments. Gareth Renowden 1 day ago Jim, I think you are giving far too [...]

I discovered this very interesting poll on Medscape today: What is interesting is that 17% of physicians who answered this survey think it is ethical to refuse to see a child whose parents have chosen not to vaccinate (this has remained stable at around 17% for the past 500 or so votes). I find this [...]

Ahhh, only the Japanese… Man marries virtual girlfriend In a bizarre story reminiscent of the film Lars and the Real Girl, the man, known by his nickname SAL9000, fell in love with a fictional character from the Nintendo DS “love simulator” Love Plus. Popular in Japan’s geek subculture, the game invites players to pick a [...]

Now that our illustrious government has finally managed to pass, at great cost to itself and the Maori party, a badly designed Emissions Trading Scheme – that absolutely everyone else hates –  it is time to wonder why anyone bothered. This expensive waste of political capital will achieve precisely nothing for our environment nor prevent [...]

I see they’ve finally got the Large Hadron Collider to work at last. And the universe did not disappear into a giant black hole. Kind of a pity, really. I was looking forward to the shorter drive to work. Apparently, the Collider is going to unlock the “secrets of the universe”. Of course, we know [...]