once again, the jesus freaks and the republicans (i know, i know, REDUNDANT) are sticking their fucking noses where THEY DON'T FUCKING BELONG

note the calls to "morality" in this case, but only from one side. you know, i really need to start a thread about George Lakoff, and how both sides have a coherent systems of morals & values, but only one side has worked out how to talk about theirs(whereas the other side doesn't always know their's).

Still, glad to hear the court did not prevail. I am very very for euthanasia, so much so I hope it is legal when/if I am old and infirm. Or else I may have to go the Hunter Thompson route. I'm not joking.

Who the fuck tells me what to do with my life? It's MINE.

yes, you are correct trayce. but this story just REALLY gets me pissed, b/c i see it as a bunch of religious busybodies who are using this woman's (as well as her husband's and family's) tragedy for their ends. once again, getting involved in PRIVATE matters so that they can cram THEIR beliefs down peoples' throats (as well as to slander and to bankrupt the husband in the process). AND the fact that the bushes got involved in this as well, exploiting all of this grief for political gain.

Well, in more legal terms, of course.

-- hstencil (hstenc!...) (webmail), March 18th, 2005 6:44 AM. (hstencil) (link)

yeah, that was pretty awe-inspiring.

I think the Baby Boom generation is going to sort that shit out. We've got an awful lot of people fixing to die in the next 20-30 years, and I don't think they're going to do it on anyone's terms but their own. Some of the taboos about talking about death and dying and how we do it have already started to crumble as the Boomers are watching their parents die. I expect that to continue, no matter what the life zealots say. Case in point is a 50-ish woman I work with, who said just the other day, "You know, when it's inoperable or terminal or the chances are 95 percent against me, just make sure I've got good drugs and as little pain as possible and let me go." Fuckin' A. I think that's one reason The Barbarian Invasions resonated like it did -- I know lots of people who loved that movie, and I think a lot of it has to do with its kind of idyllic presentation of the choose-your-own-death scenario. (Interesting that didn't raise the fuss that Million Dollar Baby did, even though it also won an Oscar and more or less advocated heroin for cancer patients. But it was in French, and I guess the pro-life pros don't watch movies in French.)

But yeah, the Schiavo thing...I can't believe people are talking about mass protests outside her hospice. I'm sorry, but if I was at a hospice and a bunch of people showed up outside to protest, I'd have somebody wheel me to the window and get me a megaphone so I could shout, "Do you fucking mind? Some of us are trying to die here!"

(whimpers)

I can't believe her parents think she has the ability to make a comeback. She's BRAIN-DEAD!

everyone should see wiseman's near death

Oh, wait. That was something else.

Very very legal.

yes -- in the United States. (the relevant documents are called "advance directives.")

in australia (where trayce and adam are), i don't know if they have such things.

The government tells you what the fuck to do with your life at many, many junctures. Or does your ire only get raised on the issue of euthanasia?

Im all for not intervening into this issue, but they dont have any record of Schiavo saying she wanted to go, right? So its basically word of the husband versus word of the family..

A. McCarthy complains

Some parts of the Corner are going nuts. Interesting, though, many aren't.

OF FOR CRYING OUT FUCKING LOUD.

SENSENBRENNER
Is the problem in the House of Representatives right now, according to many, and high-ranking sources. He made it clear to senators yesterday that he would not accept the Martinez private relief bill that passed yesterday. His reasons being that it would break precedent and that it would encourage people to petition Congress more often (like death-row inmates). (My answer? So. Don’t jump at them.)

(followed up by)

Worth noting that the Senate bill passed has this:

SEC. 8. NO PRECEDENT FOR FUTURE LEGISLATION.

Nothing is this Act shall constitute a precedent with respect to future legislation.

Precedent-setting concerns shouldn't really be a concern, because the bill is so specific.

"MRS. SCHIAVO, HOW MANY FINGERS AM I HOLDING UP? WOULD YOU LIKE TO DIE TODAY????"

WEEKEND AT TERRI'S

In other news, the aborted head of Manar Maged was ordered to testify before the Congressional Committee on Human Dignity. Though the head cannot speak, it can wink and smile.

