Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Feb 8, 2012, 7:00 pm
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 evide...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jan 27, 2012, 11:50 pm
I hope everyone over at the Standard has had their shots. They have someone there called RedLogix who apparently has rabies. In the interest of public mental health, I will not be linking to the post entitled “Treachery”. You can go there if you must but I don’t advise it. In one long bizarre...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jan 26, 2012, 4:25 am
Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. There is never any lack of sex-related spam: Infidelity: it’s a right-wing, meat-eaters’ thing If your partner supports National, has a PC, drinks Coke, eats meat, has a tattoo, smokes a...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jan 23, 2012, 4:31 am
Apparently Damian O’Connor would like to shoot my dog. It is about time we stopped pussyfooting around and advocated and implemented the destruction of any dog and breed of dog that is considered dangerous in New Zealand. No one is allowed to carry around a loaded gun and these dogs are just that...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jan 20, 2012, 11:49 pm
That is the sort of feeling I get when reading silly newspaper articles full of sensationalist speculation as to the motives and failings of the Captain of the Costa Concordia, Francesco Schettino. Of more interest is the article (not yet online) entitled “Making a Monster of Human Frailty” by...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jan 20, 2012, 5:06 am
... couple of feet away from a chain-smoker who alternated between his cigarettes and his asthma inhaler. But the enhancement of my restaurant pleasure ... Just so long as they do not claim “poverty” while burning through $200-$300 a month. Or worse, claim “child poverty”. Both of ... . ...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jan 17, 2012, 11:59 pm
On the one hand, it is pretty easy to define political: po·lit·i·cal [puh-lit-i-kuhl] adjective 1. of, pertaining to, or concerned with politics: political writers. 2. of, pertaining to, or connected with a political party: a political campaign. 3. exercising or seeking...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jan 16, 2012, 5:13 am
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 aggre...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jan 16, 2012, 4:27 am
The Blanket man is dead. Ben Hana, AKA the Blanket Man, died in Wellington Hospital yesterday, age 54. Apparently, Wellington mourns his passing The MacDoctor generally takes a benign view of hobos. Although they provide the streets with some distressing sights and odours, they are generally harmle...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jun 10, 2011, 10:10 pm
Now here is a very bad idea. Only students doing courses that benefit the economy should receive interest-free loans, according to a suggestion from a leading accountancy group. The idea in KPMG’s Agribusiness Agenda 2011 was prompted by “long-term decline” of graduates entering agriculture....
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jun 10, 2011, 6:01 am
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 ...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jun 5, 2011, 1:29 pm
What is it with those on the left and tax avoidance? Arranging your affairs so that you pay as little tax as possible is a normal business practice, as long as it is legal. In New Zealand we have recently had plenty of people moaning about the use of trust structures and offshore accounts, as if the...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jun 5, 2011, 1:54 am
An article in the HoS today shows the stupidity of the idea of “menacing breeds”. A child was bitten, and significantly injured, not by a Pit-bull or Bull-mastif, but by a Fox Terrier. This particular animal has not been put down and is still allowed to be around children – because it is small...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jun 5, 2011, 12:28 am
The title of a great Led Zep song and a piece of advice that the Invercargill man – who is issuing death threats to Coca Cola workers for “poisoning his wife” – should take to heart. The man claims his wife was poisoned by Coca Cola and this is possibly true – but only because she was dri...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jun 3, 2011, 7:14 am
I have to say, I much preferred the WHO when they were only a rock and roll band and not a teeming hive of health BureauPrats*. This week, a meeting of the terminally stupid (otherwise known as the International Agency for Research on Cancer – IARC) issued a statement that flies in the face of lo...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jun 2, 2011, 5:45 am
Stuff reports: The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court judge’s ruling that unborn children do not have a right to life. I can’t say I am too surprised by this. I have always thought that Right to Life were wasting time and money on a fruitless quest. It was highly unlikely that the legal fr...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jun 2, 2011, 3:04 am
Spam Journalism: The spurious use of sensational headlines to add spice to an otherwise pointless article. There have been so many spam articles in the press recently, I haven’t had the heart to keep running Spam Journalism posts. It is a little too much like shooting fish in a barrel. However, I...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Jun 2, 2011, 2:05 am
Dr. Michael Kamrava has had his license to practice revoked. Dr. Kamrava, you might recall, is the “doctor” who implanted 12 embryos in Nadia Suleman, who then went on to have octuplets. Ms. Suleman, at the time, had five other children – all conceived by IVF – and was an unemployed single m...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - May 31, 2011, 2:57 am
