Even South Korea beat you to it, America

The US has long paraded itself as a forerunner for legal, civil and socio-political rights, yet once again another, substantially smaller and less renown country beat them to legalizing a critical person's right. A South Korean court has opened the doors to a possible legalization of human Right-to-Die following the ruling that an aging woman, stuck in a coma for over a year, was to be let off her artificial life-sustaining equipment and finally die in peace.

The ruling is the first of its kind by the country's Supreme Court and settles a case that began more than a year ago after Kim Ok-kyung, 77, lapsed into a coma following a botched operation, The Korean Times reported Friday.

Testimony indicated Kim had no chance of recovery.

"In this condition, extending her life is meaningless and against her right to die with dignity," Chief Justice Lee Yong-hoon said in the ruling.

Justice Lee said before falling into a coma, Kim had indicated that she would not want to be kept alive by machines.

Following the verdict Thursday, families of two other comatose patients applied for the right to remove them from life support equipment.

Earlier, Seoul National University Hospital announced it would allow terminal cancer patients or their families decide whether to remain on life support.

Glad to see they're already starting an example and leading the race for Right-to-Die in the area. Now if only this feeling of rational sense would make its way into the heartland of America ... hmm?

Continued ...»

Friday Canine: You comin' or not?

Two grey wolves in a mountain range.

Original source: The Animal Photo Archive

Continued ...»

Republican denialism, take three ... thousand

Yet another (*yawn*) case of Republicans denying they're doing anything wrong ... In this case, it's Republican Party Chairman Michael Steele who, while giving a speech to Republicans about how they're due for a "comeback" (and dear God do they need one), pretty much wipes their credibility away anew:

The era of apologizing for Republican mistakes of the past is now officially over. It is done. We have turned the page, we have turned the corner. No more looking in the rearview mirror. From this point forward, we will focus all of our energies on winning the future.

Um ... When exactly has the Republican party ever – ever – started apologizing for its crankery and stupid acts and misconduct? All they've ever done for years is defend Bush's bankrupt policies and pathetic excuse for leadership, among other things, while laying 100% of the blame on those stupid no-good Liberalz. An "era for apologizing for Republican mistakes" cannot end if it's never even begun – and likely never will.

(via Dispatches from the Culture)

Continued ...»

Stupid Quote of the Day: the evils of atheism vs. child abuse

Today's quote comes from Cardinal Murphy-O'Connor, who chooses this to say above other commentary in light of the scandal of Irish priests beating and raping young children for decades:

For Jesus, the inability to believe in God and to live by faith is the greatest of evils.

Hmm. Glad we godless hedonists and evilutionists rank further down the scale of human amorality and vileness than beating and raping innocent children for 70+ years, and covering it all up ... I think.

(via Pharyngula)

Continued ...»

Catholic amorality personified: more braying from Jackass Donahue

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Continued ...»

Binging on music again: U2 & James Bond

Two songs I've been obsessing over these last couple of days. Now you can join the fervor. =)

U2
No Line on the Horizon
"Magnificent"

Chris Cornell
Casino Royale Soundtrack
"You Know My Name" (Actual Casino Royale opening credits)

Continued ...»

But I'm not black!

So why am I apparently "Foreman"-level in this fan-made House "brilliance" quiz? =(

You are 76% House's Medical Genius!

 

You've got some game but you're not a genius, Foreman. Climb down from your pedestal, that's occupied for brilliance, something you inherently lack. Your hard work and dedication got you up here.

Are you a medical genius like House?
Take More Quizzes

Damn, I was so sure I'd get at least 80% ... =( How would YOU perform as a doctor?

Continued ...»

Wolfram|Alpha: self-aware, general pundit, and prankster

My new favorite Internet toy has only just launched, and already it's showing traits that indicate it might not be that far from Skynet, after all, despite its creators' claims to the contrary. (Always a conspiracy ...)

Q: What is your name?
A: My name is Wolfram|Alpha.
[Hmm ... First step to self-awareness is self-identity ... o_o]

Q: What's the speed of an unladen swallow?
A: there is unfortunately insufficient data to estimate the velocity of an African swallow (even if you specified which of the 47 species of swallow found in Africa you meant)
(asked of a general swallow (but not answered) in Monty Python's Holy Grail.)
[Ooh, so W|A knows Monty Python!]

Q: Hello.
A: Hello, human.
[Bit condescending, aren't we ...?]

Q: What is the answer to life?
A: 42
[Forty ... two ...?]
(Google.com has the same answer to the query "What is the answer to life, the universe, and everything?".)

