Oh shit, here he comes.

3...

2...

1...

...

What, me?

Damn that skeazebag Michael Schiavo. May his blood money bring him no joy.

That's all I got.

No, adolfo. Sue is referring to the inevitable Schiavo-thread appearance of Bill from InDC.

Or, as I like to call him, the Oliver Willis of the Libertarian Right.

You were so wrong about the Schiavo thing then, and you're still wrong now.

No comment on the Schiavo thing. Just have to say that "hyper-hormonal monkey" is one of the funnier names I've seen on this site in awhile. Flows right off the tongue.

Nicely done.

The thing that irks a lot of us about the Schiavo thing is how quick Republicans were to trash the "sanctity of marriage" and call on the Federal government to piss on states rights. What the fuck is the point of being a Republican if that's how things are going to go down??

Or, as I like to call him, the Oliver Willis of the Libertarian Right.

Oh man, I'm so un-blog smart. I don't know who Oliver Willis is.

On Terri Schiavo, I'm a big Glenn Beck fan and the situation really tore me up. I just about dropped out of politics when she died. We have so little respect for life anymore. Too much that we revere in the modern world is plastic and meaningless and dead.

The monkey parody was subtle enough to have made me wonder if it was really Bill. I thought so for a few seconds, then realized that I could read the whole post without touching my mouse wheel.

What parody? My name is certainly not anything as generic as "Bill". Any Bills want to fight? Let's step outside.

By the way, can you really blame Michael Schiavo for hating Republicans after they insinuated (or in some cases outright stating) that he put Terry in her vegetative state through abuse?

Oh yes it's the booze that's making me monkey angry, Schiavo is just a side-issue. Monkey want Val-U-Rite!!

Maybe they wouldn't have insinuated it, if Michael Schiavo hadn't had a clear history of abuse.

You can argue for the political merits of your side, but really, do you want to weight your argument with sympathy for that piece of garbage?

What history is that? The kind that was made up out of whole cloth only after the controversy started? Ugh. "I don't like you, you must be an abuser." Welcome to the Liberal world, folks.

The thing that irks a lot of us about the Schiavo thing is how quick Republicans were to trash the "sanctity of marriage"

If that's how you see "sanctity of marriage", then I readily admit that I've trashed it. Well, that's not entirely true, since you can't "trash" a belief you never held.

You're the sort of sorry bastard that makes me wonder if marriage licenses shouldn't be classified as "lethal weapons."

If you're not married already, please don't.

The thing that irks a lot of us about the Schiavo thing is how quick Republicans were to trash the "sanctity of marriage"

If, of course, you take "sanctity of marriage" to mean "running off with the nearest bimbo you can find when your wife is in dire need of your support", "siring bastard children on aforementioned bimbo while still claiming to be the coma-ridden wife's 'husband'", and "using the sanctity of marriage to mean 'the right to have troublesome exes starved to death on the basis of hearsay as soon as you realize that no more money can be milked out of their sorry state."

If that's how you see "sanctity of marriage", then I readily admit that I've trashed it. Well, that's not entirely true, since you can't "trash" a belief you never held.

You're the sort of sorry bastard that makes me wonder if marriage licenses shouldn't be classified as "lethal weapons."

If you're not married already, please don't.

...and call on the Federal government to piss on states rights.

I suppose that the War of Northern Aggression will be your next subject?

If so, please spare me. I've heard that one before.

Welcome to the Liberal world, folks.
Posted by hyper-hormonal monkey at December 7, 2005 11:38 PM

I'm not a liberal -- from a political standpoint, you are probably correct. Bush and the Congress should not necessarily have interfered with an issue of a state's judiciary.

Nice that you can recite MSM talking points about poor Michael Schiavo, but it doesn't help your arguments.

I can only speak from my ten or twelve years of experience in geriatric healthcare, five of which were in hospice, both in patient care and administration. I can not recall another case where a judge ordered a feeding tube withdrawn and no food or liquids by mouth. That violates both medical ethics and the rules of palliative care. From a medical point of view, the various nurses who signed affidavits testifying that Michael Schiavo was abusive raises serious questions as well.

