How many of these stories today from the "CULTURE OF LIFE" crowd?

From Newsday:

SEMINOLE, Fla. -- A man was arrested after trying to steal a weapon from a gun shop so he could "take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo," authorities said.

Michael W. Mitchell, of Rockford, Ill., entered Randall's Firearms Inc. in Seminole just before 6 p.m. Thursday with a box cutter and tried to steal a gun, said Marianne Pasha, a spokeswoman for the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office.

Mitchell, 50, told deputies he wanted to "take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo" after he visited the Pinellas Park hospice where she lives, Pasha said.

Every action like this should be on the head of Chimpy and the fact that he enables nutjobs like Randall ("I retrieved this plastic fetus from a dumpster outside Planned Parenthood...really") Terry.

Hell To Pay

The difference between the nutjob wing of the Republican party (which seems to grow larger by the day) and the majority of sensible Americans of all political stripes is becoming clear. The Republican party, as envisioned by Bush, Frist, Delay, Hastert, Cheney, Rove, etc. has become a parody of itself. Beleiving that the party had to co-opt nutjobs like Randall Terry (to say nothing of Grover Norquist) is proving to be damaging to the party's health.

Bush's tone of resignation sparked anger and disappointment among protesters standing vigil outside the hospice where Schiavo was being cared for. Terry, who has been advising the Schindlers, said "there will be hell to pay" if the politicians whom religious conservatives had helped elect let Schiavo die.

I think he is on to something, on so many levels. Now we don't want to start counting chickens yet but we may take note of the fallout not from Terri Sciavo, but from the cynical hubris demonstrated by Bush and congressional Republicans using Terri Schiavolike a playground utility ball. They have seriously miscalculated on this one and the fact that they were either so blind or drunk about the actions they were taking is a good sign.

So here's to having hell to pay. May the price be steep and unrelenting. And there's no better time to do it you know.

Culture of Life Update

Dear Leader, so busy trying to make sure that a White Woman remains alive as chattel, hasn't seemed to notice that ten non-whites seem to have died this week in Minnesota, as Joe Fish notes.

Amazing isn't it that the GPS/SatNav systems on Air Force One don't have any mapped routes to Northern Minnesota?

As the Washington Post reports:

Native Americans across the country -- including tribal leaders, academics and rank-and-file tribe members -- voiced anger and frustration Thursday that President Bush has responded to the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history with silence.

...

"From all over the world we are getting letters of condolence, the Red Cross has come, but the so-called Great White Father in Washington hasn't said or done a thing," said Clyde Bellecourt, a Chippewa Indian who is the founder and national director of the American Indian Movement here. "When people's children are murdered and others are in the hospital hanging on to life, he should be the first one to offer his condolences. . . . If this was a white community, I don't think he'd have any problem doing that."

Of course, much as Schiavo is a complete sop to his most ardent (and deranged) supporters, the downplaying of a tragedy that is only slightly behind Columbine in numbers of dead is also related to a constituency groups. God forbid that we note that once again guns are everywhere in our society or that once again, a kid on prozac seems to go off the deep in and committ mass murder.

God forbid we ask any questions.

You cannot restrict GUNS, to curb the easy availability of instruments that can kill so many, so quickly and efficiently would not respect the CULTURE OF LIFE!

Friday Miscellaneous Lifeform Blogging

Attaturk is a tired man this morning. But nonetheless it's Friday and that means a random form of life must be posted.

All manner of material could be thrown up this week, but instead I dedicate this weeks post to the only animal I know of that can do to one physically, what Randall Terry does to one metaphorically.


