We Know Your Useless Like Cops on the Scene of a Crime

Jeff Buckly wrote the above in his song "The Sky is a Landfill". Thats the way I feel regarding the sickest politicking to grace the front pages in recent history.
That is, of course, the Terri Schiavo case.

It's critical to note that the neo-cons need to keep credability with the pro-life conservatives in some manner. Bush has done nothing for the anti-abortion cause, in fact he has lost ground to it since he can't get his supremes in.

When this started to break (in media, since it certainly wasnt a new issue) GOP issued a memo, calling this tragedy a "great political issue" and exciting for the "pro-life base." Only a sociopath sees such a tragedy as an exciting oppertunity.
But that pretty much sums up the moral fiber of the GOP and it's dear leader, the upstanding Tom Delay, noted ofr such great feats as quoting Matthew 7:21-27, about the foolish man who built his house on sand and the wise man who built his house on a rock in reference to the tsunami victims of December. I guess to a sociopath death is rightful to those too stupid as to live by the sea. I wonder what kind of genious this makes the nearly brain dead Terri Schiavo in his eyes.

Toles comic yesterday pretty much nailed it.



The Schiavo case might be unique, but where is the so called culture of life when the cases are much clearer and there is no battle of opinions within the family? How come cases like the Hudson's don't overpower CNN?

The baby wore a cute blue outfit with a teddy bear covering his bottom. The 17-pound, nearly 6-month-old boy wiggled with eyes open, his mother said, and smacked his lips. Then at 2 p.m. Tuesday, a medical staffer at Texas Children's Hospital gently removed the breathing tube that had kept Sun Hudson alive since his birth Sept. 25. Cradled by his mother, he took a few breaths, and died . . . Sun's death marks the first time a U.S. judge has allowed a hospital to discontinue an infant's life-sustaining care against a parent's wishes, according to bioethical experts.”

Houston Chronicle
Baby dies after hospital removes breathing tube
March 16, 2005

Texas law allows hospitals to discontinue life-sustaining care, even if a patient's family members disagree. A doctor's recommendation must be approved by a hospital's ethics committee, and the family must be given 10 days from written notice of the decision to try and locate another facility for the patient. Texas Children's said it contacted 40 facilities with newborn intensive care units, but none would accept Sun.

Lets not kid ourselves. The Schiavo case is a gold mine for politicians playing on the emotions of people who feel at a loss. Media feeds the sadness to the point of hopelessness. Powerful social engineering requires powerful emotives to mobilze people, or pacify them by presenting charade that "there is a battle for life, and we are doing something about it!" The trap is then set for opposition, or for that matter, even handedness. The initial judge in the case, Justice Greer, now travels with his own security detail due to threats and is being slimed as a "activist judge" for his ruling. The law is now subject to the people apparently, furthermore, the powerful GOP senate who makes these acusations are stripping away the state rights they tell the people they stand for. Who really are the activists here? The people upholding law or the people consolidating power and manipulating peoples emotions?  ¶ 10:39 AM

Bolton Out the Gates

Rollingstone blogger Tim Dickinson posted this crack up about UN Envoy Elect John Bolton;

Bolton once mooned: "The [U.N.] Secretariat building in New York has 38 stories. If it lost ten stories, it wouldn't make a bit of difference."

Bolton is an opponent of international law. A man who claims the U.S. has no obligation to pay its dues to the body he'll be our envoy to. A man who appears to share hair styling tips with Condi Rice, a man whose shockingly white mustache resembles nothing so much as an albino lab mouse, dead upon his upper lip.

  ¶ 1:17 PM

Spring Break Beruit!



How do you frame a current issue in order to hype US foriegn policy? Take a cue from beer ads aparently. Bagnews had posted last week about the front cover of the Economist regarding the "Cedar Revolution" in Lebanon. It seems everywhere in media the more sensual images are being used for cover stories about Lebanon. Images from today's second major anti-Syria protest are appearing at photo-editorial sites as I write this. But already the ones chosen for news stories are ones of youthful and attractive women, as if we are watching a woodstock revolution of sorts. In fact, as Bagnotes commented, the very expression of the young girl on the cover of the Economist suggests the Nixon era.

In a seemingly desperate attempt to validate all liberal activity in the Middle East as a sign of progress due to the war in Iraq, news media is selling this odd imagery of a sexual liberation. As if to recal teenage repression, the Cedar Revolution is starting to look more like MTV Springbreak. Whereas images of the pro-Syrian Hezbollah demonstrations were shown as being bleak, genderless and angery. When I went to the actual press sites, the imagery databases proved otherwise. Many young pro-Syrians with very attractive women.

Never once did I see these images come to print, or shown at all in the many online editions. It's as though these demonstrations must not be shown for the secratarianism they really represent. The truth is not important, rather, the sensation of sucess of liberation is.


(For a more dramatic demonstration, see: http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=15064_Lebanese_Protester_of_the_Day#comments)  ¶ 4:29 PM

This Mr. Bolton does not sing a version of Sweet Georgia Brown
...at least I hope he doesn't...

John Bolton has been named by President Bush as the US ambassador to the UN. As if it was not enough to have an academic take the reigns of the highest postition in Unilateral Diplomacy, the US now has the single most crass politician as the top Multilateral Diplomat.

"If I were redoing the security council today, I'd have one permanent member because that's the real reflection of the distribution of power in the world,"

Sounds like a winner!  ¶ 1:33 PM

This Democracy has been brought to you by....

I really don't have any opinions on the world right now. A lot of good commentary about Lebanon is, as usual, at empirenotes.org

I hope freedom of speech and relegion find their way to the Middle East, but good things happen despite what the governments do. People find their own freedoms, even if it is concealed, they find a way. The rhetoric is that government should be lauded as the great freedom bringer, coded in talk of Democracy(R). But on some level, the struggle is always present and small victories are celebrated. True freedom will come one day, but not at the hand of world rulers.  ¶ 2:01 PM

This Democracy has been brought to you by....

I really don't have any opinions on the world right now. A lot of good commentary about Lebanon is, as usual, at empirenotes.org

I hope freedom of speech and relegion find their way to the Middle East, but good things happen despite what the governments do. People find their own freedoms, even if it is concealed, they find a way. The rhetoric is that government should be lauded as the great freedom bringer, coded in talk of Democracy(R). But on some level, the struggle is always present and small victories are celebrated. True freedom will come one day, but not at the hand of world rulers.  ¶ 2:01 PM