Sworn Affidavit Says That Schiavo May Not Be In A PVS and a Further Challenge to Death Penalty Hypocrites.

This is the sworn affidavit of Dr. William Polk Cheshire, Jr., M.D. in which, as excerpted by KLJ at The Corner says:

This neurologist who Jeb Bush mentioned in his press conference earlier today, William Cheshire, says outright that he believes that "it can be ethically permissible to discontinue artificially provided nutrition and hydration for parsons in a permanent vegetative state." But having "met and observed Ms. Schiavo in person" he doesn't believe this should be happening to Terri Schiavo.

He states that "There remain, in fact, huge uncertainties in regard to Terri's true neurological status." She hasn't been fully evaluated by a neurologist for three years, he says, has not had an MRI or a PET. And some of the technology to determine if a patient is in a minimally conscious state has only emerged in the last few years. "New facts have come to light in the last few years that should be weighed in the neurological assessment of Terri Schiavo."

He writes that Terri Schiavo “demonstrates a number of behaviors that I believe cast a reasonable doubt on the prior diagnosis of PVS.” Among these observations, he pinpoints: “Her behavior is frequently context-specific. For example, her facial expression brightens and she smiles in response to the voice of familiar persons such as her parents or her nurses…Several times I witness Terri briefly, albeit inconsistently, laugh in response to a humoroius comment someone in the room had made. I did not see her laugh in the absence of someone else’s laughter.”..

There is a remarkable moment in the videotape of the September 3, 2002 examination by Dr. Hannesfahr that seemed to go unnoticed at the time. At 2:44 p.m., Dr. Hammesfahr had just turned Terri onto her right side to examine her back with a painful sharp stimulus (a sharp piece of wood), to which Terri had responded with signs of discomfort. Well after he ceased applying the stimulus and had returned Terri to a comfortable position, he says to her parents, “So we are going to have to roll her over….” Immediately Terri cries. She vocalizes a crying sound, “Ugh, ha, ha, ha,” presses her eyebrows together, and sadly grimaces. It is important to note that, at that moment, no on is touching Terri or causing actual pain. Rather, she appears to comprehend the meaning of Dr. Hammesfahr’s comment and signals her anticipation of pain. This response suggests some degree of language processing and interpretation at the level of the cerebral cortex. It also suggests that she may be aware of pain beyond what could be explained by simple reflex withdrawal.

…Terri Schiavo demonstrates behaviors in a variety of cognitive domains that call into question the previous neurological diagnosis of persistent vegetative state. Specifically, she has demonstrated behaviors that are context-specific, sustained, and indicative of cerebral cortical processing that, upon careful neurological consideration, would not be expected in a persistent vegetative state.

Based on this evidence, I believe that, within a reasonable degree of medical certainty, there is a greater likelihood that Terri is in a minimally conscious state than a persistent vegetative state. This distinction makes an enormous difference in making ethical decisions on Terri’s behalf. If Terri is sufficiently aware of her surroundings that she can feel pleasure and suffer, if she is capable of understanding to some degree how she is being treated, then in my judgment it would be wrong to bring about her death by withdrawing food and water….

…How medicine and society choose to think about Terri Schiavo will influence what kind of people we will be as we evaluate and respond to the needs of the most vulnerable people among us. When serious doubts exist as to whether a cognitive impaired person is or is not consciously aware, even if these doubts cannot be conclusively resolved, it is better to err on the side of protecting vulnerable life…

OK then, here's the challenge to those fervant death penality opponents who are hypocritically demanding that Terri be executed because it suits their pro-death, anti-Red State leanings: If you believe that condemned killers should be able to appeal time and again for up to 20 years on the basis that some scrap of evidence could surface that proves the innocence of the condemned and it would be tragic to wrongly execute an innocent man, why are you so adamantly opposed to allowing Terri a full examination with CURRENT technology so as to remove any doubt as to her condition?

Hmmm? A trial with multiple witnesses, a judge and jury, multiple appeals isn't good enough to kill a murderer, but the word of a worthless sack of manure husband is more than good enough to snuff a sick woman?!?

Really?

The Great Quandary

Saw on Andrew Sullivan's site that he approved of this William F. Buckley column about Terri Schiavo on National Review Online and I agree with it for the most part.

In the case of Terri Schiavo, orderly thought would have led us to believe that her treatment was the next of kin's to decide. But human concern for Mrs. Schiavo interposed qualifiers: The husband had attached himself to another woman, by whom another family had begun. This suggested a diluted moral, though not legal, authority of the husband. Then the father and the mother of the stricken girl argued to keep her alive — to keep her pulse beating. Terri is not, repeat not, brain dead, though she is unable to communicate. Meanwhile the courts of Florida were guided, or seemed to be, by precedents which treated as relevant only the absence of a living will by Mrs. Schiavo, and the legal recognition of her husband as head of the family. The two considerations estopped any movement by the courts to assume authority, as though she belonged to them.

But that question was not directly accosted by the judge, who said only that Terri's rights had not been abrogated. It was unseemly for critics to compare her end with that of victims of the Nazi regime. There was never a more industrious inquiry, than in the Schiavo case, into the matter of rights formal and inchoate. It is simply wrong, whatever is felt about the eventual abandonment of her by her husband, to use the killing language. She was kept alive for fifteen years, underwent a hundred medical ministrations, all of them in service of an abstraction, which was that she wanted to stay alive. There are laws against force-feeding, and no one will know whether, if she had had the means to convey her will in the matter, she too would have said, Enough.

That's what makes this mess so grievous: The system, as currently constructed, favors the asstackler who wants her dead dead DEAD! The fact that beyond the futile attempts to save her, nothing will be done to step in and stay the execution is a good day for the rule of law and a very, very bad day for Terri and all women with conniving enough husbands to game the system and assassinate their wives in full view and with the total support of the government.

You've come a long way baby!!!

Scrolling down, I see that Sullivan also has been musing about the pending GOP crackup between the Jesus-freak right-wing - AS has a stick up his ass about gay marriage (no pun/slur intended) - and the breath-takingly spendthrift liberals of which Dubya is the chief in this column at the UK Times. A snip:

On social policy the rifts are not as deep, largely because the religious right now all but owns the Republican party. Gone are the days when Ronald Reagan said: “The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralised authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.”

The Republicans have plans to intervene directly in many people’s lives — spending billions on sexual abstinence education, marriage counselling, anti-drug propaganda, a war on steroids, mentoring programmes for former prisoners, and on and on. Got a problem? Bush’s big government is here to help.

Where Republicans once believed that states should have priority over the federal government, Bush has pushed in the opposite direction. Last week the religious right wanted a federal ruling to prevent a Florida woman in a persistent vegetative state from having her life-support cut off. This is a job for the federal government?

They have overruled state laws on medical cannabis and tried to prevent states from making their own policies on gay civil marriage. In the 1980s Republicans wanted to abolish the federal Department of Education, believing local control was best. Bush has all but ended local control, introduced national standards and added a huge increase in federal spending. No wonder Ted Kennedy, the arch liberal Democratic senator, voted for the bill.

How these contradictions can be resolved is hard to see. Is conservatism now paternalist, spending huge amounts of federal money to guide people into more moral lives? Or is it about restraining government so people can make up their own minds how to live?

Do deficits matter? Is the point of foreign policy the pursuit of national interest or the spread of human freedom? Or are they inextricable? Are tax cuts defensible if accompanied by big spending rises? Is American libertarianism dead? Bush’s four years have put all these questions on the table.

In my view if a Democratic president had Bush’s record, the Republican party would have come close to impeaching him for his adventures in big government, fiscal insanity and foreign policy liberalism. But it swallowed its principles and covered up its differences to keep him (and itself) in power. The consequences are slowly becoming clear.

Allowing for his anger over gay marriage policy, Sullivan is a lot more right than wrong about the state of the Stupid Party and commentators like Hannity need to open a window because they're getting high on their own supply if they think they're not standing on a hill of contradictions. (Can't speak for Rush cuz I've been too busy lately to even check his site for the highlights.)

On his blog, he also writes about "THE CONSERVATIVE CRACK-UP II" in which he grinds his gay marriage axe a bit too much, but also properly calls out the hypocrisy of the RIGHT* in his closing graph:

The case also highlights - in another wonderful irony - how religious right morality even trumps civil marriage. It is simply amazing to hear the advocates of the inviolability of the heterosexual civil marital bond deny Terri Schiavo's legal husband the right to decide his wife's fate, when she cannot decide it for herself. Again, the demands of the religious right pre-empt constitutionalism, federalism, and even the integrity of the family. When conservatism means breaking up the civil bond between a man and his wife, you know it has ceased to be conservative. But we have known that for a long time now. Conservatism is a philosophy without a party in America any more. It has been hijacked by zealots and statists.

Ignore the Jesus-bashing and the point remains - the GOP doesn't believe what it says it does and are merely a statist party who allow God to be mentioned as opposed to the Dems, who are a statist party of atheists and/or minions of Satan.


* While I've been mostly railing about the hypocrisy on the Left, that doesn't mean I don't believe there is hypocrisy on the Right. It's just never really come up before, but in the future, as I have now, I will most certainly beat down the Right for behaving like the Left.

