Last night was my first tour of duty at the local GP on-call centre. (See "One Doc for 200,000 patients - cool. ") : Far from the shock-horror of the local and national newspaper stories, my colleague and I had a very relaxing time. We saw about 9 patients between us in the 9 doctor-hours that we spent there. I had a good study of War No More learning of the causes of war (always be wary of an autocratic leader with a character disorder seeking a diversion away from internal political or economic problems) and my colleague in the next room snuffled and sneezed every 10 mintues. I told him to go home (Stay Home If You Are Ill! - of which more later) but he wouldn't listen. Doctors.
Anyway, far from being rushed off our feet, we were underutilised and on a yearly basis this over staffing will waste a huge amount of money for this cash-starved PCT. Of course it is early days yet, and the laws of probability dictate that on other nights one doctor could be totally swamped. But in this case we could call on our back-up reserves.
Another factor is that we are using NHS Direct telephone service to screen calls. Whereas we used to get 40 calls, now we get only 10. So does this mean that the NHS Direct is doing its job properly then, screening off non-urgent calls that do not need to see a GP? Well, no, not necessarily. Apparently there are huge delays in getting through to NHS direct, so people are just putting the phone down, or going to sleep, (can't have been that bad, then) or dying while waiting (in this case, dial 999).
Should I, in a spirit of altruism, tell the PCT about this so they can save money? This will mean that GPs will be busier in the evenings and my name will be mud among my colleagues.
Decisions, decisions. A health service is a complex system. Why, the decisions implicit in this page alone will take up at least 100,000 hours of manager time to sort out, which woud cost more than paying one doctor to do nothing for a year.
I have decided to just send the PCT a link to this page. They will not follow it, or if they do, they will not act on it, so our cushy number will be unaffected, and my consicence will be assuaged. Nice.
Saturday, December 18, 2004
Friday, December 17, 2004
Freezing Their Assets Off (or not, as the case may be)
A letter from Baroness Symons of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office brightens the day.
Months ago, before the Ken Bigley case, I had written asking how the financial aspect of the war on terror was going. The FCO had written back saying it was going fine, nothing to worry your little head about, all under control thank you very much.
However, when the horror of the Ken Bigley case was in the news, it was reported that the Government was taking action to freeze the assets of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (misspelt Zaqari in the original post), Ken Bigley’s killer. So the Government officers had not previously taken action against al-Zaqari’s group. Now this was either because either (a) they were ignorant of his existence, or (b) they knew of his existence, but did not see fit to freeze his accounts. I had written to ask which was the case.
Your Baroness writes, “The Government always takes action to freeze the assets of any terrorist or terrorist group, whenever it is apparent that there are clear grounds on which to do so”.
Which is a clear admission (or as clear as Government can get) that they knew of Musab al-Zarqawi’s existence, but did not see fit to freeze his accounts prior to the kidnap of Ken Bigley.
The question now is, how many other terrorist groups of Musab al-Zarqawi’s calibre is the Government aware of, but cannot not see clear grounds to freeze their assets?
In the interests of national security, I will write to Brian Cotter MP putting these questions on your behalf.
And while we are at it, I will ask how the funding of the Department of Freezing Terrorist Assets compares with the military expenditure on the Iraq invasion.
Writing to Government is more fun than playing computer games. The trick is to not forget that you wrote to them. That lets them off the hook. Give them a month to reply, then give them a prod.
Months ago, before the Ken Bigley case, I had written asking how the financial aspect of the war on terror was going. The FCO had written back saying it was going fine, nothing to worry your little head about, all under control thank you very much.
However, when the horror of the Ken Bigley case was in the news, it was reported that the Government was taking action to freeze the assets of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (misspelt Zaqari in the original post), Ken Bigley’s killer. So the Government officers had not previously taken action against al-Zaqari’s group. Now this was either because either (a) they were ignorant of his existence, or (b) they knew of his existence, but did not see fit to freeze his accounts. I had written to ask which was the case.
Your Baroness writes, “The Government always takes action to freeze the assets of any terrorist or terrorist group, whenever it is apparent that there are clear grounds on which to do so”.
Which is a clear admission (or as clear as Government can get) that they knew of Musab al-Zarqawi’s existence, but did not see fit to freeze his accounts prior to the kidnap of Ken Bigley.
The question now is, how many other terrorist groups of Musab al-Zarqawi’s calibre is the Government aware of, but cannot not see clear grounds to freeze their assets?
In the interests of national security, I will write to Brian Cotter MP putting these questions on your behalf.
