so we can get some work done.


hen a building catches fire, firefighters show up to put out the fire and save everyone inside. Guess who else often shows up? Gawkers. Nosy busybodies who happen to be in the area but have nothing better to do than moan and complain and generally get in the way of what the firefighters and other rescue workers are trying to accomplish. Reporters show up too. Not just to cover the fire but to be on the lookout for a more juicy story, such as any mistakes they hope they'll see firefighters making. These jeernalists give much column space and airtime, and therefore credence, to whatever an overly-critical, do-nothing spectator clamoring to get in front of any microphone says. They quote endlessly these gadabouts' statements that firefighters "mishandled the job," "took their time arriving," somehow "made the fire worse," or other speculations, knee-jerk reactions and outright fabrications which show, instead, their obvious, complete ignorance. Such shenanigans, purposefully conducted in proximity to the actual scene while it includes the only folks who have any real business being there—just to provide reporters smearmongers a dramatic backdrop, not only hinder those folks' work but endanger firefighters, victims, reporters and bystanders alike. The latter must be removed entirely from that scene so firefighters won't be obstructed in carrying out their duties.

“They're so crooked you'll have to screw them into the ground when they die.”

Fortunately, we won't have to do much to get the Dhimmigawkers out of the way of our real leaders who are going about their job of putting out the fires of terrorist threats, Social Security insolvency, energy-supply deficiencies, and everything else that presently or potentially poses a genuine harm to our nation. Dhimmis have taken it upon themselves to do practically all the heavy lifting dropping in this regard themselves:

They're digging their own grave with a shovel they bought from Sorosmoveon Hardware Store. They're jumping into it themselves like crazed lemmings. They're pulling out a gun they rented from CCCP Gun Shop, loading it with bullets they took from the sample bin at Howlindean's Ammo Mart, and shooting themselves in their own heads. The only thing left for us to do afterwards is cover up that bloody mess with dirt then fill in the rest of their grave—preferably leaving it unmarked (except perhaps with copious amounts of a certain kind of yellowish liquid). Or, if we must mark it with something a bit more solid, how about this?

courtesy Original Tombstone Generator (via Jim Treacher)

Then a national party that has real plans (other than on how to fool us into giving them unchallengeable power), not to mention members with measurably functional brain cells, will have a good chance to be born, to rise up in its place and help restore our body politick to one based mainly on the free marketplace of ideas, strengthening it and expanding its benefits for all through actual, fair competition.

I don't want to work with these moonbatty lunatics who have run the Dhimmicratic Party straight crookedly into the ground. I don't want to compromise with, condone any actions of, coddle, comfort, or express any compassion for their lot. I don't want to intervene on their behalf or show them any mercy as they work ceaselessly to harm themselves and others. They've placed themselves forever outside all such considerations. I want them thoroughly, completely, absolutely, entirely and permanently out the way.

They have proven themselves unworthy of running a political party that has any true power in this country.

	11:58 PM   0

Assinine Press's second draft of history.


he cliché is that journalism is the first draft of history. Yet a historian searching for clues about the origins of many of the great stories of recent decades...would find most contemporary journalism useless." (Bret Stephens, OpinionJournal)

No Schiavo fallout on judges: GOP

April 26, 2005

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans say they haven't opened and don't plan any new investigations of federal judges after Terri Schiavo's death despite Majority Leader Tom DeLay's promise to examine the judiciary's conduct.

DeLay, now involved in an ethics controversy over the source of funding for some of his foreign travels, escalated his attacks on the judiciary after Schiavo's death.

Nowhere near the same controversy, APparently, now involving Congresscritters Bernie Sanders, Nancy "I Was Fined!" Pelosi, Stephanie Tubbs Jones (House Ethics Committee member, ironically), Hilldabeast, Rahm "I Would Have to Kill You!" Emmanuel Soros-lakey, Paul Kanjorski, Jim "Benedict Baghdad" McDermott (not under God), Bart Stupak, Joseph Lieberman, and Bahbah Boxer. Since they're Desperats, the Alleged Press doesn't consider what they've all done "controversal"—just "business bribery as usual." So much for A Pee gleefully trying to kill one politician's career with two stones—namely, Schiavo and Paleincomparison-to-Dhimmunethical Travel Agency, Inc.

He suggested that the House look at impeaching some judges and complained that many of them are "judicial activists."

Ignoring and thus undermining every provision of a duly-enacted federal law, culminating in the judicially sanctioned murder of an innocent American. No, that would never come under the heading Impeachable Offense contained within the latest edition of High Crimes & Misdemeanors (© 1998, al-Qlinton Books and Zipper Factory).

But a majority of Republicans think that unless it can be proven that judges did something illegal, they should be left alone, said GOP Rep. Bob Inglis of South Carolina, who also sits on the Judiciary Committee. A[ntirepublican]P[inheads]

Since Representative Inglis voted in favor of the above mentioned law, and since the Always Pontificating "reporter" propagandist here supplied no quote marks (not even sneer ones), the latter's "paraphrase" of the former's actual remarks is most suspect.

Rather than dignify with anything other than summary dismissal this Addlebrained Press' second draft of its most recent yet ever blatant attempt to Revise Our History®, let's MoveOn to any of the hundreds of trustworthy and verifiable sources whose reviews of the judicial branch's misconduct, up to and including unjustifiable homicide and other deprivations of a citizen's rights under color of law, may be lent infinitely more credence. For examples, this,

Part of the problem was simply judicial incompetence—especially the court's decision, in direct violation of Florida law, to act as Terri Schiavo's guardian at key moments of the case rather than appoint an independent guardian to represent her interests, separate from the interests of her husband and her parents. But the problem went deeper than incompetence: It also had to do with ideology—with a set of assumptions about what makes life worth living and thus worth protecting. Procedural liberalism (discerning and respecting the prior wishes of the incompetent person; preserving life when such wishes are not clear) gave way to ideological liberalism (treating incompetence itself as reasonable grounds for assuming that life is not worth living)....

[Judge Robed Master George Tubeyanker Greer's] court's obligation to discern objectively what Terri's wishes were and whether they were clear—a question of fact—morphed into an inquiry as to whether she could ever get better, with the subjective assumption that life in her present condition was not meaningful life. The question became: Was she in a persistent vegetative state (PVS), and if so, can't we assume that Terri believed death to be preferable to life in such a state?

and this,

So why devote any time at all to this little life? Perhaps it is because at this time in our history lines are being drawn . . . lines that have never been clearer . . . lines that will decide the future of our kind and the perpetual life of our souls . . . and this little life and the struggle of a few to preserve it is symbolic of it all.

Those who seek her death seem to be the same ones who are the first to argue against the death penalty for murderers - the same ones who claim a woman's right to choose to kill an unborn child is sacrosanct - the same ones who claim that the law is what matters most (when it suits them) - the same ones to whom bombing a ruthless, murdering dictator is evil but uncaring when his minions kill our citizens.*

show that, when it comes to Americans' enslavement under the whips gavels of their Robed Masters, we still all have a long, long way to go before any of us reaches that Promised Land where "they should [or can] be left alone."


* Addendum: August 19, 2006, 6:11 PM — Saving from Four-O-Fourville the rest of Ray Calafell's excellent comment to Jennifer's "Where Are They, Those Most Intelligent Ones?" at A Collection of Thoughts, on March 23, 2005:

Where is the great leftist intellect, Noam Chomsky, in all of this . . . ? Where is Catholic Ted Kennedy in these heady days of "the law versus the moralists?" Where is our caring Barbara Boxer and her concern for the rights of women? Where is the socially-conscious Hillary Clinton and her wish for eternal health care for all of the unfortunates among us? Where is that first physician among us, Howard Dean, whose oath of practice swears him to "first, do no harm?" Where are the marchers who decry the bombing of terrorist targets . . . so quick to blame America for its callous disregard for the lives of our enemies? Where are the tree-hugging earth lovers, whose pursuit of life for a snail, for a mouse, has no price tag too steep for the American taxpayer to pay? Where are they when the life in question is that of an innocent?