The Amazonian Candiru

While it is been written that this fish enters the urethra of human bathers (one article - Lins, Journal of Urology, 1945) claims a U.S. navy surgeon named Charles Ammerman operated on three candir victims, in one case slicing into the bladder to extract the fish. Now, it is certain it does based on a recent report of a human having urinated while in the water and the Candir entered through his penis opening. The catfish had to be surgically removed at a hospital in Manaus. The disbelieving urologist (Dr.Anoar Samad) who performed the operation was not certain at first the fish was in the urethral tract but x-rays proved it was in there stuck. (Information verified by Dr. Paulo Petry, Bio-Amazonia Conservation). The Candir is considered by some to be the only known vertebrate to parasitize human beings, however that is an erroneous postulation. Truth is the fish enters humans more by accident than design, fortunately it is rare occurrence they enter human bodies!

HEY! You're at work, get your hands out of your pants and uncross your legs.

Thanks to reader TheaLogie.

Fair UND Balanced Homie

Ah, FoxNews, where journalism is in a permanent vegetative state, and employs albino freakshow John Gibson:

I think Jeb Bush should give serious thought to storming the Bastille.

By that I mean he should think about telling his cops to go over to Terri Schiavo's (search) hospice, go inside, put her on a gurney and load her into an ambulance. They could take her to a hospital, revive her, and reattach her feeding tube. It wouldn't save Terri exactly; she'd still be in the same rotten shape she was in before they disconnected the feeding tube.

But the point is, the temple of the law is so sacrosanct that an occasional chief executive cannot flaunt it once in a while, sort of drop his drawers on the courthouse steps and moon the judges, as a way to protest the complete disregard courts and judges have shown here, in this case, for facts outside the law.

You know at a real news station, having one of your purported news reporters advocate breaking the law would get one punished.

But on FoxNews, Colmes will bring him a hot doughnut and coffee*


*Thankfully not intended as a euphemism for "handjob".

And Now a Serious Post

The incredible nature of this Schiavo mess is stunning to me, stunning that this particular case became such a tempest, and stunned at the mendacity of a minority of the religious GOP rearing its head.

What no amount of poor news coverage, or slanders against Michael Schiavo could hide is the fact that this is something even most conservatives have a passing knowledge and concern for. Each and everyone of us knows that we are going to die, and each and everyone of us wants to go gracefully and with as little pain as possible. Certainly, not one of us would choose to be known only for our appearance in a vegetative state, when someone we trusted holds us up for display. I'm pretty sure nobody will argue that Terri Schiavo wanted that.

No person wants to be a glass-eyed spectacle at the end of our lives, trotted out like some exotic dead trout. That was the fate of Terri Schiavo for the last several years. 15 years in a vegetative state, the ONLY image millions of people have is a blank stare and an open mouth, an empty vessel.

And we all know if the Schindlers, and those on the right using them, had prevailed that was potentially a fate awaiting any one of us. Laying out, propped up on a bed, blank stare, drooling, glassy eyed, with only instinctive movement. Waiting, without knowing, someone to come clean us from whatever bowel or bladder movement we've had.

What they do not understand is that not only does everyone know they are going to die, a great many of us will face a situation of being with, or being responsible for, the life or death decision of someone else. Look at these posts on MSNBC for personal story after personal story of people who were in the situation of Michael Schiavo, time after time after time, all of them made the same decision and each came to know that letting someone go was the right decision.

Even those of us who do not have such a situation, or have not yet with a human being, we likely have had it in some other fashion.

I'm not a religious person, but if there are souls, then dammit my dogs have had them as much as most any person I've met. And yet like most pet owners I have faced the life and death decision. When your lifespan is several times the length of an animal that you keep as a pet, that is going to happen. We pet owners know what it is like to realize that life has no remaining value other than pain for our beloved animals, and we have to make the decision to end their lives -- and we do. I don't mean to compare the value of a pet to a human being so directly, though I think most pet owners are closer to their dogs or cats than all but a small handful of people in their lives.

Humans are genetically attuned to such matters in one form or another. For Tom DeLay to accuse someone like Michael Schiavo of being callous, we know that he is, in fact, judging most all of us in the same vile manner. And Bugman, we know ourselves and we know who we are, and we know damn well we don't make such decisions lightly.

