Database Debacle

Cannabis legal debacle.

May 2011, Vol. 101, No. 5 SAMJ Cannabis legal debacle To the Editor: The editorial in the SAMJ1 questioning whether it is time to decriminalise drugs refers. The Central Drug Authority (CDA) produced the South African Position Paper on Cannabis in 2004; however, the document was never made public or released.2 The Position Paper builds a case for prohibition on a ‘public health’ basis and osten...

The Boldt debacle.

Quine’s Ideological Debacle

In two papers in the mid-seventies, Quine has discussed an ontological debacle, the reduction of ontology to an ontology of pure sets only. This debacle, which weakened Quine’s interest in ontology, is the natural outcome of ontological relativity, or, more precisely, the proxy-function argument. It is explained how Quine unavoidably came to this conclusion. Moreover, it is argued that the resu...

New Hampshire: the premarital testing debacle.

Eskom debacle: health care risks, frustrations climb.

Surgeons and physicians were fuming as their lives and those of their patients were turned upside down, the latter often threatened, although no patient deaths were reported at the time of writing. Like mine managers losing tens of millions of rands daily as the crisis constricted the lifeblood of South Africa’s economy, they cited unpredictability, not the actual power shortage, as the reason ...