INTERESTING TIMES

Just yesterday I finally stopped ignoring the Middle East and looked up a few things. Like who is Shia and who is Sunni. And who has nukes and where. And what exactly an Islamist is. It was....a useful exercise. Anyone else out there taking an interest in this juncture of history? I'm ready to be educated.

It just seems to me, after one *ok a fraction of one* day of looking into it, that the majority Sunnis in most of the Middle East have been supremely frustrated trying to deal with their less conservative, more secular Shia neighbors. And it seems clear to me that America has at least attempted to enact a separation of church and state, even though those words do not appear in the constitution. It was in the First Amendment to the US Constitution that Congress was to "make no law respecting respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". As wikipedia points out, lots of nations have this idea in their code, and there is a great range of shades of gray in its execution. Here in America we do fairly well, but nowhere near a perfect score. For one thing, the constitution has no control over the states and what local laws might be passed. Which may be how we have gigantic crosses along Interstate 5 in Washington State. Not so different from other places, where religion is supposed to guide personal and political life. Here we seem only able to elect Christian presidents. We like to think that we are above it, but we are surely not.

So I know I am rambling and I will call it quits. If you have an opinion about what is the crux of what is going on--in Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Russia or any other involved party, feel free to comment and tell me! I'm building a mind map.

**Created Syria tag.

Can you tell what kind of tree is growing from the shoe?
Image of the "goodbye kiss" to an American "dog", made immortal:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/08/middle_east_enl_1233258254/html/1.stm
The article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7859444.stm
Video:

ABC News: Ron Paul talks with Tom Abrahams (6/13/08). In this interview Dr Paul re-confirms that he won't be endorsing McCain until/unless McCain changes his positions on the war and the economy, expresses his continuing surprise and gratitude at the outpouring of support, and at the fact that the youth of today are ready to act to bring our government back into adherence to the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

The Congressman from Texas on pre-emptive war and America's responsibilities (opening remarks in House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee meeting):

You've heard about antibiotic resistant staph infections. In Flagstaff they had several deaths in the hospital from so-called "flesh eating bacteria", but the media was muted about it. Nobody wants to know. I'm sure it happens a lot more than anyone really knows. Even the doctors don't want to think about it.

ACINETOBACTER BAUMANII
Acinetobacter baumanii is a gram negative rod that is a strict aerobe, non-motile and grows in reddish purple colonies. It is found everywhere in the soil, food, and water, and is normal flora of humans with 25% of people having it on their skin, and 75% of people have it on their pharynx. Because it lives on us all the time, it is subjected to all the antibiotics that people take, and so it has evolved to be highly antibiotic resistant. The only antibiotics that work at all against this bug have side effects like nausea/vomiting, siezures, and other toxicity. Soldiers who spend time in Iraqi hospitals often come home infected with it. It causes suppurative infections in any organ. The cost of war just got higher. Now we have this bug in our hospital systems, and it is gaining prevalence as a nosocomial infection. It most frequently causes pneumonia, but also infects the brains, eyes, hearts, bones and joints, blood, the pancreas, liver and urinary tract. You don't want it. Luckily, if you are healthy, it won't get you. You live in equilibrium with it. But if you are ever stretched to your last stand in a hospital, it may be something like this that finishes you off.

PSEUDOMONAS AERUGINOSA
A better known nosocomial infection is Pseudomonas aeruginosa. It is also a gram negative rod but is limited to where it can colonize because it is an obligate aerobe. So it only grows on surfaces where it has a good air supply, such as the insides of the lungs, or in burns. It also likes the respiratory mucus of cystic fibrosis patients. It grows into a thick "slime" which is actually a colony of bacteria that begins to function like a tissue. The outer layers that protect the inside from antibiotics or immune agents. The cells of the tissue signal each other, and when P. aeruginosa reaches a QUORUM it begins to turn on the genes that make it lethal. It produces a range of enzymes to digest tissues (known as invasins) and a couple of exotoxins that impair the host's ability to make proteins (exotox A) and cause part of the host's immune system to self destruct (the T cells are rapidly activated and apoptosis induced by exoenzyme S). If you grow the slime on an agar plate it looks blue-green and swells sweet, grapey by some reports. Don't let the sweet smell lull you.

Luckily for most of us, the slime never gets started good enough to slam us with its full power. Our immune systems and functioning respiratory cilia get that shit out. But if you're sick, and you go to the hospital, you don't want to know what I'm about to tell you. P. aeruginosa is the #2 cause of nosocomial pneumonia, osteochondritis and surgical site infections. It's the #3 cause of nosocomial UTI's. The #6 cause of nosocomial blood sepsis. It's the #1 cause of pneumonia in ICU patients, and is the most common cause of death among patients with cystic fibrosis. Once it reaches a quorum it is rapidly fatal. I have no idea if there are any antibiotics left that can kill it. And here's the topper. It lives in hot tubs and swimming pools. Don't let your immune system get beat down too far. These bugs are frightening.

So Kerry makes a big mistake, and accidentally speaks the truth. Then he starts backtracking. Politicians aren't allowed to speak the truth. Everybody (even the Dems, even Napolitano) gets up in arms about the insult to our "forces". But if you went and asked those kids with guns, or if you did a survey, say of the level of education completed, or of their family wealth, you would find that the majority of those who end up in our military don't have the money to go to college, or start a business. They are stuck long before they end up on the front lines. The smartest ones among them are trying to get their education paid by the military, but they have to survive Iraq first. So what's so wrong about what Kerry said? This is more of what they aren't talking about, in the runup to the elections.

There's a town in Tennessee called Wartburg where 90% of the high school graduates join the military. There is nothing for them to do in Wartburg. The coal is gone. They are poor. So they join and never come home again. The town has been shrinking for years. I'd like to know how many of them are "stuck" in Iraq....