Well, there seems to be no doubt what the (supposedly unbiased) Herald’s official position is on the proposed “three strikes” law. The headline
‘Unjust’ bill means 11,000 per cent rise in prison time
is not exactly studiedly neutral. And making out that Kim Workman comes from “an independent organisation on crime” is simply a bad old-fashioned lie. [...]

Steven Joyce has said today that some tertiary education funding would be linked to student performance and drop-out rates. This is an excellent idea and should provide some incentive for universities and colleges to pay attention to those students who are clearly not doing well, instead of simply writing them off as they usually do. [...]

The Timaru Herald has run an article on the website offtheradar.co.nz, who are calling for the removal of Gardasil from the vaccination regime because it causes 16 times more serious adverse events than it prevents cervical cancer fatalities. Like most of the websites “crusading” against vaccines, it destroys its own credibility by drawing non-scientific conclusions [...]

I see an number of doctors are voicing their concerns of the government interest in a Pharmac-like organisation to take over hospital based purchases. Not without good reason, I might add. The Pharmac model has a major flaw. That flaw is that the model is based on the free availability of cheap “equivalents”.
There is no [...]

Not satisfied with rendering cold and flu medicines ineffective by removing pseudoephedrine from general sale, Medsafe continues it’s onslaught on cold and flu meds by trying to remove all the syrups and infusions from supermarket shelves. Apparently they are concerned about the use of them in under sixes (despite the fact that fatalities are very [...]

The amphibious one over at Frogblog has pointed out the extraordinary consensus in the blogosphere of the matter of Simon Power’s knee-jerk dismissal of the findings of the Law Commission’s report on Controlling And Regulating Drugs (PDF). While everyone is unanimous (including me) in their opinion that Power has been far too dismissive of the [...]

The Media and the Left-wing blogs are getting all excited about John Key contracticting himself on GST. In 2008, he announced National would not be raising GST. He added:
“If we do a half decent job as a Government growing our economy, I’m confident that’s not going to be happening and that’s not on our agenda.”
In [...]

Apparently, John Key gave a speech today in parliament.
Must have slept through it.
Add a Comment

The Dominion Post writes yesterday about the looming shortage of oncologists. Four cancer doctors have resigned in a very short space of time. The article explores all the usual reasons why doctors leave, particularly the worrying ones of overwork,  which can only be fixed by employing more hard-to-get doctors. What struck me, though, was the [...]

No one has said that living on the minimum wage was fun or comfortable. The 25c per hour increase that the National Government has approved will not change that. It barely keeps pace with inflation. But that is not the point of the minimum wage. It is the minimum. It is not meant to be [...]