AdamSmith

David Miranda: 'They said I would be put in jail if I didn't cooperate'Partner of Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald gives his first interview on nine-hour interrogation at Heathrow airport Jonathan Watts in Rio de Janeiro The Guardian, Monday 19 August 2013 16.30 EDT Glenn Greenwald, left, meets his partner, David Miranda, at Rio de Janeiro airport after he finally reached Brazil following his nine-hour detention at Heathrow – an experience that has changed Miranda’s view of Britain. Photograph: Ricardo Moraes/Reuters David Miranda, the partner of the Guardian journalist who broke stories of mass surveillance by the US National Security Agency, has accused Britain of a "total abuse of power" for interrogating him for almost nine hours at Heathrow under the Terrorism Act. In his first interview since returning to his home in Rio de Janeiro early on Monday, Miranda said the authorities in the UK had pandered to the US in trying to intimidate him and force him to reveal the passwords to his computer and mobile phone. "They were threatening me all the time and saying I would be put in jail if I didn't co-operate," said Miranda. "They treated me like I was a criminal or someone about to attack the UK … It was exhausting and frustrating, but I knew I wasn't doing anything wrong." Miranda – a Brazilian national who lives with Greenwald in Rio – was held for the maximum time permitted under schedule seven of the Terrorism Act 2000 which allows officers to stop, search and question individuals at airports, ports and border areas. During that time, he said, he was not allowed to call his partner, who is a qualified lawyer in the US, nor was he given an interpreter, despite being promised one because he felt uncomfortable speaking in a second language. "I was in a different country with different laws, in a room with seven agents coming and going who kept asking me questions. I thought anything could happen. I thought I might be detained for a very long time," he said. He was on his way back from Berlin, where he was ferrying materials between Greenwald and Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has also been working on stories related to the NSA files released by US whistle-blower Edward Snowden. Miranda was seized almost as soon as his British Airways flight touched down on Sunday morning. "There was an announcement on the plane that everyone had to show their passports. The minute I stepped out of the plane they took me away to a small room with four chairs and a machine for taking fingerprints," he recalled. His carry-on bags were searched and, he says, police confiscated a computer, two pen drives, an external hard drive and several other electronic items, including a games console, as well two newly bought watches and phones that were packaged and boxed in his stowed luggage. "They got me to tell them the passwords for my computer and mobile phone," Miranda said. "They said I was obliged to answer all their questions and used the words 'prison' and 'station' all the time." "It is clear why those took me. It's because I'm Glenn's partner. Because I went to Berlin. Because Laura lives there. So they think I have a big connection," he said. "But I don't have a role. I don't look at documents. I don't even know if it was documents that I was carrying. It could have been for the movie that Laura is working on." Miranda was told he was being detained under the Terrorism Act. He was never accused of being a terrorist or being associated with terrorists, but he was told that if – after nine hours – his interrogators did not think he was being co-operative, then he could be taken to a police station and put in jail. "This law shouldn't be given to police officers. They use it to get access to documents or people that they cannot get the legal way through courts or judges," said Miranda. "It's a total abuse of power." He was offered a lawyer and a cup of water, but he refused both because he did not trust the authorities. The questions, he said, were relentless – about Greenwald, Snowden, Poitras and a host of other apparently random subjects. "They even asked me about the protests in Brazil, why people were unhappy and who I knew in the government," said Miranda. He got his first drink – from a Coke machine in the corridor – after eight hours and was eventually released almost an hour later. Police records show he had been held from 08.05 to 17.00. Unable immediately to find a flight for him back to Rio, Miranda says the Heathrow police then escorted him to passport control so he could enter Britain and wait there. "It was ridiculous," he said. "First they treat me like a terrorist suspect. Then they are ready to release me in the UK." Although he believes the British authorities were doing the bidding of the US, Miranda says his view of the UK has completely changed as a result of the experience. "I have friends in the UK and liked to visit, but you can't go to a country where they have laws that allow the abuse of liberty for nothing," he said. The White House on Monday insisted that it was not involved in the decision to detain Miranda, though a spokesman said US officials had been given a "heads up" by British officials beforehand. The Brazilian government has expressed grave concern about the "unjustified" detention. Speaking by phone from the couple's home in the Tijuca forest, Miranda said it felt "awesome" to be back. "It's really good to be here. I felt the weight lift off my shoulders as soon I got back. Brazil feels very secure, very safe," he said. "I knew my country would protect me, and I believe in my husband and knew that he would do anything to help me." http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/david-miranda-interview-detention-heathrow