If you would like to argue politics, have at it. When you argue the specifics of Terri's case, however, you don't seem to have much inside knowledge.

Of course, my experience won't change your mind at this late date. Frankly, I'm not sure why I bother. The only thing I'm assured of by arguing with a monkey, is getting covered with monkey feces.

Some vampires get all the blood they can. And all the blood money.

That's nice of you Misha. I hope that your spouse (if you have one) never goes brain dead. If so, you might find that things aren't as quite black and white as you'd like to pretend, and everything you talked about in private is suspect just by nature of its privacy.

It's awful nice of you to talk about "bastard" children and bimbos, way to show respect for humans in general. Do you know them personally? Are they really that bad? Should they go straight to hell what? Please advise.

It's awful nice of you to talk about "bastard" children and bimbos, way to show respect for humans in general. Do you know them personally? Are they really that bad? Should they go straight to hell what? Please advise.

Okay: "Bastard" means, originally, a child born out of wedlock. Illegitimate. He wasn't insulting children, dumbass. He was pointing out, rightly, that Michael Schiavo fathered children with a woman to whom he was not married.

Seriously, no moron -- especially a moronic monkey -- who missed the original flame wars, and the facts revealed therein, should be allowed to comment in this one.

adolfo, you have a couple good points regarding medical ethics. But are you talking about the nurse who the judge basically called a bullshitter with no credibility? The Christian Coalition can probably get a thousand of those lined up in a row, no problem, but none of them appeared until well into the controversy and none had any credibility.

From what I've read of the court records, you're basically wrong: all legal and medical precedents were followed. Terry Schiavo didn't go into a coma one day and have her tubes pulled the very next... It's an ugly case, and one I would hope to never see again, but you and Bill Frist can't make up medical prognoses on the fly and call them fact. I myself prefer to trust the people who were assigned by the courts to determine the facts in an impartial manner, and did so.

That's nice of you Misha. I hope that your spouse (if you have one) never goes brain dead. If so, you might find that things aren't as quite black and white as you'd like to pretend, and everything you talked about in private is suspect just by nature of its privacy.

I don't know. I'm going out on a hypothetical limb here, but I suspect that if my wife had expressed a wish to die in case she, Heaven forbid, should ever find herself in a situation like Terri's, I'd somehow find it in myself to remember that before I'd spent years frolicking on the proceeds from the suit that should've provided her with care.

I might actually remember it before I ran out of blood money.

One thing I'm reasonably sure of is that I wouldn't run off and start having babies with another woman, then come back years later and claim "husband's rights."

But hey, I'm funny that way. All tied up in knots about common decency and unimportant crap like that.

It's awful nice of you to talk about "bastard" children and bimbos, way to show respect for humans in general. Do you know them personally? Are they really that bad? Should they go straight to hell what? Please advise.

1) Bastard: Look it up. It's not a value judgment, it's a simple definition. You don't really have to know a person to know if he or she is a bastard. As to the afterlife, I haven't heard that said bastards are judged by their parents' actions, but I could be wrong.

2) Bimbo: I don't know how you roll, but hooking up with a married man and having his babies out of wedlock isn't exactly something that would put you on top of the list for "virtuous lady of the year." Living high on the hog off of money that said man had made off of a case involving the woman that he obviously doesn't give two shits about and that should've gone to her, her being the injured party, doesn't speak highly of your moral character either.

That's all I really need to know. I don't care if she loves kittens or knits her own socks.

Will she go to Hell for it? That's not for me to decide, nor do I really care. She'll have to figure that one out for herself, but the label clearly applies.

If you let the govt dictate end-of-life care over the SPOUSE, you haven't got any private decisions left to defend.

It's not compassionate, and it's not conservative for Frist and the rest to exploit the situation for partisan gain.

Just keep bringing up Schiavo. It's a great reminder of Republican support for government intrusion into the most private parts of your life.

Misha, you should tell the children themselves that it's not a value judgement that they are bastards. Good luck.

I just realized that tubino is your local left-wing troll. I renounce any and all opinions that he might agree with.