Q: To be or not to be
A: ...that is the question.
(according to the William Shakespeare)
[So W|A's a playwright, too?]

Q: how much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a A: woodchuck could chuck wood?
a woodchuck would chuck all the wood he could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood
(according to the tongue-twister)
[Okay, I gotta admit, that was my favorite.]

Q: How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
A: Angels are pure intelligences, not material, but limited, so that they have location in space, but not extension. Therefore, an infinity of angels can be located on the head of a pin.
(according to Dorothy Sayers (who also maintains that the question is simply a debating exercise))
[A religious expert, too?]

Q: 88MPH
A: 88 mph (miles per hour)
[...]
Comparisons as speed:
= speed at which Marty McFly needed to drive the Delorean DMC-12 in order to time travel ( 88 mph )
[Wow, this guy knows movies ...]

Q: how many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop?
A: 3
(according to Tootsie Pop commercials)
[Answering all those important questions ...]

Q: Are you self-aware?
A: I am capable of universal computation; that I can say.
[Hmm ... sneaky.]

(See Mashable.com's Top 10 Wolfram|Alpha Easter Eggs, and 10 Even Better Wolfram|Alpha Easter Eggs, for a few more neat tricks and gags this mother can deliver.)

Continued ...»

More evidence of religion's link to morality …

… or rather, its increasingly-apparent lack of one. There's currently an investigation concerning the Irish Catholic Church and the numerous reform schools they've been running. These schools seem to have more in common with your local work camp or torture rooms than actual education facilities, as the report uncovers. They're used to fabricate religious paraphernalia, such as crosses and rosaries and the likes, while the poor children were routinely abused, beaten and molested before, during and after. So much for Catholic compassion.

Below is a quick summary of what's been uncovered so far, according to PZ Myers:

a history of official cover-ups of pedophiles within the church since the 1930s.

a pattern of beatings, abuse, and molestation in church-run workhouses.

molestation and rape were "endemic" at the boys' workhouses.

ritualized beatings and personal abuse and denigration.

kids were falsely told that their parents or siblings were dead.

a continuing insistence on protecting the child molesters in their ranks.

whistleblowers were accused of being "money-seeking liars".

the Irish government cut a deal with the Catholic church to cap their losses to lawsuits at $175 million…which is only a tiny part of the full cost.

If I ever meet someone who insists morality is only brought on by religion and faith, I'll resist the urge to slap them and instead will point them to this report, and the countless others like it that keep appearing all the time from all over the world. Again: morality and ethics are not created by religion. They are inherent to mankind. Religion merely defines various sets and groups of ethics and moral values and guidelines – nothing more.

Anyway … Now that most of the priests who've conducted these workhouses of horrors are getting on in years and living in retirement homes that doubtlessly treat them with the care and compassion they themselves never gave to the children in need they harbored, these workhouses and reform schools are rapidly disappearing. A good ending to a horrible tale, I suppose.

(via Pharyngula)

Continued ...»

Here's a poll you should set straight

I'll assume you all know the ongoing Daniel Hauser story by now, and just skip to the point. The Washington Times website (oh, stop booing me!) has a little poll concerning the debate on parental rights and authority of children and how far the government can or should interfere for the children's well-being when their parents are idiotic loons.

Question of the day

Should parents be allowed to refuse cancer treatments for their children?

• Yes – 24% (588)
• No – 67% (1601)
• Undecided – 6% (154)
• Other – 1% (40)

Total votes: 2383
(Results taken at roughly 2:27 PM, EST)

Assuming the child is either too young or uninformed to be able to reasonably decide for him-/herself ... Hmm, lemme think ...

NO.

No child should have to pay for their parents' stupidity, ignorance, or brainwashing as Daniel obviously is. The poor kid's been brainwashed into stupidity through bad parenting and cults, and there's a very real chance he could die from it.

---

A quick recap of the Daniel Hauser chemotherapy refusenik case, for the uninitiated:

• Daniel Hauser is raised in a highly religious and conservative household. He is entirely homeschooled with a heavy slant towards religion, and tests show that even today at 13 years old, he is entirely illiterate.

• Daniel then gets landed with Hodgkin's lymphoma, arguably the best cancer to get if you're to get cancer thanks to its high survival rates when undergoing appropriate treatments. Adults have 90% rates; children have 95%. This is only with radiation and chemotherapy therapies.

• Daniel (now 13) undergoes a first round of chemotherapy, yet hates how it makes him feel. (Chemotherapy is toxic, after all, which is the point: kill the cancer.) He is also presumably frightened by the chemotherapy-related death of his aunt.