AOL is still around? Tim Armstrong's tantrum reveals the anomaly that is AOLThe CEO's brutal firing of a Patch staffer lays bare the stress AOL is under as it fails to answer the big existential questions Michael Wolff theguardian.com, Monday 19 August 2013 10.45 EDT The Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington and AOL chief Tim Armstrong, in happier times in 2011. Photograph: Alicia Canter for the Guardian For a generation of media folk recast as digital strivers, AOL remains as evocative a brand as Google – except for polar opposite reasons. Google became the harbinger of an industry going up, and AOL of one going down. In 2000, AOL, then the world's foremost digital company, bought Time Warner and, in short order, ruined that company and helped precipitate the end of the first stage of the digital revolution with an across the board share price wipeout. Out of those ashes, Google would rise. AOL, however, is still around, occupying a pained and awkward place in the digital world. Last week, its CEO, Tim Armstrong, threw a tantrum that again prompted questions about where AOL might be heading, and about the peculiar nature of its efforts to get there. That is, it has been heading in the wrong direction for so long, why would it continue to think it might ever find the right one? (In the short memory department, BusinessInsider called Armstrong's tantrum "one of the most bizarre sequences in AOL history". More bizarre than having lost $163bn in value?) The moment at issue last week had to do with Patch, an effort to create a national local or micro news network, that, surprising to almost no one – except perhaps Armstrong himself – has come to grief. In one of those company-wide retrenchment or downsizing conference calls that are like the cruel ceremonies that accompany the defeat of nations, Armstrong, as he admonished his troops and cast great blame on the waters, was distracted by someone with a camera. In a sudden, whiplash spasm of anger, Armstrong publicly fired the camera wielder, a senior Patch employee, on the spot. This opened up several windows into the state of AOL. The first let the world see directly into the company's culture: headquarters employees gathered around and sitting on the floor, and a CEO sounding like an angry headmaster. Digital companies often work with disproportionate numbers of young people, many in their twenties, many credited with much brilliance, and we tend to see them as a lucky group (free food, lax dress codes, etc). But suddenly, in the permanent and viral record of the Armstrong tantrum, it was possible to see the other side of this vaunted status, when the kids are not performing so well: it's an infantilized and demeaning world. These aren't professionals, who, even in extremis, command a certain degree of respect and human-resource ritual; these are children being upbraided and punished. Then, there is the window into Armstrong himself. He has always been one of those odd figures in the digital world, always straining for and never quite attaining legitimacy. He's not a founder, in a world where that is the sine qua non of leadership and status; nor is he an engineer or developer, with that valuable currency. Armstrong is simply a salesman, an advertising guy – someone apart from digital culture and understanding. A fungible Joe. Armstrong got his CEO role because nobody else with legitimacy wanted it, and because he hoped, on the basis of pure ego and ambition and desire, that running a public company, even a discredited one, would by some miracle give him that authority stature. Frst, of course, he has to hold on to his job, an effort of exertion and fire-extinguishing that might not necessarily bring out his best side. Indeed, lashing out at the photographer had the ring of personal embarrassment. He knows what he looks like. And then, there is Patch. Adding to the discomfort, Armstrong himself founded Patch. Then, worth a raised eyebrow, he got AOL – often a buyer of last resort – to acquire it after he joined the company as CEO. In other words, for all that Armstrong may reprimand his young staff and bawl out a nearby photographer, Patch is all on him. I don't know anyone (who has ever given Patch a moment's thought) who has regarded it as anything but preposterous. Nor do I know anyone among the myriad people who have cycled through its staff who hasn't been aghast at how dysfunctional it is. And I don't know anyone in the digital business who believes that local news has, at this time or in the foreseeable future, any mathematical way to success as an advertising model. Local news is a low CPM business (that is, ads are bought on a per thousand views basis) and low CPMs demand mass audiences. So, again, what exactly was the thinking here? And then, there is the window into the raison d'etre of AOL itself, which was opened up once again by Armstrong's public display of temper. Patch is just one more odd lot piece of the mishaps and happenstance and aborted strategies and nutty legacy that have left AOL with the wherewithal to continue but not to get any place. It is no longer a technology company or, in any significant sense, part of the digital world. AOL is, the company sometime maintains, an ad-driven digital media company – in a world where no such thing has ever proven to be successful. Its one foot forward has been the acquisition of the Huffington Post, which, while hardly a financial advance, nevertheless made AOL one of the more important news outlets in America. Unfortunately for Armstrong, almost since AOL's acquisition, Huffington Post founder and namesake Arianna Huffington has rather openly been planning for its exit, with Huffington and Armstrong operating as parallel entities within AOL. So, now, what happens to AOL? That's one of those peculiar existential questions that could have been asked about the company at any point since 2000. It exists, practically speaking, by no one's design or intentions. It goes on because it exists, but without any real hope that it will ever exactly justify its existence. It is led by people who, no doubt, would prefer to be leading something else. The same goes for most of the people who work there; they do so only by default. AOL is a historical mistake. It's only surprising that more people don't lose their cool there. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/19/tim-armstrong-tantrum-patch-aol

