Posts by Bart Janssen
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Whatever the actual content and whether we (the public) get to know the new leader more seems almost irrelevant. This process will dominate the news. Providing none of the candidates say anything remarkably more stupid than usual it really is PR gold for Labour.
Key's response highlights how pissed off he is by having the limelight stolen.
The timing also seems remarkably well managed. Surprising as it might be, it does look like the Labour PF team might have got this right. It will be fun to see how National responds.
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Southerly: Continuing After A Short Interruption, in reply to Carol Stewart,
though I found ibuprofen worked a lot better than Panadol
Yeah everyone responds to anti-inflamatories differently and it's worth trying the range to figure out which one is least irritating. Worth noting that in general older drugs (like the basic anti-inflammatories) have more side-effects for women than men because they were never originally tested on women, so it's especially important for women to treat side-effects seriously and not get fobbed off (by males).
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Southerly: Continuing After A Short Interruption, in reply to David Haywood,
Can you suggest a rapid cure?
Bugger. It's basically "merely" infamation. You can (and in the opinion of a plant molecular biologist :), you should) take anti-inflamatories, the trick with those is you need to maintain a steady dose over a few days even if the immediate pain goes away. Whichever anti-inflammatory you tolerate best, but plain old panadol is usually pretty good.
It's almost impossible to ice but still probably worthwhile trying some ice packs to reduce swelling. You won't see any swelling but there will be swelling deep in the foot. You can massage the area above but again because of where the problem is massage won't help much, some but not much.
You can and should elevate the foot as much as you can. And you, of course should rest it as much as you can. That said, some movement (without any weight on the joint or foot) will help move the fluid out as well.
It's all about getting the extra fluid out of the location as fast as possible and all of those things will help. But typically it won't recover quickly. Odds are you don't have anything much actually damaged and long before you get the fluid out any damage will have healed. But the fluid and pressure will cause pain and can result in altered gait that can do more damage to knees etc.
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Southerly: Continuing After A Short Interruption, in reply to Lilith __,
I feel sorry for the David in the photo
I think that's one of the fundamental paradoxes of time travel. It is one of the weird things about some photos - they become windows into an alternate reality - in this case the one where a lovely couple raise great kids in a quiet old house on the banks of the Avon. Somewhen that couple exists and those children lead utterly different lives.
And on a random note the cushions on our couch are exactly the same purple material as on that couch. What fine taste David has.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
FFS, isn’t this what MMP was supposed to do?
Exactly!
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Russell Brown,
But it was basically about the numbers required for a working majority.
That is the flaw in the way Labour and National think about MMP. That you can't do anything unless you have a fixed coalition majority on all issues. Essentially recreate the dictatorship for three years that we have traditionally worked with.
I personally can't wait for the day where each and every piece of legislation must garner wide support from multiple parties who each represent multiple views. And that may mean Laboour/National one day and Labour/Green/Mana another day. Yes fewer laws would be passed but I don't see that as a bad thing.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Hebe,
By using that term you are playing right into the Joycean spin
Yeah apologies for that. I should have been more careful to make clear that it is the perception of loony they need to erase. As far as I can tell by focussing on evidence based policy they are making inroads into that perception but it needs to be consitent for it to believeable.
And note I mean that not from my perspective but from the perspective of slightly right wing but environmentally conscious voters. That's the key target market - the edge of the National vote who currently have no other option than National.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Gary Young,
in a spirit of genuine enquiry
Sorry way off-topic.
I'd personally describe some of their policy as not based on consensus scientific opinion but my guess is that a chunk of the population would perceive them as "loony".
The couple of big ones for me are support of alternative medicines and herbal remedies - with the same honour given to herbal supplement eleventy-seven as given to scientifically tested therapeutic compounds (aka drugs). The flip side of that coin is the default distrust of anything that comes from pahrmaceutical companies (note I have some issues where the science is bad). If a big company produces it it must be labelled up the wazoo but if it came from a herbal remedy producer labels would harm sales.
The everything organic is good meme and it's asscociated everything not organic is bad meme. Note there are huge number of farmers who know damn well that "organic" is nowhere near as pristine as claimed and also believe fiercely that scientifically supported safe non-organic practices are good for their own animals/crops and land.
And my personal favourite of course is GMO opposition. Coming from the same group that steadfastly support the consensus of scientific opinion on climate change yet reject the consensus of scientific opinion on GMOs.
There are a few others but those are representative of policy where evidence based policy has been sacrificed for ideology and in some cases the ideology is either unbeliveable (eg telling farmers all non-organic practices are bad) or just plain ... you know the word.
And yet a huge amount of their policy is really good. It's solid, balanced between economic imperitives but retaining long term sustainability and ecological principles that I would love to support - and I'm guessing many others would love to support.
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Hebe,
closet
hardly
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Hard News: So long, and thanks for all…, in reply to Sam M,
but the Greens for me need to translate their stellar poll showings into actual election results
Which comes down to figuring out how to stop environmentally conscious but conservative voters looking at the Greens and running for the hills (and the local National candidate).
There is a non-zero portion of National voters who would vote Green if they would stop with the loony stuff and be a serious party with serious business policy as well as serious environmental policy. There is a bigger portion who would vote Labour if the Greens appeared more ... er ... sensible.
The Greens are trying, their push to become evidence based on most (but not all) of their policy is helping, but I doubt they can convince the electorate of a lack of loony* by 2014.
*note "perceived loony" is the same as "real loony" in this situation.