Ambulance Motorbikes

An article on South Sudan’s bike ambulances paints a very different picture of motorcycles than usually found in hospitals.

There are certainly more comfortable ways to go to hospital than a motorbike with a sidecar bed attached to its side.

But the launch of these ambulance motorbikes in South Sudan is a serious attempt to tackle some of the world’s highest rates of women dying in pregnancy.

[…]

“The advantage of the motor bikes is that they can easily be managed at a lower level health facility,” said Joyce Mphaya, a safe motherhood specialist with the UN children’s fund (Unicef), which donated the bikes.

“It is cost-effective in terms of fuel, and you can easily move with the motorbikes to remote places, where there are no roads and where cars cannot go.”

[…]

Sudan is not the first to use motorbike ambulances.

In Malawi, similar bikes helped more than halve maternal mortality rates over a period of four years.

They also helped halve the numbers of emergency caesarean sections, because they got the women to hospital before an operation was needed.

That is a hugely successful program to manage risk. No mention of fatalities or even accidents from use of the motorbikes?

Aquele abraço / Big hug

Written in 1969 by Gilberto Gil

And a more recent live recording

O Rio de Janeiro continua lindo
O Rio de Janeiro continua sendo
O Rio de Janeiro, fevereiro e março
Alô, alô, Realengo – aquele abraço!
Alô, torcida do Flamengo – aquele abraço!
Chacrinha continua balançando a pança
E buzinando a moça e comandando a massa
E continua dando as ordens no terreiro
Alô, alô, seu Chacrinha – velho guerreiro
Alô, alô, Terezinha, Rio de Janeiro
Alô, alô, seu Chacrinha – velho palhaço
Alô, alô, Terezinha – aquele abraço!
Alô, moça da favela – aquele abraço!
Todo mundo da Portela – aquele abraço!
Todo mês de fevereiro – aquele passo!
Alô, Banda de Ipanema – aquele abraço!
Meu caminho pelo mundo eu mesmo traço
A Bahia já me deu régua e compasso
Quem sabe de mim sou eu – aquele abraço!
Pra você que meu esqueceu – aquele abraço!
Alô, Rio de Janeiro – aquele abraço!
Todo o povo brasileiro – aquele abraço!

RIAA settlement

ZDNet.com gives a scathing review of the RIAA settlement with the Santangelo family.

After four years of battling Patti Santangelo and her children over alleged P2P downloading, the RIAA has settled with the family for a paltry $7,000 – to be made in payments, AP reports.

They also give a curse assessment of the RIAA enforcement business, written by the outspoken Paul Sanders

Under normal rules, managing your resources irresponsibly and doing things that are not worth the time money and effort, let alone the loss of goodwill and the distraction from normal business, are surely grounds for instant dismissal. I certainly couldn’t run my businesses if I took a similar approach to my major cost centres.

Flip-flop dangers

Here is an interesting case of detection, mentioned in the Krakow Post

A recent seizure has put a new meaning behind the phrase “a killer pair of shoes.” On April 22nd, customs officials on the western border of Poland seized 32,000 pairs of flip-flops – plastic sandals with only a strap in the front – that were made of carcinogenic substances. The footwear had been imported from China for sale in the country.

Is it just me or is there more humor in the English versions of European news sources than in America? Killer fashion? Good one.

The carcinogenic material in the shoes was originally detected by the border guards due to a strong odor coming from container. Tests at the Wroc?aw Customs Laboratory confirmed the presence of carcinogenic substances, which become active when exposed to heat. The shoes were shipped back to China before a single pair made it to the Polish market.

Were these guards trained in smelly shoes? Haha. The odor must have been something unmistakable like burning plastic, or maybe the guards automatically suspect Chinese export controls are lax and opened the shipment for special attention.