Mosquito Rodeo

It's finally over. Our robed masters have succeeded in killing a defenseless, innocent woman after fighting off challenges by the executive and legislative branches. You know, the ones who are ELECTED.

By the by, were you aware that Mr. Shiavo's lawer, the "expert" on the "right to die" has controlled an airplane with his mind? If we're going to allow legal hacks to hijack our judicial system, would it be too much to ask if they could at least be the non-moonbat variety?

I have told my wife and now I'm telling anybody who reads this: please do not kill me just because I'm on a feeding tube. If I'm on a respirator and a bunch of other stuff and it looks like I'm brain dead and pulling the plug will take care of it, fine, pull the plug. Even if you just don't feel like taking care of me, I won't hold it against you in the next life if you just give me a little shot and send me drifting away. But if you have to starve/dehydrate me to death, especially if it's in the vortex of a media circus, I'd really rather just stick around awhile longer if it's all the same to you.

This whole episode is going to be a lasting stain on our nation. Nothing good came out of it AT ALL. There is no upside. No silver lining. Things are infinitely worse than they were before it took place. The character of our nation no longer includes standing up for the little guy, and taking care of the least of our citizens, and giving everybody the right to LIFE, liberty and the pursuit of happiness except WITH DUE PROCESS. This woman left no legal instructions to have her killed and she was convicted of no crime, and we killed her anyway. I surely do hope we find redemption for this someday, instead of allowing it to become routine. That would mean we have ceased to be the nation I've loved since I can remember.

Let's not be the Netherlands, okay? Please?

UPDATE: Humor me here for a moment, because a series of thoughts occured to me today. What if Terri had woken up while being dehydrated to death? What if she was suddenly able to take water? Would they have continued to deny her water if she was unable to get up and go over to the sink and draw herself a glass, or would Michael Schiavo finally let her parents at least give her water. Would he then still have denied her food, such that she would starve to death anyway in a week? Would the court have continued to side with him in light of her condition? If she had actively asked the court to please divorce her from this man, or asked them to please make her parents her guardians, would the court STILL side with him? If she told the court directly that he had beaten her and caused her to slip into the state she had been in, would they STILL have sided with him? At what point does it become a case of the court just blindly continuing down a path to avoid having to admit that it has made and continues to make a horrible, horrible mistake? A lot of this may seem like ridiculous questions to be asking, but just a short time ago, it seemed a ridiculous proposition that we would dehydrate someone to death legally, too. I'm just sayin', is all.

And a final thought: people have wondered aloud a lot about how Terri would have wanted things. I bet she would have had a big problem with how her husband and her parents have been treating each other, particularly with her husband barring her parents from her side in her last hours. And when I look at the pictures of how she was before her collapse, I can't help but think that she looks like the kind of person who wouldn't be at all comfortable about all the attention her predicament has gotten. I sincerely hope she's completely at peace now.

Just say no.

I've ranted a bit here on it, both in comments and on the front page. I've ranted a little about it in meatspace. All told, I'm proud of my restraint. You would be too, if you understood how I WANTED to rant a few days ago....but now I pass the baton to someone who seems eminently qualified.

I may or may not have a final Schiavo post after she's gone. Probably not. There won't be much to say at that point, I guess.

I recently received an email that basically asked me why I hate the Left so badly. In answer, I will direct you to this fine example of "progressive" art. Some parents somewhere are really getting their money's worth for their kid's MIT education, don't you think?

I spit on these slimy bastards.

I usually try to respect liberals. As I've written before, I have people near and dear to me who are liberals, misguided though they are. Yes, I'm talking about you, Ben.

But this was written by a liberal puke, not to put too fine a point on it.

Some blogs repeat unproven accusations that Michael Schiavo may have caused the injury that put his wife in a vegetative state.

1) This was just after quoting a liberal blogger vertabim without snide comment implying how wrong he is. They could do the same for the conservative, but that just wouldn't be the AP's style, right? Most of the blogs I've seen mentioning that angle, including my own, don't necessarily accuse Shiavo of anything. We're just wondering why he doesn't JUST WALK AWAY. Leave her to those that love her and want to care for her. If they weren't there, I'd probably understand better. But they ARE, DAMMIT.
2) I resent that they repeat the unproven assertion that she's in a "vegetative state". LOOK AT THE FILM, PEOPLE. Cucumbers and celery don't move or follow things with their eyes. If they do, you really need to lay off the acid.

While attorney bloggers generally expect that the trial court decision's to remove her feeding tube will stand, a majority of blog commentators express outrage that society would allow a person to die when medical technology is available to sustain her life.

That puts them at odds with public opinion surveys conducted over the weekend, which found a majority of Americans opposed federal intervention in the Schiavo case — but, of course, bloggers have a take on that, too.

"Polls by so-called 'polling experts' are almost always biased. I have never and will never participate in such a poll," Rick Allen writes on BlogsforTerri.

You should read how they took those polls, too. In fact here, have a look for yourself. So, when was it that you finally stopped beating your wife, anyway?

Besides which, who cares what polls say on an issue like this? Whether to get into a war, yes, they're an important factor. Raising or lower taxes? Might want to check the polls. Gee, should we kill a woman that, contrary to what the AP and most other major news organizations say, is MOST DEFINITELY NOT on "life support"? Screw opinion polls.

This is about justice. There was no living will. Terri should live.

Why do people seem to think that Jesus, Saint Mary, Satan, et al want to appear to them? Sheesh. If the virgin Mary ever shows up in steam on my coffee pot, I'm going to just wipe it off and get on with things, because I'm very, very afraid of having my name in the news associated with things like this.

bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Trackback me. It's for a good cause. My ego.

hat tip: View from Tonka (a meatspace almost-neighbor, as it happens).

