₦airaland Forum

KnowAll:
Theoretically we are a democracy but in practice we have not gotten there yet. I believe it would improve over time. Don't forget USA and Britain have a 300/400 years head start.

Theoretically, Egypt was a democracy. And Tunisia, and Libya, and Saddam's Iraq, Nazi Germany and most of the tin pot dictatorships in Africa. Hell, even Sani Abacha got picked as a consensus candidate.

Democracy in name alone is not democracy. If your people blame the government for being poor and hungry and without basic amenities but cannot do anything about it, then you are living in a dictatorship.

Not all despots wear khaki. And its possible to be oppressed by a group of people rather than just one.

cap28:
Libya practices a system of governance which suits its people, the west can call it undemocratic if they like, but if you can't provide decent housing, food, and employment for your people is that democracy?  Surely a democratic system should ensure that you provide the most basic necessities to your people, Libya has been able to acheive all of those things and nigeria that claims to be a democratic nation hasnt - i know which nation i would prefer to live in.

If Libya is so fantastic, then why are their people braving bullets to come out and protest? People think the place is so fantastic when in reality its not that different from Nigeria. Some people live in luxury while most have very little. They may not have the kind of abject poverty we have here, but their society is still very unequal. The petrodollars mostly end up in the pockets of a privileged few.

Oh and by the way, Nigeria is not a democracy. Democracy means the people have the power to change their government whenever they are unhappy with its performance. Can you name one state outside of Lagos where that is even remotely possible? Here, our leaders get chosen through political manipulation (e.g. Yar'Adua), backstabbing (e.g. Alao Akala) and rigging (e.g. everybody else). The people have nothing to do with it.

Nominal elections held for show don't make us a democracy any more than they made Mubarak a democrat. If the international community would allow it I'm sure the ruling class would rather skip the pretense, embezzle the INEC money and swear in GEJ after a PDP "family meeting".

Sorry if the quote was too long. Here are some interesting facts from the article.

The president has 3 personal physicians, the VP 2, and the "first lady" 1.
There are all sorts of duplications and redundancies e.g. we have special assistants for presidential household matters, domestic affairs, domestic matters, household administration, social events and household matters, and domestic affairs.

Mrs. Jonathan has a luggage officer, a steward, a director of protocol, a principal protocol officer, an aide-de-camp, two media assistants, two "ladies-in-waiting" and about half a dozen others.

The total salaries for The President's 133 aides is N775, 207,125, enough to pay 3,600 civil servants. Less than half of this amount is budgeted to build five 100 room university hostels, build new secondary schools and and provide infrastructure for the old ones including all 103 unity schools.

I'm not sure if you guys will agree but I think some of our money is being wasted.

What do you think?

234next.com has a nice article about the ridiculous number of aides and assistants our president has appointed for himself and the opportunity cost of paying their salaries. An excerpt:

An official document obtained by NEXT, titled ‘List of presidential Aides as at February, 2011’ shows that the country currently pays for at least 133 personal aides to the president, the vice-president, and the first lady. These aides, who are mostly political appointees, include the Chief of Staff to the President, Deputy Chief of Staff to the Vice President, Principal Secretary to the President, Principal Secretary to the Vice President, 25 special advisers, 42 senior special assistants, 52 special assistants and 12 personal assistants. Two of the personal assistants are Malian and Senegalese tailors who sow the president’s clothes.

Activist Shehu Sani, president of the Civil Rights Congress, said most of the appointees were simply engaged by President Jonathan as campaign foot soldiers.

“The president is simply wasting our national resources and applying pressure on the economy by settling cronies, bootlickers and parasites on the corridors of power with appointments,” said Mr. Sani who wants labour, civil society and opposition parties to check the trend.

Looking through the list, some of the appointments indeed appear to be duplication of duties. For instance, there are six physicians (two senior special assistants and four special assistants) who attend to the health needs of the president, the vice president and the first lady. They include two chief physicians to the president and vice president, two personal physicians to the President and the vice president, an assistant personal physician to the president and a personal physician to the first lady. Yet some public hospitals across the country do not have a single physician.