From what I've read of the court records, you're basically wrong: all legal and medical precedents were followed . . . . I myself prefer to trust the people who were assigned by the courts to determine the facts in an impartial manner, and did so.
Posted by hyper-hormonal monkey at December 8, 2005 12:40 AM

Because neither of us were in Terri's room or in the courtroom, I prefer my own medical experience to what the MSM said about the case and the courts. There was, however, Terri's court appointed guardian:

"Pearse said he was troubled by the fact that Michael waited until 1998 to petition to remove the feeding tube, even though he claims to have known her wishes all along, and that he waited until he won a malpractice suit based on a professed desire to take care of her into old age. As her husband, Michael would inherit what is left of her malpractice award, originally $700,000, which is held in a trust fund administered by the court. Accounting of the fund is sealed. But Michael's lawyer, George Felos, said most of it has been spent on legal fees associated with the custody dispute.
http://www.newsday.com/news/health/ny-schiavoday3,0,3064172.story?coll=ny-health-headlines

There was also the testimony of 33 physicians, including 15 board certified neurologists who signed affidavits that Terri's case should be reevaluated:
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=43419

Now, I'm not a lawyer, but a cursory reading of Florida law is illuminating:

Florida Statute 744.3215 Rights of persons determined incapacitated:
(1) A person who has been determined to be incapacitated retains the right
(i) To receive necessary services and rehabilitation.

and:

Florida Statute 765.309 Mercy killing or euthanasia not authorized; suicide distinguished. Nothing in this chapter shall be construed to condone, authorize, or approve mercy killing or euthanasia, or to permit any affirmative or deliberate act or omission to end life other than to permit the natural process of dying.

Frankly, by hospice regulations in most states, Terri did not belong in a hospice at all. Wikipedia defines hospice as such:

Hospice provides palliative care for the terminally ill, with "terminal" usually defined as a life expectancy of six months or less.

PVS is not a terminal illness, nor is it a proper hospice diagnosis.

I don't like to fight with conservatives, because I agree that Bush mishandled this case. What I'm trying to say is that, sometimes, good politics makes for extremely wrong outcomes. Government and judicial involvement basically made a mess of a medical situation.

I'm sorry if any readers went blind trying to read my last post. I'm never successful when I try to make links, so I sometimes rely a bit heavily on cut and paste.

Ugh. Adolfo, they don't want to know what really happened. They'll keep blabbering about procedural this and legal that, ignoring the whole point of Ace's original post. They'll also ignore anything that happened in the case before 1998.

Slightly related, my state of residence now wants to change the way organ donor status is determined. They want it to be opt-out instead of opt-in, so you must tell the wonderfully efficient employees of the DMV that you don't want to donate your organs. You know, because doctors don't currently have enough incentive to ease the "useless eaters" out of society.

hyper monkey,

Isn't the word "bastard" a term by definition that means children out of wedlock? And who mentioned hell? You are putting words in people's mouth just to try and make them look bad.

Misha and adolfo made the case better than I ever could but let me say that if ANYONE trashed the "sanctity of marriage" it was Michael Shavio. And now he will continue to feed off his wife's death like the vulture that he is.

You seem like a smart guy, too bad you can't see Michael for what he is just because of an issue you feel strongly about.

JackM,

What an insult to Oliver Willis!!!!

Sue,

That is disturbing.

It's not compassionate, and it's not conservative for Frist and the rest to exploit the situation for partisan gain.

Don't forget Barney Frank, tubino. You know, that big conservative Republican in the Massachusetts delegation.

He is a ghoul he is making money off this he deserves to he tarred and featheered

They want it to be opt-out instead of opt-in, so you must tell the wonderfully efficient employees of the DMV that you don't want to donate your organs.

This probably won't be liked here, but I think organ donation should be mandatory.

If there's anything in the whole wide world I can call my own, it's my internal organs. I made them myself -- it's an old family pattern -- and I'm leaving with them.

And, yes, I've written a living will to that effect.

"Bastard" is a shorthand for the mediaeval French expression "fils de bast". It means "son of a saddle", literally, and denotes someone whose father not only conceived him out of wedlock but whose father literally galloped out of town afterward.

