Politics: A Sign of The Times

We hardly know what to say when greeted with news such as this.

Yes, that incivil &mdash strike that, that foul harpy, Melanie Morgan, who once polluted the airwaves of San Francisco with her poisonous assaults on reason and the reasonable &mdash is GONE!! We're sorely tempted to run up and down the house shrieking, "Ding, dong, the Witch is dead! The wicked witch, the wicked witch, ding, dong, the wicked witch is dead!" But despite being in possession of a fine singing voice and a pair of lungs that might not shame a Pavarotti, we fear los gatos at mi casa will be (a) awakened, and (b) as is their wont, offended.

So we will confine our glee to the written word. Let us turn our attention to the wording of the article describing our liberation from this vile vermin. We would refer to her as a virago, but the sexist overtones of that word dismay us, especially when one considers that Morgan has more in common with pre-evolutionary slimebags like Rush Limbaugh, Michael "I'm not a Jew" Savage, and Sean "I'm Slime" Hannity than women:

KSFO owner Citadel Broadcasting decided not to renew [Morgan's] contract as part of the company’s announced across-the-board financial cost cutting.

“The ratings were terrific and I got to connect with a lot of passionate conservative casues, and I’m really grateful for that,” Morgan told me just now. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to the show, I don’t know what’s going to happen to KSFO.”

We venture to guess that KSFO will do just fine without that ambulatory vituperation. Perhaps it will adopt a format that will allow real human beings to communicate instead of giving it up to foul demagogues.

For examples of Morgan's vile spew, you can listen to Morgan and her co-host(s):

• Trashing the victims of Hurricane Katrina, making an on-air death threat to Nancy Pelosi, and calling George Soros a Nazi collaborationist;
• Threatening physical violence against Jon Soltz of VoteVets and questioning the patriotism of soldiers who speak out against Bush's pet war in Iraq;
• Calling for the execution of newspaper editors with whom she did not agree (Bill Keller, NYT);
• Airing repeated racist smears against Black Americans and Jewish Americans, including Al Sharpton, Barack Obama, and George Soros;
• Airing nasty remarks celebrating torture;
• Making threats against all Muslims, especially Indonesian Muslims(??).

Melanie Morgan's greatest claim to fame, as her sad legacy winds down, will probably be, in the end, her vicious reaction to Media Matters and to the lone blogger at Spocko's Brain, who covered much of her nastiness that the rest of the media simply ignored, to the detriment of the victims. Glee aside, we see in this evictment of the nasty wretch a hopeful sign. Perhaps the tide is finally turning and the American public has seen through the nasty, hateful, subhuman purveyors of slime in all its forms, and has become disgusted enough to want human discourse again.

Listening to Morgan blather on makes us so ill, we're going to have to take a break here. Enjoy. Or maybe, don't. But do keep an eye out for this amoebic wretch and the next gig she takes on. None of us can rest while people like her have the ear of deranged listeners and actively encourage violence and brutality against others. Let us know if she surfaces in your town.

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Health: Lasers Cure HIV?

According to Auntie Beeb, lasers could be used to combat HIV and MRSA and other such diseases. Currently, ultraviolet light laser treatments would destroy healthy tissue along with unwanted microorganisms.

However, a new type of laser treatment, called Impulsive Stimulated Raman Scattering (ISRS), which uses infrared femtosecond lasers with carefully selected wavelengths, has been shown to be successful in shattering the protein coat of microorganisms and destroying them.

After several attempts, the researchers found a level which "inactivates both viruses and bacteria while leaving sensitive materials such as mammalian cells unharmed".

Lead researcher Professor Kong-Thon Tsen, of Arizona State University, said: "The research so far suggests that ISRS will be ready for use in disinfection and could provide treatments against some of the worst, often drug-resistant, bacterial and viral pathogens."

Anything that rids the world of the scourge of HIV and MRSA is good.

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Health: MRSA and Multi-Drug-Resistant Acinetobacter

There might be some confusion, even among eminent worthies of a nonmedical stripe, about MRSA (Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus) and Multi-Drug-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (MDRAb). The charming bug shown above is MDRAb. This bug is MRSA.


Both bugs were, heretofore, common in the human environment, living quite happily among us. However, both, having recently encountered antibiotics, have developed strains which are resistant to one or more types of antibiotics. There, the similarity ends.

Acinetobacter baumannii started showing up shortly after the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, primarily in hospitals. Walter Reed of recent ill-fame showed an explosion of cases after 2002, including a strain of the bacteria that became "flesh-eating," according to Science News.

Faux News reports that St. Joseph's Mercy Health Center in Hot Springs, Arkansas, has closed its ICU due to an outbreak of acinetobacter. ABC News, which reported the same incident, titled it "Drug-Resistant Staph Hits ... ," although they correctly identify the cause of the shutdown as Acinetobacter baumannii.

Says Science News:

Some strains of the bug resist nearly all antibacterial drugs, forcing physicians to rely on colistin, an antibiotic that fell out of favor in the 1970s after reports that it caused kidney damage. "We're resurrecting colistin from antiquity," says physician Michael Zapor of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. But he adds that "it's only a matter of time before we lose [it], too."

Well, that's an endearing choice. Would you prefer to die, or live without kidneys? Can't say the options are good either way.

Both MRSA and MDRAb are nothing to sneeze at. As we blogged recently, MRSA cases are exploding, and there is a hospital variant as well as a community variant.