• Daniel has since staunchly refused any more chemotherapy, instead returning to naturopathic woo medicine, such as "herbs and vitamins", that his mother found "on the Internet". He also uses the fake-sounding pseudo-American-Indian religion of Nemenhah as a convenient excuse to bring up a "Freedom of Religion" defense to defy the courts.

• The court finally ruled that Daniel was being "medically neglected" and he was ordered to pursue life-saving treatment, despite previous threats to resist, literally kicking and screaming, any judge rulings of the sort.

• Finally, Daniel and his mother have now fled the country, with reliable sources placing them somewhere in Mexico. An arrest warrant has been issued against them, with orders to immediately separate Daniel from his idiotic mother upon capture.

(via Pharyngula and Respectful Insolence)

Continued ...»

Playin' Pot vs. Kettle with Hoekstra and Pelosi

Er, I hate that expression. Wish there was another one for it. Ah well; Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee and a current candidate for the 2010 Michigan gubernatorial elections, claims to be outraged – positively simmering – at House Speaker Nanci Pelosi for her accusing the CIA of being less-than-honest with her towards the practice of torture in the US. He's been saying that these accusations against the CIA are "outrageous" on CNN, and then on Fox News, he said that it was one thing to criticize the CIA's performance, but that accusing them of downright lying to Congress is simply impardonable. Or something.

Which side do you think he's on: Pot, or Kettle?

Hoekstra's repeated objections to Pelosi accusing the CIA of having lied to Congress is quite odd given the fact that he's made nearly identical claims on multiple occasions. As Marcy Wheeler first noted, Hoekstra wrote a letter to President Bush in 2006 accusing the intelligence community of withholding information on their activities from Congress. "I have learned of some alleged Intelligence Community activities about which our committee has not been briefed," Hoekstra wrote. He said that he believed the Bush administration's failure to fully brief his committee could constitute "a violation of law"

[...]

Similarly, in 2007, Hoekstra described a closed-door briefing by representatives from the intelligence community (including CIA) on the National Intelligence Estimate of Iran's nuclear capability, saying that the members "didn't find [the briefers] forthcoming." More recently, in November 2008, Hoekstra concluded that the CIA "may have been lying or concealing part of the truth" in testimony to Congress regarding a 2001 incident in which the CIA mistakenly killed an American citizen in Peru. "We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress," Hoekstra said of the incident.

"I can accuse them of lying, but you can't! CAN'T!" seems to be what's going through Hoekstra's mind right about now.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Continued ...»

Great, now a Democrat joins the babble of stupidity

I may be ultra-Liberal in my views and beliefs concerning politics and civil/social issues, but I'm certainly not blind to the fact that our side does also contain a fair number of teh crazies, loons, and plain idiots. One of them, apparently, is Harry Reid (D-NV), the Senate Democratic Leader, and a man who, as Ed Brayton put in a way that nearly sent me falling out of my chair in laughter, "has the IQ of a turnip and the charm of an ebola virus*". He's apparently chosen to follow along in footsteps that are traditionally Republicans', mimicking their stupidity in saying that he doesn't want "terrorists to be released in the United States". Can't even the fucking Democrats, Obama's own party, get a clue as to what his plans say?

Below is an exchange during a recent press conference between questioning reporters and Reid.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) declared in a press conference today, "We will never allow terrorists to be released into the United States." In several tense back and forths with reporters, Reid said he opposes imprisoning detainees on U.S. soil, saying flatly, "We don't want them around the United States":

REID: I'm saying that the United States Senate, Democrats and Republicans, do not want terrorists to be released in the United States. That's very clear.

QUESTION: No one's talking about releasing them. We're talking about putting them in prison somewhere in the United States.

REID: Can't put them in prison unless you release them.

QUESTION: Sir, are you going to clarify that a little bit? ...

REID: I can't make it any more clear than the statement I have given to you. We will never allow terrorists to be released in the United States.

Later, Reid repeated that he would not support Guantanamo detainees being transferred to U.S prisons:

QUESTION: But Senator, Senator, it's not that you're not being clear when you say you don't want them released. But could you say -- would you be all right with them being transferred to an American prison?

REID: Not in the United States.

So this boob is against the mere harboring of terrorists in the US, period? Tell that to the numerous prisons that already house terror-mongers in the US mainland. Idiot.

* Pray that Melissa doesn't see this, or I'm dead.

(via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

Continued ...»