MaxedOutMama

The committee gently criticized Mr. Massad in its report for purportedly threatening to expel a female Jewish student, Deena Shanker, from his classroom in 2002 when she asked him whether the Israeli military warned Palestinian Arab civilians of the West Bank before launching military strikes there. "That provoked him to start screaming, 'If you're going to deny the atrocities being committed against the Palestinians then you could leave the class,'" Ms. Shanker told the Sun last fall.

Mr. Massad has denied threatening the student, whose account of the incident has been backed by at least one another student, and said he treats his students fairly and with respect.

The committee said Mr. Massad had no real intention of expelling Ms. Shanker from the class, but he lost his temper and "exceeded commonly accepted bounds by conveying that her question merited harsh public criticism."

Coleman said she noticed several cruisers following her before one cut her off. With guns drawn, officers ordered her out of the van with her hands up.

"I opened the door and said, 'I just had a baby' and just let them see everything," she said.

Officers sent Coleman on and let the hospital know she was coming.

In a novel I read some years ago named "A sinister hour by" Gabriel Marquis, the events were taking place in a small town where everyone knows everything, ie nothing can remain secret. And everyone would talk about the finest details of someone else's personal life but those discussions were not allowed to happen publicly....
Today, our international village is behaving in the same way, trying to avoid admitting the facts that we all know damn well....
The UN has always been a corrupt organization and the oil for food program was a disastrous organized robbery; it wasn't the first scandal and not going to be the last as long the UN keeps existing in its current form.

The UN Security Council has voted to apply sanctions on those who commit atrocities in Sudan's Darfur region.

The US-drafted resolution, which passed 12-0 with abstentions from Russia, China and Algeria, is also aimed at strengthening an arms embargo on Sudan.

The US resolution passed on Tuesday entails that Sudanese authorities must inform the Security Council if they intend to send military equipment to Darfur.

In a separate development, British MPs have criticised previous death toll estimates for the war-torn region.

They decried the international response to the genocide as "scandalously ineffective", and warned that the death toll might reach 400,000 - five times more than previously estimated by the World Health Organization.

The UN Security Council has unanimously approved a peacekeeping force of more than 10,000 troops for southern Sudan.

The soldiers will monitor January's peace deal ending a 21-year civil war between Khartoum and southern rebels in which some two million people died.

A statement by the ministry confirmed that Iraqi and coalition forces cooperated to execute 713 combat missions, in which 476 gunmen were arrested and 1,804 pieces of arms, in addition to tons of explosives were seized in Baghdad and nearby towns.

Other Army missions in the Iraqi towns of Salman Bak and Jar Al-Sakhar resulted in capturing hundreds of gunmen.

Journalism is not a thing. It is an act: The act of informing is journalism. It's a verb, not a noun.

And no one owns journalism. It is not an official act, a certified act, an expert act, a proprietary act. Anyone can do journalism. Everyone does. Some do it better than others, of course. But everyone does it.

Realizing that -- embracing that -- will be the key to saving journalism: its quality and its business.

A federal appeals court early Wednesday agreed to consider a petition by Terri Schiavo's parents for a new hearing on whether to reconnect their severely brain-damaged daughter's feeding tube.

The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled without comment on Schiavo's 12th day without nourishment. Last week, the same court twice ruled against Schiavo's parents, Bob and Mary Schindler, who are trying to keep her alive.

In seeking a new hearing late Tuesday, attorneys for Schiavo's parents argued that the District Court "committed plain error when it reviewed only the state court case and outcome history."

Wesley Smith: But what if the prior permission is, as in this case, the husband says. What is being advocated here, is a right to kill for organs based on loss of personhood.

Bill Allen: I don't agree. I think an anencephalic infant is a non-person. In distinction from an infant with a brain who may not have all the fully developed characteristics of personhood, but does have the potential for personhood. I think this situation is just like other organ donation cases, where the family is allowed to decide to make the donation even if the person who has died never addressed the issue. If the person did not want to be a donor, however, then they organs should not be taken.