I'll tell you where they are . . . they are in their element . . . they are in that vacuum of their own making, their consciences, if such a thing exists for them. That is why they are speechless, for to speak to what is taking place is for them to reveal the lies which they hoist upon us. They are belligerent adherents to the law of the prince of liars. They are tainted with the belief that what is wrong is right. They see white where we all see black. They know there is no God because they have no souls. They have no souls because they sold them long ago . . . to their leader, the prince of liars.

And all the while, a small, innocent life slowly, painfully ebbs away — to them unnoticed — but not to me.

	1:57 PM   0

You started this first-time-in-history filibuster of judicial nominees. By November 2006, American voters who are sick of your overt obstructionism will finish it.


ool me once, shame on you," the old saying goes. "Fool me twice, shame on me." Or, "We ain't gonna buy that loaf of bread load of malarkey twice."

First you and your "moderate Republican" RINO allies got President Bush's father to break his No New Taxes pledge in exchange for your phony promise to reduce the budget deficit through record-breaking tax increases. Instead we got a nagging recession along with you beating the president over the head so much for—that's right—breaking his NNT pledge that we wound up with a Hillbillary co-presidency. (Funny that your head beatings didn't extend to the latter when he/she promptly broke his/her Middle-Class Tax Cut™ Pledge a month after he/she took his/her oath of office.)

In the Senate not too long ago, you and your "moderate" RINO friends got Republican leaders to share power with you 50-50 in exchange for your phony promise to "work with Republicans." Instead we got total gridlock in the Senate along with you dangling your Thirty Pieces of Silver so much in front of Jimmy Jeffords's beady eyes that he wound up turning coat and siding with the Demagogic Party. (Funny that you dumped this power-sharing agreement and that spirit of cooperation behind it faster than Jumpin' Jeffords did his loyalties once SadTom Daschle replaced Senator Lott as senate majority leader.)

Now you and your RINO pals want to get the Senate to not repair your breakage of the simple-majority backbone of our constitution's Advice and Consent Clause, in exchange for your phony promise to not inflict your unconstitutional super-majority paralysis on just two judicial nominees. Instead, this time, we're saying no deal.

You whine girlishly so much about the extremism you say is all around you, that you fail miserably to see it in your own mirrors (that is, before they shatter from the sheer ugliness caused by your constantly scowling faces). Extremism, all the world can see, is a surly, sore-loseral minority holding hostage the entire judicial confirmation process until their demand that each nominee fit their definition of "moderate"—else he or she will not be spared such unconstitutional insurgency—is met. No matter that all these nominees already have sufficient support to earn our Senate's consent. The Dhimminsurgents would rather take the extreme step—never before resorted to by any other party in our nation's history—of using the Filibuster Rule to indefinitely obstruct every Senator's chance of ever voting on whether to give that consent. Not surprisingly, a rule that was never meant to apply to confirmable judicial nominees is the very one Demothugs want to abuse, twisting it into yet another most undemocratic, Robed Master-like modus operandi of theirs.

Rule to Obstruct? Rule to Thwart the Democratic Process? Rule to Make No Vote Count? Rule to Block the Right to Choose? None of those come anywhere close to being In The Political Mainstream®.

Senselessor Joe Biden, parroting Washington Post's David Broder, says that the Demobstructic Party "should compromise and say to [Republican leaders] that we're willing to—of the seven judges [filibustered]—we'll let a number of them go through, the two most extreme not go through, and put off this vote [to restore the centuries' long, constitutional exception to the Filibuster Rule] and compromise." No dice, Joe. This is radical stuff—too extreme. You said so yourself only eight years ago:

But I also respectfully suggest that everyone who is nominated ought to have a shot, to have a hearing and to have a shot to be heard on the floor and have a vote on the floor.

Your colleagues coconspirators couldn't agree more (back then). Leaky Leahy said:

Partisan and narrow ideological efforts to impose political litmus tests on judicial nominees and to shut down the judiciary must stop.

For emphasis he added that the Senate might be "headed down a road toward an ideological litmus test that does not well serve the Senate, the courts or the American people." Then he got mad:

Bring these people up, vote them up or vote them down....But you cannot have a small clique decide they want to know exactly how judges are going to rule before they go on the bench, or they're not going to confirm them.

Wow. Finally, he issued this warning:

Those who delay or prevent the filling of these vacancies must understand that they are delaying or preventing the administration of justice.

Even then-Attorney General Janet Reno piped in to rail against what has solidly become your party's MO:

The Senate, of course, has a constitutional duty to advise and consent, but surely the framers did not intend Congress to obstruct the appointment of much-needed judges, but rather simply to ensure that well-qualified individuals were appointed to the federal bench.

Nah. No hypocrisy to see here. MoveOn.org along.

Biden's bonkers if he believes his compromise is worth the word of any Deceiverat who even speaks about it. Regardless how many skewed push-polls your MSM cohorts publish, the risk is all yours, Donkerats. Keep obstructing the President's duty to fill long-standing vacancies on our federal appeals courts. Keep calling constitutionalist judges "extreme." Keep undermining our country's democratic processes. Most of all, keep the Glass Ceiling® over women's heads, especially minority women, just because they happen to be President Bush's circuit court nominees. These ought to put you in real good with your bosses, America's mainstream voters.

Dirtnappy Harry Reid wants us to "move forward." You got it, DH. We're going to, right over your soon to be all-dead political party's body. No bans on recess appointments. No withdrawals. No making the American people prisonsers to your Sole Quest™ of regaining power.

Time is on our side. We will get all our law-abiding, constitution-respecting, no-foreign-law-binds-us judicial nominees confirmed and appointed one way or the other. You, on the other hand, have only about eighteen months left until we start finally getting rid of you and your obstructionism for good.


To illustrate how long and how often Demokkkrats controlled our Senate without ever once allowing the Filibuster Rule to be used for obstructing a vote on any appeals court judge's nomination, here's a list of our Senate's political-party makeup during the 35 Congresses before 2003 (the year Dhimmis became the first party ever to scrap that exemption):

Cong Year D  R  Others
73rd 1933 59 36 1
74th 1935 69 25 2
75th 1937 76 16 4
76th 1939 69 23 4
77th 1941 66 28 2
78th 1943 57 38 1
79th 1945 57 38 1
80th 1947 45 51 0
81st 1949 54 42 0
82nd 1951 49 47 0
83rd 1953 47 48 1 (a)
84th 1955 48 47 1 (b)
85th 1957 49 47 0
86th 1959 65 35 0
87th 1961 64 36 0
88th 1963 66 34 0
89th 1965 68 32 0
90th 1967 64 36 0
91st 1969 57 43 0
92nd 1971 54 44 2
93rd 1973 56 42 2
94th 1975 60 38 2
95th 1977 61 38 1
96th 1979 58 41 1
97th 1981 46 53 1
98th 1983 46 54 0
99th 1985 47 53 0
100th 1987 55 45 0
101st 1989 55 45 0
102nd 1991 56 44 0
103rd 1993 57 43 0 (c)
104th 1995 48 52 0 (d)
105th 1997 45 55 0
106th 1999 45 55 0 (e)
107th 2001 50 49 1 (f)

source: Senate.gov.

