The MacDoctor gets somewhat irritated by the furore generated by three-strike warnings, especially when they are blatantly misrepresented – like the nonsense being generated about the 21-year-old recidivist, Elijah Akeem Whaanga (I like the way my spellchecker offers me the alternative spelling of “whinge” for his surname). He is represented as having a third strike warning issued [...]

Road Rabies [rohd rey-beez] noun pathology. 1. An episode of psychotic rage provoked by a minor driving infraction in a fellow motorist. Youngest MacDaughter experienced just such an episode this afternoon in Botany town centre, Auckland. Right in front of her a large Pacific Island youth leaped out of his black sports car and started punching and [...]

So the traffic cops are extending their 4km-only tolerance limit until the end of the month and are looking at making it permanent. This has a feeling of pre-concieved inevitability about it. Although Acting Superintendent Rob Morgan assures us that the permanent adoption “will really be an evidence-based decision”, we all know that this is complete [...]

The man who was arrested after he flew into a rage when Wendy’s staff got his burger order wrong, insists he is not a violent man: He described the incident as a “communication breakdown kind of thing” that escalated out of control. The furniture removal worker, who said he was not an aggressive person, said yesterday [...]

A survivor of a hunting “accident” asks the question “Why are people still being shot?“. The MacDoctor can help with this one. He was an ED doctor for 9 years in Southland, literally the “Happy Hunting Ground” of New Zealand. Of the dozens of shooting incidents he has seen, he has yet to see one [...]

The police have finally made an arrest in the horrifying case of the depraved assault on the five-year-old child holidaying at a caravan park in Turangi. We know nothing about the accused except that he is local and aged 16. The moralising has now begun: Pre-show, Detective Inspector Mark Loper had a word. He had [...]

The MacDoctor always knew that there would eventually be someone stupid enough to fall foul of Judith “Crusher” Collin’s boy-racer legislation. It has taken its time to come to this, but he is delighted that Ms. Collins will get her wish to witness the first car crushing as outgoing minister for corrections and crushings. MacDoctor [...]

This is a graph (nicked from the Herald) plotting the presentations of non-accidental injury (child abuse) at Starship hospital. Normal people would almost certainly view this as good evidence that the problem is getting worse. Unfortunately, self-serving, butt-covering bureaucrats see things differently. Here’s one: “The way I interpret this is that the numbers are good [...]

I have to admit that if I were a woman, I would have to think twice before subjecting myself to the sort of nonsense spouted in a rape case. I would think very long and hard if my attacker was a powerful and wealthy man like Dominique Strauss-Kahn. The woman who alleges that Strauss-Kahn attempted [...]

My friend ScrubOne suggests that my next post will be on this. Who am I to argue with such wisdom? A deluge of abusive drunks is straining Wellington Hospital’s emergency department, clogging its systems and demoralising staff to such an extent that at least one doctor is considering leaving her job. Nurses say they dread [...]