The MacDoctor often refers to the pharmacy as the $3 shop (All funded script items cost $3.00). And, yes, patients often stare at him blankly, but one has to get one’s fun from somewhere. A recent Herald article claims that this fee is sometimes too much for low-income people causing them not to pick up [...]

David Farrar appears to have scooped the newspapers with a leaked version of The Law Commission proposals on alcohol. The Stuff version is here. David’s summary runs: A massive 50% increase in the excise tax on alcohol. This would result in an extra $500 million of revenue to the Crown at the expense of everyone who drinks. Banning [...]

David Farrar has produced this lovely piece of satire: The Green Party today released a further policy on how New Zealand can make a goal of a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 and 80% by 2050. “We realised our previous policy of de-stocking dairy herds was not going to be enough. Yes Cows [...]

The horrific details of the murder of Duwayne Pailegutu by his stepfather, Johnny Pukerua Joachim have been released. They make grim reading. Johnny Joachim is serving an 18-year, non-parole sentence after admitting Duwayne’s murder. For the week before he died,Duwayne sat, partially paralysed and fitted with nappies, slowly suffocating on blood which he inhaled into his [...]

I note that our Kyoto liability estimate seems to have swung into surplus after a number of years in the red. Of course, this has absolutely nothing to do with our actual carbon dioxide emissions and everything to do with the ridiculous way we attempt to calculate these emissions.  Apparently our new “surplus” is due [...]

Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. (MacDoctor definition) Today Tracey Watkins of the Dominion Post obliges us with this fine piece of political spam. Maori MPs’ windfall criticised National is under fire for pumping tens of thousands of dollars in extra entitlements the way of the [...]

Over at Kiwiblog, Richard Thomson, the deposed Chairman of Otago DHB has commented on the diatribe against him with a little whine of his own. It is very instructive. …This fraud was perpetrated through a structure set up almost two years before I Chaired my first Board meeting. At the time IT spend was just [...]

Robyn Stent, the former Health and Disability Commissioner, adds an interesting twist to the tale of the IVF embryos in cold storage. Her tack is that Former Health Minister Annette King altered the wording of the HDC code of rights to allow something like this to happen. The change occurred to right 7(10): “Any body parts or bodily substances [...]

My favorite curmudgeon, Garth George, writes today on how he thinks that abortion is at the heart of child and wife abuse. I find I can’t really agree with his conclusions. As I have blogged recently, I see abortion, child and spouse abuse as general symptoms of a lack of respect for the value of [...]

Health Minister Tony Ryall will set a maximum patient waiting time limit of 6 hours in hospital emergency department waiting rooms. This seems to me a fairly weak commitment considering that the UK set and met a commitment for a maximum waiting time of 4 hours. I rather suspect that Ryall is not keen to [...]