My dad wasn't conceived in wedlock either but his dad (and mom) hung around to raise him. (Not that it's anyone's business but there were reasons his parents couldn't marry officially; and they lived together as man and wife til death parted them.) My dad wasn't raised under traditional or strictly legal auspices but he was hardly a son of a pack-saddle.

Whatever Michael Schiavo is, he is not the sirer of bastards. In mediaeval terms his children would be recognised as his, taking the name FitzSchiavo. (Yes, as in John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Most of you probably have a fitz in your family too.)

This probably won't be liked here, but I think organ donation should be mandatory.

I don't have a problem with organ donation per se. In a perfect world, all doctors would be loyal to the Hippocratic Oath and fight like hell to keep patients from dying unnecessarily, whether the patients were potential organ donors or not.

But we don't live in a perfect world.

Doctors are human and have human flaws, therefore patients need a way of balancing the doctors' ever-increasing range of power. The concept of private property works to offset abuses of power in politics, law, and now in medicine. That's why I'm not in a hurry to have us throw it away.

therefore patients need a way of balancing the doctors' ever-increasing range of power.

I guess I've never been concerned about a doctor being motivated to harvest my organs before I was actually dead. Have doctors been accused of this?

How about this for a rule? Donated organs do not go to anybody who has opted out of orgran donation.

"I think organ donation should be mandatory."

Keep your hands off my kidneys, dammit!

I guess I've never been concerned about a doctor being motivated to harvest my organs before I was actually dead. Have doctors been accused of this?

I don't know of any court cases, but I know of one friend of the family they were itching to "harvest" after a brain injury, who recovered and later went through medical school himself. Hm. I'd be interested to hear his opinion on organ donation.

How about this for a rule? Donated organs do not go to anybody who has opted out of orgran donation.

Now, that's fair (and I'm very likely to need a kidney some day). I'd go further: as a former enthusiastic smoker and current enthusiastic drinker, I think people who are organ abusers should go to the back of the transplant line.

I guess I've never been concerned about a doctor being motivated to harvest my organs before I was actually dead. Have doctors been accused of this?

That's why organ donation is slightly related to the Schiavo case. Doctors provide definitions for death. So no matter what state you feel yourself in, like say too brain-damaged to eat on your own but still being able to breathe on your own and even pilot an electric wheelchair, a doctor can say you're as good as dead and need all extraordinary medical measures removed, like feeding via cups and spoons.

Just a little change in a statute or two, and instead of being dehydrated, those organs sitting uselessly in your wheelchair-bound body could be harvested for someone useful to society, like a lawyer or politician or a doctor's golfing buddy.

Would the doctor be harvesting your organs before you were dead? No, because he said you're already dead, and his word is sacrosanct.

Maybe you think it's a coincidence that Florida in 1999 changed the anatomical gifts statute at the same time it added PVS to the end-of-life conditions. I don't.

How about this for a rule? Donated organs do not go to anybody who has opted out of orgran donation.

If that is the only way to prevent abuses, sure.

You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about this. Obviously either you or a person close to you has been in need of a donated organ at some time. Don't let this color your judgement about the potential abuse of power.

If you want to know how much you should trust doctors about organ donation, ask some of them (in an unrelated setting, of course) what their organ donation status is. The answers would no doubt surprise you. It did me.

To lighten up the mood, here's a cartoon that is almost related, if you watch it all the way through.

You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about this.

No, not at all. I just feel it is an extraordinary waste for people to not donate their organs. I'm not personally aware of cases where doctors hovered ghoulishly over a body waiting to rip out organs for their golfing buddy, so my opinions aren't tainted in that direction. But, like you, I wouldn't want the rules that determine when somebody is dead, or should be left to die be affected in any way by the desire for transplantable organs.

I live next door to a doctor that performs transplants, I'll ask him about his organ donations status. I don't think I'll be surprised, but who knows.

I live next door to a doctor that performs transplants, I'll ask him about his organ donations status.

