What's Going on in America? Lawyers Want No-Risk Operations Now?

 In America, an Obstetric surgeon has been charged with Homicide after a baby being delivered was decapitated during the birthing process. 

By decapitated it's meant the neck was broken.

The neck was broken during the birth as the doctor manipulated the baby to allow it's passage through the birth canal after it's shoulders got stuck.

It's fait to say there is a risk in every medical procedure, but the lawyers successfully argued that excessive force was used to manipulate the baby. Says who? Were they there on the day? Did they take into consideration that the same force had been applied on other babies under the same circumstances and they survived? Do lawyers understand the concept of risk?

Now they have successfully argued for a payout for their clients and no doubt caused a criminal enquiry against the doctor, they have set the profession of obstetrics back decades.

Because now, faced with the same circumstances, would an obstetric surgeon do the same thing? I doubt it. The risk (to the surgeon) is too high. Who cares if the baby dies, or worse the baby and the mother dies. The doctor doesn't want to go to jail, nor does the hospital want to be sued.

So we now have a situation where doctors will now have to wait until the baby and the mother are at real risk of death before they act, so that they can argue in court that they had no choice but to use the force they did to save the mother and it's unfortunate that the baby died. 

Good old litigious America, setting the course of medicine back decades.

Breweries and Piss-ups the Absolute State of UK Management

I've said it before: thanks to various things, the management class of the UK cannot manage a piss-up in a brewery. We are completely fucked and bereft of the sort of intelligent manager that can do engineering.

The HS2 debacle is one classic example of our abject failure to manage large projects. The Horizon computer system involved in the Post Office scandal is another alongside the lying and deceitful managers at the post office. 

The country is fucked, especially if that same mindset catches hold in the militar.... oh, shit, it has.

The second of our flag ships, the HMS Price of Wales suffered a catastrophic failure of it's propulsion system a while ago. It took several months to rectify.

It's sister ship, the HMS Queen Elizabeth was checked at the time and it was reported that the same issue wasn't present on that ship.

That was then, this is now: It's been reported that just before sailing, the HMS Queen Elizabeth has suffered a failure of it's propulsion system.

The aircraft carrier will be replaced by four plastic patrol craft, each with five crew aboard. 

I'm sorry about the state of our Navy, I really am. I remember Plymouth Navy days back when I was a kid, walking from ship to ship and still not seeing the whole fleet in dock. Now I could quite easily walk round the whole Navy in the same time.