The Race to Kill Terri Schiavo Before the Public Learns the Truth

The full 11th Appeals Court refused to hear the case and Terri slips closer to death while the media continues to spew misinformation and outright lies about her condition in order to stifle the uproar which were to occur if the public knew the facts of the case.

Pia de Solenni over at National Review Online has some thoughts and here are some snips:

The mainstream media continues to use such phrases as “life support,” “coma,” “dying,” and “persistent vegetative state.” Let’s get something clear: Terri was not on life support. She breathes on her own and her brain can still keep her organs functioning. Terri wasn’t dying any more than the rest of us until her feeding and hydration tube was pulled on Friday. At that point, she started to die, just like you and I would if we were denied food and water for an extended period of time. Even those who willingly fast generally take water. But Terri isn’t even allowed ice chips for her cracking lips. And no mention has been made of pain relief for the agony that accompanies death by dehydration and starvation.

Nor is Terri in a coma. It’s not even clear that she’s in a persistent vegetative state, since she’s never had the benefit of diagnostic exams such as an MRI or PET. The video and audio tapes of her indicate some awareness — an awareness reminiscent of a newborn infant who can’t yet clearly see, comprehend, or speak. Disability or lack of ability are not grounds for starvation.

It might seem a far reach to involve the federal government, but the fact remains that it’s not even Michael Schiavo who has sentenced Terri to death — although he has clearly indicated that his desire is such. No, in Terri’s case, it’s the courts that have sentenced her to die. In each decision, a judge has set a time and date for her to stop receiving food and water.

Yet Terri is no criminal, and she’s not brain dead. She isn’t even in a coma. She suffers from a trauma-induced disability which has left her disabled. While the courts and the pundits seem willing to be led by Michael Schiavo and his attorney George Felos, Terri’s story clearly resonates with Americans who hear the details, including many of our politicians and our congressional leadership. Unfortunately, it may be too late for Terri as she faces another day without food and water — a death by starvation that Michael calls a “natural” death.

Read it all.

ABC Conducts Push Poll For Euthanasia

Agenda? What agenda?!? Captain's Quarters must be smoking crack when they accuse ABC of asking bogus questions in order to get the results they want:

That amounts to a stunning level of support for Michael Schiavo, if the data is to be believed. However, a look at the questionnaire shows that ABC News completely misrepresented Terri's medical condition, which undoubtedly impacted the responses given. Question 2, which asks the central question, claims that Terri is on life support:

2. Schiavo suffered brain damage and has been on life support for 15 years. Doctors say she has no consciousness and her condition is irreversible. Her husband and her parents disagree about whether she would have wanted to be kept alive. Florida courts have sided with the husband and her feeding tube was removed on Friday.

What’s your opinion on this case - do you support or oppose the decision to remove Schiavo’s feeding tube? Do you support/oppose it strongly or somewhat?

Terri has never been on life support. The only medical treatment Terri received for the past five years has been food and water through a feeding tube, which is nothing at all like artificial life support. Artificial life support consists of ventilation for people unable to breathe on their own. The question sets up a strawman argument that so completely contradicts reality that the entire poll must be considered invalid.

Either ABC is completely incompetent in conducting research, or they have attempted to fool their viewers and readership with false polling that essentially lies about the case in question. Since when does ABC conduct push polling for euthanasia?

Ask people bogus questions; get the responses you want; convince the ignorant that EVERYONE believes the Big Lie; stack the bodies like cordwood.

Any questions?

Strike Two! Third Strike Coming?

The Federal Appeals Court has rejected stepping into the Schiavo case by a 2-1 vote and now Terri's parents are petitioning the Supreme Court. Good luck with that, folks. The Starver has the upper hand legally and is going to exploit that advantage to get away with murder and we're all going to have to sit and watch it happen.

Yuck.

In a news story, a demonstrator is mentioned holding a sign reading "HONOR HER WISHES".

If she'd made her wishes known to someone other than THE GUY WHO BENEFITS MOST FROM HER DEATH than there'd be no controversy and I'd be writing about Star Wars or something else less depressing.

But as long as we're being forced to accept the uncorraborated word of a weasel who may have precipitated her condition in the first place - read: he may've tried to kill her 15 years ago and needs her dead to prevent her squealing on him - I don't think sitting silently is an acceptable option.

Another ironic kink in the hypocrisy of the Left is that they're always preaching (in their God-free manner) about how the State needs to swoop down and salve every ill of society and now that government IS sticking their nose into people's lives, they're suddenly acting like they're libertarians.

Amazing what they'll say and do when they want the blood of innocents, isn't it?

Lookee here - ANOTHER Mysterious Memo!

A phrase I frequently use (ganked from George Will) to describe people who aren't grasping concepts very well is "their learning curve isn't curving". The latest example of the MSM tripping all over themselves (and reality) in their jihad against Republicans is the widespread coverage of an alleged "talking points memo" which supposedly reveals the cynical politics at work with regards to the slow-motion murder of Terri Schiavo.

Where they aren't curving is in failing to take the lessons of Dan Rather et al and not properly verifying the document and stonewalling and demanding that we simply take their word for it - just like when The Starver says Terry told him she wanted to be killed in as slow and painful a manner possible - when the Blogosphere started tearing it apart for obvious problems.

First off is Power Line's coverage which has comments from current staffers who shred the authenticity of the memos for their inaccurate language (sound familiar?) and how the WaPo's author is using the "trust me" defense. They sum up with:

The memo itself contains no clue as to its origins. That in itself is suspicious; the memo's contents are hardly appropriate for an anonymous communication. The fact that the memo appeared in Senators' offices (or, for that matter, at ABC News) proves nothing, as anyone, including a Democratic dirty trickster, could have distributed it. Mike Allen of the Washington Post says he knows something he can't tell us, but his only argument for why the memo is authentic--some Senators had it--is silly. Further, the content of the memo is highly suspicious. Why would anyone mix political strategy points--the ones the Democrats want to talk about--with talking points for Senatorial argument? A competent staffer preparing a talking points memo wouldn't do that, but a Democratic dirty trickster would.

Does this prove the memo is a fraud? Not at all. It is possible that somewhere in the House or Senate there is a Republican staffer dumb enough to have produced and circulated it. The question, though, is: what is the evidence that the memo is genuine? At this point, there is none. And, with all due respect to Mike Allen, "trust me" is no longer adequate proof.

After reading all of that, go to Fishkite and read their timeline which lays out the sequence of events and the suspicions that are being raised.

Short form: It's looking like another fake that the MSM is more than willing to spread to damage the GOP and all non-liberals for daring to meddle in their spread of their Culture of Death which is taking a giant step with the murder of Terri Schiavo.

The Slow-Motion Murder of Terri Schiavo: Day Six

If you've heard that being dehydrated to death is a "gentle death" please go here and see what someone who survived a PVS diagnosis has to say about it. I see that the "end of life" expert I heard on the CBS Radio news yesterday morning was probably the doctor covered in the same article. No agenda there, right?

=============

I'd also like to include this Andy McCarthy post from The Corner which really sums it up succinctly:

AS WE PASS 100 HOURS OF STARVATION AND DEHYDRATION it is worth remembering that the excruciating slowness of the execution here, the incremental-ness of death, is designed by its champions to inure us to it. After the first hour, the second passes with far less fanfare, and the third less still. I've been following this closely, and I needed to remind myself today how many hours Terri Schiavo has actually been without sustenance by counting the days since Friday afternoon and multiplying by 24. How much more easily the time passes, and the world around us changes, for those following only fleetingly, or not at all.

Why should we think this is intentional? Consider, say, a month ago, before Terri's plight took center stage, if you had asked someone in the abstract: "How would you feel about starving and dehydrating a defenseless, brain-damaged woman?" The answer is easy to imagine: "Outrageous, atrocious -- something that wouldn't be done to an animal and couldn't be done to the worst convicted murderer."

But then it actually happens ... slowly. You're powerless to stop it, and ... you find your life goes on. There are kids and jobs and triumphs and tragedies and everyday just-getting-by. An atrocity becomes yet another awful thing going on in the world. After a day, or maybe two, of initial flabbergast, we're talking again about social security reform, China, North Korea, Hezbollah, etc. A woman's snail-like, gradual torture goes from savagery to just one of those sad facts of life. As is the case with other depravities once believed unthinkable, it coarsens us. We slowly, and however reluctantly, accept it. We accept it. The New York Times no doubt soon "progresses" from something like "terminating life by starvation," to "the dignity of death by starvation," to "the medical procedure that opponents refer to as starvation." And so the culture of life slides a little more. The culture of death gains a firmer foothold.

Of course, the physical needs of the body are not limited to food and water. There is also air. But no judge, even in Florida, would ever have had the nerve in Terri's case to permit "the medical procedure that opponents refer to as asphyxiation." Too crude. Too quick. Too obviously murder of a vulnerable innocent. Brazen, instant savagery might wake us from our slumber. For the culture of death, better that we sleep.

The Left has been trying (and succeeding, despite the whistling past the graveyard of the Right would lead you to believe) to destroy so many of society's tenets, but this is the one they cherish most: To convince people that the best thing for the inconvenient among us is to simply kill them and then tell ourselves the victims are better off for it.