http://beastsofman.tumblr.com/post/58660048405/alexander-skarsgard-frontal-on-true-blood-season-6

What would it take to convince you? They are not stupid -- they are evil.

Andrew Sullivan, the American blogger, has written a powerful post about the David Miranda case. When Glenn Greenwald started publishing his NSA revelations in the Guardian, Sullivan was sceptical about claims made by Greenwald and other civil libertarians that the state was abusing his powers. Now he says he has changed his stance. Here's an extract. David was detained for nine hours – the maximum time under the law, to the minute. He therefore falls into the 3 percent of interviewees particularly, one assumes, likely to be linked to terrorist organizations. My obvious question is: what could possibly lead the British security services to suspect David of such ties to terror groups? I have seen nothing anywhere that could even connect his spouse to such nefarious contacts. Unless Glenn is some kind of super-al-Qaeda mole, he has none to my knowledge and to suspect him of any is so close to unreasonable it qualifies as absurd. The idea that David may fomenting terrorism is even more ludicrous ... In this respect, I can say this to David Cameron. Thank you for clearing the air on these matters of surveillance. You have now demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that these anti-terror provisions are capable of rank abuse. Unless some other facts emerge, there is really no difference in kind between you and Vladimir Putin. You have used police powers granted for anti-terrorism and deployed them to target and intimidate journalists deemed enemies of the state. You have proven that these laws can be hideously abused. Which means they must be repealed. You have broken the trust that enables any such legislation to survive in a democracy. By so doing, you have attacked British democracy itself. What on earth do you have to say for yourself? And were you, in any way, encouraged by the US administration to do such a thing? http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

In America Trevor Timm, the executive director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, has written a blog strongly condemning the detention of David Miranda. Here's an extract. The most appalling part of the story is the use of UK’s “terrorism” law as a guise to detain David, who, of course, has nothing to do with terrorism. Just like the Patriot Act and FISA Amendments Act, which have been used by the NSA to create mass domestic surveillance databases of millions of innocent people, the “terrorism” law in the UK declares the “power to stop and question may be exercised without suspicion of involvement in terrorism.” The NSA stories published by Greenwald and others have prompted an unprecedented debate in the US about the government’s vast surveillance powers, and major reforms now seem likely to pass Congress. Maybe this incident will spark renewed outrage over Britain “terrorism” law, which thousands of innocent people have been subject to , and laws permitting suspicion-less border searches in general. Ironically, this incident comes the same day as a long profile in New York Times Magazine of [Laura Poitras, the US film-maker who has worked with Glenn Greenwald on the NSA revelations and whom Miranda visited in Berlin before his detention] who has shamefully been the subject of similar harassment at the border by the US for years, solely because she produces journalism that the United States government apparently does not like. It’s unknown whether the US had any involvement in the detention of Miranda but questions should be asked as to what they knew and when. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

And in the UK the Society of Editors has strongly condemned the treatment of David Miranda. This is from Bob Satchwell, its executive director. Journalism may be embarrassing and annoying for governments but it is not terrorism. It is difficult to know how in this instance the law was being used to prevent terrorism. On the face of it it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the detention of a journalist's partner is anything other than an attempt to intimidate a journalist and his news organisation that is simply informing the public of what is being done by authorities in their name. It is another example of a dangerous tendency that the initial reaction of authorities is to assume that journalists are bad when in fact they play an important part in any democracy. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