The actions of DeLay and Bush this week are repugnant against the manner in which we as a society choose to live our lives and it manifested itself this week in opinion polls. When you attack something so important to all of us, and tell us our feelings are evil, it leaves a mark that we will all remember. We will remember and let you know.

Jeebus, this is too easy

The meltdown has apparently now led to a large puddle. It is clearly getting more and more PERSONAL for the Empress of the intersection of Nilla Wafer Street and Chick'n in a Biscuit Avenue.

"THE COWS SUFFERED TREMENDOUSLY." [K. J. Lopez]
Vermont farmer prosecuted for starving his cattle to death.
Posted at 01:43 PM

That story, must really hit close to home.

The Mind Reels

I'm staying as far away from Li'l LuLu as possible, but this post at my favorite recent object of scorn does make one wonder...

WEISE ON THE NET [K. J. Lopez]
Michelle Malkin's doing some disturbing Internet researching on the Minnesota school shooter.
Posted at 12:26 PM

Perhaps Ms. Maglaglalangabangagong is suggesting that people who share Weise's ethnicity be put on reservations or something?

So Much Material...

So little time...

Must...NOT...SPEND...PRECIOUS...SNARK...

STAY AWAY, SEAN [John Derbyshire]

Watching Hannity & Colmes Tuesday night I found myself nursing a devout hope that if I ever enter a persistent vegetative state, Sean Hannity is nowhere in the neighborhood.
Posted at 09:52 AM

The Culture of Life...Comes with Hushpuppies and Slaw on the Side

The Talent Show demonstrates that Mel Gibson cared enough about the Schiavo case to interrupt his meal. Ironically he was eating flounder at the time.



Having studied history, this reminds me of the time that Bob Packwood expressed solidarity with Ms. Lech Walesa by sending her a picture of his polish sausage.

THIS IMAGE DELETED BY THE EDITORS

They'll Blame the Clenis somehow...

Yet more evidence of Florida continuing to be Jebby and the Bush's virtual food tube.

State records show Bush re-election concerns played part in FEMA aid

As the second hurricane in less than a month bore down on Florida last fall, a federal consultant predicted a "huge mess" that could reflect poorly on President Bush and suggested that his re-election staff be brought in to minimize any political liability, records show.

Two weeks later, a Florida official summarizing the hurricane response wrote that the Federal Emergency Management Agency was handing out housing assistance "to everyone who needs it without asking for much information of any kind."

...

FEMA officials, the governor and the White House have steadfastly denied suggestions that politics played a role in the distribution of hurricane aid in Florida.

"The men and women at FEMA don't give a patooey about who the president is or who the governor is," FEMA Director Michael D. Brown told the newspaper's editorial board in October. "Whenever people say stuff like that … we're just offended by that because that's just not how we operate."

But politics was foremost on the mind of FEMA consultant Glenn Garcelon, who wrote a three-page memo titled "Hurricane Frances -- Thoughts and Suggestions," on Sept. 2.

...

Weeks after it was written, the memo made its way to Gov. Bush's chief of staff, Denver Stutler, who forwarded it to the governor Sept. 30. Bush did not see the report, nor was it used by the state, said the governor's spokesman, Jacob DiPietre.

Reached Tuesday at his home in Oregon, Garcelon said he "dashed off" the memo while on an airplane. "It was strictly my own personal perspective on things."

Working for Fluor Federal Services, a large firm that provides engineering and construction services to the government, Garcelon had been in Florida working on housing assistance for FEMA.

...

Dan McLaughlin, spokesman for U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla, said he was not surprised "that a consultant for the Bush administration would consider politics before the needs of hurricane victims."

"The very first points [of Garcelon's memo] have to do with shirking blame and calling in the president's re-election experts," McLaughlin said. " It only serves to underscore why we have to investigate how FEMA spent the hurricane money because there are just too many questions."

FEMA has been under scrutiny since the Sun-Sentinel first reported in October that the agency was awarding millions of dollars in disaster funds to residents of Miami-Dade County, even though the county did not experience hurricane conditions. At Nelson's urging, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is investigating. Earlier this month, 14 Miami-Dade residents who received assistance were indicted on fraud charges.