Apart from the large number of domestic staff in the presidential villa, who are civil servants, there are also six special assistants in charge of domestic matters for the president and his vice. Their job descriptions are special assistants on presidential household matters, domestic affairs, domestic matters, household administration, social events and household matters, and domestic affairs.

Eleven of the presidential aides on the list work for the unconstitutional office of the First Lady. They are Ike Neliaku and Oroyemisi Oyewole, both senior special assistants on administration to Mrs. Jonathan; Mary Oba, a special assistant on administration; Grace Koroye, coordinator, Organization of African First Ladies Against HIV/AIDS, and Martha Owuzurumba, coordinator, African First Ladies Peace Mission. Other aides of Mrs Jonathan are Hannah Offor, a special assistant on protocol, Isiaku Aliagan, her media assistant, and Elizabeth Austin Amadi, her personal physician. On August 13, 2010, Mrs. Jonathan’s stylist, Agnes Aineneh, was appointed a presidential assistant. Two ladies-in-waiting were also appointed for the president’s wife. In the United Kingdom, the term Lady-in-Waiting, according to Wikipedia, is used to describe a woman attending a female member of the royal family other than the Queen or Queen Consort. In Cambodia, the term refers to high ranking female servants who served food and drink, fanned and massaged, and sometimes provided sexual services to the King. It is however not clear what Justin Adaba and Amina Iye Ahmadu do for Mrs. Jonathan.

Yet, there are other aides of the First Lady that are not on the list. Among them are her steward, Benson Okpara; her luggage officer, Geoffrey Obuofforibo; her aide-de-cap, Jacob Tamunoibuomi; her orderly, Abigail Jonah, her chief security officer; Francis Ibiene; her director of protocol, Mfama Abam; her principal protocol officer, Nuhu Kwache; and another media assistant, Ayobami Adewuyi.

It remains unclear the exact number of official staff permanently employed by the federal government for the state house in addition to the 133 personal aides. This would include bureaucrats, directors, security personnel, administrative staff, and cleaners. Indications are that this figure would be higher than that of the special aides since the State House has budgeted an additional N1.42 billion for the payment of salaries of these other staff this year.

The cost to the nation

The Nigeria Labour Congress is seeking a minimum wage of 18,000 naira for civil servants. The total sum used in paying the annual salary and allowances of the 133 presidential aides is N775, 207,125. This money will pay the basic salary of 3,600 civil servants. The money is also more than the Federal Ministry of Education needs this year to construct new schools (N202 million) and provide infrastructure in existing ones, including all the 103 unity schools (N102 million).

This money, even by government estimate, can construct 100-room hostels in each of the nation’s five first generation universities which will comfortably accommodate thousands of young undergraduates who have no place to sleep in our universities. (Cost of constructing a 25-room hostel is N41million.)

Between Jonathan and Yar’Adua

Investigations by NEXT indicate that Mr. Jonathan has more appetite for personal aides than his predecessor. After he was sworn-in in May 2010, following the death of Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Mr. Jonathan retained almost all the special aides appointed by his late boss. But he has also appointed 57 new ones. In the nine months that he has been president, Mr. Jonathan has appointed a chief of staff, a deputy chief of staff, nine special advisers, 23 senior special assistants, 21 special assistants and two personal assistants.

Human rights lawyer, Bamidele Aturu describes the appointments as “extreme recklessness”. “It’s wasteful and irritating,” he said. It shows brazen disregard for the people of Nigeria most of whom live below the poverty line. We should ask the president whether he wants to create a new country for himself in the villa.”

The situation in other climes

In the United States, there are 470 employees working in the White House. But most of them are employees on permanent appointments who have worked there for years. President Barack Obama only appointed a handful of key advisers.

Similarly, in South Africa, according to the 2009 annual report of the presidency, President Jacob Zuma appointed only seven advisers while the remaining 582 members of staff were mostly career civil servants.