Think about it. How many have been killed and rationalized away this way?

How many more before we realize it's too late?

What Steroids and Schiavo Have in Common...

...is the title of a piece by Ryan Sager at Tech Central Station which does a better job of summing up the problems with the Stupid Party's recent forays into sticking government's snout into people's business.

I've always pointed out that the Left doesn't have a problem with anything they attack the Right for on honest grounds. They're just angry that they are the ones exploiting the system to their own benefit. That's why they refuse to depower government and promote indepedence for real, like the pretend they care to, they want the reins available for their return to the throne.

Anyhoo, here's a good sum up of the pitfalls of activism by phony conservatives:

In coming years, political historians might look back and try to pinpoint the day or week or month that the Republican Party shed the last vestiges of its small-government philosophy. If and when they do, the week just past should make the short list. For it was in this last week that the Republican-controlled Congress made it clear that it sees no area of American life -- none too trivial and none too intimate -- that the federal government should not permeate with its power.

It can all be summed up in two words: steroids and Schiavo.

If there is an issue less deserving of Congressional attention than whether a few overpaid, bat-wielding jocks might have injected themselves with substances to help them wield their bats better, then it has yet to be discovered by the House's Government Reform Committee, which held last week's hearings.

Still, such concerns didn't deter supposed small-government conservative Sen. John McCain from suggesting that "we ought to seriously consider … a law that says all professional sports have a minimum level of performance-enhancing drug testing."

When you're a lawmaker, apparently, every problem seems to cry out for a law.

But if Congress' dealings with the trivial are appalling, they are nothing compared to its exploitation of the tragic.

There, we have the sad case of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman in a "permanent vegetative state" whose feeding tube had been removed at her husband's urging -- and based on a court's findings regarding her wishes on the matter only to have Congress and President Bush intervene ostensibly on her behalf.

Putting aside the tangled facts of the case for the moment -- which include some bitter family history and selective science on both sides -- the driving question here should be: Does Congress have a role?

And when it comes to a family dispute over a painful medical decision, one which at least 19 judges in six courts have already adjudicated, the answer must be a resounding "no."

The forums for matters such as the Schiavo case are state courts, upholding state laws. Conservatives, especially religious conservatives -- who want Roe v. Wade overturned and the issue of abortion moved back to state legislatures and courts -- should understand this better than any other group of Americans.

Conservatives, of course, recognize their hypocrisy. And they're offering up weak rationalizations, like this one from The Wall Street Journal in an editorial Monday: "We'd have more sympathy for this argument if the same liberals who are complaining about the possibility of the federal courts reviewing Mrs. Schiavo's case felt as strongly about restraining the federal judiciary when it comes to abortion, homosexuality, and other social issues they don't want to trust to local communities."

In other words: Our opponents are hypocrites, so we can be, too.

The Journal goes on to argue, rather implausibly, that the federal government has a legitimate role in the Schiavo case because she has been issued a "death sentence," warranting federal review. Alternately, the paper argues, Schiavo may have been deprived of her "due process" rights.

This is all nonsense.

The state is not ordering the killing of Terri Schiavo. Her husband is requesting she be allowed to die, based on her wishes. It is not up to Congress, or the American public, to decide whether they approve of Terri Schiavo's decision.

He trips up at the end there on two points:

1. The State may not be ordering this hit, but they're allowing it to occur.

B. "Her wishes"? Says WHO?!? Terri or the weasel who hopes to profit from her death?!?

THAT is the question that screams out for an answer: Are we going to let men have the unfettered right to murder their women on their say-so alone?!?!

And in a cave somewhere, a Taliban mullah has got to be wondering why he got bombed for advocating what the Left is supporting here now.

The Trustfunder Left

Not to be confused with "Trustafarians" - the trust fund kids who can follow their fave hippie bands around instead of worrying about supporting themselves - Michael Barone has spotted a group of Lefties who further put the lie to the Big Lie of the Left which is that non-liberals are evil, greedy trust fund weasels themselves.

Who are the trustfunders? People with enough money not to have to work for a living, or not to have to work very hard. People who can live more or less wherever they want. The "nomadic affluent," as demographic analyst Joel Kotkin calls them.

These people tend to be very liberal politically. Aware that they have done nothing to earn their money, they feel a certain sense of guilt. At the elite private or public high schools they attend, and even more at their colleges and universities, they are propagandized about the evils of capitalism and globalization, and the virtues of environmentalism and pacifism. Patriotism is equated with Hiterlism.

Their loyalties, as Samuel Huntington explains in "Who Are We?," are not national, but transnational -- they are citizens of the world with contempt for those who feel chills up their spines when they hear "The Star Spangled Banner." They are taught to have contempt for the economic contribution they make to their country as investors and to feel guilty if they make no other contribution. Their penance is that they must vote left.

By all means, READ IT ALL and keep it in mind when the wealthy elites of the Left try to sell you the chains of your own slavery under the guise of "soaking the rich". (Hint: They've got so much money, they'll never be poor.)

(Hat tip: Instapundit)

Claus von Bulow: 2005 Edition?

I was wondering who Michael "The Starver" Schiavo reminded me of and I've figured it out: Claus von Bulow!

I wonder how many liberals supported him then like they support The Starver today.

The "F"-word Taken Down By Dilbert!

One of the favorite epithets hurled by the tolerant and kind members of the Left is "fascist". You get that a lot since everyone knows you can't use "Nazi" anymore without getting a red card for violating Godwin's Law.

In their attempt to silence all dissent against their totalitarian schemes, they call anyone who disagrees with them a fascist despite the fact that the word doesn't mean anything like what they act like it does. Whenever I mention that I'm a small-L libertarian, they automatically retort with "No, you aren't! You're a fascist!" as if calling for much less government is the same as desiring centrally-planned government. Huh? Whut?!?

Well, Scott Adams must've felt my pain for Dogbert perfectly sums up precisely the "words mean what suits us" mentality of the Left:



ZING!!!

Where is "www.watch-terri-die.com"?

Considering the large (paying?) audience potential for a live death, where's the streaming webcam in which people can look in and watch the dignified starvation ordeal of Terri Schiavo?

What's that? That would be in bad taste? Since when has that stopped anything?!? If 30 million people are willing to watch "American Idol", where's the herd who want to watch a man have his wife murdered in slow-motion with the fervent support of Blue Staters?

There's got to be more audience than Air America draws. MAKE IT HAPPEN!!!

The Slow-Motion Murder of Terri Schiavo: Day Five

My morning drives of this week have been accompanied by the surreal sounds of roles being reversed and hypocrisy going unchallenged.

First off, Monday morning brought news of the overnight passage and signing into law of a bill that would force Terri's case to be looked at by the Federal courts. What was most striking were the soundbites of Democratic Congresspeople loudly intoning that their constituents didn't "send me to Washington to interfere in their personal lives and decisions" and how the government had no right to step into this case.

Huh?!?

Since WHEN has a liberal ever shied away from imposing the government into our lives? Why are they suddenly so worried that government has become too meddlesome in our affairs?

Could it be because it's more important that this woman be killed rather than let a sliver of light appear in their "death-before-life" agenda?

Well, duh. The Left has always been in favor of tyranny, sexism, racism, slavery and totalitarianism in which THEY are in charge of lording over us who gets what. It's ironic that a common smear against non-liberals - you know, those "Jesusland" troglodytes - is to compare them to the Taliban when it's the Left who is four-square behind this husband's right to slaughter his wife mercilessly as he would a pet he's grown tired of.

Except a pet would be entitled to a more sensible demise.

Today's morning commute brought an "end of life expert" who spoke sooth about how Terri's death would be painless because, well, she's too damaged to suffer pain like higher life forms (like liberals) do. Nice. Possibly a lie, but whatever promulgates the myth that Terri won't be suffering, so don't lose sleep over her tortuous demise, is the rule of the day.

As the rabid comments on the previous post show, the issue isn't whether Terri is going to suffer and whether her rat-bastard husband holds title to her metaphysical pink slip, it's the defeat of the "culture of life" and by extension non-liberals, that fuels the irrational haters of the Left. They don't have a problem with government robbing us through taxation, brainwashing our children in government-run schools, restricting personal liberties across the board, etc. etc. etc. as long as it's THEIR SIDE with the whip hand. The moment Jesusland politicians open their mouths, it's screaming time again.

Now, speaking for myself, I'm not too crazy about all these last minute showboating maneuvers by the Republicans as they cross sides into the "government must act" area, thus chucking what little credibility they had as a smaller-government party out the window.

BUT...

...while I think they're probably out of bounds, they're at least making a mistake on the side of protecting the helpless. Another smear of the Left is that Red Staters don't give a sh*t about a fetus once it escapes the womb, yet when they try to protect someone who's on the edge of death, the hypocrites switch up without a care for consistency and attack again and again. So, what's new?

My stance on this all along has been in the form of rhetorical questions that no one seems to want to answer:

1. Why is Michael Schiavo so hell bent to see his wife dead? He's got a new girlfriend and kids, but he won't divorce his invalid wife and has aggressively prevented her from receiving therapy, when Terri's family are more than willing to step up to the plate.

