MICHAEL TOTTEN: “A perfect storm may be brewing in Lebanon.”

A LOOK AT A MAJOR KILLER:

WHAT kills more than five times as many Americans as AIDS? Hospital infections, which account for an estimated 100,000 deaths every year.

Yet the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which are calling for voluntary blood testing of all patients to stem the spread of AIDS, have chosen not to recommend a test that is essential to stop the spread of another killer sweeping through our nation’s hospitals: M.R.S.A., or methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The C.D.C. guidelines to prevent hospital infections, released last month, conspicuously omit universal testing of patients for M.R.S.A.

That’s unfortunate. Research shows that the only way to prevent M.R.S.A. infections is to identify which patients bring the bacteria into the hospital. The M.R.S.A. test costs no more than the H.I.V. test and is less invasive, a simple nasal or skin swab.

Staph bacteria are the most prevalent infection-causing germs in most hospitals, and increasingly these infections cannot be cured with ordinary antibiotics. Sixty percent of staph infections are now drug resistant (that is, M.R.S.A.), up from 2 percent in 1974. . . . Among developed nations, the United States has one of the worst records of curbing drug-resistant infections, according to the Sentry Antimicrobial Surveillance Program, an international effort to monitor drug-resistant germs. In this country, M.R.S.A. hospital infections increased 32-fold from 1976 to 2003, according to the C.D.C.

In the 1980s, Denmark, Finland and the Netherlands faced similarly soaring rates of M.R.S.A., but nearly eradicated it. How? By screening patients and requiring health care workers treating patients with M.R.S.A. to wear gowns and gloves and use dedicated equipment to prevent the spread. The Dutch called their strategy “search and destroy.”

This is a subject that deserves a lot more attention.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: This sounds promising:

Democrats aim to open the next Congress in January with a new rule that identifies lawmakers who use legislative “earmarks” to help special interests — a change Republicans promised but didn’t implement.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said her first agenda item after being elected House speaker will be a vote to require sponsors of earmarks to be identified. Currently, lawmakers can remain anonymous in sponsoring an earmark, which is language in a bill that directs funds or tax benefits to a business, project or institution.

“There has to be transparency,” the California congresswoman told USA TODAY last week. “I’d just as soon do away with all (earmarks), but that probably isn’t realistic.”

Let’s keep an eye on this — if it works out, it would be a good thing. And yeah, I know that Pelosi’s done plenty of earmarking herself, but that’s not the point. If a former earmarker couldn’t support earmark reform, there wouldn’t be very many votes on the good guys’ side . . . .

But where does John Murtha fit in?

UPDATE: Another soiled angel who needs reforming — the Los Angeles Times reports:

Incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid vows to make reform of congressional earmarks a priority of his tenure, arguing that members need to be more transparent when they load pet projects for their districts into federal spending bills.

But last year’s huge $286-billion federal transportation bill included a little-noticed slice of pork pushed by Reid that provided benefits not only for the casino town of Laughlin, Nev., but also, possibly, for the senator himself.

Reid called funding for construction of a bridge over the Colorado River, among other projects, “incredibly good news for Nevada” in a news release after passage of the 2005 transportation bill. He didn’t mention, though, that just across the river in Arizona, he owns 160 acres of land several miles from proposed bridge sites and that the bridge could add value to his real estate investment.

Reid denies any personal financial interest in his efforts to secure $18 million for a new span connecting Laughlin with Bullhead City, Ariz.

Where was the LAT on this stuff back before the elections? (Via Mickey Kaus, who also notes Murtha’s “energetic 1980 efforts to bring jobs to his District. “)

ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader R.W. Rogers thinks I should point out that I was praising Pelosi on porkbusting in this space last year. Repeatedly. Good point.

IS CBS ABANDONING FREE SPEECH? Jeff Jarvis thinks so.

It’s as if Dan Rather never left. No, really, it is as if Dan Rather never left. Or Mary Mapes . . . .