Government officials in relevant agencies expressed differing views on the legality and appropriateness of the Presidency’s huge number of aides. An official of the Revenue Mobilization, Allocation, and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), the body empowered to fix salaries and allowances of political office holders, who did not want his name mentioned for fear that he might be victimized, said most aides ought to be sourced from the government departments and should be on secondment to the State House for as long as their services are needed.

“Special assistants and personal assistants to the president should be seconded from ministries i.e. they should be civil servants,” the official said. I don’t believe that the President has the right to appoint special assistants from outside the service, unlike his special advisers.”

The spokesperson to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Salisu Na’inna, however disagrees. “The President has all the right to choose his assistants and advisers and there is no constitutional limit to the number he decides upon,” Mr. Na’inna argued. “Anybody who has a circular to the contrary should produce it.”

What the law says

Section 151 of the 1999 Constitution provides that, “The President may appoint any person as a Special Adviser to assist him in the performance of his functions.

“The number of such Advisers and their remuneration and allowances shall be as prescribed by law or by resolution of the National Assembly.

“Any appointment made pursuant to the provisions of this section shall be at the pleasure of the President and shall cease when the President ceases to hold office.”

But the Revenue Mobilisation and Fiscal Commission says the President and heads of other arms of government are appointing too many aides. In its latest executive report on reviewed remuneration package, the commission noted “there is non-compliance with the provisions of the remuneration packages such as contained in either the Report of the Commission or the Act itself.

“Such violations by the three tiers and arms of Government,” the commission further said, “include arbitrary appointment of high number of Personal Assistants which is adding more cost to the running of Government at the various levels.

“It is difficult to determine what value they add to service delivery or to governance. The Commission advise that all these illegal appointments by the 3-Tiers of Government be stopped and officers concerned be relieved of their appointments. Also the three tiers and arms of Government should eliminate or limit the number of Personal Assistants to reduce cost of governance.”

Civil Society is angry too

Members of civil society groups were also quick to condemn Mr. Jonathan for his large army of personal aides citing the lack of regulation as a cause of the trend, which persists in the National Assembly as well.

“Section 151 of the 1999 Constitution allows the president to appoint a number of advisers approved by the Senate to help him in his work,” says Eze Onyekpere of the Centre for Social Justice. “But what the president does is to appoint all manner of aides that have become a drain on our national resources. We should blame this on the dereliction of duty by the National Assembly, which has failed to prescribe the number of aides the president could appoint as well as their emoluments. The legislature should quickly call the president to order,”

Mr Sani also described the President’s numerous appointments as an act of frivolity. “Jonathan’s many aides are simply campaign foot soldiers employed to be paid with government money. And for a government that has less than four months to leave, what assistant or advice does he need at this time? I think that Nigerians – labour, civil society and opposition parties should openly condemn and resist this wicked act,” he said in Abuja over the weekend.”

Osita Okechukwu, spokesperson of the Conference of Nigerian Political Parties, also believes the appointment of many aides is a reckless political strategy.

“By appointing such ridiculous number of aides, the president is building a brigade for the election. For instance, Bianca Ojukwu was appointed to capture APGA. His action shows that all he is saying about reforming the economy is an orchestra of deception. Can you reform the economy when you are increasing the recurrent expenditure profile instead of trying to limit it to enable you to have more funds for capital projects like the Mambilla power project? It’s wastage and this does not give confidence to investors. Foreign direct investment cannot come to a country with that level of wastefulness,” he said.

Response from the presidency

The Special Adviser to the President on Communications, Ima Niboro, wouldn’t comment on his boss’ penchant for appointing special aides. He did not respond to text messages and calls to his mobile telephone on the matter.

http://234next.com/csp/cms/sites/Next/News/Metro/Politics/5678614-146/story.csp

ritchboy:
Can't wait to get my hands on MvC3. . .

MvC3 has been available on the torrents since last week. Only 3gigs for the PS3 version. Some bad people must have leaked it.
http://isohunt.com/torrents/?ihq=marvel+vs+capcom+3

Mobinga:
Sony has started banning jailbreak-ed ps3's

The funny thing about the bans is that you don't have to have used PSN for them to ban you. It turns out that once you're online, the PS3 automatically sends Sony your private info without your knowledge.