B. Why are we being told that a slow torturous death from starvation and dehydration is humane? I've suggested to people that we simply put a gun to her head and paint the hospice's walls with her damaged brain or snuff her with a pillow or a lethal injection like we do with convicts and animals and they look at me like I'm the crazy one. If dead is dead, what's the hold-up?

3. When the Left pays lip service to women's rights and choice, why are they so willing to let ONE MAN have the say-so over her life or death? I'm sure Taliban honchos watching CNNi are scratching their heads over this twist.

This case is a mess and the truism about hard cases making bad law is on full display, but remove all the agendas and bickering and posturing and partisan crap and we're left with a simple question to consider: Is life important enough to go to extremes to protect? If so, just how extreme are we going to get?

The Left is scared that to save Terri would mean yielding from their unholy Sacrament of Abortion and that if we're going to protect this veg, then it's a short step to shooting abortionists next and frankly, that leap worries me as well. While I'm no fan of abortion and believe it's primarily used as de facto "post-conceptual birth control", I believe that if God has something to say about it, he'll handle it in his own manner and all those whackos running around as self-appointed Guardians of Life who MURDER these doctors need to drop dead NOW! It's not YOUR decision, either!

While it's hard to rationalize interference, it's harder to accept why simply pointing out the ramifications of our choices must be squelched by those who exercise their free speech rights by shrieking insane slurs in my comments section - a privilege, BTW, not a right - and unless they're too offensive to remain, I let them stand in testament to the unreasoning hatred that consumes them. Why should I say it when they can prove it?

To conclude, here are a couple of relevant columns from the torrent that are sweeping the Web about this issue. First up, here's Thomas Sowell's "Cruel and Unusual" which says in part:

If the tragic case of Terri Schiavo shows nothing else, it shows how easily "the right to die" can become the right to kill. It is hard to believe that anyone, regardless of their position on euthanasia, would have chosen the agony of starvation and dehydration as the way to end someone's life.

A New York Times headline on March 20th tried to assure us: "Experts Say Ending Feeding Can Lead to a Gentle Death" but you can find experts to say anything. In a December 2, 2002 story in the same New York Times, people starving in India were reported as dying, "often clutching pained stomachs."

No murderer would be allowed to be killed this way, which would almost certainly be declared "cruel and unusual punishment," in violation of the Constitution, by virtually any court.

Terri Schiavo's only crime is that she has become an inconvenience -- and is caught in the merciless machinery of the law. Those who think law is the answer to our problems need to face the reality that law is a crude and blunt instrument.

Make no mistake about it, Terri Schiavo is being killed. She is not being "allowed to die."

The fervor of those who want to save Terri Schiavo's life is understandable and should be respected, even by those who disagree. What is harder to understand is the fervor and even venom of those liberals who have gone ballistic -- ostensibly over state's rights, over the Constitutional separation of powers, and even over the sanctity of family decisions.

These are not things that liberals have any track record of caring about. Is what really bothers them the idea of the sanctity of life and what that implies for their abortion issue? Or do they hate any challenge to the supremacy of judges -- on which the whole liberal agenda depends -- a supremacy that the Constitution never gave the judiciary?

If nothing else comes out of all this, there needs to be a national discussion of some humane way to end life in those cases when it has to be ended -- and this may not be one of those cases.

And here is Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard's argument in favor of intervention which echo my questions above:

* Terri Schiavo is brain damaged but not brain dead. She is not on life support. She breathes on her own. She occasionally laughs. She reacts to stimuli. She responds at times to her parents. She is not dying, though she needs a feeding tube. A doctor diagnosed her as being in a "permanent vegetative state" but other doctors have disputed that view. Indeed there are legitimate questions about her initial diagnosis.

* Schiavo's parents have offered to take full responsibility for her care, relieving her husband of any obligations whatsoever. They are willing to pay the expenses of her hospitalization and any rehabilitation program.

* Senate majority leader Bill Frist, himself a doctor, has talked to a neurologist who examined Schiavo. The neurologist told him that with proper care of a type she hasn't received there is a good chance that Schiavo's condition will improve markedly.

As usual, go read all of the pieces and if the howlers must spew their anti-Christian hatred all over the comments section accusing me of being a "Jesus freak" - odd considering I'm dreading the 1st of my compulsory annual trips to Church this Sunday - kindly include your response to this question:

Why shouldn't we just shoot Terri Schiavo like a wounded animal instead of a slow, torturous, painful, miserable death at the wishes of her scumbag guardian? (He doesn't warrant the title of "husband" if you think of it.)

Death Penality Opponents For Death?!?!?

Q: What is the primary argument anti-death penalty advocates use?

A: That it is wrong for the State to kill a criminal for crimes they've committed because they MIGHT be the victims of a wrongful conviction - the cops framed them; society's racist; poor toilet training and being raised a bottle baby; whatever - and if the conviction is in error, the punishment is irreversable.

Sound about right?

Then why are these same people sitting silently by while Terri Schiavo is going to be put to death based on the word of her bastard husband?!?!? He's had a relationship with another woman and spawned a couple of kids and has crusaded for the death of his wife (I guess he's against divorce) because HE SAYS that she told him that she didn't want to be kept alive via extraordinary means.

Based on the word of ONE MAN who has an interest in seeing his wife done away with, a court has ordered that this woman be put to a slow and torturous death.

Where are those anti-death penalty people now? Hmmm?

The Slow-Motion Murder of Terri Schiavo: Day One

So, they've pulled her feeding tube and started the circus of her murder in slow-motion. People are already choosing up sides and I've already gotten into an argument with the girlfriend as she believes that, well, that it's better to be dead than incapacitated and that we should assume that she wants to be dead. Debating about running a personal ad. Stay tuned...

Back on topic: Listening to Sean Hannity's show, he had a woman (didn't catch her name) who had had a stroke, was in a coma on a feeding tube and WAS AWARE OF EVERY MOMENT OF HER ORDEAL!!! Her husband, unlike Terri's, fought the hospital to force them to treat her and they regarded him as a nutty Jesus freak.

Well, she certainly sounded chipper and well, which is a definite benefit of not being married to cowardly murderer. Another lucky woman is Sarah Scantlin, who spent TWENTY YEARS in a vegatative state after being hit by a car in 1984 who is now speaking and regained her memory. Good thing she wasn't married to this asstackler.

Hannity also played a clip of Mr. Schiavo's lawyer howling that Hillary Clinton and other Dems were aborgating their duty by not standing up for the murder of Terri. Amazing! He actually used the phrase "let Terri in peace" which certainly sounds soothing to fools like my (soon to be ex?) girlfriend except according to the which lists and explains the treatment plan for Terri's death, including the applications of lotions, creams and salves to mask the dehydrating effects on her skin.

Read it all, but here's the punchline:

I would observe, in conclusion, that most of the "treatments" described in this Exit Protocol are in fact not directed at easing the patient's true condition, but in masking the symptoms of dying by starvation and dehydration. These treatments are designed to create the appearance of a peaceful "slipping away", when nothing of the sort is happening. The medications hide the fact that the patient undergoes a lengthy and painful deterioration, in which his/her body wastes away cruelly. Remember this the next time you hear or read someone say that Terri should be "allowed" to die.

This is a Rubicon for our society.

"If Terri Schiavo is killed, Republicans will pay a political price."

So says Peggy Noonan in her column today.

There is a passionate, highly motivated and sincere group of voters and activists who care deeply about whether Terri Schiavo is allowed to live. Their reasoning, ultimately, is this: Be on the side of life. They remind me of what Winston Churchill said once when he became home secretary in charge of England's prisons. He was seated at dinner with a jabbery lady who said that if she were ever given a life sentence she'd rather die than serve it. He reared back. No, he said, always choose life! "Death's the only thing you can't get out of!"

Just so. Life is full of surprise and lightning-like lurches. The person in a coma today wakes up tomorrow and says, "Is that you, mom?" Life is unknowable. Always give it a chance to shake your soul and upend reality.

The supporters of Terri Schiavo's right to continue living have fought for her heroically, through the courts and through the legislatures. They're still fighting. They really mean it. And they have memories.

On the other side of this debate, one would assume there is an equally well organized and passionate group of organizations deeply committed to removing Terri Schiavo's feeding tube. But that's not true. There's just about no one on the other side. Or rather there is one person, a disaffected husband who insists Terri once told him she didn't want to be kept alive by extraordinary measures.

He has fought the battle to kill her with a determination that at this point seems not single-minded or passionate but strange. His former wife's parents and family are eager to care for her and do care for her, every day. He doesn't have to do a thing. His wife is not kept alive by extraordinary measures--she breathes on her own, is not on a respirator. All she needs to continue existing--and to continue being alive so that life can produce whatever miracle it may produce--is a feeding tube.

It doesn't seem a lot.

So politically this is a struggle between many serious people who really mean it and one, just one, strange-o. And the few bearded and depressed-looking academics he's drawn to his side.

It is not at all in the political interests of senators and congressmen to earn the wrath of the pro-Schiavo group and the gratitude of the anti-Schiavo husband, by doing nothing.

Go read the whole damn thing RIGHT NOW!!! I'll wait...