3/18/2005
Terry Schiavo Must Die:
The time has come for the inevitable end of this story, this miserable lot of the last fifteen years for Terry Schiavo. Brain-damaged and rubber-boned, barely human anymore, Schiavo has the indignity of having her nerve-reflex smile paraded out every time the moment comes close for her to have to sink or swim, to learn quickly to feed herself or starve. She is the unfortunate child of narcisstic parents who have pathetically deluded themselves into believing that, at some point, the rock that rolls around in her head will once again become a brain. She sadly lives in a culture so driven mad by religion that people will gather and pray for her to go on "living" (if by "living," you mean "devolving into a gelatinous mound with a nerve-reflex smile"). Anyone even barely touched by the rationality that is supposed to mark us as the most advanced creatures on the planet know this to be true: She must die.

And it doesn't matter at this point how. Take out the feeding tube. Wheel her into the alley behind the hospice and put three bullets into the back of her foamy skull. Put her on a raft on Tampa Bay and send her out to the lovely Gulf of Mexico. Hell, a merciful nation would rejoice at this act and make sure there's fireworks and live music on the bayfront to accompany her on her last journey. A merciful God would have sent avenging angels to smite all those preening idiots outside the hospice with Gabriel announcing, "Are you all out of your fucking minds?" before setting the whole place, Schiavo and all, on fire.

But we are not a merciful nation, for we believe that suffering is a gift from God or some such bullshit, and if you are chosen to suffer, then suffer you must. If you're dirt poor, single, and homeless and you get pregnant, you must keep your baby, even though the overwhelming chance is that you and your baby will be hungry, cold, and miserable for the rest of both of your lives. Despite the fact that virtually every competent medical person who has walked into Schiavo's room and smelled the shit-scent of death has declared Schiavo a cabbage or, on a good day, a pea pod, the right smells opportunity to distract people from the gutting of programs that actually do good for the living . Other "experts" who have witnessed Schiavo's eyes follow a balloon on videotape are nonsensical idiots (and that includes Senate Majority Leader and noted cat-disemboweler Bill Frist).

Way back in 2000, before Schiavo became the rallying call for people who have nothing better to do, here is how the St. Petersburg Times described Schiavo's end: "If [the feeding tube] is removed, Mrs. Schiavo would die painlessly in a week or two. She does not feel hunger or thirst, and she would just drift away, doctors say." That fact, that Schiavo will not actually experience anything differently, is now left out of most media stories on her. The distorted face of Terry Schiavo is now merely a canvas upon which ideology has been writ large, where the notion of "life" has been perverted to mean "a heartbeat," and where the cruel vicissitudes of politics now rear their ugly, hydra-heads.

The right loves this. This is better than Elian Gonzalez. The National Review's Andrew McCarthy (who was so good in Pretty In Pink, but has really let himself go) rants like a baboon about to tear out the liver out of a fallen baboon enemy about Schiavo, saying that "she'd be better off if she were a terrorist." Schiavo's fate is like manna from heaven because anyone who dares to say, for instance, "Terry Schiavo Must Die," can instantly be labelled as uncaring and cruel and then you can go on Fox "News" and Hannity'll show that reflex-smile of the damned and everyone can say they are doing "what's best" for Schiavo.

Terry Schiavo was a vain woman, driven to bulimia by a sad desire to be thinner and thinner, afflicted, as so many women are and so many women aren't, by pop culture standards of thinness. Chances are it was the bulimia that led to the heart attack that led to the brain damage that led to the gooey being that is Schiavo being prayed over by the President and his brother. Now ask yourself: if Terry Schivao saw herself right now, knowing what we know about who she was and how she felt about looks, would she want to stay alive? You who know men and women like the pre-gelatinous Schiavo understand of what the Rude Pundit writes.

Now the Congress is involved. And the Republicans want Schiavo brought into the hearing room. What a spectacle that's gonna be. What a fucking horror show. What an embarrassment to this nation. All those righteous members of Congress, weeping because Schiavo can't answer their questions, listening to her machine sounds, the suckings, the gurgles. They called Schiavo before the committee in a little over a week because "it is a federal crime to harm or obstruct a person called to testify before Congress." Another person, another prop. Those fuckers in the GOP know what they're doing: force Democrats to vote against the bowl of jello in front of them and then use that as immunity in elections against charges that the Republicans are eliminating Social Security. What these disgusting, dirt-covered worms won't do to eat the flesh off the body politic.

The only comfort in any of this is that Schiavo won't know a fucking thing that's going on. She is an object, not a subject. She is acted upon. If Bill Frist wanted to test her reflexes by pulling up her gown and raping her in front of the gathered media, she would not care. If Tom DeLay wanted to pick her up and dance her around like a puppet, she would not care. She will never, ever care again. There is only one caring solution. She must die.