Nick Cohen has written a terrific blog for the Spectator about the detention of David Miranda which includes a nice account of his (doomed) attempt to get some answers about the affair from the Scotland Yard press office. Here's an extract. The detention of David Miranda at Heathrow is a clarifying moment that reveals how far Britain has changed for the worse. Nearly everyone suspects the Met held Miranda on trumped up charges because the police, at the behest of the Americans, wanted to intimidate Miranda’s partner Glenn Greenwald, the conduit of Edward Snowden’s revelations, and find out whether more embarrassing information is on Greenwald’s laptop ... The Terrorism Act of 2000, which the Met used against Miranda, says that terrorism involves ‘serious violence against a person’ or ‘serious damage to property’. The police can also detain the alleged terrorist because he or she ‘endangers a person’s life’, ‘poses a serious risk to the health and safety of the public’ or threatens to interfere with ‘an electronic system’. I wanted to ask the Met: Which of these above offences did your officers suspect that Miranda might have been about to commit? What reasonable grounds did they have for thinking he could endanger lives or property? And, more to the point, which terrorist movement did you believe Miranda was associated with: al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Continuity IRA, ETA, Shiv Sena, the provisional wing of the Unabomber Appreciation Society? Greenwald may not thank me for saying this but in one respect America is an admirable country. In the US, the police reply to reporters’ questions. They may lie, but at least they reply. In the UK, they say nothing. Chief constables could save precious money and protect front line services by sacking every police press officer in the UK. They are useless. Actually, they are worse than useless: they are sinister. They provide the illusion of accountability while blocking it at every stage. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

Michelle Stanistreet, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, has described the detention of David Miranda as "a gross misuse of law". [Miranda's] detention and treatment was a gross misuse of the law and clearly linked to the work of his partner Glenn Greenwald, who revealed the extent of mass surveillance and wholesale interception of internet traffic by the US security services and its collusion with GCQH. It's rather ironic that the police's response, in turn, is to put the partner of a journalist under surveillance and detain him in this way. Miranda had been used as a go-between by Greenwald and film-maker Laura Poitras, in Berlin, who had been working with him on the information supplied by Edward Snowden. This material has now been confiscated. Journalists no longer feel safe exchanging even encrypted messages by email and now it seems they are not safe when they resort to face-to-face meetings. This is not an isolated problem. The treatment meted out to David Miranda is wholly unacceptable and it is time the use, or rather misuse, of terrorism legislation as a way of targeting individuals was properly and independently reviewed. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

Liberty, the human rights pressure group, is already challenging schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act at the European Court of Human Rights. (See 1.05pm.) Here's a news release with more details about the case. Liberty has long argued that Schedule 7 is overbroad legislation, ripe for misuse and discrimination, and currently has a case pending at the European Court of Human Rights challenging the power. The case involves a British citizen of Asian origin who was detained at Heathrow under Schedule 7 for four and a half hours in November 2010. During his detention, he was questioned about his salary, his voting habits and the trip he had been on, among other matters. Copies were taken of all his paperwork and credit cards and the police kept his mobile phone, which was only returned to him eight days later after having to pay for its return himself. He had never previously been arrested or detained by the police and was travelling entirely lawfully. And here is a Liberty submission to a Home Office review proposing changes to schedule 7 (pdf). http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

MPs have decided to use a parliamentary inquiry into terrorist legislation to force the police to explain why David Miranda, partner of the Guardian journalist Glenn Greenwald, was detained for almost nine hours at Heathrow airport under a controversial anti-terror law. The law (schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act) is only supposed to be used to stop people suspected of being involved in terrorism. (See 4.32pm.) Keith Vaz, the chair of the Commons home affairs committee, used a letter to Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the Metropolitan police commissioner, to pose a series of questions about the affair. (See 5.16pm.) He issued this statement. This is an extraordinary twist to an already complex story. It is right that the Police have these powers but it is important that they are used appropriately. I have today written to the Metropolitan police commissioner asking him to clarify this use of the Terrorism Act and whether it was implemented at the behest of another government. We need to establish the full facts. I am concerned about the message this sends out to all those who transit through the UK. Our legislation needs to be used proportionately. The home affairs select committee will begin an inquiry into terrorism shortly and we will certainly be looking at this issue very closely. Britain's independent reviewer of terrorist legislation, David Anderson QC, has also said he wants to be told why schedule 7 was used to detain Miranda. And Labour has demanded a full explanation. (See 12.54pm.) • Anderson has suggested that government plans to restrict the use of schedule 7 do not got far enough. (See 1.54pm.) He has encouraged people to lobby their MPs on this issue. (See 3.44pm.) The pressure group Liberty has also said the Miranda case highlights the importance of its legal challenge to schedule 7 at the European Court of Human Rights. (See 5.08pm.) • The Society of Editors and the National Union of Journalists have both strongly condemned the treatment of Miranda. Miranda's detention was "a gross misuse of the law and clearly linked to the work of his partner Glenn Greenwald", Michelle Stanistreet, the NUJ general secretary, said. http://www.theguardian.com/politics/blog/2013/aug/19/glenn-greenwald-partner-detained-live-reaction

Why does that sound vaguely dirty? As though you were his truss.

