Posts by Russell Brown
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The Herald's editorial this morning. I can't really work out what's going on here, but it seems angry. Is this voicing a National Party swipe at Dunne? I can't tell.
Understandably enough, the Renton family have been doing all they can to get the best possible treatment for their teenage son, Alex, who is in an induced coma in Wellington Hospital.
After more than 20 standard medications failed to cure his ongoing seizures, they set their sights on a cannabis-derived medication, Elixinol. Protests staged by the family and their supporters to try to get the Government to approve its use gained widespread media coverage. Finally, this week, they got their wish.
Associate Health Minister Peter Dunne has gone where, earlier, the Rentons' Nelson MP, Nick Smith, refused to. Dr Smith said he would need clear evidence that Elixinol would work before he took up the issue. That cannot be forthcoming for the simple reason that it has never been tested in clinical trials. As Mr Dunne conceded, there is no compelling evidence it will work. The best that specialists can come up with is that it might be worth a try.
For that reason, Mr Dunne was keen to stress that his approval should not be construed as setting a wider precedent. But how can it not be? What will happen if there are further cases where this or another untested cannabis-derived medication represents a final chance? If the ailing patient's family succeeds in attracting publicity, will Mr Dunne also accede to their wishes? He says the protests organised by the Renton family did more harm than good. Like his claim that this was not a precedent-setting case, that should be treated with a strong degree of scepticism. -
Hard News: Nelson Street: Not too…, in reply to FletcherB,
Any wet metal has no grip and is thus a braking/steering hazard… but the really bad hazard of the tram-track is if your front wheel drops into the slot…
I am in a position to confirm this.
Thanks for explanation of what happened!
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Hard News: A dramatic and unremarkable decision, in reply to Hilary Stace,
There are some interesting ethical issues with interventions for people in a coma. Sometimes they can give retrospective consent after they recover. So it is not just the treatment that is controversial, but also the fact that the patient is not competent to consent.
The irony in this case is that Alex Renton was given some very heavy drugs without his knowledge, but heaven and earth had to move in order to give him one whose risks, if any, are extremely low.
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St Kevin’s Arcade update: I’m told Paul Reid has said he definitely doesn’t want to turn the arcade into Ponsonby Central, just to refurbish and restore it, and more particularly he has no plans to do anything to Wine Cellar/Whammy. Benefit of the doubt, I reckon.
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Hard News: Friday Music: About Apple Music, in reply to Graham Dunster,
Real Groovy? Brian Rudman has a plan –
That's a weird column. He proposes an "arts precinct" in the old admin building and concludes by explaining why it's a non-starter.
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Hard News: Friday Music: About Apple Music, in reply to Paul Campbell,
but still no Linux support I guess – no music for me I can’t buy on CDs I guess
You don't really want to be buying 256k AAC files anyway :-)
There's always Spotify for Linux.
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Hard News: Nelson Street: Not too…, in reply to BenWilson,
Collisions, even when they do happen, are likely to be low energy, and the cyclist falls from a greater height, probably onto their upper body so their risk of damage is greater.
I had an embarrassing non-injury accident last weekend. In preference to the rat-run that is the temporary eastbound lane through the St Luke’s interchange I hopped up onto the Motat tram path. I was ambling along not really thinking about riding, my front wheel caught a wet rail and after a second or two of trying to get back to vertical, went down and over the handlebars.
I landed on the grass and forward-rolled like a McKinney cop straight up to my feet to see a whole lot of people with looking at me with concerned and sympathetic faces. Ahem.
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Hard News: Friday Music: About Apple Music, in reply to bob daktari,
Don’t expect much on the radio front, radio works best on a local community driven level… curious to see how it works though, especially given the addition of a Rinse FM person into the mix
I'm prepared to add it to my radio diet and see if I like the taste, put it that way.
things apple will never serve ya
Exactly.
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Hard News: Friday Music: About Apple Music, in reply to Paul Campbell,
I’m not an Apple customer, they don’t have an iTunes that runs on any platform I use day to day, they’re sort of a foreign country to me. I used to be a fan, even a developer, but they’ve closed off their world from the rest of us.
To be fair, they'll launch Apple Music on MacOS, Windows and iOS and will have an Android client in a couple of months. That's a lot of people covered.
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Hard News: A dramatic and unremarkable decision, in reply to BenWilson,
My poor old great-aunt that recently died of cancer used for the first time in her life to help get through the shocking pain. It seemed a bit silly that she had to go through all the bullshit of making a connection, surreptitiously hiding her baggies and toking it up through a bong when a damned pill could have been prescribed.
If I'm ever in her position, I hope the law is more sensible by then. I'm not sure if it needs to be a pill even. One of the benefits of legalisation in Colorado (and of California's less-well-regulated medpot scene) has been the availability of does-exactly-what-it-says-on-the-label strains of marijuana. There'd have been one for her – ideally as an edible.
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