Terry Schiavo - RIP

[ctenidae]

Agreed, hammer. 100%

 

[bvibert]

Monty Python, the other Day and History of the world today. Smiles.

Agree...sometimes it's good when a serious discussion is interrupted by a "bit of fun".

Definately!

 

[smitty77]

May I remind you that the 203-58 vote for the bill in U.S. Congress included 47 democrats and was more reflective of the will of the people than the decision of 3 judges on a review panel?

But didn't a national poll show that upwards of 65% of "the people" thought that what the the U.S. Congress did was wrong? Don't confuse the "will of the politician to fulfill a political agenda" with the "will of the people". I know my next vote will be to vote out the incumbent if he/she voted in favor of the measure.

Smitty

 

[smitty77]

God only helps those who believe.

If that's what gets you through the day. My mother-in-law is a firm believer in God and the catholic church. Yet God keeps smacking her down.

In her lifetime she has undergone two brain surgeries to remove tumors, has had her features altered by a malfuntioning pituitary gland, had colon cancer, has one duaghter with multiple sclerosis and another with fibromyalgia. She helped her husband fight prostate cancer, had her husband cheat death last year (while she was recoving from the colon cancer, requiring a pacemaker), was diagnosed with glaucoma, and is currently nursing him back to health after a nasty bout with colo-rectal cancer.

If God should be helping anyone, this poor woman and her family are prime candidates.

Let me say I don't believe, and I'll leave it at that.

Smitty

 

[dmc]

May I remind you that the 203-58 vote for the bill in U.S. Congress included 47 democrats and was more reflective of the will of the people than the decision of 3 judges on a review panel?

But didn't a national poll show that upwards of 65% of "the people" thought that what the the U.S. Congress did was wrong? Don't confuse the "will of the politician to fulfill a political agenda" with the "will of the people". I know my next vote will be to vote out the incumbent if he/she voted in favor of the measure.

Smitty

I don't put much stake in congress or the senate right now.. At least not with that scum Tom Delay there..
I don't trust anything thats happeing.. I think Democrats are cowtowing to Republicans now cause they realize that with the Rep majority and the recent attempts do do away with filibusters in the Senate - they won't be able to push their Dem agendas..
So they are sucking it up and voting for Rep initatives...

 

[ctenidae]

If you can't beat them, join them. If that makes you sick, vote for Independent. Libertarians are looking less and less whacked out every day.

 

[Stephen]

Um, and what did Delay do that made him scum?

 

[thetrailboss]

Um, and what did Delay do that made him scum?

Couldn't resist...let's see...stacked the Ethics Committee so that they would let him off...re-wrote the rules...and, oh yeah, kept open a controversial vote last year on the floor for OVER 2 HOURS so he could cajole people to change their votes.

Completely classless and lacking of any integrity...which is quite hypocrtical. :angry:

 

[Stephen]

And how is that different from Democrats filibustering and thus adding a requirement for supermajority that is not called for in the Constitution?

All of Congress is guilty of sneaky tactics.

 

[dmc]

Um, and what did Delay do that made him scum?

My god... I just spit coffee all over my screen...

BAW HAW HAW...

Just news google his name and you'll see that both Dems and Reps are pissed at him...

I don't even have the time to list every issue...

 

[dmc]

If you can't beat them, join them. If that makes you sick, vote for Independent. Libertarians are looking less and less whacked out every day.

I always score Libertarian when I take political tests....

 

[thetrailboss]

And how is that different from Democrats filibustering and thus adding a requirement for supermajority that is not called for in the Constitution?

The Senate Filibuster has been a long tradition of the Senate. In fact, Mr. Strom Thurmond used it a lot during the Civil Rights Debates as you know. The vote to end filibuster was later downgraded to 60 votes.

I'm not going to defend them. Guess I'm kind of old school New Englander..do what you're say you're going to do. :roll:

From the start, DeLay has always disgusted me. The whole redistricting thing last year was over the top and a clear violation of the "states rights" song he's sang for his career. :angry: :evil:

 

[ctenidae]

The filibuster is a time-honoured tradition, used by both sides. It's difficult to arrange, so it's only used when really needed. The new rules would eliminate the filibuster, making it easier for Republicans to ram through legislation, no matter what. Democrats aren't adding anything- it's a Republican initiative.
You're right, though, Stephen- both sides use sneaky tactics. If you think Democrat's fillibusters are bad, look into the passage of the Patriot Act. After the Senate version was passed (wih only one "nay" vote, Russ Feingold) the House version was rewritten, after midnight, behind closed doors, by a few Republicans. 4 copies of the several hundred page bill were handed out to Democrats in the wee hours of the morning, with a vote called after 1 hour of debate. I count that as pretty sneaky.

 

[Jaytrek57]

Top 5 things I believe from this thread but should hit the delete button on my keyboard.

5. Would the question of filibuster be brought up if it was a "other party" controlled house??????????

4. More people have died on this planet ,"In the [[insert deity name here]], than have been "saved".

3. Theological and "law" debates should not reference the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus...that is if you are Christian...everyone else should get the anology or go back to where they came from.

2. Monty Python references are spiritually universal.

1. Always when it comes to religion, politics and the Red Sox/Yankees...type your response then hit delete.

Note: I am in a tired sarcastic frame of mind and would hike with all of you then let you but me a beer. :wink:

Peace.

 

[ski_resort_observer]

I am heartened and surprised by the poll results. It appears we have a sensitive and informed bunch in here.

 

[pedxing]

The saddest thing about all of this is that nobody seems to care about what this poor woman wanted. It's all about politics and religion and personal views of morality.
Pitiful!

