Posts by Matthew Reid
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I think that 'think tank' relates more to a container, not an armoured vehicle.
That's just what they wanted us to think.
... the term was first used in a secret report on the new motorised weapon presented to Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, by British Army Lt.-Col. Ernest Swinton. From this report, three possible terms emerged: cistern, motor-war car, and tank. Apparently tank was chosen due to its linguistic simplicity.
We coulda been talking think cisterns. Some of them are more like cisterns really though aren't they.
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Because it's a ute?
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@Giovanni yesterday
i've got nothing against people who live longer because of their healthier choices, all power to them, but during those extra 20-30 years of life they are going to be riddled with expensive ailments, regardless of how much they've looked after themselves at 44
When looking at the impact of longer life expectancy there are three scenarios: expansion of morbidity, compression of morbidity and dynamic equilibrium.
You seem to be in favour of the 'expansion of morbidity' model in which an increasing percentage of life-expectancy will be affected by ill-health. This model assumes that longer lives for those with chronic diseases will result from advances in medical care, but the longer survival will be with more years of ill-health.
An alternative is the 'compression of morbidity' model. This model has people survivng longer, but with more healthy lives, and a shorter period of ill-health before death. This relies on the postponement of ill-health being greater than the increase in life expectancy and therefore that the period of morbidity would be compressed between the later onset of ill-health and the end of life.
The 'dynamic equilibrium' model sits between the other two. It assumes that even if the number of years lived with ill-health increase, the number lived with severe ill-health will decrease.
NZ research, although five years old, suggests the dynamic equilibrium model may be operating here, while other research points toward compression. Treasury says it's complex but 'in the future, the incidence of disability will decline as the population ages, meaning that people will be living longer and healthier lives'.
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WHO alert level now four
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McCully's moves would seem to change NZAID's way of working to be closer to the model of AusAID, which declares an aim doing its work in line with Australia's national interest.
the changes do raise the possibility of foreign policy having undue influence on where and on what aid goes, to the detriment of things like the relationships between NZ and recipient countries and implementing NGOs and the communities in which they work. It also may lead to aid becoming commercialised if the money is going to NZ services or goods (like AirNZ flights), or the militarisation of aid if humanitarian action is done at service of making the work of the NZ military (or police) more popular - such as the army building clinics in order to win the 'hearts and minds'.
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Okay, now I'm scared out of taking Panadol. So, the guy who's going through a multi-session root canal should take what? morphine? I knew the day would come when I would rely on PAS for pharmaceutical advice...
The toxic range for paracetamol is close to the therapeutic range at approximately double. Apparently around half the people with paracetamol hepatotoxicity (liver damage) did not intend to poison themselves (poisoning yourself with paracetamol has to be a fairly dumb way to self-harm - leading to a prolonged painful death from liver failure).
However, unintentional paracetamol poisoning is usually in the context of older age, prolonged fasting, alcohol excess or competition for the liver enzyme that metabolises paracetamol (cytochrome P450) - so paracetamol is safer when you are younger, eating, not a big boozer and not on other medications.
They are also describing a possible link between paracetamol use in children and later asthma.
Anyway, not to worry, if you get it wrong there's N-acetylcysteine (NAC) - the antidote (they could make paracetamol with NAC included, without affecting the analgesic effect, but it would be much more expensive). And if you don't get NAC in time there's always a liver transplant...
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Or several years ago.
Instead I'll nominate "learnings". -
Is "work-life balance" last year?
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We can has ministers
Key will be:
John Key
Prime Minister
Minister of Tourismas well as the usual other stuff that goes with being PM.
Gosh, he must be ambitious for... visitors to New Zealand? And the tourism industry I guess, which is of course an important part of the economy. But couldn't he have taken Foreign Affairs rather than let McCully at it? -
Can I just say I'm quite happy with how we've ended up with such a useful and expressive term as "poo labels".
And here was me thinking at last someone is blogging the Bristol Stool Chart
I can report that Maryan Street is calling John Key "sloppy as well as slippery", which is an image I've already spent too long thinking about.
Which makes John Key a Type 6 or 7...