It comes as no real surprise that the National government’s review of the council-based business case for a CBD rail loop has found that the council review vastly overstated the benefits. Rail enthusiasts will now all cast aspertions on this report, saying how the review has been loaded with anti-...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - May 26, 2011, 6:55 am
Philosophically, I have a deep disquiet about the tendency of my profession to medicalise health. While I have no qualms at all about vigorously treating risk factors for heart disease such as high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol, I confess to being a little dubious about the advisabilit...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - May 25, 2011, 12:44 am
Harold Camping, the man who predicted the rapture incorrectly in 1994 and on 21 May this year, has revised his estimate of the end of the world. Despite the fact that Jesus himself informed us that not even he knew the hour of his return (Matt 24:36), Mr. Camping informs us that the return of Jesus ...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - May 24, 2011, 6:48 am
The Myth of the Evil Employer Last Sunday Helen Kelly launched into a revealing diatribe about employee/employer relationships: Council of Trade Unions head Helen Kelly has accused the National government of trying to instil an attitude in which employers should be treated with deference and worke...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - May 23, 2011, 6:51 am
It seems that all the parties have produced mini budgets over the past couple of weeks, presumably to steal the thunder from National’s budget. Slim pickings there, then. As a service for those with little time for politics, the MacDoctor provides a brief summary of the various “budgets”: N...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - May 16, 2011, 6:29 am
I see Nick Smith has answered the MacDoctor’s question: The worrying thing here is that Mr Smith apparently has no idea whether there is a problem with ACC claims and no inclination to find out.  Over 400 people have complained to the Herald and ACC lose fully one third of all their dispu...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - May 16, 2011, 6:09 am
Aviation safety experts will tell you that the weakest link in any system is the human component. They spend their days devising new ways to remove reliance on humans beings performing error-free tasks. They know that there is no such person. All humans make mistakes. The question is why do we rely...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - May 8, 2011, 6:15 am
The past two weeks certainly have been interesting in New Zealand politics. Buccaneer Brash sails into the Act caucus and makes Rodney Hide walk the plank one week and Hone the Horrible blunders through the political landscape in true barbarian fashion in the next. Suddenly, the rather colourless el...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - May 8, 2011, 1:33 am
It is sad to watch the terrible debilitating effect of Key Derangement Syndrome on opposition politicians and their pet lap-blogs. Every week there is a new attempt to smear John Key with some sort of scandal. Each week is more pathetic than the last. This past week we have had the unedifying sight ...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 27, 2011, 4:24 am
I see Don Brash has learned no new political skills since ceasing to be a National MP. I don’t know who is advising him, if anyone, but the man really does need some significant help. What on earth possessed him to try for the leadership of ACT? Much has been made of the fact that Brash is not e...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 21, 2011, 11:12 pm
Inventory2 over at Keeping Stock clearly has similar tastes in music to the MacDoctor. I see he has posted a video of Third Day’s Thief – one of the most powerful easter songs written (in my opinion).  I have just updated a version of this song to brush up on my video editing skills. Here it is...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 21, 2011, 7:31 am
Dr Shaun Holt is no stranger to controversy, having last year laid into the Chiropractors. Now he, along with a number of other researchers, have written a letter to the New Zealand Medical Journal saying: Practicing homeopathy or endorsing it by referring patients is not consistent with the ethica...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 19, 2011, 11:53 pm
A while ago I blogged about ACC’s increasing propensity to call all injuries with long-term sequelae, “degenerative” (i.e due to wear and tear). Increasingly, patients are taking ACC to the tribunal (and often then on to court) and winning their case, despite ACC having an “expert opinion�...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 19, 2011, 9:04 pm
Metiria Turei and David Cunliffe have both outdone themselves by complaining that the Prime Minister (you know, the leader of our country) commandeered a helicopter to get him to an appointment (as opposed to a rugby match or something). Apart from finding the churlish, petty comments quite nauseat...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 19, 2011, 7:47 am
Once again the Herald shows us the ignorant nature of it’s headline makers: Key: We can’t help your price pain That is NOT what Key said at all. What he said was: “Like everyone else, we’re frustrated by higher petrol prices,” Mr Key said. “It’s just a fact we have to live with at t...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 18, 2011, 6:54 am
I confess that the MacDoctor was seriously thinking about chucking in this blogging lark. For the past week or so the news has been deeply uninspiring, with lackluster lists from Labour, gaggles of gays and a gormless Goff. Nothing new there, then. National found itself essentially nationalising a...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 7, 2011, 4:13 am