If you want to use PSN, the best thing is to either upgrade to 3.56, lose the ability to run backups and wait for a custom 3.56 to come out; or disconnect your PS3 from the internet completely until they make a proper stealth CFW that can go online without being detected. We have to choose between PSN and Backups. For now we can't have both.

If you are planning to go legit, don't forget to change to the original 3.55 before you upgrade to 3.56. Upgrading directly form CFW may permanently brick your console!

Cheers.

jazyreal:
am not saying downgrading, if your ps3 is from 3.01ill av to upgrade to 3.55 before my software will work on any ps3 but if u are already on 3.56 i don't need to downgrade the software will work on it , its real am not scam its work first before payment.

For now, its impossible to jailbreak 3.56.

I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you're just ill-informed. There are far too many people trying to do 419 on Nairaland these days.

Just to be clear, there is for now no way to downgrade, jailbreak or install unauthorised software on 3.56. Sony has patched the original vulnerability and changed the encryption key homebrew apps have been using.

The hacker devs have made good progress towards jailbreaking it (all the new keys are known) but so far nobody has been able to make a custom 3.56 and anyone who says otherwise is either a scammer, a hoaxer, or is just ignorant.

The main cause of the delay is that Sony has been suing people and forcing the really good hackers underground. A new jailbreak will come out sooner or later. In the meantime, lets enjoy our 3.55 and be patient.

jazyreal:
upgrade your ps3 without usb jailbreack for as low as 4000naira with any game of your choice,works on any latest ps3 update, 3.01 to 3.56 ,
if u want to know how to do it your self , call me on my mobile and lets talk bizz

It's impossible to downgrade from 3.56. Stop lying to the public.

People like you are the cancer that is killing Nairaland

beeyee18:
dude that charges, lmao,anyz i wanna b nice, alot of u will brick your ps3's, dis is how u will do it, your goin to update it to 3.56.do that n your ps3 is doomed,

Obviously you shouldn't update to 3.56 from jailbroken firmware. Haven't you read my previous posts? As long as you don't update, you won't have any problems. None of the latest games require the new firmware and by the time games do, it would have been hacked.

Also don't connect a cracked PS3 to the internet. I just found out that Sony collects your information even if you don't use PSN. They may be able to detect that you're using jailbroken software and they've started banning people.

This shouldn't affect most people 'cos of our crap internet connections, but if you plan on playing online in the future, you should be careful for now.

Our brave hackers are working on a solution. Keep watching this thread.

ibro911:
Its pretty affordable. I think the modem costs 9k and subscription is 15k per month but I'm not 100% sure. I got a free upgrade to 4G cos I had been a subscriber since. The 24 hour package is 15k per month.
There are two types of modems, a portable one and a fixed one. I use the fixed one. The portable one is basically a modem and a wifi router. Its the size of a router.
No download limits, no policing. Speeds from about 150kb/s to about 260kb/s.

Swift definitely has a download limit. Its usually between 5GB and 10GB depending on your plan. I know because I just bought their modem/router last weekend and I specifically asked them about this. Also, my office uses Swift and we got cut off 2 weeks ago after we exceeded our limit.

Ignore the nonsense written on their website. They haven't updated it in months and most of the info there is obsolete. If you have any enquiries you should try calling them (01 710 1010) or visiting one of their offices.

ibro911:
Do you play online?
I cant sacrifice my PSN o

If you've been on PSN in the last 2 weeks then you must have updated to the latest official firmware (3.56) meaning no jailbreaking for you. For now its impossible to downgrade to 3.55.

I'm sure someone will figure out how to break the new firmware sooner or later, but it may take longer than people first thought because Sony has fixed most of the gaping holes and they've been busy suing people left, right and centre. Unfortunately, they've managed to scare off many of the more talented hackers and slow down the jailbreaking process.

