There have been a fair number of studies that show a pretty high level of physician misdiagnosis (search on “studies of physician misdiagnosis”), and attempts to create assisted diagnostic systems. This seems to be the latest attempt to create an improved diagnostic system.

I remember reading about this for the first time many years ago (back in the early 80s, IIRC). That article mentioned a number of all too human problems leading to misdiagnosis – doctors not up to date on latest info, distractions, miscommunication with the patient, etc. Even something as simple as a check list has been shown to improve outcomes. This shouldn’t be to surprising – a good check list improves the outcome for a lot of complex situations. (Sometimes, even in the middle of an emergency situation – although that had better be a short list…)

Too late for the current situation, but consider getting a backup battery charger for your cell phone. I keep a small EVO unit charged up – and can get 7-8 full phone charges off of one charge of the backup unit. It’s small enough to carry in a jacket pocket (and keep in a small ziploc back for weatherproofing).

And the lambs traditionally placed in the creche scenes say early spring.

The birth of Jesus is likely one of those strange quantum probabilistic events that is smeared over a range of time and will not resolve till the Higgs Boson is definitely detected, at which point the probability function will collapse and the date will finally be known. Probably February 31rst.

re: 53

Wonder if there’s a Stuxnet variant for drones…

Actually, President Obama is keeping his mouth shut instead of shooting it off like his predecessors. Nice to see a little “talk softly” instead of near poisonous levels of testosterone-on-meth that’s the sum total strategic thinking (and communcation) capabilities of the current Republican representatives.

I think you mistakenly released a picture of the upcoming debate moderated by the Donald…

re: masaccio

All the accounts I’ve read are that Gingrich’ ground operations are totally messed up since they imploded in the summer, which could create unexpected problems actually delivering in caucus states. It’s a pretty sad (typed while laughing wildly) comment on the degree to which Romney is distrusted in Republican circles that despite that, Gingrich’ “retail” campaign wuth very little local presence or spending so far has him way ahead of Romney.

Might be a very amusing meltdown in Romney’s campaign if he really loses big time in Iowa.

Nope, we had both a HELOC and a mortgage with the same lender. (I’m well aware ofthe differences, maa872 – been using HELOCs since the 80s – very nice to have if you are careful.) They kept both.

In fact, at the time we previously refinanced (and we were able to simply continue the HELOC since we were also refinancing with the same lender), the interest rate on the HELOC was so ridiculously low that I asked if I could simply pay the mortgage off with the HELOC.

They said “nice try, but no”. That was a miss on my part – I could have transferred almost 3/4 of my mortgage into the HELOC at about 1% (WTF!!), paid the rest of the mortgage down, etc. Ah well – I’ll know better next time.

Oops – forgot to address part of your initial question – yes, one time fee at initial closing.

Back in MA 20 years ago it was around $150, IIRC. It was $451 on the refi we did late this summer (got the docs right here in the cabinet next to me)- and the Lender paid the cost. (Yeah, yeah – probably snuck something in somewhere else – but they were nicely subtle about it – and the reduction in interest rates and the payment was toothsome.)

First time that’s happened, I think. Hmmm – I wonder what events would have made the lender actually insist on buying the Title Insurance themselves. Since they were the same folks we did the last refi with and I was planning to forgo on this round since the mortgage had stayed put (unusual), I suspect at least some mortgage issuers are hearing the ticking and putting in some firewalls even if it does cost them a bit.

Title Insurance really only covers the initial transfer on the loan origination (at least in our case – which happened to be in MA). It didn’t cover subsequent transfers of the lien between servicers.

No, if the mortgage holder can’t show they attained the mortgage correctly, it’s also unclear who the homeowner should pay. If the mortgage holder attempts to foreclose without proper posession of the mortgage, that’s a form of theft – there’s a damn good reason why the requirements for transfer of mortgage liens were so stringent – before the banks and MERS decided it was “too much trouble”.

That actually happened to my wife and I in the late 80s. After a number of transfers a mortgage servicer folded abruptly and the mortgage was not correctly transferred to the company that took over. This wasn’t discovered till we decided to refinance a couple of years later to take advantage of a big drop in rates.

Fortunately there was still a paper trail – it still took us a couple of grand to get the paperwork fixed. FYI – Title Insurance didn’t cover it – we were out of pocket.

That was close to 20 years ago – bet it would be a LOT more expensive now, particularly if MERS had actually lost the paper trail and then the bank forged documents. I suspect there’s a large number of quietly ticking titles waiting to blow up on whoever buys a foreclosed house where MERS was involved.