(a) See Senate Membership Changes During the 83rd Congress.

(b) Strom Thurmond (SC) was an Independent Democrat during this Congress until his resignation on April 4, 1956. In November of that year he was elected as a Democrat to fill the vacancy created by his resignation. The Independent member listed above was Wayne Morse (OR), who changed from an Independent to a Democrat on February 17, 1955.

(c) Party division changed to 56 Democrats and 44 Republicans after the June 5, 1993 election of Kay B. Hutchison (R-TX).

(d) Party ratio changed to 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats after Richard Shelby of Alabama switched from the Democratic to Republican party on November 9, 1994. It changed again, to 54 Republicans and 46 Democrats, when Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado switched from the Democratic to Republican party on March 3, 1995. When Robert Packwood (R-OR) resigned on October 1, 1995, the Senate divided between 53 Republicans and 46 Democrats with one vacancy. Ron Wyden (D) returned the ratio to 53 Republicans and 47 Democrats when he was elected to fill the vacant Oregon seat.

(e) As the 106th Congress began, the division was 55 Republican seats and 45 Democratic seats, but this changed to 54-45 on July 13, 1999 when Senator Bob Smith of New Hampshire switched from the Republican party to Independent status. On November 1, 1999, Smith announced his return to the Republican party, making the division once more 55 Republicans and 45 Democrats. Following the death of Senator Paul Coverdell (R-GA) on July 18, 2000, the balance shifted again, to 54 Republicans and 46 Democrats, when the governor appointed Zell Miller, a Democrat, to fill the vacancy.

(f) From January 3 to January 20, 2001, with the Senate divided evenly between the two parties, the Democrats held the majority due to the deciding vote of outgoing Democratic Vice President Al Gore. Senator Thomas A. Daschle served as majority leader at that time. Beginning on January 20, 2001, Republican Vice President Richard Cheney held the deciding vote, giving the majority to the Republicans. Senator Trent Lott resumed his position as majority leader on that date. On May 24, 2001, Senator James Jeffords of Vermont announced his switch from Republican to Independent status, effective June 6, 2001. Jeffords announced that he would caucus with the Democrats, giving the Democrats a one-seat advantage, changing control of the Senate from the Republicans back to the Democrats. Senator Thomas A. Daschle again became majority leader on June 6, 2001. Senator Paul D. Wellstone (D-MN) died on October 25, 2002, and Independent Dean Barkley was appointed to fill the vacancy. The November 5, 2002 election brought to office elected Senator James Talent (R-MO), replacing appointed Senator Jean Carnahan (D-MO), shifting balance once again to the Republicans—but no reorganization was completed at that time since the Senate was out of session.

	3:06 PM   0

So where do liberals get off complaining about John Bolton's?


estroyer of United Nations Credibility. Underminer of UN Standing. Condoner of Sexual Harassment. These titles nowhere near fit John Bolton. They do, however, fit perfectly the UN's own Secretary General.

Only after intense international pressure and outrage did Koverup Kofi back down from his blatant attempt to shield a fellow UN official from sexual harassment charges. Far from the responsive and sensitive management style that liberals only demand from our president's nominees, Kofi easily could write the book on How to Give Gropers A Pass (Until You Get Caught).

Then there's his No. 1 hit in the Top-Ten Greatest Achievements in Management Style, also known as Oil for Food More Palacebunkers for Saddam & Massgraves for His Subjects. If this be the kind of UN involvement liberals incessantly clamor we seek more of, even before we may take any action to free a whole nation of people from their mass-murdering tyrant, it behooves our sense of humaneness to simply bypass the UN altogether and use enough high-yield nuclear explosives to quickly put that entire people mercifully out of their misery. No wonder Kofi's two senior investigators just resigned. That part of his management style which encourages such Kofi-style Korruption & Koverups, shouldn't be to anyone's liking. Unless, of course, you're a liberal.

Kofi's Krimes or Bolton's Barks. What the world's Useless Nitwits need is much more of the latter. We've had too much of the former.

	11:26 AM   0

“Borders? We ain't got no borders. We don't need no borders. I don't have to show you any stinking borders!”



AMNESTY APPLICATION FORM

To be eligible for Amnesty, you must:
1. Be in this country.
2. Not be a U.S. citizen or legal alien.
3. Be willing to accept Amnesty.
4. Not be a terrorist, murderer, rapist, fugitive from justice, or other accused or convicted criminal.

Note: If you meet all but the last of these eligibility requirements, you are still eligible for Amnesty if you promise to not ever again terrorize, murder, rape, or be a fugitive from justice or other criminal (whichever may apply).

Check the item(s) that you wish to receive with your Amnesty:
[ ] U.S. citizenship
[ ] State driver's license and/or ID card. Write the state(s) you want this (these) for in the space below.


[ ] Social Security benefits
[ ] Medicare and/or Medicaid services
[ ] Public housing and/or other form(s) of public assistance
[ ] Job currently held by a U.S. citizen or legal alien
[ ] Non-deportation status (applies to all cases whatsoever)
[ ] Exemption from any and all immigration requirements
[ ] Removal of any and all outstanding arrest warrants
[ ] Pardon for any and all previous crimes
[ ] All of the above

Sign your name:

On penalty of absolutely nothing, I hereby state that I am eligible for this Amnesty and do wish to receive it from the government of the United States Unsuspecting Suckers of America.



__________________________
(signature of applicant)

	3:37 PM   0

Had it been HC, not AHC, who was Ms. Right.



Article excerpt, p. 25: Her detractors say every time she tells a lie, another wrinkle shows up on her face—"lie-lines," they call them, as opposed to the maniacal-laugh ones interspersed among the former, both kinds spewing like Forth of July streamers out from each of her arctic-cold blue eyes. If this is true, even given the amount of facial shriveling normally associated with someone of her advanced age, then she must have told a lot of lies in her lifetime.


p. 27: A flat-out ability to sell cattle futures for 100 times their original worth is just one of her many talents, friends say. "That's a common misconception," she corrects them with a laugh. "Everyone does it all the time. They just have to be in the right place at the right time, is all." No doubt her former campaign finance manager, David Rosen, would disagree. He's awaiting trial on four felony counts for allegedly trying to pull the same stunt in reverse—all on her behalf. She furrows her brow whenever someone reminds her of this, causing her forehead to look even more wrinkled.


p. 32: Hunching over her egg roll at the Chinese restaurant we had visited, she reminded me of Quasimodo trying to find sanctuary. When asked whether she knew about the investigation, she shrugged. "I'm always being investigated for one thing or another." Her flippant remark notwithstanding, it was as obvious as the numerous canyon-like lines deeply entrenched across her face that she was very worried this time.

(Numeric tattoo in the first image was digitally enhanced.)

	11:25 AM   0

	Ann 1965image: Time Ragazine (used willfully without permission).

Help reduce Time's revenue. Click the link below instead of subscribing.


Time ragazine's girly hatchet nailfile job on My Hero™. (Apparently, in S.S.R. Canadistan you don't have to pay for anything.) Link will likely expire after this week.

	2:46 AM   0

Short time from now in a lalaland not too far away...


our honor, as a graduate of the prestigious Moonfleet Law Academy, you understand as much as I the importance to our legal system of treating all beings, no matter what they may have allegedly done, with total respect and dignity. That includes never subjecting any individual to torture or other depravations of his/her/other lifeform rights."

"Yes, yes, I attended Professor Templemount's savage lectures on the Secondary Suggestion. So you need not remind me of its axiomatic design, counselor."

