05 Jun 2007
Debate evolves into religious discussion

What can I add to that headline? These people want to be the "Leader of the Free World" and they actually believe that the Genesis myth is literal truth...

I can honestly say that I don't know a single heathen who believes that life was licked into being by the cosmic cow, despite what the lore says. We understand that myth and allegory have meaning on their own terms, and don't need to be taken literally to have power.

<sigh> We're in deep shit ...

During the first GOP presidential debate last month in California, three Republican candidates raised eyebrows by indicating they did not subscribe to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, a widely accepted scientific concept about the origins of life.

(link) [CNN.com]

21:48 /Asatru | 0 comments | permanent link

Extra pay does not improve hospital performance

Here's a true "Study in Stupidity" for ya - and it should be patently obvious as to why.

Hospitals do not deliver health care: in fact, one could generalize and say that organizations don't deliver anything. People do. Doctors, nurses and other hospital contractors and employees deliver health care, and this incentive program had nothing whatsoever to do with them. In fact, I'd wager that those hospitals participating in the program probably stressed their employees more in the hopes of increasing their margins because of the program, possibly leading to worse health care actually delivered.

Morons.

Paying hospitals extra money does not appear to significantly improve the way they treat heart attack patients or how well those patients do. But giving hospitals the information that they need to improve heart attack care does help.

(link) [EurekAlert! - Breaking News]

17:16 /Home | 1 comment | permanent link

June 5, 1977: From a Little Apple a Mighty Industry Grows

It wouldn't be difficult to make a case for today as the birthday of the modern computing age.

The Apple II is the first machine that had the characteristics of what would be called a personal computer.

(link) [Wired Top Stories]

06:15 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link

Microsoft threatens its Most Valuable Professional

M$ better watch it - developers made the company by writing the software that makes Windows work. If you're a operating system or language company, chase away your developers, chase away your success. And Microsoft seems to be doing it's level best to do just that.

What's the best way to attract a pile of threatening lawyers' letters from Microsoft? Sell pirate copies of Windows? Write a DRM-busting program?

(link) [The Register]

06:09 /Technology | 0 comments | permanent link