He has a vested interest in bullshitting you, so that's not a good choice. Try GPs or specialists besides transplant surgeons. Or nurses who don't work on transplant teams. Any medical professional who doesn't deal in transplant procedures would be good, in fact.

There's a reason why you are so emphatic about this, even to the point of not wanting unbiased medical opinions. What is the reason?

He has a vested interest in bullshitting you, Ah, but you don't know my neighbor. He's not the bullshitter type.

What's the reason for what? I'm not following you. I have no vested or personal interest in the greater availability of donor tissue, at least not any more than anybody else. I don't have any "abused" organs (well.... not one that is normally transplanted). You seem to suspect me of something...

I have family members who are MDs. Of course they're organ donors.

I'm not personally aware of cases where doctors hovered ghoulishly over a body waiting to rip out organs for their golfing buddy, so my opinions aren't tainted in that direction.

I'm not personally aware of such a thing either; I was trying to illustrate why and how medical power can be abused by using an absurd (but not impossible) argument.

Let me use one that's real: Mickey Mantle's case. He seemed to have been given priority over many more deserving (younger & sick through no fault of their own) people, don't you think, especially for his second transplant after he started drinking again.

Who made the decision to put him at the top of the recipient list the second time? What was that person's rationale?

Did the first donor have any chance of living whatsoever, or was the donor's family pressured by medical personnel until they pulled the plug so Mantle could have her/his liver and subsequently pickle it?

These are the kinds of questions that should never need to be asked.

You seem to suspect me of something...

I just don't understand why you wish to force everyone to give up their organs if you supposedly have no dog in the hunt. It's an extreme position. It's totalitarian.

I just don't understand why you wish to force everyone to give up their organs

You don't force a corpse to do anything. I guess my point is, that when you are dead, you cease to be "you". What is left is a corpse, which needs to be disposed of. It's organic waste. Some of it can be recycled in a manner that benefits people who are still living. Maybe I just value people who are still alive more than I do people who are no longer people..

And once again, I have absolutely "no dog in the hunt".

It's an extreme position. It's totalitarian.
wow, well I did say in my first post that people on this board wouldn't like it.

What is left is a corpse, which needs to be disposed of. It's organic waste. Some of it can be recycled in a manner that benefits people who are still living.

Ah, a cannibal. Gotcha.

wow, well I did say in my first post that people on this board wouldn't like it.

Well no shit, Mr. Snark-o-matic. Still doesn't explain why you hold such an extreme view. If it's not from personal experience, then it must be something quasi-religious, like moonbats have with abortion/gun control/what have you.

organ donation = cannibalism

whatever....

Maybe I just value people who are still alive more than I do people who are no longer people..

If you haven't noticed, there has been a disturbing tendency in history by those in power to classify other human beings as non-people when it became convenient.

That's my whole point. If you want to turn a blind eye to it for the sake of some quasi-religious belief, then I hope it doesn't ever come back to bite you.

Donated organs do not go to anybody who has opted out of orgran donation

Maybe you addressed it somewhere else, but children in most cases could not make that decision.

Somewhat related, my nephew received a transplanted liver when he was 10. I am not sure if this is a matter of state law (or surviving family decision), but the donor was to have remained anonymous. But the surgeon was tired, and let a couple of clues slip out, and my sister figured out who the donor was. A 12 year old boy who had been accidentally strangled by his brother - and the brother tried to cover it up.

The family was surely suffering emotional distress when they made the decision. Obviously we're grateful for it, but whatever it takes to ask a family suffering like that to donate an organ from their dead child, I ain't got it.

organ donation = cannibalism

whatever....

What's wrong with cannibalism? Meat's meat, right? Your beliefs open up that possibility, why don't you embrace that as strongly as you do transplantation? Why would you want people to starve?

What's wrong with cannibalism?

In a Donner Pass situation, nothing is wrong with it.

Someday we'll be able to grow new organ's from a person's DNA, and organ donation will be a thing of the past. Until then, it amazes me that paranoia or indifference leads people to not be organ donors.

I put Shaivo and OJ Chimpson in the same bracket. They both gamed the court system to get what they wanted... the old wife outta the way.

He is a ghoul worse then any grave robber