"Certainly, judge. As you well know, then, although the Deadernation has charged my clients with the crime of constructing a photon terroristic device, I believe there is insufficient evidence to support its case. For this reason, you granted my earlier petition to allow them access to relevant bomb-making materials just so we could see whether they were indeed capable of, as well as predisposed to making such a device if given the opportunity. But after three days of constant observation, no one witnessed them doing any thing of the sort. Therefore, I ask for immediate dismissal of all charges."

"Your argument is most convincing. However, can you cite an actual law that provides any grounds for such dismissal? Not that it's really necessary, mind you, since you're aware us judges are pretty much the law around here now."

"I think so. In my briefcase I have...wait, I don't remember packing a bunch of wires and photonic explo–" [*KaBoom!*]

"Bailiff, it would appear I need to assign the defendants yet another attorney."

"Your honor, the defendants were blown to bits too."

"Oh."

"Sir! The terrorists are about to overwhelm our position. They're beheading our paralegals who were doing research up on the front lines. What should we do?"

"Well, second-deputy junior partner, we'll pound them with yet another volley of wrongful-death lawsuits. That should get their attention."

"Good thinking, sir!"

"Of course it is. That's why I'm the general senior partner and you're just a lowly second-deputy junior one."

"Oh."

"Kneel, infidel. You're next."

"But what about the Denovian Convention? I have rights! Plus, I'm an officer of the court. You're violating several criminal statutes just by brandishing that knife of yours at me....Knife?! Wait, I have a right to counsel. I have the right to a fair—ayck! ug! ahhhhhhhh!" [*Thhhunk*]

"Fairly straight cut this time, Zitcoward. I believe your technique is improving."

"Go fetch another one, Abdrool. I like hearing them squeal like unclean pigs about their rights—right before I show 'em my version of due process."

"That was the last one. Our holding room is empty until we kidnap some more."

"Oh."

"This hearing of the Deadernation Council's budget committee will come to order. I'd like to welcome the two associate infallible beings of the intergalactic criminal court who'll be testifying this afternoon. Do either of you wish to make an opening statement?"

"We would, Mister Chairman."

"Both of you?"

"No. Just Ourself."

"Then please, go ahead, Infallible Being Qinn Addee."

"Thank you, Mister Chairman. Members of the committee, it is a great pleasure, honor, and thrill for you that We are here gracing your committee with Our presence. We will not demand any extended bowing or groveling at Our feet this visit because time is of the essence. We've come on most urgent business. As a matter of fact, it's a matter of life and death. As you know, Our colleagues and We are being threatened by cold-blooded, heartless, blood-thirsty, dispassionate killers who believe it their duty to see Us and Our fellow infallible beings all suffer the most excruciating, barbaric, inhumane deaths imaginable. They are discharging that duty even as we speak!"

"You mean the beheadings?"

"That's just the half of it, Mister Chairman. They're not allowing the condemned to even have a last meal, or any meal for that matter, before slicing off his or her head. Indeed, some are starving/dehydrating to death while in captivity."

"Isn't that the most peaceful, beautiful, eloquent form of execution anyone could possibly wish for?"

"Why don't you try it for a few days then tell me if you still think it is!... Sorry, Mister Chairman. But this situation is most upsetting. You must act now to save Our colleagues and Us from such a terrible fate, before it's too late."

"We'll consider your appeal, Mister Infallible Being, and get right back to you."

"Thank you, Mister Chairman."

[Thirteen hours later....] "I'm sorry, Infallible Being Qinn Addee, but your appeal, while both fervent and sincere as well as having an altruistic motivation, is demonstrably at odds with the Founders' blueprint for the Jem'Hadar controlling every enslaved sentient lifeform—the Deadernation Charter, version 2.0. Since we have sworn, as have you and your colleagues, to uphold and defend that living, breathing, and well-fed document, we must deny your request for help. Although we have indulged the presumption that you were in any position to request our help, we conclude that this was never facially the case. Your hasty request that this Council actively involve itself in saving the life of even one infallible being not only constitutes an encroachment upon the independence of the Deadernation Council, but invades its province and violates the Founders' axiomatic design based on the separation-of-powers—or SOP—principle. Such infirmity therefore renders your entire appeal a nullity. It cannot be countenanced by us. In short, that SOP thingy is much more important than protecting your lives. Hope you understand."

"Is that your final answer, Mister Chairman?"

"Yep. It is so ordered."

"Could you not have told Us all this before We expended any more of that precious little time Our colleagues and We have left, trying hopefully to get you to help every infallible being whose life and rights are so clearly and presently threatened?"

"If I did, I wouldn't have had this opportunity to say all that and thus crush all your hopes in so satisfying a manner."

"Oh."

"Here's another one, Tom."

"What's that note say? The one attached to the knife protruding from his back."

"Let's see: 'Dear Whomever It May Concern, We did not abuse this infidel. He died of natural causes after suffering a heart attack. See, his head's still attached. The complaints against us are groundless. Unlawyerly yours, Al Zitcoward.'"

"Hmmm. Reckon we ought to order an autopsy just to see whether he did indeed have a heart attack? That's something which would clearly show up in the results."

"Nah. Let's cremate the body instead. That way there's less fuss and verifiable paperwork."

"Oh."

"What do you mean We can't be an infallible being anymore? We hold a law degree from the prestigious Moonfleet Law Academy! We're licensed as an attorney on forty-one planets. There must be a mistake."

"No mistake at all, former IB dude. A new axiomatic design has been added to the Deadernation Charter."

"What, that so-called 'amendment' ratified by conventions of the sentient lifeforms? Don't you know We and Our fellow infallible beings are the only laws and charters you relative amoebas will ever need? We're so certain of that, We didn't even bother reading what was being ratified. Our colleagues and We were bound to change its intended meaning anyway."

"Perhaps you should have read it. Then you'd know it says that you and your kind are all washed up around here. We're yanking your power trip because no sentient lifeform wants to live in such a freedom-incapacitated state. Those are our wishes. I have a copy of the amendment right here. Read it yourself."

"Give Us that! We bet it doesn't say that at all. Let Us see: 'The highest conflict of interest in justice, being when professional practitioners of the law are allowed to directly affect its making, execution, or interpretation, the right of sentient lifeforms to prohibit such professionals from ever serving as executive or judicial officers or as members of any legislative body, shall not be infringed.'"

"In case you haven't heard, the newly appointed judicial branch has ruled that this is an individual right, not a collective one. So I'm here to confiscate your robe—with extreme prejudice, if necessary."

"Oh."

[Centuries later....] "All right, children. Get in line or you won't get your chance to see the exciting Judicial Tyranny Exhibit."

"Aw, Miss Marie. Can't we just skip this one and go back for another spin on the Robe & Gavel Ride?"

"Now, now, San'day. Your mother would throw a fit if she found out I took the entire class on a field trip to the Justice Museum but let you all miss seeing the most important part of the Lessons of History Hall."

"But it's just a bunch of dumb ol' old stuff about how dumb ol' lawyers used to be judges and stuff."

"Your wouldn't think it so dumb once you get to see how badly our ancestors had to suffer under that completely barbaric system, and how we all could suffer the very same things if we choose to ever forget."

"You mean they really let it get that bad?"

"They did. But they learned from their mistakes and corrected them; and they passed those lessons down to us so we wouldn't have to make the same mistakes. Now come along and I'll show you and the class what the very last lawyer-judge in history wrote right before his removal from office."

"Cool."