And while we are at it, I will ask how the funding of the Department of Freezing Terrorist Assets compares with the military expenditure on the Iraq invasion.
Writing to Government is more fun than playing computer games. The trick is to not forget that you wrote to them. That lets them off the hook. Give them a month to reply, then give them a prod.
Thursday, December 16, 2004
Obsessed, Moi?
Big debate on WDN co-learners newgroup today about hierarchy. Some heavy duty emails flying to and fro; here is one of the larger lumps filtered out for your delectation:
“Our brains appear to derive the set of possible meanings from recursion of that dichotomy where that act gives us a power law pattern, a spectrum of qualities from our working off habits/instincts to our excesses in mediation/representation dynamics - IOW from LOCAL, VAGUE, flux dynamics, to UNIVERSAL, CRISP, control dynamics. It is from the realm of differentiating that we get the hierarchy where the support mechanisms develop to aid the 'top' of the system. From a social perspective, the benefit of the hierarchy is in the precision possible in mediation/representation dynamics - at times being OVER precise in that the realm of differentiating, by it nature, FORCES the pushing away of others to assert SELF.”
This reminds me, I must write to Humphrey Lyttleton about a new radio game for him, working title “WotTheBluddyEllsEOnabaht” where a long description of a commonplace object in different styles of jargon is run past the panel, and the first member to guess what is being described gets a bonus point.
For what it’s worth, my view is that we have inherited an hierarchical social structure from our primate ancestors, and that we need democratic feedback structures to provide negative (and positive) feedback to curb the excesses and deviations that occur in the brain functioning of alpha males (and I include the likes of Mrs Thatcher in this term) if they are allowed to function unopposed for more than a couple of weeks.
Which is why it is so important that we all protest against Bush’s scandalous and unremarked 2/11 assault on democracy - OK, OK, I’ll give it a rest just for today.
Obsessed, Moi?
“Our brains appear to derive the set of possible meanings from recursion of that dichotomy where that act gives us a power law pattern, a spectrum of qualities from our working off habits/instincts to our excesses in mediation/representation dynamics - IOW from LOCAL, VAGUE, flux dynamics, to UNIVERSAL, CRISP, control dynamics. It is from the realm of differentiating that we get the hierarchy where the support mechanisms develop to aid the 'top' of the system. From a social perspective, the benefit of the hierarchy is in the precision possible in mediation/representation dynamics - at times being OVER precise in that the realm of differentiating, by it nature, FORCES the pushing away of others to assert SELF.”
This reminds me, I must write to Humphrey Lyttleton about a new radio game for him, working title “WotTheBluddyEllsEOnabaht” where a long description of a commonplace object in different styles of jargon is run past the panel, and the first member to guess what is being described gets a bonus point.
For what it’s worth, my view is that we have inherited an hierarchical social structure from our primate ancestors, and that we need democratic feedback structures to provide negative (and positive) feedback to curb the excesses and deviations that occur in the brain functioning of alpha males (and I include the likes of Mrs Thatcher in this term) if they are allowed to function unopposed for more than a couple of weeks.
Which is why it is so important that we all protest against Bush’s scandalous and unremarked 2/11 assault on democracy - OK, OK, I’ll give it a rest just for today.
Obsessed, Moi?
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
Oiling the Saucepans of Eccentricity
I was planning to write a bit about an interesting case of TATT syndrome, but an email from Jane Taylor of Positive News via David Weston diverts me.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sierra Club has extracted evidence to support the view that Bush was planning to lay his hands on Iraqi oil way back in 2001.
This is of course yawnworthy stuff to anyone who does not believe the official script of anything at all. What is frightening is that all it took in the UK was for Mr TB to utter the words "Conspiracy Theory" in connection with the oil motive for the Iraq war, and nearly all public discussion on that possibility closed down completely - apart of course from a tiny number of boneheaded conspiracy theorist ignoramuses such as Sheikh Yamani.
One of the techniques used by the people of Eastern Europe to throw off the shackles of the old regime was to lean out of their windows and bang saucepans every day at 6 o'clock, to drown out the lying 6 o'clock news broadcasts. Tempting though this tactic appears at first sight, I do not think it would work here, (a) because not enough people realise the extent to which we are being lied to, and (b) because 24-hour news bulletins mean that we would have to go about banging saucepans all day long.
Which might come across as a little eccentric.
Using the Freedom of Information Act, the Sierra Club has extracted evidence to support the view that Bush was planning to lay his hands on Iraqi oil way back in 2001.
