Agnostics for Terri

In his article in NRO, Deroy Murdock gives 5 non-religious reasons to oppose the judicial killing of Terri Schiavo, including my pet peeve about this case:

...Michael Schiavo found another woman. He adulterously moved in and fathered two children with her. He now is in a common-law marriage with her. In essense, he's a bigamist. This is a four-alarm conflict of interest. Schiavo should have lost his legal standing in this case the second his common-law marriage commenced.

If we can assume that Terri "wouldn't want to live like this", can't we assume that she wouldn't want to remain married to the man who has been shacked up with and fathering childern by another woman for 10 years. I grit my teeth every time I hear some news personality call that man her husband. Wouldn't if be more accurate to call him "the estranged husband"? This outrage must be the feminist in me coming out. Speaking of which, where are the feminists?
Update: Here's one.

Anyway, Murdock has a sad-but-true conclusion:

I fear that the mere presence of giant crucifixes, priests dressed like Medieval friars, people praying with outstretched arms — as important, meaningful, and admirable as all that may be — has shuttered the hearts and minds of many secular people and nonbelievers who might sympathize with Terri Schiavo, were her supporters clad in black turtlenecks and equipped with decaf lattes and I-pods brimming with techno-trance music. As best they can be ascertained, the facts of this case show that, even for those of us who only like churches for their architecture, Terri's fight is our fight, too.

Unintended Consequences

From Chase me ladies, I'm in the cavalry, a blog unknown to me until I checked out the Britblog Roundup, comes this incisive reader comment:

Killing any single American for being an insensible, drooling vegetable could be the thin end of a fairly sizeable wedge.

Just so.

New immigration blog

Michelle Malkin has started a new group blog on illegal immigration, cleverly named The Immigration Blog. Check it out if you want to have your pants scared off regarding the state of our national security.

What if they get good at faking memos?

Besides the usual typos and misspellings, the latest too-good-to-check memo has this going for it:

What, then, was the evidence for the claim that it was created and distributed by Republicans? As far as the public record shows: There is none. On the contrary, the only published report identifying the purveyors of the memo on March 17 states that they were Democrats.

I guess they don't need to be good forgers. MSM seems to take the bait every time.

Nearly Busted at the Target

Everyone has been sick around here, so I needed to restock the medicine cabinet. I got day and night cold stuff for the kid, day and night cold stuff for the grown-ups, my favorite decongestant (since they happened to have some and it is usually out-of-stock) and, since allergy season is coming up, I picked a box of Claratin. Apparently, that's too much cold stuff. In service to the War on Drugs, the cash register wouldn't ring up the last 2 boxes.

So the cashier helpfully offered to ring up the extra boxes in a separate transaction. Since that was less than five dollars, I paid cash. The college student behind me in line pointed out that paying cash was a wise move, as now there would be no record of all that cold medicine.

Hmmmm. I freely confess total ignorance of all things meth, but do I really have enough cold medicine to whip up a batch? If so, the plan to keep it out of the hands of criminals isn't working very well.

Terri Schiavo

I happened across this succinct post on the Terri Schiavo case that sums up my feelings on it. A snippet (with links! What a labor saving device cut and paste is):

Basically, as a mother, the thought that a son-in-law, who cannot possibly love my child as I love my child, is calling the shots, with his new wife at his side, smells bad.

I'm also loath to see her death go forward because I distrust judges. I'd prefer to see a lot more medical and judicial review on this subject before letting a single judge call this shot.

For more perspectives, see this Andrew McCarthy article about how criminals get more due process than Terri has; and this Rev. Robert Johansen article about the shoddy care and testing Terri has received.

In what universe does a guy who has two kids with another women retain the exclusive right to make life and death decisions for the woman who is his wife in name only. I understand why he would move on, but he has moved on. It's ridiculous to continue to consider him Terri's husband, and therefore, her guardian.

I knew there was something I liked about Lieberman.

In the New Yorker:

But he is unapologetic about his defense of Bush’s Iraq policy, saying, “Bottom line, I think Bush has it right.” When I asked if he was becoming a neoconservative, Lieberman smiled and said, “No, but some of my best friends are neocons.”

Of course, certain lefties want to run him out of the party for this unloyal attitude. Which is why I left the Dems for Bush in '04. And I won't be back as long as Lieberman is the only person in the Lieberman wing of the Democratic Party.

(via LGF)

"St. Patrick chased the snakes out of Ireland.

The least Bush can do is chase them out of the White House."

So says the always insightful Mark Steyn regarding Gerry Adams not being invited to the White House St. Patrick's Day festivities for the first time in a decade. And more:

For the last 3-1/2 years one of the most persistent streams of correspondence I've had is from British readers sneering, ''Oh-ho. So America's now waging a war on 'terror,' is she? Well, where were the bloody Yanks the last 30 years? Passing round the collection box for IRA donations in the bars of Boston and New York, that's where.''