"Class, this first display case contains the screen shot of what that lawyer-judge last typed on his courtroom computer. I'll read it out loud for those in the back who can't see it—

Court Docket. Moondate 1162.8. This will be Our final entry. Thanks to the new axiomatic design, We're no longer qualified to serve on the bench. Parents will be free to discipline their children. Society will be free to punish its criminals. Member Planets will be free to defeat every terrorist. Helpless female lifeforms on Beta Florida III will be free to actually seek effective medical treatment. It's going to be an utter madhouse—a madhouse, We tell ya! Anyway, We still have Our private practice. We'll be putting out Our shingle soon. In case anyone's interested, Our specialty is guardianship law.

Does anyone have a question about this document? Yes, San'day?"

"Did he ever get any cli...cli–"

"'Clients,' San'day."

"Yes, cli-ents. Did he ever get any after he left?"

"It's not known for sure whether he did or not. Seems no historian is certain what happened to him later, or even cares."

"Oh."

	5:26 AM   0

Fisking a comment to a post that links to another post of mine....I'm sure there's a term for it somewhere in the Bloglossary®. For now, just call it a much-needed respite, sprinkled with some harmless escapism. (Thanks, Delftsman3!)


ur regularly-scheduled excoriation of oligarchic judges who believe they're gods The New Domestic Terrorists™ will not be shown this post so that we may bring you the following special fisking:

[cue dramatic CBS Movie-of-the-Weak intro music]

Tonight—! In honor of the latest series of shake-ups currently befalling those belovetohated al-Jazeernalists at the Spew Pork Rinds, particularly their moronically-endowed and other assorted fifth columnists, we here at LU are proud to present several somewhat related opinions from one of their defenders. (Advisory: Reader discretion is optional.)

I think you could change just a few words here and there and that article ["Teach a liberal to fish," Jan. 3, 2005] would apply to almost any newspaper in the world.

You're right! Just switch Jason with Howl and you have Howl Blare. Or if you prefer, Jason Reigns: Nightmare on West 43rd Street part CCXXIX. That's after he bumps off and switches places with Freddy Krueger Franky Krugman, of course. (Or is it steals from Peter pestered taxpayer to make Paul Rich? Anyway, you get the picture.)

Since when does a newspaper have to identify their source?

Gosh, never thought of that. Come to think of it, they don't. They shouldn't have to tell anyone where they get their information at all. As a matter of fact, no one should be able to force them to worry about that trust thing either. If any readers that are/aren't l/Left don't like it, they can just go find a paper with the words New York and Washington switched in the header.

If that were the case we'd know for certain it was Rove or Cheney who leaked the undercover CIA agents identity (rather than just an educated guess) to the press.

Yeah, lucky for those wily vast right wing conspirators that we don't or we wouldn't have had to keep beating that long-dead donkey over and over until we forgot how to moveon. Just like Evil Conservatives™ to support keeping sources unidentified and stuff.

I'm thinking the neo-cons should be supporting that right with all their might...

It should be a right. The right to know no sources. You're right, it's not right that the Right isn't righting itself by writing about rightly supporting that righteous right. (Not sure, but I probably left out a right back there somewhere. Might be important.) Is it because they're such Joooooooooooooos!

(and mighty$$$'s).

Evil Rich Conservatives™. Perhaps that's the word I left out! (Could be because it also starts with a "ri-"; I believe that's what threw me off.) Oh, and rich Joooooooooooooos.

One thing about the moonbatty left, you know up front what your getting with them.

And a good thing too, else we wouldn't know what to think when they voted in favor of homeland security, no child left behind, war efforts and such before they actually voted against them.

On the other hand when it comes to the neo-con right winguts,

(That's the Jooooooooooooooish kind.)

50% of them are in the closet with some hidden sexual fetish,

Bet they only like heterosexual sex, too. The icky pervs.

25% are in denial,

It's unbelievable how much they are. They don't believe sending all their icky, perverted money to the government will do a bunch of good by letting it help people, including The Children®. Stingy, selfish neo-cons Joooooooooooooos. Why, even if that makes them totally poor and forces them to live under bridges, don't they realize they'd have the government there ready to help every one of them then? Seems they never "thought" of that when it could very well be themselves living under those bridges. The hypocrites!

and the remaining 25% have their heads buried in the sand.

Those are the extremists (because they're in extreme denial).

Of course there are a good many cross overs within those catagories [sic].

Head buried in the sand is a rather kinky position for those with a hetero fetish. Or even denying they have their head anywhere near that sand.

When it comes to idiots...

Whether they have kinky sex or are fond of sand (or a cross dressing between the two) and may or may not know it.

one only has to read a couple of the blogs of some of the right wingnuts to understand true idiotcy.

Not to mention some of the commentcings one can also read on them.

I mean seriously...

As serious as The New Domestic Terrorists offing voiceless, choiceless, totally husband-dependent young women?

have you EVER read _____'s blog? Or maybe _______'s?

Oh. Well, _____.blogspot.com is rather serious most of time. But not as much as www._______.us. Really, all those blankety-blank words the latter keeps using only makes it that much d__n harder to read. If it'd just cut back some of the s__t a little they'd both be equally serious.

Do YOU really want to be assosiated [sic] with those inbred,

Don't forget "idiots."

racist,

And idiots.

sexist,

Come on, what about idiots?

redneck...

(Oh, never mind.)

idiots?

Ahhhhhhh... Thought for a moment there you were going to leave it out! Maybe you could use IRSRI for short, instead. Would save a lot of time which might be better spent on getting around to some real name-calling. (Just a slight change, I'm suggesting.)

Come on delftsman, I thought you were a better class of man than that!

He is. And sensitive too, which is why he went out and bought a brand new riding mower for his wife. I believe he deserves some slack here, wanda.

[run dramatic CBS Movie-of-the-Weak credits]

I post, Delftsman3 links, wanda comments, I fisk.

	1:23 AM   0

Theresa Marie Schindler
December 3, 1963 - March 31, 2005, 9:05 am

Behold, I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard: I cry aloud, but there is no judgment.

Job 19:7

Terri Schindler-Schiavo Foundation 4615 Gulf Blvd #104-103 St Petersburg Beach, FL 33706

---

What's next? In the immediate future, Florida officials presumably will be following applicable state law:

Title XXX - SOCIAL WELFARE
Chapter 415 - ADULT PROTECTIVE SERVICES

415.1034 Mandatory reporting of abuse, neglect, or exploitation of vulnerable adults; mandatory reports of death.-- [Adult Protective Services still has pending its investigation of reports of abuse, neglect, or exploitation regarding Terri under this section. —LR]

(2) MANDATORY REPORTS OF DEATH.--Any person who is required to investigate reports of abuse, neglect, or exploitation and who has reasonable cause to suspect that a vulnerable adult died as a result of abuse, neglect, or exploitation shall immediately report the suspicion to the appropriate medical examiner, to the appropriate criminal justice agency, and to the department, notwithstanding the existence of a death certificate signed by a practicing physician. The medical examiner shall accept the report for investigation pursuant to s. 406.11 and shall report the findings of the investigation, in writing, to the appropriate local criminal justice agency, the appropriate state attorney, and the department. Autopsy reports maintained by the medical examiner are not subject to the confidentiality requirements provided for in s. 415.107.


Title XXIX - PUBLIC HEALTH
Chapter 406 - MEDICAL EXAMINERS; DISPOSITION OF DEAD BODIES

406.11 Examinations, investigations, and autopsies.--

(1) In any of the following circumstances involving the death of a human being, the medical examiner of the district in which the death occurred or the body was found shall determine the cause of death and shall, for that purpose, make or have performed such examinations, investigations, and autopsies as he or she shall deem necessary or as shall be requested by the state attorney:

(a) When any person dies in the state:

1. Of criminal violence. [See note at section 415.1034 above.]

3. By suicide. [Assisted suicide in Terri's case, since "artificial life support" did not include feeding tubes at the time she last expressed to her "husband" her "wish to die if brain damaged" (based on that adulterer's testimony).]

