It's over

Pope John Paul II died about an hour ago. There really isn't much to say, because I wrote about these things in an earlier post, but I just find it strange, because I, like fifty percent of the world, have known no other pope. I haven't agreed with all of his decisions, with all of his actions, but he was an honorable man, who did much for the people of the world, especially those under the yoke of oppression, and I hope he finds a good spot in heaven. Amen.

Unhinged, completely unhinged

Michelle Malkin has become completely unhinged. The funny thing is, she thinks those on the Left are the ones completely unhinged. She links to others who think the Left has run out of actual problems to talk about, and that's why it's so dangerous that food attacks are happening to right-wingers.
I'm sorry, I don't remember anyone getting injured by a condiment. And by the way, how the hell does that degenerate into the use of firearms?

Okay, you wanted it, you got it...

Yeah, I have my reaction now to yesterday.
I despise the religious right and their disgusting interjection into politics. I despise them trying to enforce their religious beliefs over the Constitution of the United States and for co-opting an all-too-willing Republican party into joining them.
I despise tying Terri Schiavo to the abortion debate. That poor woman suffered more than any of us can ever imagine. Her life, in essence, was cut short at 26, and there are so many things she wanted to do that I'm sure she didn't get to do, and that is a tragedy in and of itself. Of course, these overbearing, moralizing jackasses didn't protest the baby in Texas being pulled off life support, or didn't yell at George W. Bush for the law he signed in Texas that allowed it. Oh, no, they kept wailing about poor Terri instead. They put up posters saying "We thirst." On those posters were pictures of Terri Schiavo as a vegetable next to Jesus Christ. That is blasphemy. How dare they! Jesus Christ is my Savior too, and I'll be damned if people will use him in that way.
I despise people that want to use her case to change laws that work just fine, that want to stack the judiciary with people so caught up in their religion that they've forgotten what Jesus Christ even stood for. I despise people that want a "culture of life" in this country, yet allow millions to suffer and die because they cut Medicaid, because they cut food stamps, because they won't give condoms to nations in Africa where it would help stop the spread of AIDS because they'd rather preach about abstinence and marriage, and yet in Zimbabwe, the rate of infection is higher among married couples, and condoms could save a continent of people, yet they preach instead, and finally because they gave millions of dollars in tax breaks to people who don't need another damn tax cut, money that could've been spent on helping the poor. "Culture of life," my ass! They don't give a damn about any life except their own, and I'm outraged about that.
These people are the most disgusting hypocrites I've ever seen. They are false worshippers. They don't believe in the Jesus Christ that the majority of the world knows. I am not tarring the entire evangelical movement with this brush, because many of them do truly believe. I'm tarring the ones who have power, or the ones who jump in front of microphones or TV cameras and stage stunts to prove their piousness and moral superiority. I've had it. I sincerely hope these hypocrites get the fiery hell they deserve. You think I'm pissed? Damn right I am.

A mix of emotions...

The Pope of (my) the Roman Catholic Church is about to die. It is certainly a major event, and one that fills me with both sadness and frustration.
I am sad because he achieved much during his tenure. He helped bring the fall of Communism and the Soviet Union. He confronted Fidel Castro. In Cuba. He chastised George W. Bush and Tony Blair over the war in Iraq, to their faces. He traveled more than any other pope, met with more common people than any other pope, and healed the divisions with other religions by visiting mosques and synagogues.
At the same time, the sex scandal broke on his watch, and when the American Conference of Bishops tried to institute a very tough punishment to those who committed the abuses and make their policy towards such actions a "one-strike" policy, the Pope rejected it as unfair to priests. It's unknown how long ago he knew about these actions, but he acted poorly towards it. He only tossed the worst Archbishop over the side, Cardinal Bernard Law.
As well, he has not let American Catholics follow their consciences on issues such as abortion or euthanasia, being particularly harsh on these issues. He has restricted women's roles in the church and ended the vow of chastity, an issue that has created a surge of priestly vacancies that make it harder on parishes. Attendance is down, and people are leaving Catholicism.
It's an interesting paradox, and one that is in a sense almost like George H.W. Bush's presidency. Pope John Paul II did so much for the world, did so much to change it for the better, yet did not do such a good job caring for his own flock, especially in the past ten years. The next pope won't have the stature of John Paul II worldwide, but maybe that would be better, as it would allow the next pope to focus on the divisions within Catholicism, and make the repairs necessary for it to thrive. Those repairs will be tackled in another post later.

