Stories below the fold

Lord Elgin stole a lot of the statues etc from the Greek Parthenon, so if you want to see them, they re in London (and the Greeks want them back).

But one dirty little secret is that a lot of the stuff he bought sank.

So has this ship been found?

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StrategyPage reports on Colombia, which after settling with FARC is still facing drug gangs. But the real news is that they are thriving, while Venezuela is going bust.

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the real modern Nazis wear white coast. NDY activist explains...

I have seen this, alas. And it will get worse as the decision will be made by cost conscious bureaucrats instead of families or doctors who know the patient.

The problem we docs face: there is a subtle line between non treatment because you think the patient is better off dead, vs deciding less invasive treatment when aggressive care means a low benefit/high side effect ratio. Often families think "more is better", when often less aggressive therapy is better for the patient.

But often deciding on less aggressive treatment that would save the patient's life would quickly morphs to "no treatment", which is the danger of having a DNR order on the chart, which is often interpreted by staff or others as "don't do anything he's better off dead".



But now we see pushback: Texas seeking to make a law that doctors can't write a DNR order without the patient's permission.

it might have been better just to keep the Hippocratic oath, but modern medical ethicists have been trying to destroy that oath since I was in medical school, because it forbids abortion, euthanasia, sleeping with patients, putting the patient's needs over the "needs" of society, and insists on privacy.

Modern oaths let you do all these things and still be considered "ethical".

Sigh.
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airport type body screening in LA's subways is the way of the future.

huh? LA has subways? Who wudda thot?

but there have been threats to subways by AlQaeda, and of course there are always crazies around.

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the mathematics of golf.

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Uber kerfluffle in Manila.

Don't ask me: We still use "tricycles" here (motorcycles with side cars)

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the real worry here is an outbreak of birdflu.

No human cases yet but 200 thousand birds will have to be "culled" in Pampanga.

one wonders how it got introduced, since we are not on major wildbird migration routes, but the article notes:

He said the authorities suspect the virus could have been spread by migratory birds or from smuggled poultry products.

San Luis, about 60 kilometres (37 miles) north of Manila, is close to the Candaba swamps, a major way station and destination for migratory birds who move out of the Asian mainland during winter.

Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-08-philippines-declares-h5-bird-flu.html#jCp

 --update here.

Sigh. This is not good: already our chicken industry is marginal due to cheap imports, and now this. Note: we used to do this, until a typhoon destroyed our chicken houses (luckily between "grows" so no chickens were killed).

The gov't will supervise the "culls", but the real danger is that some people will decide to illegally sell the sick chickens to locals, and people will start to die.

Sigh..

and for those who think "free range" chickens are safer, , well, not true. They still can catch flu from migrating birds... and modern chicken farming allows poor people  in modern day mega cities to be able to afford to buy eggs and chickens to prevent malnutrition.