8. In any suspicious or unusual circumstance. [See 1 above.]

(c) When a body is to be cremated, dissected, or buried at sea. ["Husband" wants to cremate Terri's body dispose of the evidence.]


Title XLVII - CRIMINAL PROCEDURE AND CORRECTIONS
Chapter 936 - INQUESTS OF THE DEAD

936.001 Purpose.--The purpose of this chapter is to provide a procedure whereby a public inquest may be made into a death for which an autopsy is required, when there is a question of the occurrence of a criminal act, criminal negligence, or foul play associated with the death.


Title XLVII - CRIMINAL PROCEDURE AND CORRECTIONS
Chapter 925 - MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS OF CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

925.09 Authority of state attorney to order autopsies.--The state attorney may have an autopsy performed, before or after interment, on a dead body found in the county when she or he decides it is necessary in determining whether or not death was the result of a crime. Physicians performing the autopsy shall be paid reasonable fees by the county upon the approval of the county commission and the state attorney ordering the autopsy.


Title XXXVII - INSURANCE
Chapter 627 - INSURANCE RATES AND CONTRACTS

627.615 Physical examination, autopsy.--The contract shall include the following provision:

"Physical Examinations and Autopsy: The insurer at its expense has the right to have the insured examined as often as reasonably necessary while a claim is pending. It may also have an autopsy made unless prohibited by law."


Title XXIX - PUBLIC HEALTH
Chapter 382 - VITAL STATISTICS

382.008 Death and fetal death registration.--

(1) A certificate for each death and fetal death which occurs in this state shall be filed on a form prescribed by the department with the local registrar of the district in which the death occurred within 5 days after such death and prior to final disposition, and shall be registered by such registrar if it has been completed and filed in accordance with this chapter or adopted rules. The certificate shall include the decedent's social security number, if available. In addition, each certificate of death or fetal death....

(2) The funeral director who first assumes custody of a dead body or fetus shall file the certificate of death or fetal death. In the absence of the funeral director, the physician or other person in attendance at or after the death shall file the certificate of death or fetal death. The person who files the certificate shall obtain personal data from the next of kin or the best qualified person or source available. The medical certification of cause of death shall be furnished to the funeral director, either in person or via certified mail, by the physician or medical examiner responsible for furnishing such information....

(3) Within 72 hours after receipt of a death or fetal death certificate from the funeral director, the medical certification of cause of death shall be completed and made available to the funeral director by the physician in charge of the decedent's care for the illness or condition which resulted in death, the physician in attendance at the time of death or fetal death or immediately before or after such death or fetal death, or the medical examiner if the provisions of s. 382.011 apply. The physician or medical examiner shall certify over his or her signature the cause of death to the best of his or her knowledge and belief.

(a) The local registrar may grant the funeral director an extension of time upon a good and sufficient showing of any of the following conditions:

1. An autopsy is pending.

2. Toxicology, laboratory, or other diagnostic reports have not been completed....

(4) If the local registrar has granted an extension of time to provide the medical certification of cause of death, the funeral director shall file a temporary certificate of death or fetal death which shall contain all available information, including the fact that the cause of death is pending. The physician or medical examiner shall provide an estimated date for completion of the permanent certificate.

(5) A permanent certificate of death or fetal death, containing the cause of death and any other information which was previously unavailable, shall be registered as a replacement for the temporary certificate. The permanent certificate may also include corrected information if the items being corrected are noted on the back of the certificate and dated and signed by the funeral director, physician, or medical examiner, as appropriate.

(6) The original certificate of death or fetal death shall contain all the information required by the department for legal, social, and health research purposes. All information relating to cause of death in all death and fetal death records and the parentage, marital status, and medical information included in all fetal death records of this state are confidential and exempt from the provisions of s. 119.07(1), except for health research purposes as approved by the department; nor may copies of the same be issued except as provided in s. 382.025.

Who's next? Despite my emails to responsible officials in both our federal and Florida's government, I failed to help make enough of a difference in time. I failed to help persuade these public servants to fully protect Terri's civil rights. I failed to help keep a handful of federal judges from denying Terri a real chance at having her case tried anew in their courts, as was required by U.S. law. I failed to help Terri and her family. As a conscientious citizen—as a conscientious adult human being—when witnessing someone suffering or about to suffer unjust harm, I have the responsibility to render that person as much direct and indirect assistance as I am able towards lessening or preventing it, in accordance with my personal understanding of what is right, proper, and legal under the circumstances and with the dictates of my own conscience, and to face any and all consequences for my failure to do so. In short, the Golden Rule as it applies to injustice. However insufficient I believe that assistance may prove, I must try to render it because I have no way of predicting with absolute certainty that it won't help make a real, positive difference—perhaps in a manner I wasn't then fully aware of or able to foresee. It is why, given everything everyone who tried to help Terri and her family have done, I maintain hope that no one else will have to suffer the injustices they did. As long as there are such people fighting as best they can for the civil rights of those who aren't capable of fighting for their own, now that we know much more about who and what in our society they'll be facing—be it the devaluers of human life, the indifferent and the ill-informed, or the many predisposed to prostrating themselves before that high altar adorned with the judge's gavel—the next denial or deprival of a completely helpless person's rights by state officials acting under color of law won't culminate in his or her judicially enforced murder. In the meanwhile, endeavoring to remain vigilant so that no abuse of such a fellow citizen's fundamental liberties will happen again, is one of the best ways I now know to honor Theresa Marie Schindler's memory and ensure that her legacy includes the full restoration of secured rights for all who are vulnerable among us. This means publicly remembering why and how Terri died, understanding where and when our sense and system of justice failed her, and working to find and effect something much better than mere process whose highest need is to protect innocent human life—which always upholds above all else its absolute sanctity.

Even the life of one mentally impaired young woman, whose every utterance and gesture no judge in our land with the power to decide her fate had any wish to either go hear and see personally or allow fair recognition in his court—choosing instead to summarily reject and ultimately silence them all, affected not only the lives of millions but their attitudes about life and our duty to the weak and helpless, in ways no president, pope, or even judge ever could. In spite of her condition she expressed, ineffably to each of us, her life's meaning and its value, especially during its final two weeks as judges dispassionately discharged their unappealable death sentence on her. Her entire being was pleading, "I'm still here, I'm hanging on—I wish to live!" She moved the leader of the free world and the national legislature of the greatest country on earth to act, to officially come to her assistance by meeting in special session and passing an emergency bill intended to rescue her due-process and equal-protection rights, which our president immediately signed into law. She moved the highest officials within her religion—the largest branch of Christianity, possessing over a billion followers—to indirectly come to her assistance by speaking out on her behalf and protesting the way her human judges were mistreating her. She moved regular citizens in many states to directly come to her assistance by walking on the Woodside Hospice's grounds crime-scene area in an attempt to bring her sips of water—which she was able to swallow naturally, the same way she was doing with her own saliva—only to be forcibly stopped, handcuffed, and charged with trespassing by local police before they even reached the front door. She neither wrote letters nor made phone calls to the president, her representative, either of her senators, her highest religious leaders, or any of those regular citizens, asking for their assistance. With the exception of Representative C.W. Bill Young (initials stand for "Comment Withheld"), all of them still offered it as much as they thought they could, individually or together, because they believed her life was worth these efforts. For a woman who (so we were told) couldn't reach out to anyone, she certainly touched an enormous number of lives in remarkable and extraordinary ways before and during her judge-assisted suicide murder.