They have a point.

Indeed they do. Looks like, post 9/11, Americans are getting over the nostalgia for the old sod. Not a moment too soon.

Via Brian Micklethwait, who also has a pithy summary of the McCartney's vs. IRA saga.

How's the Reconquista going?

Pretty well according to La Shawn Barber. She links to this amazing story which reports that the Mexican Foreign Secretary, Luis Ernesto Derbez, said "Mexico is working with lawyers in Los Angeles to outline a legal challenge to the Minuteman project."

You know, the Minute Man Project, which plans to send volunteers out to the US/Mexico border to spot illegal immigrants and report them to the US Border Patrol. Hmmm, the Mexican government is planning to sue US citizens walking around in their own country reporting illegal activity. What the ????

La Shawn also has an interview with a Minute Man Project volunteer. I really fear for these volunteers. Sure, a lot of these illegal border crossers will be wannabe fruit pickers and day laborers, but some will surely be drug smugglers and violent criminals They could even encounter terrorists. I hope they're carrying video cameras along with their weapons. If volunteers are required to defend themselves, I'm sure this PC administration will thrown the book at them, rather than admit there is a problem with criminals crossing the border.

Diversity in the Blogosphere

Jeff Jarvis has a great post on the subject, summing up why I haven't commented on the male/female blogger thing:

I honestly don't know the race or gender of many bloggers and commenters I read and -- listen carefully now -- I don't care.

And on what seems to have annoyed the female bloggers:

...it is a mistake to presume that the blogosphere has a "diversity problem" just because the blogs you read aren't diverse (hell, there are eight million of them -- so find some new blogs to read.

Amen brother.

(via Instapundit)

Just another talentless harridan

So, I've never commented on the whole "Why are there no big-time female bloggers?" thing, but I was reading this Steve Sailer article (via LaShawn Barber) and came across this gem regarding Kevin Drum's opinion that women don't enjoy the rough and tumble of politics as much as men:

"And that nearly led to his eyes being clawed out," reported Howie Kurtz in the Washington Post, as obscure women bloggers denounced Drum in the most vicious terms imaginable, causing Drum to cravenly shill for these talentless harridans.

Who, according to Sailer, are these talentless harridans? Well, Ann Althouse weighs in with this vicious take-down:

Sigh. Why is he assuming that promulgating opinions is a mean and domineering sort of behavior? I've certainly noticed that a lot of bloggers that I find unreadable display this tendency, but I think the best blogs are reasonable, good-natured, humorous, and well-rounded.

Yes, what a Biatch. I can certainly see why Sailer is offended. And more vicious eye-clawing from Sissy Willis:

We can say right up front that the shallowness of Kevin Drum's argument turns off this woman. Maybe we're in a Pauline Kael bubble of our own, but most of the women we know -- fellow bloggers, readers, friends and relatives -- adore fiery political discourse and keep coming back for more.

How scary for Sailer to think that at any moment he could be subject to such vicious denunciations.

Most of the women supposedly denouncing Drum "in the most vicious terms imaginable" are, in fact, similarly tame. But the women who toss around the terms "idiot" and "f**ktard" bring my to my main point:

1. Drum says women, who prefer civility, don't like the rough and tumble of political blogging.
2. Women disagree, some in terms strong enough to make us question Drum's premise.
3. Sailer lumps all said women together and calls them names.

Aren't these women just engaging in the frank opinion writing that male bloggers claim enjoy? Of course not. They're just bitches. And thus it ever was.

Being a sweet, innocuous little thing myself, I will grant an exception to any man who feels he deserves it, but somewhere out there are large numbers of men who dislike any declarative statement from a women that's not "Your absolutely right, dear." Women know this.

Maybe it's not the rowdy atmosphere of politics that women dislike, but the inevitable playing of the Bitch Card.

Update: La Shawn has another example.

US media biased against Bush?

Who'd have thunk it?

U.S. media coverage of last year's election was three times more likely to be negative toward President Bush than Democratic challenger John Kerry, according to a study released Monday.

The annual report by a press watchdog that is affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism said that 36 percent of stories about Bush were negative compared to 12 percent about Kerry, a Massachusetts senator.

Only 20 percent were positive toward Bush compared to 30 percent of stories about Kerry that were positive, according to the report by the Project for Excellence in Journalism.

(via LGF)

Right back at 'ya, Hezbollah

Wow:

Between 1.5 and 2 million opposition activists converged on Beirut's downtown Martyrs Square and surrounding neighborhoods to mark the lapse of one month on Hariri's assassination. [snip]

What made the trick was the massive turnout of the Sunni sect onto the streets of the capital to defy Syria's tutelage. Crowds from densely-populated Sunni neighborhoods stood shoulder-to-shoulder with opposition activists from various Christian communities and Walid Jumblat's Druze sect, chanting "we want the truth, we want sovereignty, we want Syria out." The Sunnis make up the biggest bloc among Lebanon's eligible voters. (via Publius Pundit, who has much more)

The most depressing thing about Hezbollah's show of strength last week wasn't the big numbers. After all, fascists are notoriously good at putting on a show. The bummer was the high volume of uncritical press they got in the West compared to the collective yawn that greeted the anti-Syrian demonstrators the week before. Can't wait to see how the MSM cover this.

