Someone who liked the US election outcome
I have been following American politics most of my life and I never seen the most hilarious political own goal committed by the Democrats.
Despite denying it profusely, the Democrats’ agenda on Trump was to set about to try and bankrupt him, jail him and, by their constant rhetoric of Trump being a ‘‘Nazi’’, ‘‘Hitler’’ and ‘‘a dangerous man’’ send an indirect message to the unhinged.
A desperate, woke, fiscally inept Democratic Party with a presidential elected candidate, that ultimately wants to see the introduction of no ID required voting rights, typically for the tens of millions of illegal immigrants , with hundreds of international terror listed individuals amongst them, that they allowed into the US.
Thankfully the majority of US voters saw the gradual destruction of their country before their own eyes and dismissed the Democrats’ sick engineering of the demise of this once great country.
Trump now has it all ahead of him but one thing is for sure and that is that Russia, North Korea, Iran and their sympathisers will all take a lot more notice of what will be a stronger US which we ourselves, as a member of the Five Eyes and potentially as an in principle member of Aukus, should take a more positive view of in terms of our own safety intelligence.
Greg Glendining
Glenross
But on the other hand
I sometimes miss immediately seeing the day's headline slashed across the front page when fetching the ODT in the morning because of the enclosing advert page. Not today (7.11.24).
Mike Palin (US expat)
Belleknowes
Musn’t grumble
It would be sad if the result of the US election was outrage or grumbling against the President and voters, for nothing would have changed.
Jesus told a story about taking the plank out of your own eye before looking at a speck in your brother's eye. Tolstoy claimed everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. Michael Jackson sang ‘‘if you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make that change’’.
Climate change, geopolitics, relationship disintegration, workplace woes etc. Ask where you are part of the problem and chip away at that. Not easy or a solution, but better.
Tim Marshall
Dunedin
In reply
Re Mike Palin’s comments (Letters ODT 15.10.24) it is typical of many climate alarmists to use the “denier” smear when they have little valid scientific evidence to argue their views. If Mr Palin cared to do some proper research he would find that climate change has been a global reality for about 4.5 billion years and that there is nothing unusual about recent climate change trends and rates of change when viewed in a geologically historical context.
Sea levels have fluctuated throughout Earth’s history, especially during global glaciations, and we are still in a post-glacial phase following the last ice age that peaked only about 20,000 years ago.
Dunedin does not have a measuring station but the closest at Bluff, Lyttleton and Wellington show long-term sea-level rise rates of 1.82, 2.90 and 2.74mm per year respectively. These are relative rates since the slow rising or falling of the land has to be considered.
Lastly, his use of the term “unprecedented government expenditure” to control the ground water problem at South Dunedin again is a scare tactic and the job likely could be done for less that the $130 million that was proposed recently to buy out vulnerable homes there.
William Lindqvist
Abbotsford
[Abridged — length. Editor.]
Best approach: discuss prostate issues with GP
Prof Shaw’s advocacy for screening using PSA blood test (Opinion ODT 30.10.24) misses key points.
Prostate cancer is undoubtedly a serious problem, but I’m unaware of any country with such a screening programme – basically because we don’t know yet whether this does more good than harm.
PSA is very poor in discriminating between cancer and normal age-related growth of the prostate, hence many false positives and negatives.
While more prostate cancer is now being diagnosed as a result of PSA, much of it would not have caused problems in the man’s lifetime (though we cannot be sure which men this applies to). The so-called ‘‘popularity paradox’’ means that the worse a test is, the more people will regard themselves as survivors of cancer and naturally believe that it saved their life - wrongly in many cases.
Evidence seems to show that death from prostate cancer is at best minimally improved by screening and it may be outweighed by the significant side effects from biopsy and all available treatments.
Emerging protocols including MRI scanning might possibly be better, but this is still unproven and unfeasible in the poorly resourced New Zealand health system. Until we have better tests, men need to discuss these issues carefully with their doctor.
Dr Jim Ross
GP and senior lecturer, Otago Medical School
It’s a barker
Thank you Deborah Robb for your entertaining and colourful portrayal of the government as a slavering three-headed dog. (Letters ODT 1.11.24). It reminded the huge majority of us who voted for it of the other much more sinister three-headed coalition mongrel lurking on the opposition benches.
John Day
Wanaka
A puzzling use of corporate speak, or not?
I was privileged to have a conversation with the young man who wore our Dunedin (‘‘They Save We Pay’’) gang patch to the Class Act presentation. We were both puzzled by what a ‘‘kick-arse’' hospital is.
Among the erudite readers of your paper there must be someone who knows what this expression means. Or is it indeed part of the ‘‘corporate speak’' language that the Prime Minister recognises he uses a lot while talking with an RNZ journalist recently? Just wondering.
Roly Scott
Caversham
The ‘c’ word
I agree with Cr Steve Walker that Christopher Luxon, in entering the back door of the Dunedin Public Art Gallery where he was due at an event, is cowardly.
He clearly promised to build the Dunedin hospital when pitching for southern votes, then, hiding behind Shane Reti's skirts, he has broken that promise. And he did not have the courage to face protesters and justify his backslide. In my view, that makes him a liar and a coward and definitely not fit to be our PM.
Ewan McDougall
Broad Bay
A cunning plan
As Blackadder put it ‘‘a plan so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel.’’ I would not put it beyond this coalition to delay as long as possible proposed changes to our hospital.
Costs will increase, meaning they will slash and burn even more. Maybe to the point where it can no longer be accredited as a teaching hospital. At that point Dr Reti, against all common sense and fiscal nous, will keep pushing for Hamilton to have a medical school.
Graham Bulman
Roslyn
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