This is of course yawnworthy stuff to anyone who does not believe the official script of anything at all. What is frightening is that all it took in the UK was for Mr TB to utter the words "Conspiracy Theory" in connection with the oil motive for the Iraq war, and nearly all public discussion on that possibility closed down completely - apart of course from a tiny number of boneheaded conspiracy theorist ignoramuses such as Sheikh Yamani.
One of the techniques used by the people of Eastern Europe to throw off the shackles of the old regime was to lean out of their windows and bang saucepans every day at 6 o'clock, to drown out the lying 6 o'clock news broadcasts. Tempting though this tactic appears at first sight, I do not think it would work here, (a) because not enough people realise the extent to which we are being lied to, and (b) because 24-hour news bulletins mean that we would have to go about banging saucepans all day long.
Which might come across as a little eccentric.
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
Wham! Pow! Lutte!!!
Last Friday the Guardian editorial mentions en passant that nuclear power produces no CO2. I replied with an adapatation of the letter in "Not as simple as that, John" (see Friday 10th). Nothing in Monday's Guardian so I assumed it had been spiked, but Pete Roche (energy consultant, ex-Greenpeace nuclear campaigner) e-mails today having seen my letter. So I trot over to Morgan's shop (more on that later) and get a Guardian (60p, one dead tree, nothing in this life comes free) turn to letters page while walking back to read Dr David Lowry on the cost and time lag of a new nuclear programme, a Prof and Dr from ICL claiming that to clad the walls of on fifth of houses in the UK would produce as much as current nukes at a fraction of the cost, and my contribution on the CO2 balance of nuclear power.
All good stuff, but the nukers have moved ahead of us because they have got it into the heads of the commentators that nuclear = answer to global warming. Commentators like simplicity, not complexity. Ah well. La lutte continua.
All good stuff, but the nukers have moved ahead of us because they have got it into the heads of the commentators that nuclear = answer to global warming. Commentators like simplicity, not complexity. Ah well. La lutte continua.
Why Mabinogogiblog?
I knew someone was going to ask this question sooner or later. In fact nobody has yet asked it so there is no reason that I should waste time trying to answer it, particularly as I have not yet learned how to spell it consistently, let alone pronounce it.
The only reason to put this up is to find out whether if I post date it, it will appear not today, but tomorrow.
The only reason to put this up is to find out whether if I post date it, it will appear not today, but tomorrow.
Monday, December 13, 2004
No, No, Noam!
'On the eve of the elections in 2000, around 75% of voters saw the
confrontation as a game between two wealthy players, party managers
and the public relations industry tutoring candidates in the
projection of images and formulating phrases devoid of meaning that
could bring them some votes. This is the reason that the population
attached so little importance to the `stolen' vote that was so much
publicized by the more highly educated strata in the population. And
it is for this reason too that little importance will be attached to
alleged fraud in the elections of 2004. If someone is tossing a coin
to choose the king, is it so important that the coin is weighted?'
Noam Chomsky on the US elections. "Epochi" newspaper 12th December
2004 (translated from greek by halva_gr).
With respect, Noam, it is important because it is good to have the ability to choose, even though the choice in November was a choice between relatively indifferent candidates and policies, although at least Kerry was not a fundamentalist (take a look here). Because if we do not have the opportunity to choose, we are under a dictatorship. Yes I know that it is possible to have an elected dictatorship, and that is to a great extent what we have in the UK, but the fact remains that we do at least have some kind of elections, and that is better than no kind of elections. Which is why the Ohio recount and the cleanup crew's work is so important.
And in future a real choice may be on offer.
confrontation as a game between two wealthy players, party managers
and the public relations industry tutoring candidates in the
projection of images and formulating phrases devoid of meaning that
could bring them some votes. This is the reason that the population
attached so little importance to the `stolen' vote that was so much
publicized by the more highly educated strata in the population. And
it is for this reason too that little importance will be attached to
alleged fraud in the elections of 2004. If someone is tossing a coin
to choose the king, is it so important that the coin is weighted?'
Noam Chomsky on the US elections. "Epochi" newspaper 12th December
2004 (translated from greek by halva_gr).
With respect, Noam, it is important because it is good to have the ability to choose, even though the choice in November was a choice between relatively indifferent candidates and policies, although at least Kerry was not a fundamentalist (take a look here). Because if we do not have the opportunity to choose, we are under a dictatorship. Yes I know that it is possible to have an elected dictatorship, and that is to a great extent what we have in the UK, but the fact remains that we do at least have some kind of elections, and that is better than no kind of elections. Which is why the Ohio recount and the cleanup crew's work is so important.