Here's that article. Charlotte medical team uses 'ick' factor to cure stubborn GI infection By Karen Garloch kgarloch@charlotteobserver.com Posted: Tuesday, Apr. 09, 2013 TODD SUMLIN - tsumlin@charlotteobserver.com Dr. Barry Schneider, a gastroenterologist at Carolinas Medical Center-University, got approval from a hospital committee before performing Charlotte's first fecal transplant last summer. "It's basically like a huge dose of probiotics." TODD SUMLIN - tsumlin@charlotteobserver.com More Information Clostridium difficile • Pronounced “klo-STRID-ee-um DIF-uh-seel.” C. diff, for short. The infection is usually acquired during a hospital stay or in a long-term care center by patients who are taking or have previously taken antibiotics. • The bacterium, found in the feces, causes severe diarrhea. It is diagnosed by sampling the stool or examining the colon. The infection kills an estimated 14,000 U.S. patients each year. • When a patient takes antibiotics, good germs that protect against infection are destroyed for months. During this time, patients can get sick from C. diff picked up from contaminated surfaces or spread from a health care provider’s hands. • C. diff is generally treated with antibiotics. But many patients have recurrent infections because the bacteria have become resistant to those drugs. • The best prevention is washing hands with soap and hot water. Source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, www.cdc.gov Pam Kee calls herself a “mixologist.” But the concoction in her blender comes together at a hospital. Kee is a nurse at Carolinas Medical Center-University, where she assists Dr. Barry Schneider with an unusual therapy that can cure a potentially deadly gastrointestinal infection. The treatment is called a fecal transplant – and it’s just what the name implies. Feces from a healthy donor is transferred into a sick patient to create a new, infection-free environment in the gut. It may sound disgusting, but it works. The New England Journal of Medicine recently reported on a study in the Netherlands that found fecal transplants significantly more effective than standard antibiotics to treat the persistent infection called Clostridium difficile, or C. diff, for short. “This is a procedure that is saving lives,” said Dr. Lawrence Brandt, a gastroenterologist at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. Brandt, who was not involved in the Dutch study, has been performing fecal transplants for 14 years. “The only people who say it’s disgusting are sometimes the doctors,” Brandt said, “and even doctors are coming around now.” Last summer, Schneider performed the first fecal transplant in Charlotte. He’s one of a handful of North Carolina doctors who have embraced the strange-sounding treatment. Brandt estimates that fewer than 100 doctors in the country offer it now. But that’s about to change, as he and others pursue research they hope will bring the therapy into the medical mainstream. Interest is high because of the dramatic rise of C. diff infection in the United States. An estimated 3 million cases occur each year in hospitals and nursing homes. The infection is linked to 14,000 deaths each year. Patients often develop the infection after taking antibiotics that wipe out beneficial, as well as harmful, bacteria in the gut, and also after surgery, when immune systems are weak. The infection is hard to treat because the bug has become resistant to antibiotics. Today, fecal transplants are typically considered as a last resort, after antibiotics have failed to cure recurrent infections. But that could change if research proves what doctors have reported anecdotally. Even before the Dutch study, Brandt published a report on 77 patients who had fecal transplants at five different centers. Ninety-one percent were cured after only one transplant; 98 percent after the others got a second. The treatment appears to work because healthy bacteria in the donor’s feces repopulate the sick patient’s gut, restoring balance and preventing C. diff germs from causing disease. “I think we’re on to something here,” Schneider said. New approach to problem As medicine becomes more high-tech – from gene therapy to robotic surgery – these transplants stand in contrast. They’re about as low-tech as you can get, using the body’s natural byproduct. At 59, Schneider finds it rewarding to be trying something new that works so well for such a stubborn infection. In 25 years as a gastroenterologist, he has twice gone to the extreme of removing the colons of C. diff patients who didn’t respond to antibiotics. He first considered a fecal transplant after meeting a particularly desperate patient. The Gaston County woman, in her 80s, had developed the infection last year after surgery and had taken four courses of antibiotics without success. The stronger the antibiotic, the more expensive: One 10-day course of Dificid, a new drug, cost $3,000. The woman’s distraught family had, like Schneider, read