I heard on the news today that after they yank the feeding tube, she may take a week or two to die of malnutrition and dehydration.

Question: Would you subject a DOG to this sort of excruciating death? If not, why is it OK to do it to this woman? A lot of people are willing to care for her and this bastard husband is doing everything to KILL HER!!!! WHY?!?!?!?!? Why isn't he in a cell with Scott Peterson when they're doing the same thing - killing their wives?!?!?

Someone buy me this t-shirt!

It's cheap and it's a fine token of appreciation for the great blogging satisfaction I provide!

For the Geek with too much money!

When you've got a home theatre designed to look like the Death Star by the designer of the Star Wars prequels with a full-sized Han Solo in carbonite wall-hanging, you're obviously more a dork than I, Gunga-Wan Dinobi.

"Well...DUH!" News of the Day.

Study Shows U.S. Election Coverage Harder on Bush. Really?

U.S. media coverage of last year's election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush than Democratic challenger John Kerry, according to a study released Monday.

The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Only 20 percent were positive toward Bush compared to 30 percent of stories about Kerry that were positive, according to the report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

When I had decided I could no longer support the Stupid Party, I still noticed the raw deal they were getting in the press. It was the same in 1992 when I'd given up on Bush 41 and still became aware of the massive press bias in favor of Clinton. When you feel sorry for the guys you aren't even going to vote for, that's a good sign that a unfair shafting is taking place.

Sure, it's old news, but when the Washington Post managing editor Philip Bennett is giving interviews to China's People's Daily that "I don't think US should be the leader of the world", it's good to keep in mind that while the MSM keeps lying to us about their biases and hysterically trying to convince us that Team Dubya is censoring them blah-blah-woof-woof, their anti-American hatred is simmering beneath the surface.

I wonder how that Chinese reporter would do if he attempted to speak out against the Chinese dictatorship in the way Bennett slashes at his government? Doesn't the fact that Bennett doesn't really have to worry about ending up in a prison labor camp put the lie to the MSM's FUD campaign.

Well...duh!

Rebuild the Twin Towers?

That's what Deroy Murdock thinks should be done as he savages New York's governor George Pataki (SP) for shenanagins in the awarded of the design win to the tiny "Freedom Tower" design.

Apparently, an improved and updated plan for a new WTC exists and could roll quickly as a massive FU to the haters and terrorists.

New York Times Busted on Filibusters!

From today's Letters to the Editor column:

"The Senate on the Brink" (editorial, March 6) supports the "historic role of the filibuster," which is a curious position for a newspaper that 10 years ago said filibusters were "the tool of the sore loser" and should be eliminated ("Time to Retire the Filibuster," editorial, Jan. 1, 1995).

Federal judicial appointments have certainly been controversial, but surely all Americans can agree that the rules for confirming judges should be the same regardless of which party has a majority.

Now you praise the filibuster as a "time-honored Senate procedure." In 1995, when Bill Clinton was president, you called it "an archaic rule that frustrates democracy and serves no useful purpose."

You disparage the Republicans' view that 51 votes should be enough for judicial confirmation. Yet the 51-vote rule is a consistent Senate tradition. By calling for an end to filibusters, the Senate is simply contemplating restoring its traditions by traditional methods you disparage as "nuclear," even though they were once endorsed by such leading Democrats as Senators Edward M. Kennedy, Charles E. Schumer and Robert C. Byrd.

John Cornyn
U.S. Senator from Texas
Washington, March 7, 2005

Liberals being hypocrites? No way!!!

(Hat tip: The Corner)

Some Quick Hits From Town Hall...

Since I'm behind deadline and my editor is getting cranky, I'll leave you with some fast items you can go read on your own around and about. (You're welcome.)

First, uber-hottie Michelle Malkin writes about "The ransom of the red reporter", about that lovely Communist reporter gunning for the Eason Jordan Trophy:

The scandal is not that an anti-war propagandist has accused the U.S. of targeting journalists. That's par for the course. (Yes, hello again, Eason Jordan.)

The scandal is not that mainstream media sympathizers are blaming our military and dredging up every last shooting accident along the treacherous routes to Baghdad Airport. Again, no surprise here. The scandal is that Italy -- our reputed ally in the global War on Terror -- negotiated with Sgrena's Islamist kidnappers and may have forked over a massive ransom to cutthroats for Sgrena's release. Where is the uproar over this Islamist insurgency subsidy plan?

The consequences of capitulation are bloody obvious. When you allow your people to be used as terrorist collection plates, the thugs will keep coming back for more. Might as well hang a sign around the neck of every Italian citizen left in Iraq: Buon appetito.

Next up is Thomas Sowell writing about the disasterous implications of the 5-4 Supreme Court ruling last week that minors can no longer be sentenced to death, using as justification the idea that because the rest of the world doesn't do it, neither should we. Here's the problem with that sort of fuzzy logic....

The issue of judicial activism is not just an issue of the moment. It is an enduring issue of great moment because it means the erosion of the American people's Constitutional right to govern themselves. If activist judges are allowed to continue to become increasingly our real rulers, what are elections for? Just to provide jobs for politicians?

Public acceptance of judicial coups has only led to increasing audacity in words and deeds by activist judges. Justice Anthony Kennedy's recent decision banning the execution of murderers under the age of 18 was a classic case in point. It was based, he said, on "evolving standards" and a "national consensus," as well as on what people were saying in other countries.

Even if all of this were true, none of these things is statutory law, much less the Constitution of the United States. It is incidental that these things are not all true. What do pretty words like "evolving standards" mean except that some people agree with you, even if the law says nothing of the sort?

As for a "national consensus," we have elections to determine that and judges have no special expertise as pollsters. What all this vaguely romantic verbiage boils down to is that judges can treat the Constitution as simply a grant of power to act as philosopher kings and respond to whatever constituency they prefer to the voting public. That is lawless law.

Following on this theme is "Justice Kennedy should stand for re-election" which details the flip-flop that (in)Justice Kennedy made in reversing his views on the way to annointing himself a god over us mortals:

Now that he has made himself an uber-legislator, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy should do as lesser legislators do. He should stand for re-election.

What I mean is, he should resign -- and see if the president nominates him again, or the Senate confirms him. The Constitution, of course, sets no term limit for justices. They can resign, however, at any time.

In explaining why the Framers gave justices unlimited terms, Justice Joseph Story (a Madison nominee) ironically pointed to the precise reason Justice Kennedy should now limit his own term: He has put his personal interpretation of popular opinion above our written Constitution. That's the very sin the Framers feared elected politicians would commit. To balance it, they gave justices indefinite tenure, hoping they would check power-hungry politicians by following only the Constitution as it was first written or duly amended.

If Kennedy and four other justices can change the meaning of the Constitution whenever their personal opinions -- or claimed perceptions of public (or foreign) opinion -- coincide, they are no longer judges but members of an uber-legislature.

If Kennedy is going to claim the authority of a legislator to act on his personal opinion or his perception of public opinion, then he should open himself to the political liability legislators face: He should resign and see if public opinion wants him back.

President Bush should accept his resignation, and nominate a replacement who respects the Constitution and actually deserves an unlimited term.

What many on the Left don't want to admit is their hypocrisy with regards to the Supreme Court: When the Court makes up law out of thin air (Roe v. Wade anyone?) or advances some sort of liberal pet agenda, they have no problem with 5-4 decisions, but if they thwart a criminal from trying to steal an Election, as Al Gore tried in 2000, their 5-4 decision is proof that they're Republican tools and shriek "Selected, not elected!" at the top of their puny lungs.

California has seen this a lot in recent years as Proposals that have been passed overwhelmingly by the people are ruled unConstitutional by a single liberal judge. Representative democracy fails when the will of the people is subject to judicial approval, but what hope is there that this usurpation can be reversed?

With no higher court to appeal the Supremes rank activities, we're stuck and the truism of a friend rings ever more true: "You'll never hear a politician say, 'Oh no, that's far too much power for me to have.'"

Switching over to Social Security (SocSec), there are a pair of columns wondering why NOW and the NAACP are opposed to reform when it's clearly in their members best interests to fix things NOW!

What neither column mentions is the hidden reality that liberalism is all about enslaving women and minorities into 2nd-class citizenhood and dependence on elites for alms in order to secure eternal power in the hands of (usually) rich white males, while all along perpetuating the myth that only the Dems care about them.

Hey, it keeps working, so why not?

Blogs trump MSM for accuracy! Again!

Andrew Sullivan tears apart Richard Cohen's February scare pieceabout a new form of "super AIDS" that allegedly has popped up in NYC. Despite repeated requests for supporting evidence, he's received nothing. Here's the beginning and end of his post (be sure to read all the stuff in between, mmmkay?):

Here's a little tale that should help correct some people's impressions that the blogosphere is somehow less reliable than the "mainstream media." On February 17, Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote a very tough column on the notion of an allegedly new, virulent strain of HIV in New York City. He made several factual claims that I know no solid evidence for. So I emailed him asking him for supporting data.

But this column is built on factual sand. In the blogosphere, it would have been buried by now. In the MSM, it lives on, uncorrected and untrue.