As of March 16, FEMA had given $31 million to 12,891 applicants in Miami-Dade for damage claimed from Frances.

This Day in History and its (apparent) Irrelevance to Today

March 24, 1818, from Henry Clay:

'All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated from government are compatible with liberty.'

Apparently, that phrase is just so much bullshit nowadays.

"It was an e-mail we weren't meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that "the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level"—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we're not supposed to know the National Security Council's top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios."

BTW, George Bush might ask, who is Henry Clay?



Well, he was not a founder, but he was of the first generation, a great political generation, that succeeded the "Founding Fathers"; and a generation that while it doesn't quite get the ink the originals do, still produced its own series of giants.

Most Evangelicals may not have heard of these folks, but more than a few of our readers probably have:

...Andrew Jackson
...John C. Calhoun
...Daniel Webster
...Thomas Hart Benton
...John Quincy Adams
...James K. Polk

and of course, Henry Clay

All giants of their time, and some of them as important in their own fashion as the founders, some more accomplished. While the originals may have established a republic, it was this generation that insured that the Republic would get its roots into the ground and who actually set about encouraging democracy on a broad scale.

A trio of them, never President, though they dearly wanted to be, dominated the era (apart from Jackson), each from a different region.

Daniel Webster, from Massachusetts, by and large representing free commercial states;

John C. Calhoun, from South Carolina, by and large representing the slave-based agricultural South;

and Clay, the Kentuckian, representing the growing and slavery ambivolent West.

The Great Triumvirate they were called.

Henry Clay's famous nickname was "The Great Compromiser" such did he work on keeping the Union together and avoiding Civil War, as did, in their own fashion Webster and Calhoun -- okay, Calhoun perhaps a bit less.

Not surprisingly, when they died in the decade before the war (they all died between 1850 and 1852), the compromises they tried so hard to reach and hold fell completely apart.

Henry Clay, it should be noted was Abraham Lincoln's greatest political hero.

Quick, Somebody Reinsert the Tube!

GM Says It May Kill Off One of Its Brands

GM's Buick and Pontiac are both "damaged brands" due to lack of investment over the years, and GM is working to correct that with an array of new vehicles coming to market, Lutz told a Morgan Stanley automotive conference in New York.

But if some of its brands fail to meet sales projections, "then we would have to take a look at a phase-out. I hope we don't have to do that. What we've got to do is keep the brands we've got."

No mention yet from Tom DeLay.

Following up on Champollion's post

Attaturk must say he is interested in Champollion's mention that Gov'nor Jebby is thinking of kidnapping Terri Schiavo.

Is it fair to add "Stockholm Syndrome" to this woman's maladies?

Although let's face it, Jebby is certainly a model caregiver.


If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

Oh well, I guess it's time to ask which photoshopper can do something with Terri Schiavo and this famous photograph.



I see Margaret Cho has already sort of done this.

Weary of Bush

I know all about the post hoc fallacy (post hoc ergo propter hoc, translated loosely: after the fact therefore because of the fact) but still find myself of the mind that we were so much better off under President Clinton than the pathetic piece of shit that currently occasionally inhabits the presidential suite of the White House. I read news like this,and this, and I can't help but miss the old days.

I'm just tired of Bush for so many reasons but the biggest reason is that he is a crappy President. He doesn't make us feel more secure, his policies divide us into the haves and have-nots, he gleefully favors the haves, he enjoys the power of making war, he believes God has told him to make war, he has a really small penis (I don't know that for sure but for most men a new sportscar is enough; this mother-fucker shits on the whole world, so it has to be the penis), and he is a moron.

So fault me for yearning for the old days, but they were better.

Schiavo Shield?

Lets be honest about what the wing nuts are doing with all of this sudden heartfelt concern for the sick, its a cover. Social security reform? Sinking faster than a Paris Hilton film. And of course, no... no... look over there, will Terri make it through the night? Republican financial shenanigans!