about fecal transplants, and encouraged him to try it. After getting approval from a hospital committee, Schneider did the transplant in August. The patient, who had been house-bound for six months because of diarrhea, got well in a couple of days. Since then, Schneider – with nurse Kee’s help – has performed five more transplants at CMC-University. Two doctors at CMC-Pineville have performed four, including two on one patient. All the patients have been cured. ‘A big “ick” factor’ Before Kee prepares a donation, she dons two surgical masks that she has sprayed with a “Rain Fresh” fragrance from an aerosol can. “Two things you need in this job,” she said. “A sense of humor and good air freshener.” Properly masked, gowned and gloved, Kee drops a scoop of the sample into a cheap Hamilton Beach blender and mixes it with salt water to produce what she calls “liquid gold.” Each blender gets used only once. When the mixture reaches the right consistency, she pours it through a gauze filter, and then fills more than a half dozen huge syringes. These go to Schneider, who uses them to transfer the healthy material into a sedated patient as part of a colonoscopy. “There’s a big ‘ick’ factor” to the job, Kee said. She lost a few assistants who couldn’t stand the smell. But Kee embraces her reputation as “the Princess of Poop” and keeps her focus on the patients. “You’re helping people,” she said. Screening process is key These transplants are not new. Veterinarians have long used them to treat gut trouble in cows and horses. And the Chinese used fecal therapy for humans as far back as the fourth century. But the New England Journal report, published in January, was the first to compare fecal transplants to antibiotics. Of 16 C. diff patients who received the transplants, 13 were cured after one infusion; two more after a second. The results were no surprise to Dr. Colleen Kelly, a gastroenterologist at Brown University, who has used fecal transplants since 2007, treating 98 patients and curing 95 percent. Kelly and Brandt are heading the first U.S. randomized, controlled clinical trial. Of 48 patients, half will get transplants from donors, half will get their own feces (with C. diff). Kelly pushed for a study so the therapy can be approved by the FDA, standardized for use in all patients and monitored for adverse outcomes. Only with monitoring can doctors detect serious side effects, Kelly said. For now, she said, it’s almost unethical not to offer the transplant because it has worked so well in so many patients and with few side effects. “By the time they come to me, they’re so desperate they would do anything,” she said. Some people have even been known to try the procedure at home, by mixing up a donor sample and infusing it like an enema. One important consideration, Kelly said, is proper screening of donors for HIV, hepatitis and other infectious diseases that could be spread to transplant recipients. The best donors are healthy people who haven’t taken antibiotics for at least 90 days. Most patients choose family members, but donors don’t have to be relatives. Already, some doctors use frozen, instead of fresh, samples that are thawed before transplantation. Brandt predicts a day when all the right organisms will be identified and produced in capsule form. “Nobody’s going to be using stool in five years,” he said. A cure for misery In Charlotte, Schneider’s fourth patient was Jan Bleavins, a grandmother of nine who had her transplant Dec. 3. Over the years, Bleavins has survived colon cancer, breast cancer and shoulder replacement surgery. But her struggle with C. diff was “right up there,” she said. “This wiped out pretty much six months of my life.” Last June, after several days of extreme diarrhea, Bleavins ended up in the emergency room. “My son actually carried me to the car. I was so weak,” she said. She took intravenous antibiotics but didn’t get better. In the next two months, she was back in the ER twice and took two different oral antibiotics. The final prescription, a four-week dose of vancomycin, cost $6,000. She paid $4,000 out of pocket, and insurance paid the rest. But she still wasn’t better. That’s when she was referred to Schneider, who suggested the transplant. “That sounds different,” Bleavins thought. But after reading more on the Internet, she agreed to do it. Her daughter came with her to the hospital to be her donor. Bleavins had the transplant on a Tuesday, and “by the weekend, I was great,” she said. “I had my energy back.” She wishes she’d known about the procedure earlier, to save a lot of time and expense. That’s why she agreed to speak publicly about what many would consider an embarrassing experience. “It’s rather personal, you know, but I’m just interested in passing the word,” she said. “If it would help to stamp this out sooner, that would be great.” Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/04/09/3968884/charlotte-medical-team-mixes-unusual.html#storylink=cpy