And the MSM wonders why they're losing their audiences in droves?

Dan Rather blows smoke up his own ass! Film at 11!!!

Saw at The Corner that Danno is proclaiming himself the Gerbil King, OK, maybe not....but he IS acting like a fallen soldier in the war between the Fourth Estate and Reality:

Asked why he has long been target of conservative critics complaining about a liberal bias in the media, Rather says: ''I am independent and fiercely independent. It's the role of movements and partisan political organizations to apply the pressure and to try and intimidate. It is the job of the journalist in a free society to say 'no.' . . . I haven't stopped trying."

Could it be that you're a lying sack of manure, Dan?!?

Rather's big concern? ''That the American press as a whole will succumb to the undertow to be more docile, in some cases obsequious . . . to move in the middle, settle for mediocrity -- one, in exchange for access, and two, out of fear that you'd be called a bad name, unpatriotic, or radical right or liberal. What I'm talking about here is the increasing danger of being intimidated."

You see this a lot: [i]Boohoo! We're being mistreated by those Jesus freaks and Halliburton! Boohoo!"[/i]

Spare me. The reason the MSM is on the skids is because alternate media has revealed the open pattern of lies and deceit under which they operate and rather (no pun) than admit that they're fellow travellers of the Left, they act all innocent and persecuted and act as if asking questions is getting them unfairly tagged as "unpatriotic".

Duh. It's the fact that you guys are actively seeking to overthrow freedom-based countries like America and constantly smooching the butts of every fascist tyrant you can find from Putin to Castro to Kim to Moore and Dean that rightfully earns you the tag of unpatriotic.

There's nothing wrong with asking questions, Dan. The problem is with telling lies. You got caught, so STFU and scram and get a job with Can'tMoveOn.Argh!!!

When's the "Lebanese Hottie Swimsuit Issue" coming out?

As noted at Instapundit and many other red-blooded sites of the blogosphere, there's a distinct look to the pro-democracy protesters:



...whereas the pro-dictatorship side looks like this:



Ick. These brutal thugs are the ones wishing to keep women down - in the name of Allah, mind you, not any sexist pig sense, nonono - and you can probably look forward to seeing them blowing themselves into red mush in a car-bombing to be determined.

In the meantime, Logical Meme is mentioning that Newsweek's cover article and inside commentary that's sure to enrage the moonbat Left, because it's getting clearer and clearer that despite the messy journey, the results are definitely worthwhile:

“Across New York, Los Angeles and Chicago—and probably Europe and Asia as well—people are nervously asking themselves a question: "Could he possibly have been right?" The short answer is yes. Whether or not Bush deserves credit for everything that is happening in the Middle East, he has been fundamentally right about some big things.”

Bush never accepted the view that Islamic terrorism had its roots in religion or culture or the Arab-Israeli conflict. [The last thesis is one that many on the Left still uphold – ed]. Instead he veered toward the analysis that the region was breeding terror because it had developed deep dysfunctions caused by decades of repression and an almost total lack of political, economic and social modernization. The Arab world, in this analysis, was almost unique in that over the past three decades it had become increasingly unfree, even as the rest of the world was opening up. His solution, therefore, was to push for reform in these lands."

What's funny is that while Dubya seeks to spread liberty in the Middle East, he's not paying attention to the totalitarian things going on in South America and how the Democrats are ferociously making a last stand for their fascist schemes for America. Yeesh.

Dan Rather has nothing on Italian Woman Reporter!

As punk-ass bitch Dan Rather shuffles into oblivion, the ungrateful Italian reporter, Giuliana Sgrena, picks up where fellow lying ass punk Eason Jordan left off by accusing U.S. forces for targeting her in that unfortunate incident in which her her car was shot at as it apporoached a checkpoint:

The Italian journalist wounded by American troops in Iraq after her release by insurgents rejected the U.S. military's account of the shooting and declined Sunday to rule out the possibility she was deliberately targeted. The White House said it was a "horrific accident" and promised a full investigation.

Sgrena, who works for the communist daily Il Manifesto, did not rule out that she was targeted, saying the United States likely disapproved of Italy's methods to secure her release, although she did not elaborate.

"The fact that the Americans don't want negotiations to free the hostages is known," Sgrena told Sky TG24 television by telephone, her voice hoarse and shaky. "The fact that they do everything to prevent the adoption of this practice to save the lives of people held hostages, everybody knows that. So I don't see why I should rule out that I could have been the target."

Gee, her paranoid views couldn't possibly be influenced by the fact that she's a COMMUNIST, could they? One thing you've got to respect the Left for: They NEVER pass up an opportunity to promulgate lies about America.

MORE: Due to browser hassles when I posted this, I wasn't able to expound properly, but it can't be overlooked that this reporter is a Communist and that THIS IS THE ONLY PLACE I'VE SEEN THIS FACT NOTED!

Driving in, I heard CBS Radio News and NPR do stories about how this incident is inflaming anti-American sentiment in Italy (and by extension, all of Old Europe) and blah blah-woof-woof. NO ONE mentioned this Commie's affiliation - I guess they don't want anyone distracted from the party line that she was a JOURNALIST, not a COMMUNIST propaganda hack.

There has been so much good news from the Middle East with all this democracy stuff happening, it's been a dark time for the supporters of tyranny in the MSM. None of this would've been happening if their boy, Feckless Crapweasel, had been elected and halted the Iraqi Elections in accordance to his ideology and the wishes of his masters at the UN who are still plenty pissed off that their grift operation got kicked over by Dubya's invasion.

So we can look forward to more negative reporting to sow doubt in the public because when things are going good for America, that's bad for Democrats and they've been reduced to hypocritical demagouging about Social Security as their last stop before total irrelevance.

Do Democrats Hate Democracy Because Their Women Are Ugly?

If you've got Hillary Clinton, Madeline Albright and Janet Reno as the front hags of your party, it's easy to understand why you'd be adverse to Middle Eastern women like these:



...demonstrating for their freedom in Lebanon. It also explains their sexist support for the Taliban and keeping women under bhurkas. Considering all the hot Hollywood liberal actresses they have, it doesn't make sense that they'd demand the suppression of women around the world, but liberalism doesn't have any basis for existance on its own, so who's really surprised?

See more freedom-loving Arab babes here!

Stupid Party Lives Up To Their Bad Reputations!

While being total hypocrites on matters of choice (beyond abortion, natch), the Dems have made great sport of tarring anyone concerned with declining societal values as being blue-nosed, killjoy prigs forcing their "Jesusland" agenda down everyone else's throats.

It's an unfair stereotype, but when you've got certifiable MORONS like Sen. Ted Stevens (SP - Alaska) proposing that decency rules should apply to pay TV and radio, well, that just shows how unserious the Stupid Party is in their priorities.

"Cable is a much greater violator in the indecency area," the Alaska Republican told the National Association of Broadcasters, which represents most local television and radio affiliates. "I think we have the same power to deal with cable as over-the-air" broadcasters.

"There has to be some standard of decency," he said. But he also cautioned that "No one wants censorship."

Stevens told reporters afterward that he would push legislation to apply the standards to cable TV and satellite radio and television. It could become part of a pending bill to boost fines on broadcasters who violate indecency restrictions or of an effort to overhaul U.S. communications laws.

Because this blog may attract younger or more sensitive readers, I typically refrain from posting unexpurgiated profanity - not out of fear of sanction, but because it's rude to be inhospitable - but in the case of this story, I must make an exception when I say...

ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MINDS, YOU FUCKING ASSTACKLERS!!! YOU WANNA KNOW WHY THE MEDIA SMEARS YOU AS JESUS FREAK FASCISTS?!?!? BECAUSE YOU'RE ACTING LIKE FUCKING JESUS FREAK FASCISTS, YOU INSIPID JACKASSES!!!!

Why not tack a stupid Constitutional Ammendment on to protect rectangular pieces of cloth that come in the same colors as the French flag for good measure, you lame twats?!?!?

Pathetic!

The "Do as we say, not as we do" Report for 3/1/2005 - (File under: Gungrabbers)

In one of those delicious bits of liberal hypocrisy, a newspaper in Illinois reports Anti-gun activist arrested after firearm found at home.

A Springfield woman who began lobbying against gun violence after her son was shot to death in 2002 was arrested last week when police allegedly found an illegal gun and drugs in her home.

Annette "Flirty" Stevens, however, said Monday she's innocent, and the arrest is an attempt by police to get her to give up information about unsolved crime in the city.

The handgun, which had a scratched-off serial number, and drugs allegedly were discovered Friday morning inside Stevens' home in the 2500 block of South 15th Street. Authorities said they obtained a search warrant for the residence as part of an ongoing investigation of a recent series of drive-by shootings. No one has been hurt in the gunplay.

Her nickname is "Flirty"?!? Well, it could've been "Diane Feinstein", if she was going to pack heat while seeking to deprieve non-elite subjects....er....citizens of their 2nd Amendment rights.

Toying with your freedom

Sex toys banned in Alabama - another shining example of your tax dollars at work. :-\

Lying Liars Talk It, But Won't Walk It!

Hoystory.com is calling attention to disingenuous NYTimes liar Paul Krugman's promise - and we all know how much a liberal's word is worth - to offer his plan to save SocSec, only to weasel out. (Duh.)