Wesley Smith: Very dangerous. There was a case at Loma Linda University some years ago. A doctor asked for anencephalic infants to be donated for possible organ procurement. Soon, doctors were wanting to send babies born with serious disabilities. The doctor stopped the program, shaken. It was written up in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Yet,what I am providing here is information that you can only get from someone who has ten years of training at the world's top medical institutions, and fifteen years of experience in a busy medical center. My expertise is not common, is not easily come by, and is generally not offered to the public free of charge.

Do you see any ads on this page? No. Do I write this blog for money? No. Why do I do this? Why have I spent hundreds of hours in the middle of the night and between cases at work to write this blog?

One reason is because of the total horror I experience every time I read medical "news" in the MSM. They always get it wrong. They never ask the right questions. YOU ARE ALWAYS IN THE DARK.
Why is that? Because those reporting the news (and managing your health care)have little regard for your intelligence. It is believed that the average American is so dumb that he or she cannot possibly manage this information -- so WE have to do it for you. And WE are leading YOU and the AMERICAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM to the slaughterhouse on the way.

I am trying to WAKE YOU UP before you get there.

The reality is that at times, the friction between justice and liberty is important, if for no other reason to keep us aware of the precious nature of this very system we often take for granted.

We are meant to argue, debate and discuss the balance of this living organism we call democracy.

George Felos, the lawyer for Terri’s husband, Michael, explains his position in the case thusly: “I firmly believe in the right of individuals to make their own medical-treatment choices.” But Terri is not making her medical choices. Choices are being made for her, perhaps (if you believe Michael Schiavo) on the basis of things she said a decade ago, perhaps (if you don’t) in the absence of any stated preference.

After visiting her bedside recently, Felos declared, “In all the years I’ve seen Mrs. Schiavo, I’ve never seen such a look of peace and beauty upon her.” Maybe Felos has forgotten: If she is indeed in a persistent vegetative state, as he maintains, she can’t feel anything, let alone a sense of peace that would make her radiant with beauty.

One expert told the New York Times that “no one is denying this woman food and water.” Really? Then why is she dying? Is it merely a coincidence that she might experience kidney failure from dehydration at any time?

The pan-Arab nationalists have tried to unite the countries of the region for half a century but they failed because they were favoring the glory of a particular race over the interests of the citizens but now, dropping these old, worn-out slogans will pave the way for a new and healthy type of unity; a unity chosen by the people to serve the people.

Believe me; I have never thought that I could feel so close to the people of Lebanon like I do today. Maybe this is one of the rare advantages of tyrannies; when they begin to fall apart, you begin to realize how much good you've been missing and how much good can be achieved.

The pan-Arab nationalists have tried to unite the countries of the region for half a century but they failed because they were favoring the glory of a particular race over the interests of the citizens but now, dropping these old, worn-out slogans will pave the way for a new and healthy type of unity; a unity chosen by the people to serve the people.

Believe me; I have never thought that I could feel so close to the people of Lebanon like I do today. Maybe this is one of the rare advantages of tyrannies; when they begin to fall apart, you begin to realize how much good you've been missing and how much good can be achieved.

Aside from being rhetorically hysterical—and demeaning to the memory of those who suffered so terribly as a result of Hitler and the Nazis—it served to remind me of how difficult it is to have serious discussions about politics or social issues with committed members of the Left. They tend to do things like accusing members of the Right of sowing the seeds of hatred while, at the same time, comparing them to mass murderers. And they do this while completely missing the irony.

The moral superiority they bring to the table allows them to alter the playing field and the rules in their favor. They can say and do things the other side can’t because, after all, they have the greater good on their side. If a Conservative—one of the bad guys—complains about the content of music, films or television shows aimed at children, he is being a prude who wants to tell other people what to read or listen to or watch; he is a censor determined to legislate morality. If, however, a Liberal complains about speech and, in fact, supports laws against certain kinds of speech, it is right and good because we must be protected from this “hate speech” or “politically incorrect” speech. (Of course, they—being the good guys—will decide exactly what that is.)

Though we don't fully understand it yet, we know as a culture that we prefer the death of uneasy things to keep things easy. Yet the bulk of our history is the acceptance of uneasiness as the price for freedom.