Lack of common sense? It was reported at the time that numerous people had seen the driver hanging out at the hotel and drinking for quite a while, just before taking the wheel, so that part at least seems beyond rebuttal by conspiracy theorists.

I don't think so. Please. Let us be proper and British and Latinate, and spell it fæces. I saw a hilarious article in the local paper a few weeks ago about a lab that prepares exactly that, for the purpose you describe. Also for repopulating gut bacteria after severe diarrhea, etc. The technician they interviewed told all about the smells they have to put up with, and how they use a kitchen blender that is carefully reserved for only that use!

I wouldn't hold my breath.

...whatever you do, DON'T look here: http://www.boytoy.com/forums/index.php?/topic/15494-scat/

As noted above, their driver was drunk and speeding. Then the ambulance driver is who really killed her by driving slowly to the hospital so as not to jounce her around, as is French practice apparently, whereas US and British practice is to get the patient to hospital at top speed. Unclear where the suspicion would be?

The founding fathers, having participated in the struggle against arbitrary power, comprehended some eternal truths respecting men and government. They knew that those who are entrusted with power are susceptible to the disease of tyrants, which George Washington rightly described as "love of power and the proneness to abuse it." For that reason, they realized that the power of public officers should be defined by laws which they, as well as the people, are obligated to obey; a truth enunciated by Daniel Webster when he said that "whatever government is not a government of laws is a despotism, let it be called what it may." Sen. Sam Ervin

Jefferson thought the price of freedom was for every generation to make its own revolution and start anew. I am beginning to think he was onto something.

Do you finally see why we are bitching and moaning about all this outrageously illegal behavior by governments?

