Monthly Archives: November 2009

PC(USA) – Devotions – Daily readings for Wednesday, November 25, 2009

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I note overnight that we now have an appointed president of the EU and that the basis for global warming is broken.

I also note that the elite are ignoring the people. Yet we should not worry.

10Say among the nations, “The LORD is king!

The world is firmly established; it shall never be moved.

He will judge the peoples with equity.”

11Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice;

let the sea roar, and all that fills it;

12let the field exult, and everything in it.

Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy

13before the LORD; for he is coming,

for he is coming to judge the earth.

He will judge the world with righteousness,

and the peoples with his truth

via PC(USA) – Devotions – Daily readings for Wednesday, November 25, 2009.

Ratings point to DHBs’ deficiencies – National – NZ Herald News

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Ratings point to DHBs’ deficiencies – National – NZ Herald News.

Tony Ryall is doing two sensible things. Firstly, he is limiting his interventions and measurement to key performance indicators. These have to look sensible (face validity) and they have to act as proxy for good quality. Secondly, he is making this public.

This is sraight ouf ot the Blairite playbook. What Tony is should do, which is not from Blair is avoid micromanagement. Most DHBs have diverted staff from the front-line, to feed the beast called the Ministry. The Ministry funds, so what they want they get: as a result productivity has decreased in all areas but reports.

Last week the Mental Health Commussion visited work. When they asked what else could happen, someone muttered that the Health of Nation Outcome Scale (HoNOS, which is mandated reporting on all patients, is uselsess and should be scrapped. The other docs agrred. Vehemently. THen the clinical nurses specailists added that the scale is unreliable…

… but it is still there. It is a waste of time.

In the end, the government has to trust the professionalism of the system and its checks and balances. Not micromanage.

Morning.

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It is light at 0530 @ this time of the year. By 0600 we are all up.

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Thursday, November 19, 2009

Daily readings for Thursday, November 19, 2009

Morning: Psalms 143; 147:12-20

Psalm 143

1Hear my prayer, O LORD;

give ear to my supplications in your faithfulness;

answer me in your righteousness.

2Do not enter into judgment with your servant,

for no one living is righteous before you.
3For the enemy has pursued me,

crushing my life to the ground,

making me sit in darkness like those long dead.

4Therefore my spirit faints within me;

my heart within me is appalled.
5I remember the days of old,

I think about all your deeds,

I meditate on the works of your hands.

6I stretch out my hands to you;

my soul thirsts for you like a parched land. Selah
7Answer me quickly, O LORD;

my spirit fails.

Do not hide your face from me,

or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.

8Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,

for in you I put my trust.

Teach me the way I should go,

for to you I lift up my soul.
9Save me, O LORD, from my enemies;

I have fled to you for refuge.

10Teach me to do your will,

for you are my God.

Let your good spirit lead me

on a level path.
11For your name’s sake, O LORD, preserve my life.

In your righteousness bring me out of trouble.

12In your steadfast love cut off my enemies,

and destroy all my adversaries,

for I am your servant.

Psalm 147:12-20

12Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem!

Praise your God, O Zion!

13For he strengthens the bars of your gates;

he blesses your children within you.

14He grants peace within your borders;

he fills you with the finest of wheat.

15He sends out his command to the earth;

his word runs swiftly.

16He gives snow like wool;

he scatters frost like ashes.

17He hurls down hail like crumbs —

who can stand before his cold?

18He sends out his word, and melts them;

he makes his wind blow, and the waters flow.

19He declares his word to Jacob,

his statutes and ordinances to Israel.

20He has not dealt thus with any other nation;

they do not know his ordinances.

Praise the Lord!

But this is also worship. We are very, very good at celebrating the joy of the LORD. We are less good at confession.

Nehemiah 9:1-15 (16-25)

1Now on the twenty-fourth day of this month the people of Israel were assembled with fasting and in sackcloth, and with earth on their heads. 2 Then those of Israelite descent separated themselves from all foreigners, and stood and confessed their sins and the iniquities of their ancestors. 3 They stood up in their place and read from the book of the law of the LORD their God for a fourth part of the day, and for another fourth they made confession and worshiped the LORD their God.

