An extreme left-wing Israeli "peace" group plans to send realistic-looking fake Palestinian passports to some 70,000 Jewish residents of Judea and Samaria (the so-called "West Bank") next week.
Officials with the group "One House" said the shock tactic is being employed to wake Jewish settlers up to reality that they will soon be living under the Palestinian Authority if they do not return to sovereign Israel of their own volition.
Tellingly, the green faux passports created by the group feature a map of all the Land of Israel under the heading "Palestinian National Authority."
The One House organization is led by leftist Israeli lawmaker Avshalom Vilan (Meretz). It's flagship program offers financial assistance to any settler who is willing to voluntarily quit Israel's biblical heartland and return inside the internationally-recognized "Green Line."
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By Lou Dobbs
NEW YORK (CNN) -- Diehard GOP faithful, the dwindling number of Bush loyalists and political pundits of every stripe and medium seem obsessed these days with defining or discerning the "legacy of George W. Bush."
Lou Dobbs says President Bush has diminished a great nation and may diminish it further.
 Frankly, I spend more time worrying about whether or not the United States can survive the remaining 15 months of his ebbing presidency.
There is little mystery about what future historians will consider to be the legacy of the 43rd president of the United States. Those historians are certain to describe the first presidential administration of the 21st century with terms such as dissipation and perversion.
Bush campaigned for the Republican Party's nomination eight years ago, styling himself as a compassionate conservative. He's amply demonstrated that he is neither.
Although many conservatives refuse to accept the reality, George W. Bush is a one-world neo-liberal who drove budget and trade deficits to record heights while embracing faith-based economic policies that perversely require only blind allegiance to free markets and free trade, without regard for consequence.
This president pursues a war without demanding of his generals either success or ...   more »

  
Linking ammo, weapon it was fired from is goal
By James P. Sweeney and Michael Gardner
SACRAMENTO – Delivering a top priority of the gun-control movement, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed legislation yesterday requiring that new models of semiautomatic handguns sold in California be able to stamp identifying serial numbers on shell casings.
In a surprise move, he also signed a bill banning lead ammunition in the sprawling range of the endangered California condor.
The handgun-ID law will enable police to link spent shells to the gun that fired them, and could make California a testing ground for the process known as “microstamping.”
No other state or nation uses the technology, which etches codes on internal gun components such as firing pins that stamp the numbers on shell casings when they are fired.
“While I appreciate and understand that this technology is not without limitations, I am signing this bill to provide law enforcement with an additional tool for solving crimes,” Schwarzenegger said in a statement. “I encourage all stakeholders to work on improving this technology.”
Sam Paredes of the Gun Owners of California said Schwarzenegger may have become “the most anti-gun governor in California history.”
Paredes noted that Schwarzenegger, ...   more »

CDC: More than 90,000 get potentially deadly "superbug" infections annually
The incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections per 100,000 people
Prevention methods include curbing the overuse of antibiotics
CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- More than 90,000 Americans get potentially deadly infections each year from a drug-resistant staph "superbug," the government reported Tuesday in its first overall estimate of invasive disease caused by the germ.
Deaths tied to these infections may exceed those caused by AIDS, said one public health expert commenting on the new study. The report shows just how far one form of the staph germ has spread beyond its traditional hospital setting.
The overall incidence rate was about 32 invasive infections per 100,000 people. That's an "astounding" figure, said an editorial in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, which published the study.
Most drug-resistant staph cases are mild skin infections. But this study focused on invasive infections -- those that enter the bloodstream or destroy flesh and can turn deadly.
Researchers found that only about one-quarter involved hospitalized patients. However, more than half were in the health care system -- people who had recently had surgery or were on kidney dialysis, for example. Open wounds and exposure ...   more »

By Maggie Fox,
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two drug-resistant "superbugs" are becoming more common across the United States including one that causes hard-to-treat ear infections in children, researchers reported on Tuesday.
Another, called methicillin-resistant staph aureus or MRSA, killed an estimated 19,000 Americans in 2005 and made 94,000 seriously ill, according to one report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Michael Pichichero and Dr. Janet Casey, both of the University of Rochester and Legacy Pediatrics, their practice in New York, found a new type of drug-resistant cases of Streptococcus pneumoniae in children with ear infections.
Five of those children had to be treated with an antibiotic approved only for adults because children's drugs were not strong enough to kill it.
The pediatricians said doctors could help prevent the ear infection problem by performing an old-fashioned, low-tech procedure called an ear tap, which can be used to both diagnose and sometimes treat the infections.
And both reports suggest that doctors and hospitals are not following guidelines for controlling bacterial infections.
Pichichero and Casey treated middle ear infections in 1,816 children and performed ear taps on 212 of them. This involves punching a hole in the eardrum to remove fluid ...   more »