If you are a person who completely understands why her husband is having her killed by starvation, if you are the sort of person who sees nothing wrong with the judges ordering her killed when she is not on life support beyond a feeding tube, if you don't mind that the Florida legislature has allowed this ghoulish freakshow to drag on for months without any sort of resolution one way or another, then I have no use for you. Please stop reading and leave my blog. You're not welcome here.

UPDATE: I should add that it is my considered opinion that her scummy "husband" has something to hide. My understanding is that there is a history of domestic violence there. Further, I understand that there was some question as to whether he might have contributed in some way to her being in the condition he's in. Some doctors are saying she could improve and live a happy, if not normal, life. Her parents and brother seem willing to care for her, and are not asking her husband for anything. I think he wants her dead so she doesn't get better and tell people something he doesn't want made public. Just my own speculation...but it seems a plausible scenario.

UPDATE: It is now official US policy to kill anybody who isn't convenient to have around, even if they're COMPLETELY INNOCENT. This may be the first time I've felt anything akin to real shame for my country.

UPDATE: I spoke with my wife about this issue last night. She works with developmentally disabled people for a living. Her very strong feeling, based on long and daily experience working with people just like Terri, is that she is a feeling human being every bit as much as some of the people she works with. This is a travesty. Please, I know I haven't tried to cultivate a huge readership, but if you're reading this and haven't thought to do it, drop an email to your senators and congressman to encourage them to stop this gruesome spectacle. It's important. By how we respond to this case as Americans not only defines who we are as a people, but also sets a precedent for all future cases. The death penalty is one thing. Terri is another. She never did anything to anyone that I heard of.

UPDATE: What he said. Both about Terri and about his life in the last few years, except for the bit about being able to write. In fact, I'd venture to say that his post is what I would write about both Terri and myself if I was more adept at writing. For now I'll just point at his work and say "me too".

LAST UPDATE: He just did it again. See, in the blogosphere, my experience has been that really great writing is very rare. The American Digest piece I linked to in the last update is one I would consider great, though that's really pretty rare in my experience and it's not why I continue to read blogs like a crack addict looks for his next fix. My motivation is to find things like this one, where somebody takes information that in a lot of cases I was already aware of and points out correlations and juxtapositions that I had never understood or noticed. THAT is the beauty of just having a few thousand--or million--ordinary (and some not-so-ordinary) joes and janes sitting around a virtual table and riffing off each others' thoughts. The most amazing things get figured out this way.

I've heard many a leftist--particularly the Hollywood variety just back from a visit with Castro--rave about how the Cuban health care system is far superior to that of America.

Castro's people should have kept a closer eye on blogs. Somebody got a camera past their security. And now we have pictures. If these pictures are authentic, and I have no reason to believe they aren't, I can state for the record that my dog's vet has better facilities.

Heh.

It's Eat an Animal for PETA Day. Everybody celebrate! I think I'll bypass my normal veggie sandwich lunch in favor of baby-back ribs and veal. I mean, it's for a good cause, right?

Some people go absolutely crazy for celebrity trivia. They obsess over what post-emmies parties Jennifer Aniston attended, or what Prince Charles is up to, or who the Real Michael Jackson (tm) is. Well, for me it's Grover:

GROVER. To millions of children throughout the world in the seventies and eighties, that name was synonymous with a funny, cuddly and ultimately loveable fuzzy blue monster from Sesame Street. For many of us, Grover was hands-down the best character on the show: bringing laughter, intelligence and a certain irreverence not seen in other 2-dimensional children's programs of the day. And he was cute, too.

But what many of us didn't see behind that brave exterior was a monster cowering in the face of his own insecurities, a monster so unsure of himself he wouldn't even watch his own performances, and a monster who ultimately allowed his own weaknesses to overcome him and nearly ruin his career. A genius, a tyrant, a womanizer or just a washed-up drunk? It's time to expose Grover- the monster behind the myth.

Thus begins a thrilling, haunting, ultimately satisfying saga for the ages.

Read it all, for it is good.

There's a bunny education (and sad ponderings) to be had over at the Glittering Eye. My only comment--churlish though it may be--is that while rabbits may be rodents or they may be lagomorphs, but they are most definitely tasty.

Hey, if Mel Gibson can joke about eating dogs in "Patriot", I think I can joke about snarfing a lagomorph. Especially when I'm telling the truth. Tastes like chicken.

Here's a parallel I hadn't thought of. The more I consider it, the more fitting it is. Aside from the freedom in Afghanistan, freedom in Iraq, use of the US military to respond to the tsunami and save many, many thousands of lives, the most generous charitable giving on the planet (unless you dishonestly fail to count private donations in your calculations), the fine example of democracy set for the world, the best pop culture in the world, the greatest economic opportunities in the world for US citizens and non-citizens alike, saving Europe (twice) and paying for their defense for decades, saving Kosovo, saving and continuously protecting South Korea, and a hundred other things that don't come to mind in 1/10 of a second of consideration, what has the US ever done for anybody? It's alarming how 30-year-old british farce is so accurately predicting the state of so many things in the world today.

This is the country that nitwit Ward Churchill feels should be attacked. And this guy is considered an "intellectual". I know a guy who sells slurpees at the local gas station that's a whole lot smarter and more thoughtful than Churchill and his vomit-inducing ilk.

Iowahawk rides again. Prediction: if the court continues the way it has lately, this will no longer qualify as satire and will likely come true.

Heh.