Too shame the shameless, they've created this banner:



As they explain:

I will change the numbers automatically every Tuesday and Saturday until Krugman outlines anything resembling a plan. I'll pull down the banners even if all Krugman says is along the lines of: Double the payroll tax, increase the retirement age to 80 and charge a poll tax on Republicans.

Krugman has had a free ride for the past couple of months. He criticizes everything.

Where do you stand Paul? What's the solution? What's your plan?

Enlighten us.

I hope they aren't holding their breath. At one forum, I've been waiting since THE ELECTION for one of these Can'tMoveOn.Argh! types who continue to promulgate the myth to explain under what circumstances they would've accepted Dubya's re-election. If 500 votes in Florida in '00 and 180K in Ohio in '04 and the Left's flip-flops over whether the Electoral College or the popular vote should determine the winner aren't good enough, what would be? Since ANY result other than a Democrat winning is unacceptable, they simply refuse to answer the question.

Minds are changing about the Middle East

So sayeth USNews' Michael Barone in his colum "Minds Are Changing". While the anti-American, anti-Dubya haters keep hating - Gore and Kerry lost!!! MOVE ON!!! - saner minds (read: not Al Franken or Michael Moore) are starting to grudgingly acknowledge that some good things are starting to happen:

The Washington Post 's David Ignatius, who covered Lebanon in the 1980s and has kept in touch since, has been skeptical that the Bush administration's policy would change things for the better. But reporting from Beirut last week, he wrote movingly of "the movement for political change that has suddenly coalesced in Lebanon and is slowly gathering force elsewhere in the Arab world." Ignatius interviewed Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader long a critic of the United States. Jumblatt's words are striking: "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world. The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it." As Middle East expert Daniel Pipes writes, "For the first time in three decades, Lebanon now seems within reach of regaining its independence."

Minds are changing in Europe, too. Claus Christian Malzahn in Der Spiegel . "Maybe the people of Syria, Iraq, or Jordan will get the idea in their heads to free themselves from their oppressive regimes just as the East Germans did," he writes. "Just a thought for Old Europe to chew on: Bush might be right, just like Reagan was."

"Tipping point." And minds are changing in the United States. On Nightline, the New York Times 's Thomas Friedman and, with caveats, the New Yorker 's Malcolm Gladwell agreed that the Iraqi election was a "tipping point" and declined Ted Koppel's invitation to say that things could easily tip back the other way. One Democrat...is the party's most likely 2008 nominee, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. She voted for the Iraq war and has not wavered in her support--she avoided voting for the $87 billion before voting against it. She has kept clear of the Michael Moore left and its shrill denunciations of Bush and has kept her criticisms well within the bounds of normal partisan discourse...Moveon.org may want to keep shrieking about weapons of mass destruction, but Senator Clinton is moving on.

George W. Bush gambled that actions can change minds. So far, he's winning.

Read it all. (I don't have to pay a royalty to Glenn Reynolds to use that phrase, do I?)

What Ever Happened to "The Arab Street"?

Remember before the war all that yammering about how if we were to invade Iraq, "the Arab Street" would arise in mass jihad against us here in the Great Satan and blah-blah-woof-woof? When's the last time you've heard that term?

That's the thesis in The Arab Street - A vanquished clich by Christopher Hitchens at Slate today. Hitchens says....

In retrospect, it's difficult to decide precisely when this annoying expression began to expire, if only from diminishing returns. There was, first, the complete failure of the said "street" to detonate with rage when coalition forces first crossed the border of Iraq, as had been predicted (and one suspects privately hoped) by so many "experts." But one still continued to hear from commentators who conferred street-level potency on passing "insurgents." (I remember being aggressively assured by an interviewer on Al Franken's quasi-comedic Air America that Muqtada Sadr's "Mahdi Army" in Najaf was just the beginning of a new "Tet Offensive.")

Of course, every now and then one still reads polls, conducted by who knows what measurement, that appear to state the contrary. For some reason, the Pew Center seems especially keen on publicizing these sorts of mass-opinion finding. You've seen them: Nine out of 10 Moroccan teenagers have a poster of Osama Bin Laden on their bedroom walls and so forth. Yet these findings don't seem to translate into anything much: The Muslim population with the closest experience of Bin Laden was the Afghan one, and the Afghan street, to judge by all available evidence, rejected him and ignored his threats in crushing and overwhelming numbers.

In Iraq, Muslim militants place bombs in the mosques of those Muslims they regard as heretics. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, too, the Salafi and Wahhabi extremists commit murder against Muslims they deem unclean or unorthodox. And in the West, there are non-Muslims who excuse such atrocities as "resistance." These are often the same as those who hailed what they thought of as the "street." I don't think they should be indicted for hate crimes, but they should be made to understand that what they say is hateful and criminal, as well as sectarian. The battle for clarity of language is a part of this larger contest, and it is time for the opponents of terror and bigotry to become very much less apologetic and defensive on this score.

Goes reads it alls.

The NY Times and the Big Lies about Valerie Plame

When the Left isn't gay-baiting about bogus journalist, they're busy ignoring the reality behind another of their phony scandals - the supposed "outing" of CIA lackey Valerie Plame in supposed retaliation for her Dem hack hubbie, Joe Wilson's pack of lies editorial about whether Dubya should've alluded to Niger yellowcake uranium that painted him as a lonely soul speaking Truth to Power when he was actually Lying For Dollars in the form of a nice book deal and Vanity Fair spread celebrating his faux martyrdom.

Well, as detailed in today's OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today, the NY Times has been quietly backing away from their concentrated campaign of smears and distortions they engaged in during the Election in order to assist their Annointed Feckless Crapweasel in securing a less ignomanious defeat.

The "disclosure" may not have been a crime? Wow, that's a shocker! Well, actually, it's not a shocker to anyone who's been reading this column. In a pair of items in 2003, on Oct. 2 and Oct. 6, we laid out extensive evidence--based on information that was publicly available at the time and on the text of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act--that there almost certainly was no crime at the center of the Plame kerfuffle. The Times' editorialists and columnists, however, were singing quite a different tune, and it's worth reviewing their record of pronouncements on the subject.

There's a lot of links and cites in the original - part of the Blogosphere's "We back it up." policy as opposed to the MSM's standard of "We said so and that's that." - so go check it all out and learn something.

Also check out Powerline's "In Which the Times Plays With Matches" which includes:

While the Times was peddling the bogus Plame "outing" scandal as involving a violation of federal law by administration officials, cooler heads at the time noted the likely inapplicability of the most frequently cited federal law (the Intelligence Identities Protection Act). Among these cooler heads were Slate's Jack Shafer in October 2003 ("Stop the investigation!"), the pseudonymous Edward Boyd of Zonitics in October 2003 (click here and here), and Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit in early December 2003 (click here).

According to the New York Times in December 2003, John Ashcroft's appointment of an independent counsel to investigate the adminstration was overdue. Indeed, it was something like an emergency. The Times failed to note at the time, however, that the Times itself was in possession of evidence relevant to the identification of the alleged lawbreakers. And of course the Times has refused to turn the evidence over in response to the subpoenas issued to it by the independent counsel whose appointment it demanded.

Next time you hear the Usual Leftists spewing their bile about how Evil Dubya is trampling on citizen's rights and the Free Press, ask yourself if they're telling you the whole story about who's doing what to whom.

U.S. can sit back and watch Europe implode

So says Mark Steyn of the Chicago Sun-Times in discussing Dubya's trip to Europe that was reported as being a "fence-mending" mission Oh really?

But either way the notion that [Europe's] a superpower in the making is preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views: a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up.

For what it's worth, I incline to the latter position. Europe's problems -- its unaffordable social programs, its deathbed demographics, its dependence on immigration numbers that no stable nation (not even America in the Ellis Island era) has ever successfully absorbed -- are all of Europe's making. By some projections, the EU's population will be 40 percent Muslim by 2025. Already, more people each week attend Friday prayers at British mosques than Sunday service at Christian churches -- and in a country where Anglican bishops have permanent seats in the national legislature.

Some of us think an Islamic Europe will be easier for America to deal with than the present Europe of cynical, wily, duplicitous pseudo-allies. But getting there is certain to be messy, and violent.

Until the shape of the new Europe begins to emerge, there's no point picking fights with the terminally ill. The old Europe is dying, and Mr. Bush did the diplomatic equivalent of the Oscar night lifetime-achievement tribute at which the current stars salute a once glamorous old-timer whose fading aura is no threat to them. The 21st century is being built elsewhere.

Go read it all.

Vladimir Putin, CBS News Loyalist

From Time.com, news that the Russian President has been drinking the Kool-Aid:

George Bush knew Vladimir Putin would be defensive when Bush brought up the pace of democratic reform in Russia in their private meeting at the end of Bush's four-day, three-city tour of Europe. But when Bush talked about the Kremlin's crackdown on the media and explained that democracies require a free press, the Russian leader gave a rebuttal that left the President nonplussed. If the press was so free in the U.S., Putin asked, then why had those reporters at CBS lost their jobs? Bush was openmouthed. "Putin thought we'd fired Dan Rather," says a senior Administration official. "It was like something out of 1984."

