ciào bella

PfRC will be taking an extended sabbatical soon for adventures in Ligûria and Toscana.

Here is a composite view of the villages of Cinque Terre, clinging to the shores of the Mediterranean. Did you know that Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms is considered to have introduced the word ciao to English and subsequently to other language where it was not already common-parlance? The greeting can mean both hello and goodbye—like aloha or saalam or shalom or namaste—and has roots in the Venetian saying “I am your slave,” like the German greeting Servus—I am at your service. There are apparently several other meanings and innuendo that the word can convey and perhaps we will be educated. Please switch the station to our little travel blog for on-going adventures.  Arrivederci!

the privacy act, as amended

To the patient on the other side of the counter, it must look like those at the reception desk are engaging in a quick round of Space Invaders rather than scheduling a follow-up appointment as these systems require a lot of keyboard interaction—scrolling through that eventually comes really rapidly with video-game like reflexes.  Though there is no universal operating system as yet (HIPAA, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, legislation after all is not really about protecting privacy or securing medical records but about sharing that information among hospitals and physicians), there is one dominant player that’s delivered under government contract some really robust albeit technically ancient legacy software—the Space Invaders type.

Given the mandate that all practitioners in the US are required to keep electronically accessible medical records (the insurers pushed for this as well) and that the government will again claim imminent domain on individuals’ entire medical history—documented by competent authorities and from non-traditional sources, like social networks, as well—in order to better execute its mission of bio-surveillance, I am sure that the contractor formerly known as the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC) will see a boon and become the industry standard.  Public health and being able to track the spread of sickness (both for oneself and for the population at large) in time to do something about it is one thing and it would be prudent and in any one’s better interest to do.  I suspect, however, that maybe benignly the government will keep tabs on everyone to ensure that they’re getting regular check-ups and remain healthy, balanced and productive members of society—or rather, nefariously, at the behest of big pharmaceutical companies, peddling their snake-oil and leech-craft for them and ensuring that employers can get more and more from the proletariat.

SAIC is already the perfect candidate to interlace all of this data, having been commissioned in the past to carry out work for the National Security Agency, including technical support for ThinThread and its successor Trailblazer Project that wire-tapped the World Wide Web.  More bizarrely, SAIC was also part of a consortium of research laboratories conducting trials for the Army’s Defense Intelligence Agency’s Stargate Project to study psychic abilities and the viability of paranormal talents for espionage.   The program supposedly was discontinued in the mid-nineties, but who can say, as it was standard protocol for the proctors never to disclose to their telepathic and clairvoyant subjects whether they were right or wrong, as it might influence native aptitudes.  Regardless of the disposition of this data and just because America has already compromised the security and private lives of every human on Earth with its prying, it does not mean that we ought to become complacent about maintaining integrity for our confidences and health and surrender.  Withholding of intent—whether by or for faith-healers, is not good bedside manner and about as off-putting as having the receptionist banging on a keyboard—repeatedly and randomly without explanation.

arbitagé or rub-a-dub

It could be that the US Central Bank never really introduced a tapering-scheme, meant to ween the economy off of its massive subsidy programme and has actually increased its printing of script, each bill redeemable for less and less.
Perhaps those whom try to project rosy futures to keep the whole rigged system on life-support realised that the American dollar was wholly untenable otherwise when they essentially—it seems—laundered some one hundred forty billion in bonds (debt—ungood) to hide their addiction to quantitative-easing (drawing money out of thin air—double-plus-ungood) to the country of Belgium. Belgium cannot live beyond its means as the European Central Bank and the European Union simply does not allow members to spin straw into gold. Whether such maneuvers actually took place are subject to question but it does seem quite plausible if not an eventuality, but certainly that college-try for tapering ought to be the subject of investigation, like with previous manipulation of the London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) exchanges.

placebo-effect

In one of the more heinous admissions to come of late out of the US spy community, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency and other members of the Homeland pantheon have pledged never again to use medical humanitarian operations as a honey-trap—as it were.  Revealing much about its tactics and ethics—since I suppose the stalled disclosure of an already open secret has no strategic value, the agency helped set up a sham triage to vaccinate the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan against a resurging epidemic of polio (or Hepatitis B, according to some sources) in order to infiltrate the communities and gather genetic information to locate terrorists.

Already distrustful of Western doctors, suspicious tribal leaders discouraged villagers from complying, suspecting that it was a ploy to sterlise Muslims, and because of their justified fears, the population, foregoing the vaccine, and now has made the disease endemic in that part of the world—not to mention they people probably did not the full battery of the vaccines and thus rendering them ineffective and dozens of doctors and nurses killed out of reprisal.  The policy change came about last summer at the urging of medical academies, who shamed the government into changing its practice—saying that no politic or secure indemnity could be justified at the price of public health.  There is no I-told-you-so. This is too cruel to believe and wonder about the sincerity of the promise—would the standard operating procedure still be in effect if not for the initial reporting and outrage? In fact, given all the other smoke-and-mirrors and lame excuses, I am astonished that any one would own up to this and it make me wonder if it is not yet another mask.  What other secret programmes are being carried out under the cover of outreach?

non multo bene

A popular social networking site has closed the account of one member in Italy because of her sharing an image of a same-sex kiss in honour of the International Day against Homophobia (over the weekend) was deemed to violate “the community’s standards on nudity and pornography.” Her own friends were relentless with their outrage and disgust and would not let the matter rest. People post offensive material all the time and convictions ought not to be shaken by the free expression of the contrariwise, and such utilities as social platforms have some nerve trying to legislate what is decent and presentable being that they are notoriously prying for every detail of ones existence in the first place. Network hosts can nonetheless choose to do whatever despicable thing they want and can choose to shy away from the hint of controversy they wish to avoid—although that is the bailiwick of oppressive regimes and might not fancy pretenders usurping their scapegoats. I have a feeling, though, that any cowardice or careful and insincere morals are not going to do anything to stop this activist and her message.