And in future a real choice may be on offer.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
New Study: More Absentee Votes than Voters in Ohio
Just to keep the pressure up on the American voting scam. We should be out in the streets like the Ukranians - but we're not even American. We didn't even have a vote.
Also this: Techie alleges Republican Congressman asked his company to write software that could shift votes from one side to the other This story has been associated with a similar but less substantial story. Judge for yourself.
Also this: Techie alleges Republican Congressman asked his company to write software that could shift votes from one side to the other This story has been associated with a similar but less substantial story. Judge for yourself.
Is aid the answer?
Radio Amsterdam asks:
"Is increased aid the answer to world poverty?
"As Christmas approaches charities in rich countries launch seasonal appeals to tweak the consciences of those indulging in festive excess.
"Global calls to tackle poverty are renewed and governments and individuals are spurred on to do more. Aid is essential to help those less fortunate we are told.
"But the critics say aid is not the answer - billions have flooded into the poorest regions of the world, Africa in particular, and have had little effect, they say.
"People are as poor now, or even poorer, than they were 20 years ago.
"What do you think?"
I write this in their little answer box:
The fortunes of the rich and the poor under free market capitalism tend to be divergent, because of the nature of the system. To correct this we need to guide the market, both to protect the environment on which the economy depends, and to bring about a convergence between the fortunes of the rich and poor. So, although aid should continue as an act of humanity, we have to look to the emerging green economics to bring about the equity that will make aid unnecessary.
Then I press the Submit button. A screen says "There is something wrong with your email address." Back. Nothing wrong with my email address. Delete it and re-enter it incase there is something wrong with their form. Submit. "There is something wrong with your email address." There is nothing wrong with my email address. It is a rare antique Greennet email address that survived the Great Greennet Hack of the 1990s.
So I go back and find another route to get the message through.
The point is that ecological economics rejects both the free market and the planned economy. We like entrepreneurialism, because nature works in this way, with life forms evolving to fill ecological niches; but development of any life form must harmonise with the ecological system that it is part of. Free market capitalism, which worships monetary profit uber alles is more like a cancerous growth than a life form, because it lacks an inhibitory mechanism.
On the other hand, we reject the planned economy, because of its manifest failures both economic and environmental. It is perfectly possible to achieve a vibrant, organic steady state economy that is in equilibrium with planetary life processes. Not just possible, but necessary. Necessary but difficult. Difficult but not impossible. Not impossible but...
Anyway, the best Christmas present the "Christian" nations could give would be to retire the Third World Debt.
I think I will stop now and go take a look at the weather.
"Is increased aid the answer to world poverty?
"As Christmas approaches charities in rich countries launch seasonal appeals to tweak the consciences of those indulging in festive excess.
"Global calls to tackle poverty are renewed and governments and individuals are spurred on to do more. Aid is essential to help those less fortunate we are told.
"But the critics say aid is not the answer - billions have flooded into the poorest regions of the world, Africa in particular, and have had little effect, they say.
"People are as poor now, or even poorer, than they were 20 years ago.
"What do you think?"
I write this in their little answer box:
The fortunes of the rich and the poor under free market capitalism tend to be divergent, because of the nature of the system. To correct this we need to guide the market, both to protect the environment on which the economy depends, and to bring about a convergence between the fortunes of the rich and poor. So, although aid should continue as an act of humanity, we have to look to the emerging green economics to bring about the equity that will make aid unnecessary.
Then I press the Submit button. A screen says "There is something wrong with your email address." Back. Nothing wrong with my email address. Delete it and re-enter it incase there is something wrong with their form. Submit. "There is something wrong with your email address." There is nothing wrong with my email address. It is a rare antique Greennet email address that survived the Great Greennet Hack of the 1990s.
So I go back and find another route to get the message through.
The point is that ecological economics rejects both the free market and the planned economy. We like entrepreneurialism, because nature works in this way, with life forms evolving to fill ecological niches; but development of any life form must harmonise with the ecological system that it is part of. Free market capitalism, which worships monetary profit uber alles is more like a cancerous growth than a life form, because it lacks an inhibitory mechanism.
On the other hand, we reject the planned economy, because of its manifest failures both economic and environmental. It is perfectly possible to achieve a vibrant, organic steady state economy that is in equilibrium with planetary life processes. Not just possible, but necessary. Necessary but difficult. Difficult but not impossible. Not impossible but...
Anyway, the best Christmas present the "Christian" nations could give would be to retire the Third World Debt.
I think I will stop now and go take a look at the weather.
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