A MURTHA ENDORSEMENT at Blackfive.

Seems to fit with Roy Blunt’s strategy: “Make the Democrats be Democrats.”

UPDATE: An amusing idea from Rich Galen:

Assume the GOP ends up with 203-or so-seats when all the recounts are over. And say all 203 of those Republican Members of the House were to tell Steny Hoyer that they feel his pain over the Pelosi/Murtha thing and they have decided to vote for him for Speaker.

If Hoyer went into the election for Speaker with 203 GOP votes, he would only need to find 15 Democrats who don’t like or trust Pelosi (not exactly a stretch) to get to the magic number of 218 – an absolute majority of the 435 Members – and Mrs. Pelosi would be a very important member of the House Appropriations Committee. Period.

Republicans could look the Popular Press squarely in the eye and say: “What higher level of bipartisanship can there be than crossing over the aisle to vote for the other party?”

I love it, but if the Republicans were that smart, they’d still have a majority . . . .

RUDY GIULIANI IS OFFICIALLY THINKING ABOUT RUNNING: “Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, a moderate Republican best known for his stewardship of the city after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, has taken the first step in a 2008 presidential bid, GOP officials said Monday. The former mayor filed papers to create the Rudy Giuliani Presidential Exploratory Committee, Inc., creating a panel that would allow him to raise money for a White House run and travel the country.”

ANDREW OLMSTED:

I see that the Democrats are now ready to start pulling U.S. forces out of Iraq. While I suppose this is no surprise, I’m disappointed to see it. The Democrats have rightly pointed out that Republicans acted without gathering all appropriate data, leading to problems like Iraq. Yet now they’re poised to do precisely the same thing.

With all due respect to the Democratic leadership, I’d be impressed to learn that this move was being made on the basis of extensive discussion with military and political leaders from the U.S. and Iraq. I suspect instead that the Democrats have pretty much always wanted to be out of Iraq and want to get the question of Iraq off the table. I have no doubt that they’re sincere in their belief that getting out of Iraq is the best course of action available to us, but sincerity is a lot less important to me than whether or not getting out is the right thing to do. And I am not convinced the Democrats have made that determination yet.

It is not sufficient to demonstrate that it was a bad idea to go into Iraq in the first place. While I am of that belief myself, the fact remains that we are there now, and we have to move forward based on where we are, not where we wish we were. We therefore need to ask the right questions about what will happen if we stay or leave Iraq, and make our decision based on that.

I’m not interested in asking those questions right now. I’m more interested in seeing some evidence from the Democrats that they’ve asked those questions.

Read the whole thing.

JOHN HAWKINS interviews Mark Steyn.

NEAL BOORTZ notes a rise in libertarian vote totals, and observes: “It is clear that something is terribly wrong in Washington right now. We just went through an election where principles of individual liberty and limited government were not even on the table. I am hard-pressed to name one leading Republican or Democrat who still extols the virtues of freedom, individualism, free markets and limited government.”

MICHAEL BARONE ON “POST-THUMPIN’ POLITICS:

Bill Clinton tried to create a natural majority for his party but fell short. George W. Bush attempted the same for his party but has also missed the mark. The 2002 and ’04 Republican majorities were too small to withstand the winds of 2006.

For a dozen years, our politics has been bitterly polarized, dominated by two baby boomer presidents who happen to have personal characteristics that people on the other side of the cultural divide absolutely loathe. Clinton in 1992 and Bush in 2000 both made genuine efforts to run as unifiers, but once in office proved to be dividers.

The 2008 cycle will bring a different cast of characters. The leaders in the polls — Rudolph Giuliani, John McCain and Hillary Clinton — all are, to varying degrees, in tension with their parties’ bases. That suggests that they have the capacity, to varying degrees, to appeal across the cultural divide and pull their parties above the 51 percent ceilings they’ve been under for the past 10 years. Other potential candidates — Republican Mitt Romney and Democrat Barack Obama — may have similar potential. The culturally conservative Republican base and the vitriolically antiwar Democratic base don’t seem to have strong candidates, unless you count Al Gore and John Edwards.