More thoughts on today...

The irony of the Pope in a position similar to Terri Schiavo's is driving me nuts.
The fact that a group of Catholic preachers is banding together to form a group to stop euthanasia and abortion, mixing religion even further into our body politic.
The joy of seeing Randall Terry trying to fake tears on CNN and being unable to do it, therefore exposing his hypocrisy.
Tom DeLay making himself out to be a bigger asshole than ever by his thinly veiled threats at Michael Schiavo and the judiciary.
The WMD report giving the White House a gigantic pillow to land on by simply swerving at that roadblock and not tackling the issue.

It's been a crazy day, and I don't know exactly what to say about all this. I just feel spun about by everything, but I'm sure by tomorrow morning I'll be able to process it all and comment more decisively.

Mercifully, it's over

Terri Schiavo passed away this morning. This circus, finally, can pack up and go home. Michael Schiavo and Judge Greer, hopefully, can move on with their lives. However, I doubt that last point will happen. These people who doth protest so loudly, however, probably will hound him for months. More to come later.

Schiavo screwiness

Here's a question I have to ask: If the case of the Schindler family is so strong, then why have they allowed their attorney, David Gibbs, and their idiot spokesman, Randall Terry, to knowingly and blatantly lie about Terri Schiavo's condition? Let's do a little mythbusting, shall we?

Fiction: Terri is being starved.
Fact: Terri is not being starved. She is being dehydrated, and her condition does not allow her to feel the pain that a starvation sufferer would feel.
Fiction: Terri is being legally executed by "activist" judges like George Greer.
Fact: Six courts have reviewed this case over the last eight years, and all of them have agreed with Michael Schiavo, save for two temporary stays that reinserted the feeding tube, and ultimately those courts sided with Michael Schiavo as well. The United States Supreme Court rejected this case five times by itself. The rulings speak volumes, especially since today's decision in the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals was written by a Bush Sr. appointee who blasted Congress and Shrub for overstepping Constitutional boundaries by passing this law.
Fiction: The will of the Congress and the President takes precedence over the law. Jeb Bush is weak for not ignoring the courts and taking Terri Schiavo into custody. The courts are not the final arbiter of the law.
Fact: This is the most egregious argument out there. The courts are the arbiters of the laws passed by Congress and signed by the President or those passed by a state legislature and signed by that state's governor. Yet these wingnuts want Jeb Bush to send the National Guard to the hospice to take Terri Schiavo to a hospital and forcibly insert the feeding tube back in. What if a court ruled abortion was illegal, and the doctors continued to perform abortions?
The wingnuts would work themselves into a rabid, frothing state over these immoral lawbreakers. Yet, that is what they want to do in this case, because they are right and 82% of Americans are wrong, not to mention that they are right and the Constitution of the United States is wrong. This may seem like an extreme comparison, but the basic beliefs are the same in each instance. They want to break the law, and ignore the courts and the Constitution, but only when it suits their needs. It is wrong, it is immoral, and it's the only bright thing Jeb Bush has done in this sad case. He, mercifully, recognizes that the courts are indeed the arbiter of the law, and their decision is final. I wish the wingnuts could recognize the sheer hypocrisy of their actions in this case, but they are too blinded by their piousness and righteousness to do that.

And it came so quickly...

Someone had to go create this piece of trash called Terri Schiavo's Blog. I guess there are people who stoop as low, if not lower, than the right-wing fundies. Absolutely sickening. I feel dirty just having gone to look at it to see what Wonkette was talking about. I'm going to take a shower now.

ummm....

It's 11:52 pm and I'm bored as hell. The news has gotten repetitive, and I feel like a whole year has gone by in these last three months. Oh, yeah, not to mention I'm gonna be graduating May 1, and I'm scrambling like mad just to finish. I've learned something, though, since becoming a much more active blogger. This is hard to keep up with, y'know? I'm about to admit here that, yes, I'm an election whore. I'm an animal in an election year, but slightly less outraged in the off-years (although I admit that this year has been ridiculous so far). I'm kinda rambling here, but oh well. Maybe tomorrow will bring more inspiration.

The fundies at it again...