Just as remarkable, although becoming less extraordinary every day it seems, is how a purportedly free people who profess respect for human rights, life, and liberties permitted the very institutions of justice they ordained and established in order to secure the blessings of such things to themselves and their posterity, to be cast the greatest obstacle to justice as it abused and finally took away each one of those which a voiceless, choiceless, totally dependent woman had presumably been endowed with by her own Creator. Officials in those institutions elevated themselves above all considerations of justice due her by law when they feared affording her any might intrude on any of the privileges and immunities they believed due them. They first asked themselves, "What's in it for us." They didn't like the answer, so they proceeded to willfully ignore and thwart our law and its democratically enacted mechanisms of justice. For the first nation ever to be founded on the profound principle that the state serves the individual—not the other way around—it is more than tragic how we as a people allowed the arrogance of these officials to progress to this point.

Nothing I could write more aptly reviews the performance of what currently passes for American justice than those posted by Chuck at You Big Mouth, You! on the thirteenth and eighth days of Terri's execution:

I'm an EMT. I have seen people die. There is no dignity in death. It's sad, and humiliating, and a bunch of other negatives, but it isn't dignified. Contrary to Michael Schiavo's lawyer, a woman dying of thirst and hunger is not peaceful or beautiful. People die. An EMT learns that very quickly. But I'm not charged with giving up. My charge, from God, or Allah, or some source of morality, is to fight death, to do all I can to hold it back. I am asked to do my best.

Who is doing their best for Terry? Who stands in the door and says "You shall not pass!"? Isn't life a little more important than Michael Schiavo thinks?

I don't want government in my business. Yet, with all its faults, sometimes government can be right. Terry Schiavo deserves more than small government gives her. I deserve more, when it comes to the rights not enumerated in the Constitution. We are better than we are behaving.

Whatever values guide our government, our political leaders and our judges, they are not my values. Life, living, is important to me. It is my means toward union with my God. Taking life from a Terri Schiavo means that I may have my life taken as well, and my chance to receive God's mercy and forgiveness. There are times when secular justice calls for a life to be taken, but Terri Schiavo has received no justice. The only mercy and justice that she will receive will be from her God when He enfolds her at her death. This is not how God calls us to live. This is not how our country is supposed to be. For the first time in my life, I feel like a stranger in my own land.

* * *No, my friends. Murder is murder, and Terri Schiavo is being murdered. Somewhere along the line, we have lost our morals, and one of us will be the next victim of an America gone immoral. I assure you of that.

Had anyone been able to actually help put a stop to this final, murderous injustice which our alleged judicial system cold-bloodedly inflicted on Terri, I—along with millions of others fighting for Terri's civil rights, a vast majority of whom are constituents of our faith-based communities—would very likely now consider that person a true hero. Definitely among my few top-tier, real-life ones. Even if he were Ted Kennedy: I'd never, for example, refer to him using another "al-Q" again.

But there were no heroes in this whole sad, disheartening story. Only villains and victims. Villains led by judges in both a state and federal judicial branch bent on demonstrating what they believe are their godlike, infallible powers to decide our lives and deaths, assisted directly by elitist editors and reporters in a mainly liberal-biased media who view themselves Our Makers of Opinion and are thoroughly satisfied with how they're able to use that most oligarchical branch of our government as a controllable proxy for their own desire to exert Jovian control over us, and indirectly by citizens who actually believed that the premeditated killing of a voiceless human being by a weapon emblazoned with our own courts' imprimatur does not affect their lives or civil rights in any way—although it's probably more accurate to include the latter among the victims, as they were relying solely on the products of that complicit media to inform their perceptions.

The most minor villain here is the so-called "husband." His desire to see Terri suffer what's actually a lingering, painful death would've been stopped dead in its tracks had just one probate-court judge rejected and wrote "do not resuscitate" on his claim that Terri was already "all dead" and had once told him long ago she wouldn't want to live in that condition. Moreover, each panel of judges presiding up the line would've protected their own by summarily affirming that decision. As it so happens, the adulterer and his legal team headed by George Felos, who until recently was on the board of directors of the hospice crime scene where our courts murdered Terri, simply took advantage of a system infested with inappropriately dispassionate judges who willfully made sure the odds were stacked fatally against her.

The chief villains, however, are the commanders-in-chief who had the authority to effectively come to Terri's assistance but were unwilling to subject themselves to the bad press they undoubtedly would've received had they the tenacity to exert their co-equal branch status against those Robed Masters of America. "He shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed," so our constitution demands of the President of the United States of America. Among those laws was the one entitling Terri to a new trial of the facts, which the federal judiciary badly mistreated and starved into a dead letter a full week before Terri's merciless, judge-approved murder. The U.S. supreme court had not declared it unconstitutional. So it remained, as our constitution also demands, the supreme law of the land, which every judge—in Florida's middle-district court on up—was bound by oath to respectfully follow and uphold. Because none did, excluding the several at the appeals level who tried but were outvoted, these judges willfully worked to subvert the new law by refusing to order that the litigant on whose behalf it was enacted, then undergoing a cruel and unusual* execution via forced denial of any and all basic food and water, be kept alive so she could get her chance to have such a wholly necessary new trial. Thus, these judges were in clear violation of the law. Our president should've had them all arrested on the charge of depriving Terri's civil rights under color of law, in accordance with the relevant provisions of United States Code, Title 18, Part I, Chapter 13. Instead, as it became most clear, he felt that protecting substantial justice for Terri and anyone else like her, as well as taking care that the very law intended to do just that was faithfully executed, was less a concern than protecting his own political assets. His brother the governor of Florida had comparable constitutional and moral obligations as well, but also was unwilling to come to Terri's assistance. This is the most sickening part of all.

The victims include every citizen of the United States, whether they took any interest in Terri's plight or not. The attitude that none of this affects me or it's a private family matter so it's not my concern, when all three branches of both our federal and one state's governments were directly involved, officially issuing very public judgments, laws, and orders which not only affect this one case but set up precedents that in all likelihood will have an immediate bearing on the life and well-being of any citizen who, because of accident, abuse, or age, finds himself similarly incapacitated, is both a selfish and an unhealthy one for members of a free society to have. It is worse than burying one's head in the sand—at least then you'd have some excuse for not seeing what's coming. Even the easy answer of I myself have a living will or advance directive so I'm protected, is now less reassuring given how already one state court has taken the step of accepting unsubstantiated and highly disputed hearsay testimony from an adulterous spouse and two of his close relatives to fill in the blanks where such a will or directive is entirely absent. If present but its terms are not clearly applicable or sufficiently precise in a particular circumstance, thus rendering that instrument an unreliable guide for determining what type and amount of medical services (if any) you might wish to receive should you too become incapable of expressing those wishes yourself, then it follows that your state probate or family court, backed up with this legal precedent, could apply the same cold, dispassionate logic George "I'm Not A God But I Play One In My Courtroom" Greer did in accepting equally untrustworthy evidence to fill in the blanks live rounds for you. Of course you could make someone else your health care proxy, putting your fate totally in his hands in that event. Just make sure he isn't someone who has much to gain from seeing you dead.