As I said a while back, I was hoping to see a Giuliani-Warner race, as I think that would have been depolarizing. I’d certainly like to see a less polarized politics in 2008.

AUSTIN BAY ON THE IRAQ STUDY GROUP:

The Baker-Hamilton study group will not produce any new thinking. The U.S. military has analyzed and gamed every course of action, including cut and run. For that matter, it gamed “non-intervention” in Iraq as well. . . .

If we are lucky, the Baker-Hamilton magic show will drop a scarf over the top hat and with a the ”poof” of a New York Times headline produce a “unifying” policy of words that will let the Democrats join the war, despite the howls of their blogosphere nutsroots.

Then the military will continue to do what it’s been doing in Iraq and Afghanistan and the new Iraqi government will continue to learn by doing — and in the ordeal of war that will mean learn by bleeding, suffering, and sweating.

If we are lucky.

I RESPOND TO GREG DJEREJIAN AND ANDREW SULLIVAN, here. (Wrong link before; fixed now).

UPDATE: For a better response to Greg, see this comment on his blog.

ANOTHER BLOGGER embedding in Ramadi. I just made a donation; if you like this sort of thing, you might want to as well.

THE POWER LINE GUYS have set up a discussion forum for readers.

BLOGGERS SCOOP NEWSPAPER — on the newspaper’s own blog. Heh.

IAIN MURRAY LOOKS AT AMERICA’S CRUMBLING ELECTRICAL INFRASTRUCTURE:

The ERO projects that U.S. demand will increase by 141,000 megawatts (MW) over the next 10 years. Supply, however, will increase by only 57,000 MW, and that assumes that all currently proposed new facilities are approved and built.

The system will be operating below the marginal capacity needed to ensure supply reliability at all times. In other words, in peak periods like heat waves, there won’t be enough electricity to go around. Blackouts will inevitably result

One key problem is the sheer difficulty in building new power plants in America today. Politically powerful green lobby groups object to the building of any new plant that does not use some form of renewable energy, yet renewable energy cannot meet demand for power on its own.

They also object to nuclear power stations because of their supposed danger, even though modern nuclear plants have an impeccable safety record. And they oppose coal-fired plants because of their alleged contribution to global warming.

It seems to me that nice, clean nuclear plants are just what the doctor ordered, especially if you’re concerned with global warming.

TRIED TO GIVE BLOOD THIS AFTERNOON, but the line was too long. That’s good news, I guess, but I thought my timing was perfect: Having sat through not one, but two faculty meetings in a row, I figured the additional wooziness and lassitude from blood loss would pass unnoticed. . . . I guess I’ll try again tomorrow. We’re having the traditional Blue-Orange blood competition with Kentucky this week, and I’d like us to beat Kentucky at that, at least.

JAMES OBERG HAS MORE on space weapons hype.

UPDATE: Ack. Link was wrong before. Fixed now.

THE CARNIVAL OF THE CAPITALISTS is up!

JOSH MANCHESTER WRITES on why intellectuals love defeat. He also offers some excellent advice for President Bush. I hope that someone in the White House reads it.

THE NEW, MODERATE DEMOCRATS ARE HERE!

Democratic Lawmakers Will Seek a Phased Withdrawal from Iraq

Liberal Groups Seek Postelection Results

Speaker-to-be is no stranger to earmarking

All in the Los Angeles Times, which somehow didn’t stress these points before the election. . . .

UPDATE: Jonah Goldberg asks: “Just curious: Which Democrats ran as liberals on abortion and gun control? I’m sure some did, but I doubt many of those most responsible for taking back the House did anything of the sort.”

CONGRATULATIONS: Project Valour IT has exceeded its fundraising goals.

ISLAMISTS ARE INFILTRATING U.K. UNIVERSITIES, according to this report.

THIS WEEK’S Blawg Review is up!