Throughout history, despotism has always arisen out of the pursuit of peace and ease. And despotism is the power of the sword; it grasps within its hands the power of life and death. Free societies err on the side of life. I question at this moment whether we are truly free.

I’m an RN who’s worked in the facility where Terry is. I’ve been working in Long Term Care for 20 years and have unfortunately seem quite a few Terry Schiavo’s. The latest patient I’ve had the pleasure to work with was a 76 year old woman with progressive swallowing problems.
It got to the point after extensive testing, that she was unable to take food by mouth without the risk of choking. She was aware of her surroundings but occasionally confused so her out of state family had power of attorney to make her medical/legal decisions. They denied doctors the right to place a feeding tube, saying she was “old, sick and tired.” We had instructions from the legal team to not give her food or water for fear of her choking. So we had a sweet little 76 y/o senior citizen that we were literally starving to death!! It was pathetic and pitiful. This poor soul would beg for food and water only to be told no. It was heartbreaking. Long story short, we nurses took the chance of her choking and gave her food and water when we could. The family knew something was up and came to move her from our facility to one near them. Found out she died 2 weeks later of dehydration. Her family threatened to sue all of us for not following their instructions. Hasn’t happened yet, we’ll see. It’s so sad to see someone pass away that way. It’s the rules of threes. Three minutes without air, three days without water and three weeks without food. The patient really ends up suffering greatly.

The case of Terri Schiavo has been framed by the media as the battle between the “right to die” and pro-life groups, with the latter often referred to as “right-wing Christians.” Little attention has been paid to the more than twenty major disability rights organizations firmly supporting Schiavo’s right to nutrition and hydration. Terri Schindler-Schiavo, a severely disabled woman, is being starved and dehydrated to death in the name of supposed “dignity.” Polls show that most Americans believe that her death is a private matter and that her removal from a feeding tube—a low-tech, simple and inexpensive device used to feed many sick and disabled people—is a reasonable solution to the conflict between her husband and her parents over her right to life.

The reason for this public support of removal from ordinary sustenance, I believe, is not that most people understand or care about Terri Schiavo. Like many others with disabilities, I believe that the American public, to one degree or another, holds that disabled people are better off dead. To put it in a simpler way, many Americans are bigots. A close examination of the facts of the Schiavo case reveals not a case of difficult decisions but a basic test of this country’s decency.

The battle over Terri Schiavo has been framed as a battle between the radical right which seeks to uphold the sanctity of life, and the left which focuses on an individual's fundamental right to self-determination.

In this case, however, the right has framed it correctly. There is no issue of self-determination, since their is no clear directive to act upon, and Terri is not able to express a preference. Even if Terri had made an off hand comment about what she would prefer, people who acquire a disability typically decide that living "that way" is far superior to dying. It is not up to a judge, a spouse, or a politician to determine when someone else should be rubbed out.

This has not been one of those "difficult cases" of end of life care, since Terri was not chronicly ill. She was not in pain (until they starved her). She was not kept alive artificially (unless you consider food and water artificial). She was not on a "machine" (a tube is merely a fork or spoon for people who can't swallow). Terri was a person with a disability. She was apparently conscious. And she was certainly alive. Since when has it become a progressive position to deny a person the right to their very existence?

WARNING... THIS EARTHQUAKE HAS THE POTENTIAL TO GENERATE A WIDELY DESTRUCTIVE TSUNAMI IN THE OCEAN OR SEAS NEAR THE EARTHQUAKE.
AUTHORITIES IN THOSE REGIONS SHOULD BE AWARE OF THIS POSSIBILITY
AND TAKE IMMEDIATE ACTION. THIS ACTION SHOULD INCLUDE EVACUATION
OF COASTS WITHIN A THOUSAND KILOMETERS OF THE EPICENTER AND CLOSE
MONITORING TO DETERMINE THE NEED FOR EVACUATION FURTHER AWAY.

THIS CENTER DOES NOT HAVE SEA LEVEL GAUGES OUTSIDE THE PACIFIC
SO WILL NOT BE ABLE TO DETECT OR MEASURE A TSUNAMI IF ONE WAS
GENERATED. AUTHORITIES CAN ASSUME THE DANGER HAS PASSED IF NO
TSUNAMI WAVES ARE OBSERVED IN THE REGION NEAR THE EPICENTER
WITHIN THREE HOURS OF THE EARTHQUAKE.