The Russians did not let the matter drop. Later, during the leaders' joint press conference, one of the questioners Putin called on asked Bush about the very same firings, a coincidence the White House assumed had been orchestrated. The odd episode reinforced the Administration's view that Putin's impressions of America are often based on urban myths fed to him by ill-informed aides. (At a past summit, according to Administration aides, Putin asked Bush whether it was true that chicken producers split their production into plants that serve the U.S. and lower-quality ones that process substandard chicken for Russia.)

That this guy is a ignorant as your typical liberal isn't too surprising, but when you consider he used to be head of the KGB, it makes you wonder wassup wit' dat?

Chris Rock vs. the Oscars

Much gnashing of teeth over his hosting what's sure to be an anti-climatic show on Sunday, but there's a good piece at Slate that touches on the fact that while everyone's attacking Drudge, they're totally missing that Rock has more non-liberal values in his material than they probably want to admit:

Far from an encomium to fetus killing, Rock's abortion bit is an attack on women for the frivolous manner in which they decide whether or not to keep a child. "When a woman gets pregnant, it's a choice between the woman"—here Rock pauses, a mischievous grin barely restrained—"and her girlfriends." From there: "One girlfriend goes, 'Child, you should have that baby—that man got some good hair…' And the other girlfriend says, 'Child, why we even talking about this—ain't we supposed to go to Cancun next week? Get rid of that baby!' " And that, Rock says, "is how life is decided in America."

The assumption is that women who get abortions are frivolous and irresponsible rather than poor and desperate, as a liberal might have it. Not much there to offend a conservative's sensibilities. Though Drudge claims the academy "went to the gutter" by picking Rock, where it actually went was to the right. Rock may speak the irreverent language of blue comedy, but more often than not, his ideas are red-state red.

Take, for instance, the opening numbers in Bigger & Blacker, the HBO special Rock did in 1999. He begins with a discussion of the Columbine shootings, then recent, dismissing attempts to examine the shooters' psychology. "What ever happened to crazy?" he demands. He next turns to gun control, which he's against, and single mothers, whom he also doesn't like. "If a kid calls his grandma 'mama' and his mama 'Pam,' he's going to jail," Rock explains. To all the women who leave their kids at home so they can pop some bubbly at the club, Rock has this advice: "Go take care of those kids before they rob me in 10 years."

Sub a few $10 words for some F bombs, and this material could almost have come out of the hallowed jowls of William F. Buckley Jr. Obviously not all of Rock's material has this bent—no decent comedian would limit himself to ribbing one side of the aisle. Rock has joked that joining a political party is like joining a gang; of his own political beliefs, he says on crime he's conservative, on prostitution he's liberal. But at bottom, there's no denying the right-leaning strain underlying his social commentary. Even his economic outlook is Republican: Black people, he says, would do well to take their money out of rims and put it into stocks.

This is the same thing you see on "South Park" - satiric outrage at political correctness, etc. wrapped up in shock tactic paper.

What I'm currently lusting for...

8 MP, many of the features of the EOS 20D and <$1K. Neat.

Please pass the ...BASEBALL BAT!!!

Those merciless killjoys at the Center for Science in the Public Interest (aka "the don't eat that, don't drink that, don't smoke that, stop having fun folks") have decided that the government needs to drop what they're already doing badly and start regulating salt as a food additive. Here's the bit that sells the whole:

A consumer group sued the federal government Thursday, saying that salt is killing tens of thousands of Americans and that regulators have done too little to control salt in food.

"If we could reduce the sodium in processed and restaurant foods by half, we could save about 150,000 lives per year," he said.

And if I was Angelina Jolie's Love Slave, I wouldn't care about much stuff like this, either.

Rappers and Bloggers - Separated at birth!

Yeesh...you wouldn't believe the backlog of stuff that hasn't gotten posted, but, oh well, boofriggedyhoo...

What we got is a quickie called Rappers and Bloggers - Separated at birth! by Josh Levin at Slate. While it's not a 1:1 analogy, there's some interesting thoughts, like...

And don't forget those silly, silly names. Even if he didn't flaunt his devotion to pimping and pit bulls, you'd probably guess Snoop Dogg is a rapper. And Fedlawyerguy—yeah, probably a blogger. But the "blogger or rapper?" parlor game can stump even the nerdiest gangsta. Does uggabugga hate on wack emcees or wack Charles Krauthammer? What about Mad Kane? Big Noyd, Justus League, Uppity Negro, Little Brother, Cold Fury, and South Knox Bubba? (Answers: blogger, blogger, rapper, rap group, blogger, rap group, blogger, blogger.)

Essentially, blogging is sampling plus a new riff. Political bloggers take a story in the news, rip out a few chunks, and type out a few comments. Rap songs use the same recipe: Dig through a crate of records, slice out a high hat and a bass line, and lay a new vocal track on top. Of course, the molecular structure of dead-tree journalism and classic rock is filthy with other people's research and other people's chord progressions. But in newspaper writing and rock music, the end goal is the appearance of originality—to make the product look seamless by hiding your many small thefts. For rappers and bloggers, each theft is worth celebrating, another loose item to slap onto the collage.

Rap music and blogging are populist, low-cost-of-entry communication forms that reward self-obsessed types who love writing in first person. Maybe that's why both won so many converts so quickly. If you want to become MC I'm Good at Rapping, all you have to do is rustle up a microphone and a sampler. If you want to blog as AngryVeganCatholicGOPMom, bring a computer, an Internet connection, a working knowledge of Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V, and a whole lot of spare time.

In the words of Instapundit (where I saw this), "Read it all."

Micro$oft's Guide To Computer Slang

This is actually for real.

While it's important to respect your children's privacy, understanding what your teenager's online slang means and how to decipher it is important as you help guide their online experience. While it has many nicknames, information-age slang is commonly referred to as leetspeek, or leet for short. Leet (a vernacular form of "elite") is a specific type of computer slang where a user replaces regular letters with other keyboard characters to form words phonetically—creating the digital equivalent of pig Latin with a twist of hieroglyphics.

Leet words can be expressed in hundreds of ways using different substitutions and combinations, but once one understands that nearly all characters are formed as phonemes and symbols, leetspeek isn't difficult to translate.

Key points for learning leetspeek

• Numbers are often used as letters. The term "leet" could be written as "1337," with "1" replacing the letter L, "3" posing as a backwards letter E, and "7" resembling the letter T. "0" (zero) will typically replace the letter "O."
• Characters of similar appearance can be used to replace the letters they resemble. For example, "5" or even "$" can replace the letter S. Applying this style, the word "leetspeek" can be written as "133t5p33k" or even "!337$p34k," with "4" replacing the letter A.
  

t3h g4yz0r!!! LOL!!!!1!!!!!

Is Image Everything?

Hmmm....

Truth-Seeking Blogosphere Bags Another MSM Trophy!

Partly because I've been busy and mostly because nothing super-solid has been available to comment upon, I haven't posted anything about the comments allegedly made by CNN chief news executive Eason Jordan in which he claimed that journalists were deliberately targeted for murder by the U.S. Military in Iraq.

Reports that he received great applause from the anti-American elements in the crowd at the Swiss summit he was participating were echoing around the blogosphere and diligently ignored by a MSM reeling from the fall of CBS/Dan Rather. Key to the story was the fact that no transcript and/or videotape of the panel was forthcoming, which fueled speculation that it was even worse for him and CNN than intitially imagined.

Well, he fell on his sword tonight, saying he was quitting to avoid tarnishing CNN's worthless credibility image, but still no tape of his REAL comments has surfaced.

The Kerry Spot on National Review Online has a great round-up leading to other round-ups, so dig in! It's a brand new day!

Catching up with recent current events....

Due to schedule conflicts, a whole lot of stuff went by unremarked upon when they happened, so I'm just going to give some snapshot comments on the last 10 days worth of happenings.

• The Iraqi elections were an overwhelming success as the brave people of Iraq proved the liberal elites to be a herd of naysaying defeatists who'd rather see tyrants oppress their people forever than let Dubya have a success.
• While the vote was wrapping up, the Feckless Crapweasel was on Meet The Press pronouncing failure and claiming to have supplied the Khmer Rouge with weapons which is either a total lie or admission of committing war crimes. If he'd been elected, it's a safe bet he would've postponed the elections to allow his masters in Europe and Al Queda to cheer on the further slaughter of American troops in order to confirm that we've got it coming. They used to shoot people like Kerry for treason. My how times change!
• Compared to last year's snoozer, Dubya's State of the Union speech certainly SOUNDED nice, but any promises from the guy who didn't veto a single bill in his first term and exploded the deficit thru insane spending on bloating the Federal leviathan aren't worth much. Pile on the pointless obstructionist Dems and the Stupid Party who are cowed by the MSM and that's a recipe for nothing much to happen.
• OTOH, if the best the Dems have is the thin, hypocritical gruel offered by Pelosi and Reid and intend to make Screamin' Howie Dean the DNC chair, the Stupid Party doesn't even need to do much to keep in control.
• Super Bowl - Who cares other than Rush Limbaugh being able to call McNabb up to snicker?