Baby beat-up by ChCh GP:
The Baby Business, by GP Lynda Exton, says the maternity system has become less safe since the 1990 maternity reforms that allowed midwives to practise independently of doctors.Karen G. on the radio this am (10/8/2008 10AM) points out that maternal deaths are such a small number that annual fluctuations from ca 2 to 4 make 'trends' statistically difficult. (NZ has 6000 births pa) She says that these deaths are not related to maternity services)
Women were more likely to die from childbirth than at any time in the past three decades and babies were now more likely to contract a potentially serious infection during birth than in the past, Exton said.
Other signs of the "maternity scandal" were expectant mothers struggling to get midwives and women being pushed out of hospital sooner after the birth than was healthy.
While midwives did a wonderful job, at least a third of women needed a doctor's input during labour or birth and it was not acceptable that they now had to pay for that, Exton said.
New Zealand College of Midwives chief executive Karen Guilliland said Exton's claims were not "what the published data shows".
Infections are up in every hospital ward... might be safer at home...
New Zealand a nation of ignorant rednecks #1 Tuesday, 30 September 2008
The plug is set to be pulled on a multimillion-dollar Wellington wind farm proposal because of visual pollution concerns, despite a winter of power cut fears.
A report by Greater Wellington regional council recommends a five-year moratorium on wind farm development at Belmont Regional Park, five years after the council called the site a "world-class wind farm opportunity".
- The area is grass, farm paddocks, near to town. any pristine forests are long gone (600 years ago?) A walking track, it seems 'trampers' would be offended by the turbines. How dumb can people be?
New Zealand a nation of ignorant rednecks #2
06/10/2008 Conservation groups have criticised a court ruling in New Zealand that has delayed a change to fishing laws in some areas. They say the lifting of a possible ban threatens two rare dolphin species.
...
According to estimates, there are only 111 Maui’s dolphins left in the wild and less than 8,000 Hector’s.
Studies of mitochondrial and nuclear DNA show that North Island Hector's dolphins are genetically distinct from any of the South Island subpopulations, with no overlap of maternal lineages between them (Pichler et al. 1998). Such differences over such a small geographic scale have not been observed in any other genetic studies of marine mammals (Dawson et al. 2001).
- a few commercial fishing jobs placed above the survival of a critically endangered mammal...
Another marine mammal in trouble
The Irrawaddy Dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris)
In the Philippines, a small O. brevirostris population exists in Malampaya Sound in the northern part of the island province of Palawan. The dolphins are confined to the inner regions of the sound, while more common bottlenose dolphins make the outer part of the enclosure their home.
(Malapaya is not on google earth)
book, 2007 Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA by Tim Weiner
too friendly? admits the mistakes but not the evil?
I glanced at the 1954 Guat city "success" and it seemed suitably silly and scary, but a clear admission of illegal regime change
NKorea, Chavez ... while usa falters..
"American empire in the world is reaching the end of its road, and its next rulers must limit theirinterference to their own borders,"
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
bp
McCain vs Obama cars
Carter on Palin
She’s the anti-Wonder Woman. She’s judgmental and dictatorial, telling people how they’ve got to live their lives. And a superior religious self-righteousness ... that’s just not what Wonder Woman is about. Hillary Clinton is a lot more like Wonder Woman than Mrs. Palin. She did it all, didn’t she?
- wonder woman on SPalin.
(Linda Carter was involved in the BCC bank scandal)
ipbhost
phillymag
Brazil's Barracuda and Caratingua oil fields, in the Campos Basin some 50 miles into the Atlantic Ocean east of Rio de Janeiro.
The "ultra-deep" Tupi field was found under 7,060 feet of water, another 10,000 feet of sand and rocks and a further 6,600 feet of salt – a total of 4.48 miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
reserves in the pre-salt area off Brazil's coast are much larger than the Tupi field, possibly containing as much as 80 billion barrels (!!) in oil reserves.\he "ultra-deep" Tupi field off the coast of Rio de Janeiro could hold as much as 8 billion barrels of recoverable light crude
may delay Peak Oil by 100 or 1000 days - these arent really "cheap" oil, more like "deep oil"
Sparklepony I Keep Track of Sarah Palin's Shoes so You Don't Have To
blogspot
the other day I was sad because I wasn't able to identify Sarah's horrible red pumps, but today I can redeem myself by stating unequivocally that those are Tory Burch pumps, because that's who does the gimmicky stripe at the bottom of the heel. That puts them in the $300 range. You're welcome. I don't think those are very nice shoes, personally; they aren't fabulous. Mid-price shoes can really be a problem.
