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Secret memo claimed interrogators were exempt from federal laws

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:40:41 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray
clipper's remarks: Read on by following the links.

The Justice Department has declassified an 81-page legal opinion that authorized military interrogators to use aggressive techniques to extract information from the terrorism suspects in their custody.

The memorandum was issued March 14, 2003.

“Senior officials at the Justice Department gave the Pentagon the green light to torture prisoners,” Amrit Singh, an ACLU staff attorney, says in a statment. “It is outrageous that none of these high-level officials have been brought to task yet for their role in authorizing prisoner abuse.”

John Yoo, the lawyer who wrote the memo, defended his analysis in an e-mail to The Washington Post.

Here are some excerpts from this controversial document, which is available in its entirety via The Washington Post:

"Today’s declassification of one such memo is a small step forward, but in no way fulfills those requests," the Judiciary Committee chairman says in a statement.

Say Hello to ‘Dr. Nurse’

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:31:24 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray
clipper's remarks: If you are a caregiver like me you will realize the importance of this new breed of nurses.

Physicians and the medical field are resisting this new change.

Not only are nurse doctors necessary they will be welcomed with open arms by our aging population.

Clip Source: blogs.wsj.com

Nursing schools are making a push to award doctor of nursing degrees, a move that has some physicians and nurses worried, the WSJ’s Laura Landro reports.

A fresh supply of well-trained primary care practitioners could help counter a physician shortage.

The goal is to create “hybrid practitioner” who will have more skills and training than a nurse practitioner with a master’s degree

But wait, nurse advocates say, there’s a nursing shortage too.

“Nurse practitioners with master’s degrees are already filling the primary care shortages and providing quality, cost-effective care, many times in places that physicians are unwilling to practice,” says Wendy Vogel, a nurse practitioner specializing in oncology at Blue Ridge Medical Specialists in Bristol, Tenn.

“Nurses with an advanced degree are not the same as doctors who have been to medical school,” says Roger Moore, incoming president of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.

The Beginning of Good-bye

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 16:23:14 GMT

clipped by: BobbyDelray
clipper's remarks: This blog reveals the personal travails of an Alzheimer's caregiver and her mother.

If you go back in time and read the posts you will be moved by the heartfelt writing. so real, so personal.

For those of us walking down the same path, the writing on this blog is both educational and heart wrenching.

For me it has done two important things, it has let me know what I am facing and that I am not alone.

This writing has often brought tears to my eyes but never more then at this moment.

Clip Source: yellowwallpaper.net

I am slowly allowing myself to realize that this will be my mother’s last infirmity. I kept playing devil’s advocate with myself as she’s failed over the past couple of weeks–how on earth could she fail so quickly?–but this is one of the ways it happens. It boils down, I think, to an injury of her spirit. Something within her is saying, “It’s time to go.”

As if on cue, a bed opened up in the skilled nursing unit at Garden Manor, and she’ll be moving back there soon. Her doctor mentioned something about a feeding tube and I said NO NO NO. She’s 86 years old (yesterday was her birthday) and the past few years have been difficult for her. I will have Hospice attend to her. Right now she is halfway there, I think–she sleeps a lot and mumbles about her teaching days. She doesn’t seem to be in any great pain or distress (unless someone lifts her the wrong way). I don’t want any more CT scans or x-rays or stretchers. She will go gently.