This morning's Washington Post has a very important story for those who are either pro-choice or like me, who believe in just a few small limits, which I described here (It's a sad world...).
Pharmacists are growing a new category, the pro-life fundies who believe life begins at conception, so they are an accessory to murder by filling birth control pills or the Plan B pill (morning-after). This is far-right extremism, and already some states are capitulating by considering bills or passing bills that protect, are you ready, the pharmacist's rights.
Okay, pharmacist violates right of patient to have prescription filled, and the pharmacist needs protection? What about the right of the patient? A young woman who had an accident during sex with her boyfriend, or who's been raped, can't get her Plan B filled because of some ignorant, moralizing, jackass who wants to stand there and preach to someone who right now is scared as hell. Again, I ask, where is the morality in that?
And, yes, you're right if you said I was about to quote Scripture. John 8:3-7, "The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group 4and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” 6They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him. But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. 7When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”
I highly doubt these pharmacists lead perfect lives, for only God and Jesus Christ are perfect. Since that is the case, they have no place and no right to preach to other women, women who are single, married, divorced, widowed, women who hold different religious beliefs, women who may simply have made a mistake or women who were attacked.
This is a disastrous mixture of church and state. The state regulates pharmacies. If the state gives protection to pharmacists that do not carry out their state-regulated duties, then the state is sanctioning religious beliefs. That is wrong, it is unconstitutional, and it violates the civil rights of millions of women from having a legal, doctor-written, presecription for their reproductive help. It takes 72 hours for conception to fully take place. Not filling birth control prescriptions is morally disingenuous and it's disgusting. If you are state-certified, then your religious beliefs stop at the door to your professional office.
Not performing abortions is one thing. That's a specialty, and you can avoid doing that. But birth control, the morning-after pill, and counseling about family planning isn't taking any life. These moralizing people, I'm sure, are having sex on a regular basis. Statistically, it's quite likely. So, again, like the Pharisees of old, they are hypocrites through and through. I'm tired of this evangelical religious perversion. It distorts what Jesus Christ stood for. It's Old Testament belief with Jesus Christ stamped on it, and it's destroying what makes America the best nation on Earth.

Academic terrorism....by Florida's State House

In Florida, the House has passed a bill to the state Senate that gives students who feel that their views aren't respected in the classroom standing to sue. The House member behind the bill, a real jackass named Dennis Baxley (yes, he's a Republican, would any Democrat author this crap?), said a university education should be more than “one biased view by the professor, who as a dictator controls the classroom,” as part of “a misuse of their platform to indoctrinate the next generation with their own views.”
Also, we get this: Students who believe their professor is singling them out for “public ridicule” – for instance, when professors use the Socratic method to force students to explain their theories in class – would also be given the right to sue. “Some professors say, ‘Evolution is a fact. I don’t want to hear about Intelligent Design (a creationist theory), and if you don’t like it, there’s the door,’” Baxley said, citing one example when he thought a student should sue.
The bill was passed through committee on an 8-2 party line vote (which says a lot for fair legislative balance in Florida). One of the Democrats, Dan Gelber, said this would let a Holocaust denier sue a professor who taught the history of the Holocaust.
Baxley's response: Baxley brushed off Gelber’s concerns. “Freedom is a dangerous thing, and you might be exposed to things you don’t want to hear,” he said. “Being a businessman, I found out you can be sued for anything. Besides, if students are being persecuted and ridiculed for their beliefs, I think they should be given standing to sue.”
During the committee hearing, Baxley cast opposition to his bill as “leftists” struggling against “mainstream society.” “The critics ridicule me for daring to stand up for students and faculty,” he said, adding that he was called a McCarthyist. Baxley later said he had a list of students who were discriminated against by professors, but refused to reveal names because he felt they would be persecuted.
Read that last paragraph. Read it twice. Baxley says he was called a McCarthyist for this, making it sound like he was being wronged, and in the next sentence, he pulls the prototypical Joe McCarthy line. Yes I have a list of State Department/state university traitors/persecuted victims which of course at this time I will not/will not reveal.
Why do people elect such foaming idiots? Academic freedom will suffer mightily if every class has to be litigated in the courts. The Senate needs to reject the bill or Jeb Bush needs to veto the bill. Education is in enough peril already. The last thing we need is every teacher and professor looking over their backs. These politicians went to these schools too. Are they saying they were all terrorist victims of mean professors? It's crap. They are the terrorists, for holding up Florida's universities hostage to this bill that has NOTHING to do with academics.