A team of seismologists led by John McCloskey at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland, say more shaking could be in store.

McCloskey and colleagues found that the so-called Sumatra-Andaman earthquake increased the stress on adjacent sections of the Sunda trench and the nearby Sumatra fault, which runs the length of Sumatra.

The team cannot predict when another earthquake will occur. But they say the increased stress, combined with historical evidence, raises the likelihood of another big quake in the region. History, they say, shows that one earthquake tends to follow another in the same region.

The movement is also finding it increasingly difficult to attract new recruits, especially within the Muslim world. Even in Western Europe (where Muslim communities still represent fertile recruiting ground), the number of "volunteers" peaked in the fall of 2003 and has been falling since. . .

For the first time in two decades, the movement is also beginning to face fund-raising difficulties. The generous donations that indirectly came from various regional countries have stopped, while scores of bank accounts operated by the militants have been frozen.

This message is already starting to filter out into society. In the Netherlands, the findings have fuelled a growing clamour for reform of the laws regulating drug use. In the UK, the mental-health charity Sane has called for the reclassification of cannabis to be reversed. And the British government recently acknowledged the link in its strongest terms yet, when it said in a press release that cannabis was an "important causal factor" in mental illness.

But for some researchers, such pronouncements are premature. "I'm not convinced," says Les Iversen, professor of pharmacology at the University of Oxford and a member of the UK Home Office's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. "I think the jury is still out on this one." “Despite a steep rise in cannabis use among teenagers over the past 30 years, there has been no rise in schizophrenia”

He points out that epidemiological studies are notoriously bad at proving cause and effect, in part because it is hard to identify all the confounding factors. Scientists are particularly wary of such research when the conclusions are based on small statistical differences - as in this case. In the New Zealand study, the number of people who had smoked dope on three occasions by the age of 15 was just 29, and only three went on to develop psychosis. "I can't help thinking that the conclusion is rather thin," says Iversen. "It makes you wonder. If they found another confounder, where would that leave them?" Van Os himself admits that his study does not eliminate all the confounding factors.

Although comparisons of rates over time are fraught with diagnostic and other methodological pitfalls, the 12 to 19 per 1,000 rate contrasts sharply with prevalence surveys done in earlier years. For example, the 1958 Hollingshead and Redlich study of New Haven, Conn., one of the ECA study sites, reported a rate of 4.2 individuals who were being treated for schizophrenia and affective psychoses per 1,000 total population. Similarly, a census study of Baltimore, another ECA study site, found a rate of 7.1 individuals with psychosis or with psychotic traits, both treated and untreated, per 1,000 total population (Lemkau et al., 1942).

The Iraqi elections were truly a source of pride for Iraqis and a scene of bravery that deserves a lot of respect from the world and the time has come for the people to be rewarded for their bravery by their elected future leaders who need to address their responsibilities towards their people.

What's really special about the post-election phase is the obvious consciousness of most political parties about the situation. They have understood that dialogue is the only way we have and everyone is learning how to sit to the negotiations table and show lots of patience. And despite the tension that we can see now, the talks have remained confined to the circle of civilized dialogue.

At the time the media and the interested observers are busy emphasizing on the violence in Iraq counting bodies (like war reporters do) they're missing a great revolutionary change being made in Iraq towards democracy.
The talks for democracy are much louder a sound than the noise of guns; words and logic are the victors beyond any doubt and the effects of the change in Iraq are spreading across the region.

The circumstances surrounding her initial anoxic episode and subsequent neurological status are consistent with a victim who has been strangled.

A "heart attack" precipitated by severe metabolic disease secondary to an eating disorder is inconsistent.

Such a severly compromised heart would never continue to pump effectively for 15 more years.

...It is critical that Terri Schiavo's case be considered as possible attempted homocide.