John Key was castigated in the left wing blogosphere for suggesting that the increase in people needing food parcels was due to issues of budgeting. It seems he was right. Not that the Herald would actually use the MacDoctor’s headline – they prefer: Mum refused food aid under tough new rules ...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 6, 2011, 6:22 am
I am informed by my good friend ScrubOne that the pro-abortion lobby is planning to “hijack” World Health day with a blogswarm (profusion of posts on the same topic) using the topic “Abortion: It’s a Health Issue Not A Crime”. There is a move afoot to counter this with a blogswarm using �...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 6, 2011, 3:34 am
The Herald reports on a new study that suggests a link between premature births and proximity to motorways. At first glance this seems like it is intuitively right – all that pollution and carbon monoxide could be expected to produce low birth-weight, premature babies. Unfortunately, this study, w...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 5, 2011, 8:31 am
The decision of the health select committee that there will be no National Prostate cancer screening can only be described as short-sighted. Once again, the opportunity to create a world class preventative health program is slipping through our fingers. Conventional thinking, like that exhibited by...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 4, 2011, 8:25 am
This from the Herald website: It is clear from the headline that the editorial slant is towards a levy, rather than increased borrowing. Unfortunately for the Herald, their own online poll has exactly the opposite result. In all fairness, this is an online poll and will not be terribly reliable. I...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 1, 2011, 10:31 pm
I see Judith Tizard is keeping us all waiting until tomorrow for her big announcement as to whether she will be returning to the political trough. Like there is any suspense here. The woman is an inveterate trougher and simply could not help herself. Her initial response was the somewhat flimsy excu...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Apr 1, 2011, 7:25 am
It really was a bumper day for left-wing whining today. The 90-day probation was extended to all businesses, the minimum wage went up to $13.00 ph and ACC re-introduced experience rating. All favorite left-wing bug-bears. The Herald shamelessly published a horribly slanted article on the 90-day tra...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Mar 29, 2011, 5:11 am
The Dom Post has run a series of articles on New Zealand doctors earning up to $8000 a weekend doing locum work in Australia. The MacDoctor is uncertain why this might be considered news as this practice has been going on for years. The take on the articles is that the doctors in question might suff...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Mar 27, 2011, 6:02 am
The MacDoctor post drought is over. Some idiot ran into the telephone pole outside of our house and succeeded in knocking us off the internet for a week. I confess, I rather enjoyed reading books and watching movies instead of rambling away on a MacDoctor post, but it was too painful to stay offline...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Mar 9, 2011, 1:03 am
At Red Alert, David Cunliffe blogs that he thinks that National is being deceptive about New Zealand’s international debt problem. It is slightly worrying that Mr Cunliffe (who is Labour’s financial spokesperson and is therefore supposed to be financially literate) thinks this, because there is ...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Mar 4, 2011, 8:06 pm
ABC News has a cool, yet horrifying series of images showing satellite views of Christchurch before and after the quake. They are horrifying because they show the extent of the damage well, but they are also in a cool rollover format which makes it easy to compare the before and after pictures. Add...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Mar 2, 2011, 3:59 am
The MacDoctor has noted that Cactus Kate is somewhat irritated by the people at the Standard, notably one Marty G. She writes: “I’m really pissed off that politics has come into the Christchurch earthquake so quickly”. (Quote from Marty G) Really? You are having a laff? The whole post titled...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Mar 1, 2011, 5:24 am
I have often heard David Farrar’s Kiwiblog likened to a sewer by left-wing blogs. It seems to me that the recent spate of disturbing posts at the Standard and NRT have demonstrated the truth of Jesus’ suggestion that one first takes the plank out of your own eye before attempting to remove the s...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Feb 27, 2011, 5:49 am
The Myth of Fairness The words “Fair” and “Fairness” are among the commonest words used by the Left to control debate. They are very powerful. Most people would like to believe that they are fair-minded and have a sense of justice and fair-play. Certainly unfair treatment gets a person’s ...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Feb 24, 2011, 6:50 am
I haven’t commented on the Christchurch earthquake until now because the horror is too fresh to make any sense out of the situation. My prayers and thoughts go to those who have lost loved ones. The only reason I comment now is because there are some people in this world who cannot seem to refrai...
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Jim M. posted an article on MacDoctor - Feb 17, 2011, 4:29 am
I see there is much left-wing hoo-ha around John Key’s remarks to the effect that most people seem to manage on the dole and that some of those who need supplementary food parcels from people like the Salvation Army are simply poor budgeters. So far he has been called “heartless”, “out of to...
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