"she'd be better off if she were a terrorist."

Hahaha. I love that considering the NRO winks at all the detainee deaths. Sad, really.

If he does this, he gets my vote in 2008 I don't care who the Democrats put up.

we'll, they're certainly right about this. i just wish progressive efforts had more funding.

http://www.deathocrats.org/protestors4.jpg

BEST RIFF ON METAL GEAR SOLID, EVER!

http://thefucksociety.com/robin/terri.html

BEST RIFF ON METAL GEAR SOLID, EVER! And just wait till you see what they use for power-ups and for the end boss fight!

Nat Hentoff in the Voice

http://www.2trak.com/morans.jpg

I rather like how the family is watching the tree branch get sawed slowly out from underneath them.

I know this is a joke but it's regrettable.

So what exactly is the 'pro-life' position? If you don't have a living will with a DNR clause, you cannot be disconnected? Who is to pay for this? Have any of them addressed the morality of using resources (money, time, expertise) that could actually prevent human suffering on people who have ceased to suffer?

As I’ve said before, I hate that this Schiavo case rose to a level of congressional involvement—these are heartbreaking issues families should deal with; if they can’t, courts should deal with fairly. Whether the latter happened is questionable at best, and there entered the real public debate.

...which is funny in that all you have to do is check the blog archives and see her essentially pleading -- almost flat out demanding -- that Congress act. She made a couple of noises last week that maybe she was perhaps 'naive' about a few things and now is apparently starting to try and distance herself from the cheerleading she happily encouraged. Combined with the sharp cutback in her posts every other minute, or so it seemed, on the matter -- one wonders if she came to a realization or her colleagues leaned a bit -- and an interesting comment or two about all the negative mail they've apparently received from their subscribers (in some cases rapidly becoming ex-subscribers) and the result's...intriguing. You have to read between the lines but still, they goofed, and now are looking elsewhere for things to talk about. Even Andy McCarthy's been reduced to rehashing his legal arguments as a timekiller that is affecting nothing.

http://www.eyecandyforthebrokenhearted.com/morans.jpg

Inevitable SP episode is on now

xp oh yeah hahahahah

SYMBOLISM

He never asked for this desire, this sick lust for the half-living that nearly drove him to madness. Like a rusted car struggling to start after years of rotting away, his grunts seemed like the cries of a dying soul, clinging to what little beauty and pleasure it could before finally breaking free of this mortal coil and spiraling into the endless nightmare of schizophrenia.

The shutters clanked and cracked from a heavy gust outside. The clouds were beginning to break apart just in time for the sun to slowly drift away from the sky, leaving only darkness to hide the twisted actions taking place inside. With a face as grim as the reaper, Arnold methodically reached a climax, leaving his residue to dry away into a sticky mass on the dry and unused vaginal wall of his unwitting victim. Perhaps victim was too strong a word, for though she was the subject of his lustful abuse, her vegetative state left her only a half-person who would never know or feel pain like he did.

The squeaks and squeals of his water pipes struggling to serve their only purpose served as the perfect soundtrack to tonight, thought Arnold as he washed his hands, unable to clean away the near-endless scars of his sin. Laughing hysterically, he began to load two barrels into his 12 guage. The only thing that would shine in the dim light of a dying lamp, Arnold paid special attention to his 12 guage. Perhaps it was his most prized possession because, deep down, he realized it was his final means of escape from the hellish prison of existence.

A sharp pain entered his jaw bone as he bit down hard on the barrel of the weapon. A tear struggled to escape from his eye, and slowly dripped across his pale cheek, and landed alone on the cold broken linoleum floor. Terri, still quivering from the twisted ravages of Arnold's desire, remained blissfully unaware of the fate of her assailant, and could tell no one of the events that transpired. The pipes stopped their creaking, as if to prepare for it, and like lightning the silence was broken with a bang. For a brief moment Arnold could see the light, but soon everything faded to black and he could feel himself fade away.

The police would arrive the next morning, after receiving a call from a neighbor, and would discover Terri's sexually ravaged form sound asleep on the cold floor. They would also find the body of Arnold Schwarzenegger, or what was left of him, in his chair and the wall behind it. The chief could almost swear he saw a smile of relief in the dead lips of Arnold's body before they loaded him into the body bag.