[sparkle pony seems to have largely deserted condi for SP]
Klein - crisis capitalism
speed threat
archive
economic patriot act 3 pages only, people actually read it
Section 8 impunity... Iraq levels of impunity, contractors immune from existing laws
George Soros pays for anti Chavez propaganda
Human Rights Watch (HRW) fails to practice its stated mandate - that it's "dedicated to protecting the human rights of people around the world....stand(ing) with victims and activists....upholding political freedom (and) bring(ing) offenders to justice." Instead it functions the way James Petras characterizes similar NGOs as the "executing agents of US imperialism."
sjlendman.
Diebold: steal this election
911truth
scoop
_________________________________________________
My Predictions 10/8/2008 10:10AM:
. . . . . . . . Mcain will win by the magic 'Diebold' ,margin of 51.5%, He will posture against Iran. Then he will drop dead 2011
. . . . . . . . President sheBush Palin will mistake rhetoric for reality and order an invasion of Iran
. . . . . . . . Elements of USAniac capital will join with alarmed Generals in a 'coup/impeachment' to remove sheBush
. . . . . . . . USA will have a 'govt of national unity' _not_ the proper line of descent (house speaker?) - technically a coup
. . . . . . . . USA will be a minor power, importing food.
60% of sub-prime home mortgages were to blacks? now seems like a racist term? (sub primate?)
__________________________________________________
Dome News:
National Geographic has a video mentioning a stone dome under construction in India annoyingly unspecific
Computer cut interlocking stone for a dome diameter of 280 feet (85 metres) ???
nationalgeographic
jotman
Outside Mumbai (Bombay) India, construction is nearing completion on what will be the largest self-supporting dome structure ever built. It is a stone pagoda designed to seat eight thousand meditators. The pagoda is dedicated to a Burmese meditation teacher, and it is modeled after the great pagoda in Rangoon
Oct 25, 2006 MUMBAI - Air travelers over Mumbai will soon have something spectacular to goggle at: a cloud-high view of the golden Global Pagoda, the world's largest stone monument and the first dome in human history of this size without any supporting pillars.
.on the island of Gorai in suburban Mumbai,
atimes
This will be by far the biggest masonery dome.
The current biggest masony dome is still Brunelleschi's Duomo in Firenze at 45m
(wikipedia drops Brunelleschi's dome "Figures vary. archINFORM gives a 45 m wide tambour, while Santa Maria del Fiore in the Structurae database gives a 43 m diameter of the cupola, others as little as 42 m"
-this injustice almost makes .me want to become a wikip editor...) wikipedia does have the successor to the Duomo as a grain storage structure (!) in England)
Bijapur has a big dome, which is variously described as 37m and 44m. ( 44m is the _outside_ diameter??? so doesnt score)
org
Gol Gumbaz, situated in Bijapur ..second in size only to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome (sic). The dome is the second largest in the world, 124 feet in diameter. (37m) [nb St Peters is smaller that the Duomo, so this is very sloppy tourism puffery]
The tomb of Mohammed Adil Shah, boasts of the second-largest tomb in the world.44 m in diameter, the interior of dome is mysteriously unsupported...
cf. 43.4 m Pantheon
USA inability to assist Georgia dismays Israel...
washingtontimes
...Georgia's Defense Minister Davit Kezerashvili is a former Israeli who moved things along by facilitating Israeli arms sales with U.S. aid. "We are now in a fight against the great Russia," he was quoted as saying, "and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House ..
...
The Jerusalem Post on Aug. 12 reported, "Georgian Prime Minister Vladimir Gurgenidze made a special call to Israel Tuesday morning to receive a blessing ...
Other arms reach out to me
Israel began selling arms to Georgia seven years ago. U.S. grants facilitated these purchases.. Israeli UAV spy drones, made by Elbit Maarahot Systems, conducted recon flights over southern Russia, as well as into nearby Iran.
The road leads back to you.
Georgia, Georgia, no peace I find
In a secret agreement between Israel and Georgia, two military airfields in southern Georgia had been earmarked for the use of Israeli fighter bombers in the event of preemptive. attacks against Iranian nuclear installations. This would sharply reduce the distance Israeli fighter bombers would have to fly to hit targets in Iran...
.. Estimated numbers of Israeli trainers attached to the Georgian army range from 100 to 1,000. There were also 110 U.S. military personnel on training assignments in Georgia. Last July 2,000 U.S. troops were flown in for "Immediate Response 2008," a joint exercise with Georgian forces.
alternet
Pentagon Hands Iraq Oil Deal to Shell
Business, farm, dolphins, field, Diebold,