My money was on viruses

Herewith a story on antibiotic-resistant bacteria that have popped up here in the U.S. of late. I always believed that nature's response to excess human population would be viral, but I may have been wrong. Anyhow, the story will give you pause if you were thinking about routine anything in a hospital.

In at least 37 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico, doctors have identified bacteria, including E. coli, that produce Klebsiella pneumoniae carbapenemase, or KPC--an enzyme that makes bacteria resistant to most known treatments. It's much more prevalent in America than bacteria that produce NDM-1, the enzyme that has Indian doctors "hell scared," and, according to Alexander Kallen, a medical officer at the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, the final outcome isn't much different: superbacteria that are hard to kill.

Read the whole thing here in a Yahoo news story from U.S. News & World Report.

Eric Holder

Ever since the financial world blew up behind funky house loans, some of us have waited eagerly to see the Department of Justice draw some blood from the bankers for fraudulent activity. Nothing. A sory from Reuters might help explain:

(Reuters) - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department's criminal division, were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who's Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

Imagine that, bankster influence in the DoJ. Read it all here. We ought tent DC like a termite-infested house and exterminate them all.

Yes, you can [or maybe not]

A lift from Joanne Jacobs, who found it somewhere else, a nice little jab at the half-baked idea that everyone is capable of anything.

Remember: Half of the population is of below average intelligence.

More piling on in the war on Alfalfa

Alfalfa, Mrs. Alfalfa, and the Alfalfa sprouts took a road trip. He blogged about it in the Vicad and ran the blog entry in print. They lived dangerously and went to strange and exotic places. He reports, '… We cruised along the 80 mph speed limit of West Texas and arrived the first night in El Paso in fine fashion. We had a pleasant dinner at the nearby Macaroni Grill …' The Macaroni Grill!!?? That's the place to eat in El Paso, one of the best Mexican-food towns in the U.S.? You can drive five blocks in any direction and encounter a joint serving Mexican food better than anyone in Victoria has any hope of ever eating, and they ate at the Macaroni Grill? Tsk, tsk.
I feel a little bad about taking little jabs at the Vicad when the whole world has risen up to smite them. A friend forwards this blog, devoted to what appears to be a sea war on the paper.
It's amazing for a paper to elicit such venom from their readership. Pore ole Advocate.

Ah, Newtie

Like a logorrhetic zombie, Newt Gingrich keeps on walking and talking. Someone wisecracked that Gingrich is the stupid person's idea of a smart person. One of his sillier ideas expressed is that we can somehow magically produce enough oil in this country to replace the petroleum we import.
Sometimes when I am threatened by rare sensations of optimism, I go to The Oil Drum, one of the best sites on the Webz for professionals' take on the petroleum situation in the world. Re Gingrich, Oil Drum says

During the CNN Republican presidential debate Tuesday, November 23, Newt Gingrich made statements about U.S. potential oil supply that reveal either total ignorance of energy or supremely dangerous demagoguery. He stated that the United States could discover and produce enough oil in 2012 to cause a worldwide oil price collapse.

Read it all here. There is no drill baby, drill possible in this world. The Oil Drum merits respectful study; those folks know a thing or two about oil, and they're not optimistic about the whole deal.

Res ipsa loquitur

Man named Beezow Doo-Doo Zopittybop-bop-bop arrested
Wanna guess where?

Bad, bad law

Vacationing in Hawaii, Obama signed a miserable bill at the tail end of last year, a bill that will allow indefinite detention of American citizens. So much for habeas corpus. This is another chunk chipped off our rights as Americans. I would hope that a federal court will slap it down in the dirt. Bloggers from left to right are correctly damning the damnable law. You need to read these:
here
and here
and this one,
http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/02/final-curtain-obama-signs-indefinite-detention-of-citizens-into-law-as-final-act-of-2011/
which I can't get to link but you can cut & paste. They're all interesting.
Governments, R or D, seek to expand their power and must be restrained. Only one Texas Representative voted against this bad ol bill. Wanna guess who? That's right, our very own Ron Paul.

Skipping to politics

A BBC columnist has a cogent piece on the Iowa caucuses:

A leading Republican, who was in Congress for more than 10 years, answered my question: "Who can beat Obama?" with a casual, "a mammal". Then he added sadly: "But they are all reptiles."

Read the whole thing here. Always interesting to get the cousins' take on our peculiar politics.
I'm not certain I can bear months and months of this arrant silliness. Perhaps I can pick up my SS cks in Ecuador or Argentina. It's funny as hell to watch the big-time press boys not talking about Ron Paul. They are upset with him because of his dangerous, extremist ideas: dismember the empire, bring troops home, throttle the crony capitalists, audit the fed. Clearly a nutcase. Of all the R candidates, the only ones who seem to me personally amiable are Jon Huntsman and ol' Ron, perhaps the only gentleman extant in politics in either party.