Stuff below the headlines

Docs are unhappy. It's official: RAND did a survey.

Electronic records that are hard to fill out and take time and attention away from patients
Limiting time you are able to spend with patients because someone decided to limit your time in the name of efficiency
Too many rules telling you how to practice medicine

or as Doc McCoy would say: I'm a doctor, not a paper pusher...

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The Astronomy of Middle Earth.


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GetReligion reviews the lastest  church controversy: Pews being replaced by chairs.
No, not ordinary movable wooden chairs, but velvety chairs like those used in movie theatres.


In Africa, most of the folks sat on the floor at our rural church...and women and men sat on different sides of church (but in the city, it was pews and everyone mixed)...
.and when our church in the US was being replaced, we used folding chairs in the local firehall to hear mass.

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for later reading: the king of Salem in ancient alternative bibles and the Koran.

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I remember reading that some feminist professor gave her students an assignment to rewrite Wikipedia to fit the feminist point of view, and I presume other interest groups and businesses do the same. Which is why the site may be inaccurate for "controversial" subjects and one needs to beware of articles that mainly are advertisements for a business or person or personal idiology.

BoingBoing tells how the site is fighting these "sockpuppets"...dailydot article here.

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Obama is shutting down CDC reporting.

Due to the lapse in government funding, only web sites supporting excepted functions will be updated unless otherwise funded. As a result, the information on this website may not be up to date, the transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.

however, the link is a report on mentally ill kids.

related item: Shutting down WIC. 

the states and local food banks are picking up the slack.
No mention on if the sperm donors are helping out mom or if they have extended families who might help.

And I wonder why these WIC moms aren't being pressured into breast feeding, like the ones I am familiar with? Some programs insist on breast feeding and only give formula if the moms lack milk or are working outside the  home.

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Preaching at people doesn't work, says the Pope. Yeah. Such people annoy me greatly.
Usually, when the "pious Petes" come up to convert me and ask if I believe in Jesus as my personal savior, I reply: Know him? I almost got my ass shot off for him...
That usually shuts them up.
No, I don't preach, and I never pray with patients.
However, I sometimes advised my patients on religious issues...I have arranged the priest to come and help in "mass trauma" emergencies, and sometimes advised patients to get prayed over, talk to their minister, or to arrange a "sing"...

As the original Francis supposedly said: Spread the gospel always: use words if you have to.

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StrategyPage has an article on how fighting a war has changed over the last century for the guys on the ground.

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SP:on point" article on Asian economics includes this comment:

U.S. structural problems would include enormous public debt, aging infrastructure and increasing administrative compliance costs resulting from complex tax laws and proliferating business regulations.

Sounds a lot like what is making doctors unhappy too...

most of the article is about Chinese problems with corruption and their struggle to implement "rule of law".

Gu reported that the "foreign educated" children of Chinese entrepreneurs are not enthralled with "the endless wining and dining of government officials that is necessary to do business in China." In China, since personal whim still trumps law, businesspeople must constantly curry favor with government officials. It amounts to micro-economic lobbying.

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