During proceedings in September 1993, Dr. Cranford testified on Mary Martin's behalf. He said that he had determined that Michael's level of functioning was such that Michael could not be measured by any neuropsychological tests. During his testimony, Dr. Cranford admitted that he was not able to administer a battery of neuropsychological tests regarding cognition and that he had never worked in a long-term brain injury rehabilitation setting. Nonetheless, he claimed that his knowledge of the biomedical processes made him better qualified than others to assess Michael's level of cognition.30

According to recreation therapy records, Mr. Martin was able to smile, participate in simple card games, choose a color when asked and do a number of other simple tasks.31 Yet, Dr. Cranford denigrated those abilities.

I am reliably informed that lists are also being drawn up in the asylums of the province of Westphalia as well of those patients who are to be taken away as so-called 'unproductive national comrades' and shortly to be killed. The first transport left the Marienthal institution near Münster during this past week.

German men and women, section 211 of the Reich Penal Code is still valid. It states: 'He who deliberately kills another person will be punished by death for murder if the killing is premeditated.'

Those patients who are destined to be killed are transported away from home to a distant asylum presumably in order to protect those who deliberately kill those poor people, members of our families, from this legal punishment. Some illness is then given as the cause of death. Since the corpse has been burnt straight away, the relatives and also the criminal police are unable to establish whether the illness really occurred and what the cause of death was.

No, we are dealing with human beings, our fellow human beings, our brothers and sisters. With poor people, sick people, if you like unproductive people.

But have they for that reason forfeited the right to life?

Have you, have I the right to live only so long as we are productive, so long as we are recognized by others as productive?

If you establish and apply the principle that you can kill 'unproductive' fellow human beings then woe betide us all when we become old and frail! If one is allowed to kill the unproductive people then woe betide the invalids who have used up, sacrificed and lost their health and strength in the productive process. If one is allowed forcibly to remove one's unproductive fellow human beings then woe betide loyal soldiers who return to the homeland seriously disabled, as cripples, as invalids. If it is once accepted that people have the right to kill 'unproductive' fellow humans--and even if initially it only affects the poor defenseless mentally ill--then as a matter of principle murder is permitted for all unproductive people, in other words for the incurably sick, the people who have become invalids through labor and war, for us all when we become old, frail and therefore unproductive.

"The word `starve' is so emotionally loaded," Fine said. "People equate that with the hunger pains they feel or the thirst they feel after a long, hot day of hiking. To jump from that to a person who has an end-stage illness is a gigantic leap."

Contrary to the visceral fears of humans, death by starvation is the norm in nature -- and the body is prepared for it.

"The cessation of eating and drinking is the dominant way that mammals die," said Dr. Ira Byock, director of palliative medicine at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in New Hampshire. "It is a very gentle way that nature has provided for animals to leave this life."

Choice has become a part of the process of modern dying. Decisions to limit or withhold care occur in the clear majority of deaths today, particularly among elderly patients; 90% of patients who die in intensive-care units have life-sustaining treatments withdrawn, a dramatic increase in the past decade.

In the Cruzan decision, the U.S. Supreme Court allowed Missouri to demand that there be "clear and convincing" evidence that Nancy Cruzan did not want life-sustaining care in her condition in order for that care to be discontinued. That is, Nancy Cruzan's parents could discontinue her care only if she had previously made such an explicit choice. I will argue that this produces problems by introducing the false gold standard for end-of-life care of "what the patient would choose if he or she were now autonomous."

I will conclude by briefly arguing that quality-of-life assessment and quality-of-care policies offer a better way to improve human dying than bolstering individual patient choice.

Pain, fatigue, and dysphoria are common and burdensome symptoms in dying patients. It seems that we know enough about dying well without asking individual patients to know that these are not good quality-of-life outcomes. Yet, we shy away from clearly defining a good death and defer to individual preference.

The victim described above is the third reported bird flu death in Kampot, Cambodia. The first two formed a familial cluster. The index case died after collecting dead birds and his sister developed symptoms shortly after his funeral. Although there had been dead poultry in the village, they were not reported and follow-up tests failed to detect H5N1 in poultry or family members.

However, the latest case is from Tam Sasor, which is just 20 km from the home of the familial cluster. There are reports of dead poultry in the area as well as reports of villagers eating the dead poultry.