What we have seen, regrettably, is that by allowing any civil court to take your unwitting silence as a tacit grant to make essentially speculative decisions supposedly on your behalf, especially when it is difficult to conclude they are truly in your best interests, you unduly expose yourself to the real and even fatal danger that such court will trample on your fundamental rights. It is why we grant our democratically-elected legislatures all powers to pass laws that protect those rights by specifying what exactly a court may and may not do in any such instance. The latter's jurisdiction and rules of evidence are themselves mandated, not by judges but by law. For these reasons the United States Congress passed a law specifically ordaining and establishing the judicial branch's jurisdiction and its rules of evidence with respect to certain claims regarding Terri's fundamental rights and their protection.

Life, liberty, property, and justice are the rights subject to Congress's enforcement powers against any state's violation of those rights. Sections 1 and 5 of the Fourteenth Article of Amendment to our constitution explicitly say:

No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

Protection of individual rights should, under our founding principle of governance, always outweigh any stubbornly rigid maintenance of separation of powers between its three branches. When judges consider the latter more important, even at the expense of an innocent United States citizen's life, they are saying, in effect, that the individual's constitutional privileges and immunities must give way to the state's powers and procedures whenever the two are competing for government protection. That is, the individual serves the state. This is beyond utter arrogance. It is a betrayal of the public trust afforded those judges, whose oaths are to uphold the principles of the constitution—its substantive guarantees—not merely its procedural mechanisms or doctrines. After paying lip service to Terri's constitutional rights, the sole reason the judges gave for declaring unconstitutional the law intended to protect those very rights, is that it violates the "axiomatic design" of separation of powers. Federal Court Order Denying Terri Schiavo's Parents' Petition for a Rehearing, March 30, 2005 (PDF format)**. The message they gave is loud and clear and should gravely disturb every freedom-loving citizen: Your rights come from the generosity of the state, not from the Hand of God. Your servitude is to the former. We have so ordered!

Clearly, Terri's own state had made and enforced laws that were working to abridge her privileges and immunities. That state allowed the appointment of an openly adulterous spouse as her plenary guardian, whose conflicting self-interests included seeing Terri dead so he could officially remarry and thus erase the illegitimacy of children he fathered with another woman while still "married" to Terri. That state neglected to afford her the assistance of any permanent, independent counsel who could bring up these issues in its courts. That state saw nothing wrong at all in allowing members of the "husband's" legal team to argue his case before a presiding judge who received political campaign contributions from all but two of such members. That state, throughout the last ten years, denied her the opportunity of seeking outside the courtroom, any effective treatment or therapy for her condition. That state prohibited, under threat of arrest, any attempt to orally give her even the most basic of liquids after ordering removal of her common feeding tube. That state's executive authority refused to fully protect Terri's federal civil rights. That state, in short, was determined to end Terri's life no matter what. This is among the very things our Fourteenth Amendment was ratified to prevent.

Where are we headed? That's basically up to us. Do we really want judges in our federal court system who believe they have an unquestionable authority to outright ignore or willfully undermine all the powers we have vested in our Congress to pass laws protecting the civil rights of U.S. citizens and setting every federal court's (including much of the Supreme Court's) jurisdiction and rules of evidence, when Congress also has power to not only constitute, ordain, and establish each and every one of those inferior courts but discontinue any or all of them as well? Do we still want to uncritically trust the word of media-based advocates of liberalism (aka "mainstream" editors & lead reporters) about where our fellow citizens stand on these issues, when they were so clearly wrong untruthful again this time? Do we ever want to see another state probate judge appoint an openly adulterous spouse who openly wants to see his wife dead judicially murdered as her legal guardian, when we would never consider that all right or anywhere near a great idea if we were in her position? Do we somehow want our individual rights ranked below government's procedural structures and mechanisms, when that would turn us all into servants of the state? If you answered yes to all of these then take heart: all your desires here are now the status quo. If you didn't, we have much work ahead of us if we want to change it.

First thing is to cut through and dispel the unbalanced thinking feelings of radicals and extremists on the left who continue to express screech their enormously glaring misconceptions and stupendous ignorance about states' rights and limited government. (This coming from folk who nominally don't believe in either.) Obviously, governments have no legitimate authority to unjustly harm or murder citizens anymore than I. Despite this fact, the Left wants the public to imagine that they do, taunting anyone who demands federal protection of our individual rights from such harm by a state, with the brilliant rejoinder, "Whatever happened to states' rights?" For one thing, a government—state or federal—has no rights, only powers. Powers that we citizens grant it and have the sole right to take away however and whenever we see fit, up to and including altering or even abolishing its very form:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, —That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

Understandable that the ungodly Left gets stuck at that "Creator" part and refuses to read the rest of the document establishing our nation, her principles and ideals. States' rights powers do not extend to making any of us suffer as miserably as liberals now normally do, even on their best days—or worse, to murdering a fellow citizen while the Left and its cohorts thoroughly embedded throughout our media work feverishly to convince everyone else that no one can or should ever try to do anything about it.

“If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary.”

—Federalist, No. 51.

Limited government is another concept leftist folk find difficult to grasp and leaves them in a greater state of confusion than they already are. No doubt they were asleep, or daydreaming about those supersize bottles of patchouli oil they saw in the drug store, at the time their public high schools tried to expose them to it. To refresh their revisionist little memories, limited government is "the basic principle that government is not all-powerful, and that it does only those things that citizens allow it to do." It does not mean a government that is too weak or ineffective to take the actions we allow and intend it to take, the most solemn of which being its provision of safeguards against any violation of our unalienable rights by private or public persons. To put it in public school terms, while we expect government to do well each and every thing we allow it to do, we do not expect or want it to do all things. That's why conservatives seek limited but strong government, one that truly respects and is capable of protecting the rights of individuals. By contrast, the unlimited, bloated, extremely-bureaucratic kind of government which the Left invariably seeks is not only itself inherently weak and ineffective, but such an onerous drain on the resources of citizens who are forced to support it and keep all its multitudinous tendrils propped up, that they and their freedoms become weak and ineffective too.

In about a week the Pinellas County Medical Examiner's office presumably will release the results of its April 1st autopsy on Terri's body, which her husband-in-name-only was able to have shoved into an oven and cremated last Saturday because of a judge's black-robed henchmen's order. That office allowed no independent observer to witness the autopsy. What we supposedly have is a woman who succumbed to a heart attack fifteen years ago. Will the autopsy produce any evidence of such a catastrophic event—one that, by definition, always leaves permanent damage which requires constant medication such as the blood thinner Coumadin? What we've also been told we have is a woman who was a bulimia victim. Will the results include any evidence of fifteen-year-old dental decay or scarring caused by the stomach acids from repeated bouts of self-induced vomiting? Most disturbing, we allegedly have a woman whose bone scan, taken twelve months after her "collapse," revealed a broken right femur and fractures in her ribs, pelvis, spine and ankle. Will the autopsy report include x-rays that prove or disprove this level of damage?

What we do have is a murdered U.S. citizen. The perpetrator and accomplices are still at-large, free to commit another heinous, barbaric, cold-blooded crime. The several million witnesses to it were unable and/or unwilling to stop it. They each now have a duty and the right to come forward and demand those criminals be restrained and held accountable.

Will you?


__________

* I have yet to hear of any previous case anywhere in our nation, once known as America, in which an otherwise physically healthy citizen—who breathed on her own, could swallow her own saliva and wasn't in a coma—was for all intents and purposes euthanized in this manner on the bases of a few long-withheld, secondhand recollections about her wishes and of several arguably inadequate evaluations of her medical condition. Should anyone know of such a case, I would be most grateful if you would post its details in the Amens.

** The "Bill of Attainder" argument against the law, bandied about somewhat in the media shortly after its enactment, falls so flat on its face—for the simple reason it demands no punishment without trial or punitive judgment whatsoever against anyone—that not even the federal appeals court took notice of it.

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