You'll just have to be patient until the new firmware gets hacked. Watch this space.

bisiaet:
I cant really recollect if their is any advantages in arranged marriage.

Arranged marriages have been the norm for most of human history.

The modern system of choosing your own partner, courtship and the concept of "marrying for love" only started about 150 years ago in the west and a little later than that here. Arranged marriage has served humanity well for centuries so its a bit silly that so many people are condemning it now.

I'm not saying its a perfect system, but its really not all that bad. As long as both parties are willing participants and the parents are acting in their children's best interests rather than because of any ulterior motives, arranged marriages are fine.

Sony just updated their official firmware to 3.56. Its a minor update which only seems to block homebrew apps like backup managers.

Jailbreakers are advised not to update yet as they will lose access to their backed up games and won't be able to run homebrew. This means no more PSN or online gaming on jailbroken systems because you'll need to update to the latest firmware before you can log in.

Updated custom firmwares are expected in the next few days. I'll post more news ITT when I get it.

Meanwhile, those who want to update to the official 3.56 are strongly advised to revert to the official 3.55 first. updating from CFW may result in a bricked system (that means it won't come on ever again).

A piece of advice for anyone thinking of jailbreaking.

You could probably do it yourself if you have some knowledge of how computers work. But before you try, make sure you properly learn how so you know what you're doing. Be careful, do your homework first!!!! One mistake and your expensive console may never come on again.

If you are not sure how to do it, you're are better off asking an expert. If you live in Lagos, you can contact the guy I mentioned in my last post at lesfuq@yahoo.com

You should be ready to pay some money though. The guy no dey pity person.

PS3 custom firmwares are officially out.

I've been running the "kmeaw" CFW since saturday and it works beautifully. I can back-up my game disks to the hard drive, download and play games and even run games off a flash/external hard drive. No dongles, no bricking, no stress.

I've noticed that most PS owners have no idea that this is possible. I only know 1 other person who has done this and he's charging people.

Has anybody else jailbroken their PS3s? Post your experiences in this thread.

Jailbroke my PS3 last week. I've backed up all my games to the HDD and am now doing some serious piracy. No need to buy or swap anymore.

You guys need to go on the internet and find out how to do it yourselves. Unless you're born-again or something.

Evil Brain:
New question. I just got myself a playstation 3 and an HDTV for christmas. I'm now thinking of turning my old desktop into a media server so I can stream movies and music to the PS wirelessly using DLNA. Most people I know use windows media player or media center, but I don't want to reinstall windows.

What's the most hassle-free way of doing this in Linux? For those of you who've done this, which program did you use? I've heard of Moovida and MythTV and google suggested a program called PS3MediaServer but I've never tried any of them before. I'm hoping to set it up this weekend, but I don't have much time to experiment (my office has been killing me with work.)

Done some more research. Apparently, you can't use Moovida as a server. My options are MythTV, TVersity, PS3MediaServer, MediaTomb, and XBMC. There's a few others but these seem to be the most commonly used and PS3MediaServer is apparently the most popular. I'm still at work so I haven't done it yet, but I'll tell you how it goes whenever I get round to it.

@4ller You need a very good wireless router to be sure the signal gets everywhere in your house. If you want to record satellite TV, you'll probably need a PC with a DVB-S tuner card plus a smart card reader. DSTV recently married each of their smart cards to one single decoder so there might be added problems with them. I've never tried it do I don't really know.
Before you buy the tuner card you could try finding out which satellite and which transponder DSTV or HiTV uses so you can email the manufacturer or ask them in their forums whether it works. Plus I'm sure other people must have done the same thing if not in Naija, then in SA so try googling it.

Greetings people! Been a while.

New question. I just got myself a playstation 3 and an HDTV for christmas. I'm now thinking of turning my old desktop into a media server so I can stream movies and music to the PS wirelessly using DLNA. Most people I know use windows media player or media center, but I don't want to reinstall windows.