On the face of it, that reflects some serious misinformation. If you look at the court rulings, they were focused on trying to determine what she wanted.

Hitler honestly felt he was helping Jews from suffering their low "quality of life" issues.

Sounds like a very novel interpretation of Hitler to me. Is there evidence for this appraisal?

How would you feel...if you were in a horrific accident and your family did all they could to keep you alive, but at the same time, your husband is giving up all hope of your recovery...even after a lot of years has gone byIf you have faith, then miracles happen. God only helps those who believe.

First, I would be angered that someone would try to keep my body chained to this world through artificial means in that state.

Second, if you are going by faith in miracles, and ignoring science and the liquid state of much of her brain - then artificial feeding should be un-necessary. Odd that God would insist on a longer peroid of artificial feeding before he chose to un-liquify brain tissue, or defy the rules of neuro-biology. Or does God somehow recognize the husband's custody?

More thoughts:
A very thorough and apparently neutral site dealing with this case (and presenting many facts with links to key documents) is here: http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html

Having studied the case a bit, I'd have to say the vilification and misinformation on Michael Schiavo is extreme. It's odd that Michael Schiavo's motives would be impuned because of the malpractice settlement. He put the money in a trust for her and it seems to have spent most of his money on lawyers. Wouldn't a purely selfish guy have walked away with the money and left her in the custody of her parents? He also turned out at least 1 million offered to walk away from the case (his lawyers claim 10 Million).

As Nicholas Stix who opposed removing the feeding tube said, "Note that this “devil” had spent over 5000 hours caring for his wife in the nursing home during those first five years alone, trained as a nurse, in order to assist in her care, and has for 15 years harassed staffers into giving his wife an extraordinary level of care. He has never deserted his wife, whom he still visits regularly and whose care he has never stopped supervising.

On Nightline last week, Jay Wolfson, who had served as one of Mrs. Schiavo’s guardians ad litem, said that doctors had told Mr. Schiavo from the beginning that his wife’s condition was hopeless. After five years of caring for her, he seemed finally to accept what they had been saying all along."

If he moved on after that, it makes sense to me. I would expect that's what Terry would have wanted. I would have. Why have my wife chained to my body just because someone has artificially chained me to this world?

 

[pedxing]

I am still bothered by the extreme vilification of Michael Schiavo and the misinformation promulgated, and which seeps in here. The oldest of Schiavo’s kids by this new woman, according to a recent peace is 2 ½ years old. Apparently Michael Schiavo started accepting that Terri would never recover by 1993. He asked the court to consider whether it was in her interest to artificially keep her alive in 1998. So he his raising of the issue was not about his already having another family. The clear evidence shows he was quite devoted to Terri after her heart attack… as I noted above, he trained for a nurse so he could be more effectively involved in her care, he spent a huge amount of time by her side and was very active in protecting her dignity (keeping things clean, making sure she was turned over – apparently she never got bed sores, which is indicative of excellent care). We can have legitimate disagreements about quality of life, artificial preservation of life and euthanasia without wrongly vilifying the parties to a huge and painful situation. I do think it outrageous that public figures have bashed him, and that others have raised accusations that he abused his wife so long after her coma.

i suspect he was also fighting to ease his own pain.

That would be the pain of having a wife who is still living while he had 2 children with another woman?

This was a choice of convenience, nothing more.

-Stephen

Just because her husband wanted to marry someone else doesn't mean he should have the right to "encourage her death."

Having said that, his actions were slimy, and denying the family a chance to grieve, to be present when she died, regardless of the disagreement, was an atrocity, and shows the true character of this piece of dross.

-Stephen

 

[Jaime86]

God only helps those who believe.

If that's what gets you through the day. My mother-in-law is a firm believer in God and the catholic church. Yet God keeps smacking her down.

In her lifetime she has undergone two brain surgeries to remove tumors, has had her features altered by a malfuntioning pituitary gland, had colon cancer, has one duaghter with multiple sclerosis and another with fibromyalgia. She helped her husband fight prostate cancer, had her husband cheat death last year (while she was recoving from the colon cancer, requiring a pacemaker), was diagnosed with glaucoma, and is currently nursing him back to health after a nasty bout with colo-rectal cancer.

If God should be helping anyone, this poor woman and her family are prime candidates.

Let me say I don't believe, and I'll leave it at that.

Smitty

Well Smitty...That's what God had planned for her in her life. Sometimes he tests us in cruel and unusual ways...but that's how we learn and how we find out how strong our binds are...I agree that if anyone should be getting help from God, that it should be this woman and her family...but I am not God and if I were...I would help her...but she is not the only person in peril in the world that needs his help...there's not ONLY the United States where people pray for salvation and forgiveness...and help...there's tons of other people around the world too.

 

[JimG.]

The saddest thing about all of this is that nobody seems to care about what this poor woman wanted. It's all about politics and religion and personal views of morality.
Pitiful!

On the face of it, that reflects some serious misinformation. If you look at the court rulings, they were focused on trying to determine what she wanted.

You misunderstood my comment...I know the courts were charged with this obviously impossible task. My comment was directed at the masses of political/religious and pseudo-religious groups who latched onto this issue as a way of furthering political and personal agendas.

In that context, I stand by what I said...not one of those people really cared a bit about that poor woman.

 

[ski_resort_observer]

the lies

One of the things that bothered me was when the woman finally passed away, her father, her brother and that scumbag Ralph Terry all proclaimed to the national media that her husband was not with her when she died. Course, a few hours later, the truth came out and her husband was indeed at her side when she died.

Why did they lie? I got the feeling this instance was a metephor for the whole situation.