Within the Reformed tradition, confession is usually led by the preacher and is corporate. We sit in the Calvanistic crouch and silently meet with God. We do not have the ritual of confession, penance (and the associated indlugences) that occurs in the Roman Church. And at times we forget that our forefathers wrote their prayers down. The Passage from Nehemiah continues with a prayer by which the faults and wrongdoings of multiple generations of Isreal are recounted.
For in the end er are not perfect. We should not pretend to be perfect. We are seeking mercy.

Tonight’s reading

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caitlans_falls
Psalm 125

1Those who trust in the LORD are like Mount Zion,

which cannot be moved, but abides forever.

2As the mountains surround Jerusalem,

so the LORD surrounds his people,

from this time on and forevermore.

3For the scepter of wickedness shall not rest

on the land allotted to the righteous,

so that the righteous might not stretch out

their hands to do wrong.

4Do good, O LORD, to those who are good,

and to those who are upright in their hearts.

5But those who turn aside to their own crooked ways

the LORD will lead away with evildoers.

Peace be upon Israel!

My son has to do a CV. At age 12. I printed off my old one, and he is now talking to me. Have spent much of the day being busy. I wonder if this is wise.

We need to keep our priorities correct. In the end… it is our relationships, that matter. I

- Bishop Hill blog – The Yamal implosion

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IThe black line is a corrected version of the standard tree data set. The set is now open. The tree cores were selected. Data points were left out. The data was reconstructed and further data added. That is the black line. There is no evidence of a temperature change. GCS may be false. and peer review did not pick it.

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About time

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Scientology a ‘criminal organisation’ – ABC News Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

I recall the first time I went to an American Psychiatric Association conference. There I was, trying to learn (about interpersonal therapy and teaching using movies) and there were a bunch of moronic movie stars picketing us.

Stating we were EEEVIL. And being filmed. So I rabbit eared the spokeswoman as I went past.

From the link:

Do you want Australian tax exemptions to be supporting an organisation that coerces its followers into having abortions? Do you want to be supporting an organisation that defrauds, that blackmails, that falsely imprisons?” he asked.

“Because on the balance of evidence provided by victims of scientology you probably are.”

Senator Xenophon told Parliament the Church of Scientology is a criminal organisation that hides behind its “so-called religious beliefs”.

“The letters received by me which were written by former followers in Australia contain extensive allegations of crimes and abuses that are truly shocking,” he said.

“Crimes against them and crimes they say they were coerced into committing.

“There are allegations of false imprisonment, coerced abortions and embezzlement of church funds, of physical violence and intimidation, blackmail and the widespread and deliberate abuse of information.”

Senator Xenophon says the allegations are shocking.

“It is alleged that information about suspicious deaths and child abuse has been destroyed and one follower has admitted that he was coerced by the organisation into perjuring himself into deaths of his two daughters,” he said.

“These victims of Scientology claim it is an abusive manipulative and violent organisation.”

In a statement, the Church of Scientology says Senator Xenophon has abused Parliamentary privilege and is being pressured by disgruntled former members who are unreliable witnesses.

Xenophon is correct. If scientology is a religion, it is to some wierd value of a religion beyond the agnostic asceticsm of buddhists or quakers.

Prolonging life and delaying death: The role of physicians in the context of limited intensive care resources

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Prolonging life and delaying death: The role of physicians in the context of limited intensive care resources.

Back to some bleak science.

One of the problems (please note anybody who reads this from the US) with intensive care is that it is expensive. It takes lots of people — and lots of equipment — ICUs are one of the few areas where the equipment costs get anywhere close to the staff costs.

In most countries, beds are limited. There is no market. There is central planning. Often units are over full.

In the US there is a market and high dependancy units but they cost heaps and they are overfull.

In the end, in my view, it is the family who decide when to stop. The doctor’s job is to outline the problem and prognosis. And in the end, every clinician adjusts the guidelines for the patient and family.

Oh, and this article is from Canada. I expect similar articles from the USA medics within two years of obamacare