Angela Merkel, the queen of Europe As Germany gears up for elections next month, Daniel Johnson explains how a dowdy chemist has fashioned herself into one of the world’s most respected – and influential – politicians Angela Merkel on the election trail last week. If there is one word to characterise the German Chancellor, it is decency The Telegraph 9:59PM BST 18 Aug 2013 Angela Merkel is riding high. As she returns from holiday to hit the campaign trail for the German elections – making a swing today through the south-east – she is not only her country’s most popular leader for a generation, but arguably the most respected politician in the world. How has this unflashy East German scientist – who disdains glitz and glamour to the point that when she wears a new dress in public it draws comment – succeeded in scaling the heights of international politics? There is a mystery about Mrs Merkel: she succeeds by being a woman seemingly without mystery. Unlike the Iron Lady, she rarely uses her feminine qualities to beguile men or impress women. Her natural habitat is not the public platform; she doesn’t tweet or text about anything and everything in the news. Intensely private, she comes across as unpretentious and incorruptible. That is why Silvio Berlusconi, as vain as Mrs Merkel is modest, did not know what to do when they clashed, except to whisper sexist obscenities behind her back. Next month, on September 22, Germany goes to the polls in what has become virtually a referendum on Mrs Merkel – and she is on course to win a third term of office. Her Christian Democrats are polling at around 40 per cent, twice as much as the Social Democrat opposition. It should be enough to win by a landslide, but under Germany’s proportional representation system, she will still need a coalition partner. The Free Democrats, her present allies, are struggling to cross the 5 per cent threshold to stay in parliament, but Christian Democrats will probably use their second preference votes to keep them in government. Assuming Mrs Merkel can forge a coalition of some sort, she will boast a record matched by only two of her postwar predecessors: Konrad Adenauer, who restored respect for the Germans, and Helmut Kohl, who reunited them. Though Adenauer created her political creed, Christian Democracy, and Kohl was Mrs Merkel’s mentor, they were both patriarchs in a patriarchal society. Their 59-year-old successor has turned her satirical nickname of “Mutti” (“Mummy”) – she has no children – into a badge of honour. Sensitive to history in a nation understandably suspicious of charismatic leadership, she has cultivated an unthreatening, homely, even dowdy image that delights voters but infuriates her (mainly male) colleagues and opponents. Her style is in some ways more like the Queen’s than Mrs Thatcher’s: she has a no-nonsense manner, but is rarely divisive and never dictatorial. As her enemies have found, however, she is definitely not to be underestimated. On the world stage, she owes her clout not just to the country she represents – although Ingolstadt, where she speaks at a rally today, is the home of Audi, a potent symbol of Germany’s industrial prowess. Nor is it entirely down to her lacklustre rivals for the leading role, even though Barack Obama’s mishandling of Egypt and Syria has already left him looking like a lame duck, Vladimir Putin seems to relish playing the pantomime villain, and the hapless François Hollande is even more unpopular than his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy. No, the truth of the matter is that, if there is one word to characterise Angela Merkel, it is decency. The daughter of a Lutheran pastor, she comes from the tradition that gave us the sacred music of Bach, Handel and Brahms. She stands for a Germany that shoulders its responsibilities as primus inter pares in Europe. On the world stage, she does not carry a big stick – the German military has not covered itself with glory in Afghanistan – but her integrity, intelligence and insight lend her words weight. When Mrs Thatcher spoke, the world listened. So it is with Mrs Merkel. In an interview last week, for example, she gave notice that the EU might have to “give something back” to nation states. What this might mean was left deliberately vague. But for a German leader, hitherto seen as an arch-federalist, to talk openly about restoring powers to national governments is unprecedented. It suggests that something is finally stirring in the eurozone’s undergrowth. What brought about this change of heart? David Cameron’s promise of a referendum on British membership was one of the factors. Another, which she explicitly mentioned last week, is the crisis in the Netherlands. Coalitions in Holland come and go but, unlike the British and Germans, the Dutch have yet to see their economy revive. Having had their liberal consensus rent apart by the loss of control over their borders, they have no appetite for “more Europe”. The Germans are keen to keep their neighbours in Holland as allies in their wrangles with the Latins to the south. If the price of Dutch support is a limited repatriation of powers from Brussels, Mrs Merkel will stump up. The third factor in Mrs Merkel’s calculus is an unfamiliar phenomenon: German Euroscepticism. Up to half of all Germans would ditch the euro and stop bail-outs tomorrow, polls suggest. This tide of opinion has given birth to a new party, Alternative for Germany. Mrs Merkel is determined to crush this upstart – she has noticed the damage that Ukip is doing to the British Conservatives – and her method is to steal its clothes. The trouble is that Europe is stuck with the euro and all that goes with it. The markets have been calmer since the Germans underwrote the European Central Bank’s promise to do “whatever is necessary” to prevent the continental banking system from collapsing. And some of the invalids are out of intensive care: Greece, for example, claims that it is on course to balance its budget this year, not counting interest and repayments. Yet the underlying problems of the eurozone have, if anything, become more acute as the gap widens between the Latin mendicants to the south and the Teutonic knights to the north. German exporters have done rather well under the single currency, having accumulated a trillion-dollar surplus with the eurozone, but the German taxpayer has had enough of equally astronomical bail‑outs. The continuing malaise of the Mediterranean nations has reinforced migration towards the more dynamic economies of Britain and Germany, which is putting pressure on public services and welfare budgets – hence the unaccustomed spectacle of Iain Duncan Smith visiting Berlin recently to make common cause with the Merkel government against the European Commission, which is trying to stop the British refusing migrants easy access to benefits. For Mrs Merkel and Mr Cameron alike, immigration and welfare have risen to the top of the political agenda, with voters poised to punish politicians seen as a soft touch. Of course, as in Britain, the German Left see things differently. For them, the big issue in this election is cyber-spying, with anti-American conspiracy theories emerging from the Snowden affair and wild comparisons made with the Gestapo and the Stasi. For a few years an internet protest party, the Pirates, briefly captured many of the young with promises of free downloading. But it has now sunk without trace, and Mrs Merkel is trusted to safeguard civil liberties by the great majority of Germans. Indeed, she was able to showcase not only her respect for individual freedom but her solidarity with the Jewish people, by rushing through a law to permit infant circumcision after a German court criminalised this ancient ritual. Dealing with the Nazi past, in fact, is another area on which she never puts a foot wrong: she is supportive of Israel, though not uncritically so, and insisted on the sale of submarines that have given the Jewish state a powerful new means of defence, especially against Iran. If Mrs Merkel does win a third term of office next month, she is likely to become Europe’s longest-serving female head of government. As such, she is a role model for women everywhere. Her statesmanship also bears comparison with the two grand old men of German politics, Helmut Schmidt and Helmut Kohl. The latter, her old boss, held office for a record 16 years, and she would quite like to beat him. True, she’s been in office for eight years already, but she still has the energy to keep going – and having recently raised the retirement age to 67, she has plenty of time to reshape Germany, and Europe, before she departs the scene. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/10251271/Angela-Merkel-the-queen-of-Europe.html

Two in one post!