Another super-bug

I just found out about another super-bug -- a new kind of pneumonia coming soon to an intensive care ward near you! Whitecoat says

The infection is resistant to most antibiotics and about 40% of infected patients die. But hey – keep popping those Zithromax and Levaquin prescriptions for your coughs and nasal congestion. CRKP is already resistant to those. The only thing that will cure it is colistin which, in one study, caused renal failure in 27% of patients who took it.

The good news just never stops.

A noun, a verb, and "coalition"

Stephen Harper seemed to think all he would need to say to win a majority this time is a noun, a verb and "coalition".
Which has now turned around and bitten him in the ass, as predicted.
So what's next for the Conservatives? Nonsensical "income splitting" proposals and mythical family tax cuts that might take effect when today's grade schoolers have already graduated from high school? While Harper calls non-white Canadians "you people"?
For today's walk down memory lane, Dawg reminds us of 16 Harper Conservative scandals.
And here's an interesting factoid:
Harper is presently "liked" by 43,838 people on the CPC Facebook link. Ignatieff -- after all those hundreds of relentless negative ads -- is already at 41,874 on his Facebook page.
The Conservative Party is liked by 10,326, while the Liberals are at 11,296.

Why don't they ask the League?

Barry McKenna at the Globe and Mail says the coalition "story" is just too easy for the media to do.

“It’s an easy story to do,” Mr. Waddell explained. “All you have to do is take what people say and repeat it. You don’t have to actually think about tougher issues and tougher questions.”

Well, if the media can't think of any questions themselves, they should just contact a few of the League of Extraordinary Canadians -- I'll bet they'd have a few tough questions for the Harper Conservatives.

Iggy's turn

Finally, its Iggy's turn. His first campaign, and Canadians are going to like what they see:



As for the Harper Conservatives, the bloom is off the rose. Curiosity Cat said it better than I could

The Harper Tories are going to find themselves scrambling over the next five weeks to persuade their own supporters to stay the course and ignore the contempt charge and the other scandals popping up all over the place. . . .
With so many seats being won in the past election with thin margins, the Harper Tories have their work cut out for them to avoid losing more than 30 or so seats.

Liz

If you didn't know who Elizabeth Taylor was, see Tom and Lorenzo's tribute post. She lived a crazy life in many ways, but she demonstrated true courage 20 years ago, when she focused on AIDS and raising money for AIDS research, virtually singlehandedly getting society to stop treating people with AIDS like they were lepers.

Ahhhh!

Baby pandas are so cute.


Emerson

Election!

Well, I see I'm likely going to maintain my unblemished record of always being wrong about whether an election is coming or not.
But I will bet that the first thing Harper will do after the writ is dropped is take the F-35 issue off the table by announcing that he's reviewing it.

A definite maybe

When Mount St. Helens blew up and nobody knew whether it would happen again, I heard a radio interview with a learned and many-degreed geologist who said something along the lines of "the situation is extremely flexible. It could stabilize significantly, or deteriorate within the next several days. However, the uncertainty could continue for some time to come."
In other words, it will either get better, or get worse, or stay the same.
I feel the same way now about predictions on whether an election is imminent. Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe we won't know for a while yet.
But overall, I am tending toward "maybe no" -- Jack Layton's hip surgery, the Harper Conservatives' wavering poll numbers, the Carson scandal, the airplane costs, the potential for voters to realize that Iggy actually is a likable guy.... all conspire against a spring election, I think.

Are they kidding?

Remember when the Washington press convinced themselves that Fred Thompson was a sexy presidential candidate because he had a hot wife?

Remember when the Washington press convinced themselves that Rudy Giuliani was a competent presidential candidate because he gave good press conferences after 911?
Well, they're doing it again.

Gag limit

I believe there's a limit to the personal attacks that Canadians will tolerate.
And the Conservatives have now passed it.
Again.

Great line of the day

From Rev Paperboy, a prediction:

Tune in next week when he tells us that us that the government being found in contempt of Parliament is an example of how Michael Ignatieff hates democracy and is just some Johnny-come-lately who is playing games with the economy and is the son of Russian aristocrats not a "real immigrant"and besides LIBYA! FREEDOM! Democracy! Whisky! Sexy! We are at War! Don't switch horses in midstream!
And if that doesn't work, expect him to try proroguing the house again, just to "save it from itself" and delay the budget so that he can "focus on the economy and the war".

Yep, that sounds about right.

The Obama Doctrine

Fascinating article by Marc Ambinder on the back story of Obama's no-fly resolution and what it means for US strategy in the Middle East.
First, why did Obama flip?

They argued that if nothing was done, despots and beleaguered leaders everywhere would vow never to repeat the “mistake” of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who yielded power without foreign military intervention. Iran, in particular, would find itself with an incentive to continue to spread its proxy forces to other countries and further repress its own citizens. And Rice has made the reinvigoration of the United Nations one of her prime goals as ambassador. The legitimacy of that body was at stake too, she argued.

Second, what is the goal

It was important to the U.S. that Libyans and the world understand that this coalition of the willing was more than a U.S. rhetorical construct. An hour before bombing began Saturday, Clinton spoke to the press in Paris. Asked why military action was in America’s interest, she gave three reasons and implied a fourth. A destabilizing force would jeopardize progress in Tunisia and Egypt; a humanitarian disaster was imminent unless prevented; Qaddafi could not flout international law without consequences. The fourth: there’s a line now, and one that others countries had better not cross.

Third, what does this mean for the future

The development of a new doctrine in the Middle East is taking form, and it could become a paradigm for how the international community deals with unrest across the region from now on. The new elements include the direct participation of the Arab world, the visible participation of U.S. allies, as well as a very specific set of military targets designed to forestall needless human suffering.
Though the Libyan situation is quite unique - its military is nowhere near as strong as Iran’s is, for one thing – Obama hopes that a short, surgical, non-US-led campaign with no ground troops will satisfy Americans skeptical about military intervention and will not arouse the suspicions of Arabs and Muslims that the U.S. is attempting to influence indigenously growing democracies.

Crazy

When Alberta MLA Raj Sherman kept talking about vendettas against doctors and coverups of lung cancer deaths, I started to think his accusations were just too bizarre and he was maybe a little nuts.
But now we're finding out that accusing health system critics of being mentally ill is one of the sleazy tactics that has been used for years to discredit doctors and shut them up.
No matter how cynical I get, I just can't keep up.

Slouching toward Tripoli

Declaring war on Qaddafi is the worst choice we had, except for all the others.
Our soldiers face the blood-dimmed tide yet again, but how we could just leave the people of eastern Libya and Benghazi to be slaughtered by their own government?

Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

Nothing like the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem on St. Patrick's Day.