RUTHFULLY YOURS

In the U.S. and abroad, humans are at risk of increasingly weak antibiotics and increasingly strong superbugs. Before the discovery of penicillin in the early 20th century, a significant portion of people unlucky enough to contract a bacterial infection died. With increasing antibiotic resistance, we risk a post-antibiotic era every bit as frightening.

A report out this month from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention highlights multidrug-resistant bacteria as one of the world’s most serious and pressing health threats. “Antibiotic Resistance Threats in the United States, 2013” notes that drug resistance is often the result of poor stewardship, defined as the lack of careful use of antibiotics in humans and animals.

When antibiotics are used unnecessarily or inappropriately, we kill the most susceptible organisms and, in their void, create a more favorable environment for the selection of more-resistant bacteria. This has resulted in a scary alphabet soup of superbugs, including C. diff, CRE, MRSA, multidrug-resistant TB, and VRE, that can be deadly to those with suppressed immune systems and are threatening even the healthiest patients.

The CDC’s strategies to address resistance include tracking resistant bacteria, improving uses of antibiotics, and developing new antibiotics and diagnostic tests for resistant bacteria. But success also means reducing the overuse of antibiotics and requires a commitment from more than health professionals. Patients need to change their expectations for receiving an antibiotic when an illness is likely viral—in which case it will never respond to an antibiotic—or self-limited, like a cold that will go away on its own. Doctors need to feel supported by patients, not pressured, when they exhibit prudent stewardship in prescribing only those medicines that will be effective.

Preventing infection is another critical piece of the CDC’s national strategy, and we still have a lot to learn on that front. That is why Hospital Corporation of America, in partnership with researchers from the CDC, Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute and Harvard Medical School, University of California Irvine School of Medicine, Rush Medical College and Washington University, recently conducted a study known as Reduce MRSA (short for the Randomized Evaluation of Decolonization Versus Universal Clearance to Eliminate MRSA).

Reasonableness at last. That was the general reaction Wednesday to the news that Iranian President Hassan Rouhani appeared to acknowledge and condemn the Holocaust during an interview this week with CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. Previous President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had rarely missed an opportunity to call the Nazi genocide of six million Jews a “myth.” But Mr. Rouhani has adopted a more tempered tone, and the world longs to see him as someone with whom “we can do business together,” as Margaret Thatcher once said about Mikhail Gorbachev.

One problem: The words attributed to Mr. Rouhani are not what he said.

According to CNN’s translation of Mr. Rouhani’s remarks, the Iranian President insisted that “whatever criminality they [the Nazis] committed against the Jews, we condemn.” Yet as Iran’s semi-official news agency Fars pointed out, Mr. Rouhani never uttered anything approximating those words. Nor, contrary to the CNN version, did he utter the word “Holocaust.” Instead, he spoke about “historical events.” Our independent translation of Mr. Rouhani’s comments confirms that Fars, not CNN, got the Farsi right.

So what did Mr. Rouhani really say? After offering a vague indictment of “the crime committed by the Nazis both against the Jews and the non-Jews,” he insisted that “I am not a history scholar,” and that “the aspects that you talk about, clarification of these aspects is a duty of the historians and researchers.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/25/samuel-l-jackson-obama_n_3987808.html?icid=maing-grid7%7Chtmlws-main-bb%7Cdl2%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D381659

(The actor’s use of the f-word is not out of anger. He has said that using the term “motherf**kers” helped stop his stutter.) HUH???? RSK

Samuel L. Jackson did not mince words when he said President Obama needs to “stop trying to ‘relate'” and “be f–king presidential.”

The 64-year-old recently gave a candid interview to Playboy’s Stephen Rebello. The discussion opened with talk of his new flick with Spike Lee, “Oldboy,” and then turned to talk of linguistic errors in society today. Jackson told an anecdote about how, when he was younger, he always made sure to address his elders properly. Nowadays, he sees people on Twitter who don’t even know the difference between “your” and “you’re.” (To which the actor asked: “How the f–k did we become a society where mediocrity is acceptable?”)

Rebello raised the point that even highly educated people, including Barack Obama, consciously drop g’s from words in order to sound more like the average Joe.

“First of all, we know it ain’t because of his blackness, so I say stop trying to ‘relate,'” Jackson replied while chatting with the men’s magazine in West Hollywood. “Be a leader. Be f–king presidential. Look, I grew up in a society where I could say ‘It ain’t’ or ‘What it be’ to my friends. But when I’m out presenting myself to the world as me, who graduated from college, who had family who cared about me, who has a well-read background, I f–king conjugate.”

He then addressed comments he made last year to Ebony magazine, saying he hopes “Obama gets scary in the next four years.” Alas, he doesn’t think much has changed since then, due to the political deadlock in Washington.

“He got a little heated about the kids getting killed in Newtown and about the gun law,” he told Playboy. “He’s still a safe dude. But with those Republicans, we’re now in a situation where even if he said, ‘I want to give you motherf–kers a raise,’

  http://www.humanrightsvoices.org/ President Obama’s standing on the world stage took another nosedive Wednesday at the UN General Assembly. According to White House officials, the president of the world’s leading democracy was prepared to shake hands with the president of the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism – and the terrorist turned the democrat down. The […]

http://pjmedia.com/andrewmccarthy/2013/09/25/whats-gop-establishment-strategy-against-obamacare/

In mounting their case against Senators Ted Cruz, House conservatives, and the grass-roots campaign to defund Obamacare, the Republican establishment and its like-minded scribes pound an oft-repeated talking point into conventional wisdom: Cruz cannot win.

In this telling, the senator has recklessly embarked on a populist campaign that taps into public anger over Obamacare but has no winning endgame. The Beltway clerisy elaborates that Cruz and his defunding partner, Senator Mike Lee, have failed to account for the Democratic majority and procedural rules that control the Senate. These purportedly immovable obstacles guarantee that the defunding measure they spurred the House to pass cannot be enacted into law. Therefore, conventional wisdom now holds, the only outcomes Cruz & Co. can hope for are (a) an ignominious, demoralizing defeat that will strengthen President Obama’s hand or (b) a stalemate between the House, on the one hand, and the Senate and Obama, on the other — a stalemate that will result in a government shutdown that, in turn, will grievously harm Republican electoral prospects.

There is a good deal wrong with this analysis. I’ve already described some of it in a recent post, and there will be more to say on it. But I want to explore a different topic that the establishment potshots at Cruz, Lee and House conservatives have obscured:

What is the GOP establishment’s strategy for undoing Obamacare?

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/unstinting-support-for-israel-back-in-place/story-e6frg76f-1226727165855TONY Abbott and Julie Bishop intend to reverse the anti-Israel direction in Australia’s voting pattern in UN resolutions that Kevin Rudd oversaw as prime minister and foreign minister, and which Bob Carr continued. This is an immensely important sign of the Coalition government’s values and direction. Canberra will revert to the voting pattern established by […]

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3988/iran-nuclear-chicken The use of weapons of mass destruction to kill civilians in Syria is merely the preview for the main event, which, as soon as Iran’s nuclear project is completed, will be, in the name of Allah, the destruction of entire nations — especially those with oil — as the Saudis see better than anyone. […]