Posts by Bart Janssen
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popular food blog posts in the hope of attracting a sponsor
OK here's the plan, everyone who shops at Farros finds the manager and tells them they should sponsor a food blog on PAS :).
Or Sabato, Or Mexican Specialities or ...
Heck if they each sponsored one every few months ...
Meanwhile I'm happy to pay for the fun I have here.
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Hard News: Being Jim, in reply to Russell Brown,
Was that at the fundraiser in Parnell?
That's the one. It does seem a long time ago but still very strong in the memory. The auction was great and in the end it seemed like you could have auctioned off anything :).
And yes, bravely showing us all what you felt, so very eloquently, was a good call.
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Rob Hosking,
‘like’ button
an "O" button?
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This makes me happy.
I still have strong memories of the speech Russell gave about his sons, one of the more inspiring things I've heard.
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
The trick is sustaining it
Especially since National have not spent much political effort yet trying to minimise the bump Labour were always going to get.
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Russell Brown,
wild threadjack
I'll feel less guilty now. Actually it's one of the things I have always loved about PAS - that discussions can wander the way real life discussions do, with discussion possible even when people have directly opposing opinions. And sometimes the wandering leads to interesting places.
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Cecelia,
Well done Cecelia. That's a pretty reasonable starting point for a Health policy. I particularly like the comment that the existing document is being reviewed.
I like very much that when pushed to a decision they fall back on evidence and not ideology.
An interesting poll result this morning too, it would be really interesting to know what factors have changed peoples opinions, I suspect that the change in Labour leadership is less a factor than the way the chose the new leader. That is a defined process rather than a night of long knives.
Given the bump for The Greens as well I suspect some of the change is about the national party losing support as well.
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to BenWilson,
That's what's lost in the focusing on the imperfection of the Green Party as a potential partner.
No that's not what I was getting at. You are right, as a partner, The Green Party is a pretty reasonable choice for Labour and for Labour voters. Most of them are fine with the idiosyncrasies of The Greens.
The problem is that the left leaning National voters can be scared away by some of those policies. Especially if as was suggested a major portfolio such as Health were to have a Green party minister. It's those voters who make the difference between another National government and a Labour/Green government.
That's why some of the decisions about the caucus now are interesting. While it is only a rumour, it is a plausible one. Given its plausibility it is worth considering the ramifications.
A little extra money into some er fringe medical treatments is not a huge cost and if it was always under the supervision of "standard" medical care (eg ACC authorised) may do no real harm. I personally feel given our current lack of wealth to throw at medicine it's an unacceptable cost but I'm willing to accept it.
BUT a left leaning National voter is vastly less likely to be willing to accept it. That's a problem for both Labour and The Greens. Whether its a fair problem is irrelevant.
Even worse it is an extremely easy issue to turn into a scare campaign, the billboards practically write themselves.
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Rob Stowell,
But getting a medical treatment ‘to market’ is slow and extraordinarily expensive.
The number that used to get quoted is that each new drug costs US$20 billion to get to market. While I don't profess to love "big pharma" it is very easy to forget that with that cost it really isn't possible for anyone "little" to get a drug to market.
Much of that cost is a consequence of regulatory approval and complex clinical trials to determine that a drug does no harm AND provides a significant benefit given that even with all the testing each new drug carries a risk so without a significant benefit it is considered unwise to take a risk.
BUT
That might be starting to change. One of the biggest problems with testing drugs is that each person reacts differently, both in positive response and in adverse reactions. Some of that difference can be connected to their genome.
Most drug testing now is being done in association with genome testing, so if a new drug has an adverse reaction with a specific gene variant - but is of benefit to everyone else - then you could approve the drug providing a test was carried to exclude those at risk.
Previously such a drug would fail clinical trials and get tossed on the scrapheap adding to the cost of the next drug. There is quiet hope that we may see a new era of conditional approvals, where drugs get approved only for use with those patients who will* actually benefit and who will not* have adverse reaction.
* You can add probably to almost every one of those "will" or will not" statements and the probability will be set at a level that is decided by society. That may sound scary but for example if you have terminal cancer you might accept a "probability of adverse reaction" in a new drug that is higher than if you have pimples.
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Hard News: No Red Wedding, in reply to Russell Brown,
Totally.
Sorry, I try to stay on track but I can't help myself getting distracted with other discussions :(. Focus Bart Focus!