They Say That Time & Tide Wait For No Man.

So while I understand that for many it is still the highly emotional tenth anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks it turns out that I've still got work to do.

This evening (11/9/11) my father and I had an early dinner at the pub at around 17:00 before going to visit my grandmother in hospital together at around 18:00. There are really only two things to report. Firstly she has been moved to a bed in direct line of sight of the nurses station. The second thing is really not pleasant to talk about and even less pleasant to post on the world wide web. Due to her mobility problems my grandmother is unable to use the bathroom unaided. As it is impossible for a nurse to be with her whenever the need may arise she has been provided with adult diapers. On a medical ward where there are a number of patients - some with serious, life threatening conditions - and only a limited number of nurses this is a perfectly reasonable compromise. However it does serve to underline why a medical ward is really inappropriate for my grandmother's care needs because if she was on a psychiatric ward she would be under close observation meaning that a nurse would be with her 24 hours a day. Also people who use adult diapers are more at risk of contracting urinary infections. Considering that urinary infections have frequently been used in the past to dismiss my grandmother's fragile mental state I would say that this failure of care is diagnostically relevant.

As for the current terrorist threat to New York and Washington while I don't want to be the one to tell the security staff not to bother I wouldn't be that worried. The tip off provided by the Pakistanis is remarkably similar to intelligence that was recovered by the Navy SEAL's when they raided Osama bin Laden's compound. So it just seems to be Pakistani intelligence trying to wind up American intelligence for launching a military operation in Pakistan without permission. American intelligence initially took this in their stride when the tip came in on Wednesday (7/9/11) because this sort of message sending happens all the time in espionage circles. However they went public with it on Thursday (8/9/11) as a way to comment on my previous post describing the threat as "detailed, credible but unconfirmed." I am a little concerned though that American intelligence also mobilised their security apparatus because that looks like someone hiding behind me in order to continue to exploit 9/11 so they can do away with more and more American freedoms and trap us all in a state of continuous war.

Or to put it another way;

Screw the dignified silence. I'm going to the pub.