What they most notably want to hide is illegal lobbying connected to super far right "can't have enough tax cuts" republican hatchetman -- Killing the pest squashing -- Tom Tom DeLay.

See the full article.

As attention grows on campaign fundraising and the relationship between top Republicans and a lobbyist under multiple federal investigations, the Republican National Congressional Committee has erased all online records of fundraising events for the last three years, RAW STORY has learned.

Previously, the website listed all NRCC fundraisers dating from late 2002 to the present. Now only an error message appears, though several months are available in cache files (here, here and here).

The scrubbing appears to have occurred shortly after RAW STORY placed now-Sen. Vitter (R-LA) at a $1000-a-plate fundraiser hosted by the fallen lobbyist Jack Abramoff during the same time Vitter was meeting with Abramoff’s staff to arrange a provision favorable to the lobbyist’s tribal client. The last cache files date to Mar. 12, four days before RAW STORY revealed the event.

Also in attendance at the dinner was House Majority Leader Tom DeLay’s (R-TX) deputy Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), who had signed a letter with DeLay encouraging the Interior Department to rule favorably to Abramoff earlier that summer.

In the following days, the Capitol Hill daily Roll Call and Louisiana newspapers reported on the fundraiser.

DeLay–and other leading Republicans in Congress–have come under scrutiny for their dealings with Abramoff. DeLay took an expensive junket to London paid for by Abramoff’s clients and has consistently favored the lobbyist’s agenda.

Focus has also turned to Abramoff’s pricey Pennsylvania Avenue restaurant, Signatures, where he regularly entertained politicians and billed his tribal clients for hundreds of thousands of dollars in meals, according to the Washington Post.

Thanks to Suburban Guerrilla and Raw Story!

Jeb Hearts Terri

Jeb is proving that the Bush clan and the Republican party are truly in hock to the nutwing sect of the evangelical Christian movement. What else could explain this?

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. - Terri Schiavo's parents saw their options vanish one by one Wednesday as a federal appeals court refused to reinsert her feeding tube and the Florida Legislature decided not to intervene in the epic struggle. Refusing to give up, Gov. Jeb Bush sought court permission to take custody of Schiavo.

The fucker never got his hands dirty in his whole life now he wants custody of a human vegetable. I say give him custody and make him care for the woman. You know, snot, piss, shit, and all the good stuff that goes with nursing a patient like this. I'm no health care professional but by my calculations ol' Jeb doesn't know what he is talking about. What an asshole.

So Crazy it's come to this

Lolth, Queen of the Demonweb Pits, (located at the Intersection of Tapped-Out Street & Irony Avenue) manages to pull out this argument in support of Schiavo:

SIGH [K. J. Lopez]
U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights , Article 25:

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

The quote above is her argument.

I'll tell you what K-LO, you nobs agree to live by those terms for the rest of the fucking country, and I'll personally stick the tube back in.

It means:

-- Hike the Minimum Wage, a lot;
-- Universal Health Care,
-- Social Security without privitization

And all other manner of things that you guys normally call "Communist".

PREDICTIONS

Sorry, for some silly reason this post makes myself and Champollion giggle so much we are going to put it up again, now with bonus snark. It is actually all about the picture.

As the meltdown at the intersection of What us in favor of States Rights? Street & Unrequited Doughy Pantload Love Avenue continues, it may be time to make some predictions:

Will Kathryn Lopez climb the Clock Tower?

If so, When?

What ammo will she use?

How many can she take out?

The LAST MOMENTS OF K.J. LOPEZ (as imagined by Champollion)

UPDATE:

TBogg and Wolcott have similar thoughts, with the addition of Peggy Noonan who, if you recall was last seen trying to trying to claw her way into Ronald Reagan's casket for what must have been the dry hump she'd always dreamed of.

Election 2006

See the Right-Wingnuts harken back to the old days of the GOP and wave the "Empty Tube".