2008 August

John Key vs. Excel

This from 08wire… Fantastic stuff, very funny!

To Do: Die (maybe)

photo credit: poluz

Reminder: Have Sex, Don’t do your home work, because the world ends tomorrow.

Remember CERN’s Large Hadron Collider that probably won’t form a black hole and envelop the Earth? Yeah. They’re turning it on in less than 24 hours…

So prepare for the end, prepare for physics class to get a whole lot easier under the Grand Unified Theory or prepare perhaps to see relatives from the far future. Nobody’s really sure…

Update: So I woke up today in normal space and time. Wondering what had gone wrong (or right) I see that the apocalypse has been postponed until October 21st. As you were.

Dirty Stuff

Took a copy of this list yesterday morning, Stuff’s Most Read Articles:

1. Eva Mendes’ nipple too hot for TV
2. Eva Mendes strips for Peta (explicit image)
3. Eva Mendes’ nipple too hot for TV
4. Nude Anne Hathaway pics seized by FBI
5. Student shocked to star on club’s loo-cam
6. Spice Girl traumatised by ‘Sex’ film
7. Were Brangelina’s twins pics touched up?
8. Olympian to bare all in fur protest (explicit image)
9. Alarm as pregnant mothers stay svelte
10. Inside NZ’s biggest leaky home project

Kind of concerning that there’s only one actually non-sexual/non-metro story in that list and it’s about Government House! And it’s at the bottom! (hehe… bottom)

The Herceptin Debate

Yesterday, Pharmac released the decision not to fund the breast cancer treatment drug, Herceptin.

Now I can’t say I was happy with the decision, but after conducting my own research it gave me a different look at things. Obviously, I’m not over the moon that Pharmac will only fund a 9-week course of the drug but I’m convinced that the right decision was made based on safe science and evidence, instead of emotion and hysteria.

National has announced they will fund a full 12-month course, with the usual “boo Labour” spin thrown in.

Ok, that’s fine, if 12 months of Herceptin is the magic cure Dr Jackie Blue says it is, do it.

But I hope it will be done by increasing the government funding that Pharmac is allowed to play with by more than the $30 million that Herceptin will cost. Pharmac spends ~$50 million a year on all cancer drugs, New Zealand can not afford to reassign $30 million from elsewhere in the health budget.

There is a lot of mis-information and emotion tied up in this issue. Some people blame sexism as the cause:

[Former Herceptin Heroine chair Anne] Hayden said she would be interested to see what would happen in New Zealand if a wonder drug came out for prostate cancer.

Some commenters even blame Pharmac “trying to protect their huge profits”. Right.

Stuff have been covering the issue quite well, with a brief history of Herceptin, plenty of “human interest” coverage and even a look at the political side of things.

Update: If you want a laugh (or cry), KiwiBlog has a post up about it with another cheap shot at Labour (pretty sure the snails only have to be moved once)…

Some interesting comments… from rabid frothers wishing cancer on the “labour wimmin” to a quiet voice of reason from a few others.

Balloon vs. Camera

From BoingBoing:

William Lamson’s art-project is delightful: a helium balloon artfully positioned so as to blind a CCTV. This could be a lot of fun for real-world shenanigans or for a piece of fiction. Just got to hope for a windless day.”

CCTV vs Helium Baloon

Cool, but in the comments is a much cooler story…

In the UK we have long been playing with ways to disable CCTV. We have had people use climbing equipment to shin up poles and cover them with black plastic bin bags. We have experimented with running up a daisy chain of helium filled mylar balloons on a collar around the post and I even know of one instance when a couple went along to a car in full view of the cameras with one of those cans meant for holding small amounts of petrol, poured it all over a car in the street and stood back laughing and lighting smokes till they heard a siren and diligently started a random act of kindness and washed the car with the water they had poured over it. Street theater still has the best style.

THAT IS AWESOME!