What's the most hassle-free way of doing this in Linux? For those of you who've done this, which program did you use? I've heard of Moovida and MythTV and google suggested a program called PS3MediaServer but I've never tried any of them before. I'm hoping to set it up this weekend, but I don't have much time to experiment (my office has been killing me with work.)

I'll appreciate any help.

There's nothing strange about a 94 year old man fathering a child. What concerns me is the age of the mother. At 59, practically all women are menopausal and usable to conceive without some serious hormonal manipulation. I seriously doubt a bunch of Indian villagers can afford that type of fertility treatment (And please, nobody should start talking any nonsense about using "natural herbs", I'm in no mood to listen to that kind of bullshiat today)

Obviously something fishy is going on here.

There was a very similar case a few years ago in Lagos: the "Miracle Baby" case where one sixty-something year old mama claimed that she had given birth. Some people raised eyebrows and I remember all these born-again retards shouting that it was the work of God and that those who doubted the woman were unbelievers, pagans, etc. Eventually, DNA tests proved conclusively that the woman had stolen a newborn baby from another family with help from one evil midwife. If thats what has happened here, then I hope they rot in prison.

ladej:
e be like say the definition of the word terrorist needs to be redefined. haba anything now na terrorist. o ga ju. we are all witnessing a live robert ludlum novel and its unfolding beyond our eyes. the despoil charges are beyond ridiculous. truly absurd

Terrorist: 1. A person whom the US government doesn't like.
2. A person whom right wing Americans e.g. Rush Limbaugh or Sarah Palin say is is a terrorist.

Aaodonkaa is the greatest proof of Yar'Adua's incompetence. There's no excuse for bringing this corrupt buffoon into our government and to giving him, of all positions, the post of Attorney General.
And as if that wasn't bad enough, Yar'Adua kept him there for over 2 years even as the guy embarrassed Nigeria time after time after time.

Inexcusable!!!

You Nigerians are amazing! You live in one of the most corrupt countries in the world, where the people don't even know how much of their money a senator takes home each month. And yet you are all criticizing a man fighting to increase transparency in government.

Wikieaks has exposed countless examples of government and corporate corruption. They showed the world how the US and its allies have repeatedly lied about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They leaked a video showing the American military gunning down innocent civilians including 2 Reuters journalists.

And as a direct result of these activities, they are being hounded out of existence. The site is currently offline because someone (the CIA?) is mounting an illegal DDOS attack on it. Mr. Assange's life has been repeatedly threatened. People are calling for his murder. He has been arrested over highly suspect "sexual misconduct" (not r@pe) charges. His bank account has been suspended, someone even suggested that his son be kidnapped to "get at him". All this despite him not haven broken any laws. The US Pentagon even confirmed that no one has ever been hurt of killed by his organization's activities.

As far as I am concerned, this guy is a hero. And the villain here is clearly the US government which is starting to act more and more like China or North Korea.

I would happily donate money to wikileaks. More grease to their elbow.

Its funny that people still have this outdated attitude about HIV. While its undertandable to be a little worried when you're doing the test, too many people overreact as if being positive is the end of your life.

The fact is that HIV is no longer the unstoppable killer disease it was 20 years ago. There are now drugs for it. And those drugs are highly effective and freely available. You can have HIV and live a normal life. You can have HIV negative children. Fine, there's still no cure but HIV is now a chronic illness like diabetes or hypertension. You take your drugs and you'll be fine. Personally, I was more scared when I did my Hepatitis B test.

I think everybody should do the test. You have nothing to lose. If know you're negative, you tend to be more careful not to get infected. And if you're positive, you can get treatment when you're still healthy. That way, you won't get sick. Plus if you don't know you have it, you can't protect you partner or your children from getting it from you.

The saddest thing in the world is seeing those poor people who only find out they have HIV when they are half dead, or when their innocent children start getting sick. AIDS is a terrible sickness, but nowadays, its almost completely preventable.

Long story short, wear your condom, do your test, and if you're positive, thank God you found out on time and take your drugs.

Cheers.

Please don't quote WebMD. The info there is seriously dumbed down for laypeople. Probably why you misunderstood.

