The bad news below the headlines

So now I read that not only do the chinese hackers have my federal OPM records and my National Guard records, but that Obama is collecting economic and racial data apparantly from private companies including credit cards (hey, I thought only Facebook and Google did that).

Unbeknown to most Americans, Obama’s racial bean counters are furiously mining data on their health, home loans, credit cards, places of work, neighborhoods, even how their kids are disciplined in school — all to document “inequalities” between minorities and whites...

so why is this being done? "Diversity" must be enforced.

Such databases have never before existed. Obama is presiding over the largest consolidation of personal data in US history. He is creating a diversity police state where government race cops and civil-rights lawyers will micromanage demographic outcomes in virtually every aspect of society.

So why worry if the gov't has data from other businesses?
Uh, 4th amendment anyone? It includes a part about "papers", which mean your records can't be searched.

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

but then, what do I know: I'm a doctor, not a lawyer.

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Airline stewardess catches Falciparum malaria in Ghana and dies.

old article from the UKGuardian: The mozzies are coming. Now blamed on global warming, but actually the wetlands carried disease in the good old days.

In fact, according to Dr Mary Dobson's pioneering (and surprisingly readable) Contours of Death and Disease in Early Modern England, malaria was probably endemic along the estuaries of south-east England, the Fens and the marshy coastal areas of northern England by the 15th century, if not earlier. And if it is impossible to say what proportion of deaths were directly attributable to malaria, it is plain the disease was a serious threat to health

yeah. Nasty. I was on prevention medicine that didn't work very well and caught a minor case of it when working in Liberia. Draining wetlands was done for "health" reasons, and the "bad air" (mal airia) i.e. stink from the swamps was blamed for the ague.

Something to remember when you read about not draining wetlands: Rome probably fell due to malaria in their nearby swamps.

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More problems at the VA? nothing new here.

And wait til reporters check into the mess of the federally run Indian Health Service system.

the problem? It is run by bureaucrats who see following the law/regulations is more important than caring for patients. So docs and nurses spend a lot of time fighting regulations and doing paper work.

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I call it the two minute hate of the day: Spiked calls it the Twittermob  and the Twitterati and is aghast at how easily it can control the press.

 power of the Twittermob has officially crossed the line from ‘worrying’ to ‘terrifying’. Yesterday, these ready offence-takers, these always primed chest-beaters over words and images that don’t gel with the moral outlook of the Twitterati, managed to get a newspaper article expunged from the internet, shoved down the memory hole, made into an un-article so that it would never again offend their sensibilities. And they destroyed the article with such swiftness that many people won’t even have noticed that it happened. But it did happen, and we need to talk about it.

the story was about someone who said children need to learn how to fear dangerous things, and the kid ended up killed when he fell from a cliff. Fair enough. The father shouldn't be ridiculed. But censorship of a story and the verbal abuse says a lot about people who have nothing better to do but echo the two minute hate of the day, and how this small minority is distorting what the news dares to report.

since this is the UK, and censorship was done by private, not government types, there is no "first amendment" issue.
But in the US, where ACORN related hate mobs attack as proxies for the President and his policies, it is a first amendment issue.

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Strategypage discusses China's Potemkin village of economic data and it's implications.

Me, I figure they will  have a great patriotic war with the aggressive warmongering Philippine Islands to distract their people from what is going on.

why not? They know President Obama will bow down and insist on a "peaceful resolution" to the sealane grab.

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