The fact that these people haven't been intimidated by the goose-stepping, automatic weapon carrying Hezbollah goons is pretty impressive. It's almost like freedom is on the march or something.

Update: Speaking of freedom, Mickey Kaus on the Feiler Faster Thesis:

The FFT says that people are comfortable processing that information with what seems like breathtaking speed . It's not a demonstration of the FFT, in other words, if millions of people in Lebanon learn about the Ukrainian revolution and the Iraq vote within hours of those events. It is an example of the FFT if they then suddenly realize that their existing government and social structures are fragile and obsolete and expeditiously act on that belief.

I'm not saying that that's what is happening... But it certainly does seem like the Arab world is blowing through the dialectic of history with impressive speed.

Michelle Malkin asks

"Where is the uproar over this Islamist insurgency subsidy plan?"

Estimates of the ransom paid for Sgrena range from $1 million to over $13 million. Michelle reminds us that the 9/11 plot was sprung for around $500,000.

You're known by the company you keep

Jonah Goldberg in the Corner:

Recall how John Kerry and many, many, many other Democrats criticized George W. Bush for not building a "grand coalition" the way his father had? Well, what was always left out of these criticisms is that grand coalitions need to be built with something. Was it really so grand to have Syria in our coalition if it came at the price of acceding to Syria's control of Lebanon for a decade? [snip]

Again: the key foreign policy principle of the Democratic Party -- and the pro-Europe "multilateralists" -- coming out of the Iraq war is this notion that it is better to do wrong in a group than to do right alone.

Yup.

Random thought on homeschooling

A month or so ago, Antoine Clarke opened a small can of worms by suggesting some sort of government spot check of all children to prevent abuse. Of course, one hears that argument all the time, but not on libertarian blogs. Anyway, I was reminded of the dust-up over the weekend, when we visited my mother, who has retired to the Ozarks.

Now, most residents of south-central Missouri are just normal folks. But there is a subset of the population for whom a move to the trailer park would be a massive leap up in living standard and social status. Mom just happens to live near such a group. No one works. They get by on a combination of largesse from less trashy relatives, disability and other government payouts and (suspected) drug dealing. In one branch of this clan, the father is in jail for getting his 12 year-old daughter pregnant, the mother is shacked up with and pregnant by another guy and the 8 year-old boy has been permanently expelled from school, as he is completely unmanageable.

Permanently expelled from school? How is this possible? Isn't school attendance compulsory? Doesn't the state have a legal obligation to provide an education to all children under the age of 16? Not to worry, he'll be homeschooled. By this semi-educated clan of low level criminals. Seriously. This is the school district's clever plan. I want to point out that it's not just lousy parents that use homeschooling as a cop out. Here you have a lousy school system/social services system doing the same thing. Rather than deal with this difficult kid, they're using homeschooling to cover their failure.

Missouri actually has some pretty stringent record keeping requirements for homeschoolers, but homeschoolers aren't required to show the records to anyone unless they are accused of truancy. Then producing these records is the only defense required. Not having the records usually means a guilty verdict. The chances that this family will provide an adequate education and keep the appropriate records are slim to none. School officials could easily get this kid back in school, but of course, they won't. They're the ones who kicked him out in the first place.

And in a couple of years, when this kid is making meth and/or molesting under-age girls and/or engaging in whatever criminal activity he will undoubtedly become involved in, people will shake their heads, look at each other knowingly, and say "Well, he was homeschooled." Sigh.

Aryan Nations relocating to KCK

Great. Just what the KC area wants to be known for:

...the Aryan Nations national director, Charles Juba, recently relocated to the metropolitan area from Pennsylvania with the aim of enlisting new members.

And after the murder of Judge Lefkow's family members, I suppose we have to take these losers seriously.

When asked about the murders, [“High Counsel” August B.] Kreis said his group wasn't involved, but added: “We love it!”

Nice.

Hezbollah in the US

Chilling interview on Fresh Air with authors of Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil.

Main point: even though these Hezbollah cells seem benign (cigarette smuggling, credit card fraud: all non-violent stuff to raise money to send weapons to Lebanon), they can basically serve as advance teams for future terrorists acts in the US. If Iran should decide to attack inside the US, these cells have done the recon to allow them to ramp up very quickly, by sending in professionals to do the deed.

Interesteing discussion of how the FBI is going after Hezbollah, too.

The authors say Hezbollah is better trained and more disciplined than al-Qaeda and there are cells all over the country. Great.