Let me clarify: coronary angiography via cardiac catheterization is done to look for blocked arteries and inserting a stent, also via cardiac catheterization, is done to open up said blockage. The hole in the Reddington baby's heart was closed with an umbrella device via cardiac catheterization.

All of the above are forms of surgery because they involve mainly physical means of diagnosing or treating a problem. If they had closed the hole with a drug, like they sometimes do in newborns with a similar condition, it would have been non-surgical. There's nothing like old school vernacular here. Surgery is surgery is surgery.

I don't know how to explain it more than that. You'll just have to take my word for it. I'm tired and I'm going to bed.

Good night!

buzugee:
dude, this is not even remotely close to being called a surgery. these kinds of procedures are even performed by people called cath lab technicians. you think they will allow someone who is not a surgeon to perform surgerys ?

Surgery: "The third part of medicine which cures by the hand. It does not omit medicaments and regulated diets, but does most by hand." The first recorded definition of surgery by Celsus in AD 30.
From wikipedia: "a medical specialty that uses operative,
manual and instrumental techniques on a patient to investigate and/or treat a pathological condition"

The long and short is if you are using mostly physical means to treat your patients, then you are a surgeon. It doesn't matter whether its reducing a fracture, removing a gall bladder or blocking a hole in the heart with a catheter and an umbrella device.

By definition, dentists are surgeons, and so are obstetricians, physiotherapists, chiropractors, cath lab technicians and backroom abortionists. The original surgeons weren't even doctors at all. In old school England, most of them were barbers.

I really don't see you point.

buzugee:
actually cardiac catheterization is not a form of surgery and the vessel used is not a vein. it is the femoral or radial artery. just because a procedure is invasive does not mean it is a form of surgery. if we classify all invasive procedures as surgeries then we will have to call phlebotomy and biopsy a surgery too

It involves sharp objects and blood is shed, therefore it is surgery.

Also, they definitely don't use the femoral artery. Actually, because most cardiac catheterizations are done because of coronary artery disease (for coronary angiography or to insert a stent or something), they usually go throught an artery to get to the aorta and the coronary vessels.

What they did at Reddington is completely different. Its a procedure called Percutaneous Transcatheter Closure and it involves going through the femoral <b>vein</b>, getting into the right artium through the IVC and deploying the umbrella device to close the hole. An added benefit of using the low pressure venous side is that you're less likely to paint the ceiling red when your during the proceedure.

emedicine.medscape.com/article/162914-overview

coded777:
Whether it is done via surgery or forgery is no concern of anyone, provided the operation was successful. Believe it, Goodluck has come to stay in Nigeria.

I'm not trying to diminish their achievement. Obviously, this is a big deal and the people involved should be proud.

All I'm saying is that we should try and be accurate and use the proper english to decribe things. Saying the hole was closed without surgery implies that maybe Pastor Chris or Guru Maraji closed it supernaturally or something. Cardiac catheterization is a type of surgery.

And wtf does GEJ have to do with this? Do we have to bring politics into everything?

Sorry about the typos and the previous double post btw. I'm typing this on my phone.

The headline is wrong by the way. Caordiac catheterization is definitely a form of surgery. Its not as serious as cutting open the baby's chest cavity, but its still a very invasive proceedure.

You have to pass a tube through the femoral vein (in the thigh), all the way into the right atrium in the baby's heart. Nowadays I thing they use an umbrella-like device that opens up to block the hole which means the child will be carrying around a foreign body in her chest for the rest of her life.

Its ridiculous to say the hole was closed "without surgery"

The headline is wrong by the way. Caordiac catheterization is definitely a form of surgery. Its not as serious as cutting open the baby's chest cavity, but its still a very invasive proceedure.

You have to pass a tube through the femoral vein (in the thigh), all the way into the right atrium in the baby's heart. Nowadays I thing they use an umbrella-like device that opens up to block the hole which means the child will be carrying around a foreign body in her chest for the rest of her life.

Its ridiculous to say the hole was closed "without surgery"