Nevada state health official Dr. Steven Althoff had this to say about MRSA:

“I've seen probably at least a fivefold increase in cases over the last year,” Althoff said. “It is super important to stress that while there is a lot of hype about this, staph has been a plague for thousands of years. This is just a special flavor of it that has drug resistance.”

Dr. F. Kevin Murphy, a Reno infectious disease specialist, said MRSA has become a “greater and greater problem.” He said he had no cases six years ago.

“Now I probably get calls from physicians on how to diagnose or manage MRSA infections once a week,” he said. “I get called to the emergency room probably once a month.”

The Associated Press tells us:

About 1.7 million Americans each year develop infections from various germs while hospitalized and almost 100,000 of them die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

MRSA accounts for only about 10 percent of these infections. Other worrisome bugs include C-difficile (an intestinal infection), vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (linked with intestinal, skin and blood infections), and drug-resistant Acinetobacter (which can cause pneumonia, skin and blood infections); none of them accounts for more than 10 percent of hospital infections.

I'm sure that's no consolation to people who catch any of these bugs. But my original point is, how is having an inept Homeland Security department and TSA goons who routinely manhandle us making us safer? We ought to be looking at the rising number of antibiotic-resistant germs plaguing us, and the rapid mutation of various types of bugs.

Over at Mike the Mad Biologist's, Mike and commentators discuss the possibilities. Especially in light of the fact that large numbers of pigs slaughtered in Holland appear to have MRSA up their noses. Ugh!

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Health - MRSA Is Spreading

We've blogged about this before, as our two regular readers know. But it's kind of scary to see the progress of MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). The WhatPoo tells us that the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) now estimates that MRSA is now killing more people than AIDS.

"This is a significant public health problem. We should be very worried," said Scott K. Fridkin, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC.

Other researchers noted that the estimate includes only the most serious infections caused by the germ [...].

"It's really just the tip of the iceberg," said Elizabeth A. Bancroft, a medical epidemiologist at the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health who wrote an editorial in JAMA accompanying the new studies. "It is astounding."

[...] Resistant strains of the organism, however, have been increasingly turning up in hospitals and in small outbreaks outside of heath-care settings, such as among athletes, prison inmates and children.

This is the best possible argument for universal health care. If antibiotic-resistant bacteria are spreading and killing the population, we might be facing an epidemic. Epidemics don't discriminate on the basis of class. Even if you homeschool your kids, and build your own gym for your family's use, every time you go out in the world, or let someone into your private enclave, you risk contact with these deadly bacteria.

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Health - Rise In "Superbug" Cases

in the UK, at any rate. I believe the rate is also skyrocketing in the U.S., but don't have a cite.

This is why universal health insurance is so important. Don't think for one minute that if you're rich and can afford the best in health care, you're immune to all those nasty icky diseases out there. Your nanny, maid, gardener, secretary, nurse, nurse's aide, your children's teachers, the barista at StarFUCKOFFbucks, the cashier who makes your change at the local grocery store or supermarket - fuck, the seasonal, usually immigrant, workers who pick the produce that graces your fine dining table - are increasingly less likely to have health insurance, and, thanks to your, and your "have-more" buddies' attacks on unions and labor laws, are increasingly less likely to take sick days. Most of the devastating diseases that you could fall prey to result from crowded living conditions and poverty. Sure, you live out in the suburbs, in a gated community, but that's not going to protect you. Your mailman, the UPS delivery person, the meter reader, the shipping clerk. Your local grocery store gal or boy. They could be living in the city and commuting an hour or more to their jobs serving you. They all come in close contact with you.

Give them the goddamned health insurance and sick days, before you find yourself or your kids/families infected with XDR TB, or clostridium, MRSA, or hantavirus, or the plague. It's all out there baby, in this great big sea of humanity, and we're all swimming in it.

Image courtesy of Auntie Beeb. Linkies also.

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Health news this week

Well, poo. I always knew smoking was addictive, and now I know how addictive. Yes, I'm trying to quit yet again. In my own defence, I smoke two cigarettes a day, sometimes fewer. I never smoke around the cats. But I want to say someday that I do not smoke at all.

Gardasil protects women against human papilloma virus (hpv), cause of genital warts and linked to uterine cancer. Apparently, it also protects against anal and penile cancer in boys. So I don't know why the BBC would spotlight this as a "gay man's issue," since, to the best of my knowledge, the virus doesn't inquire as to your sexuality before it begins its dirty work.

Luverly. As I age disgracefully, the number of threats to my health are multiplying like ... like ... bacteria! Quit laughing. You're next.

Prolactin holds out hope for multiple sclerosis sufferers. Yay. Interestingly, the Harvard School of Public Health says that contraceptive use can also help. Even more interesting, birth month apparently determines one's risk. Mamas, don't get pregnant in the fall or winter.

Puir little beasties. They mayn't be friendly or anything, but this is a horrible way to go. Good to hear that they've got help.

In other news, apparently the number of dog bites has increased over the past decade. Are dogs getting more stressed out by modern living? Or are parents devolving into "too stupid to spawn" types who leave kids and dogs alone together without ensuring that the kids know enough not to irritate the dogs? I grew up with lots of animals, and I can remember being bitten by a dog only once. It was my fault, I was teasing the poor creature with one of my toys, and he finally tired of it. My parents, er, fluffed my cheeks (nether) so mightily that I never teased another animal.

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