Tom DeLay - F-ing Hypocrite

I learned something today, boys and girls. You see, there's a difference between being aided into death.

See, if you don’t receive "air" or your kidneys can't "operate", you will die. So, by "depriving" a body of air, or by depriving it of functioning kidneys via a dialysis machine, you will die. Terry Schiavo is TOTALLY different.

Here, you see, they are depriving the body of food and water, leading to sure "death". And, her eyes are open. So, boys and girls, if your eyes are open and you are in a vegetative state, it's completely different than being in an unconscious state in a similar condition.

Yes, I can see now. These are two totally different cases all together.

Tom Delay is a f-ing hypocrite. Politics. All about politics and placating the psycho religious right. Happy Easter sinners.

Year's Ago, DeLay's Father Taken Off Life Support
WASHINGTON, March 27 - Representative Tom DeLay, the House majority leader and a driving force behind the Congressional effort to spare Terri Schiavo's life, was confronted more than 16 years ago with his own agonizing end-of-life dilemma and agreed to withdraw life support from the patient, his father, according to a report Sunday in The Los Angeles Times.
The newspaper reported that Mr. DeLay's father, Charles Ray DeLay, 65, a drilling contractor, was severely injured in 1988 in an accident at his home in Canyon Lake, Tex.
He was testing a backyard tram he had built to carry family and visitors down a 200-foot slope toward the lake when the tram jumped the track, throwing him headfirst into a tree.
The account said that Mr. DeLay suffered multiple injuries, including kidney failure, and that his wife, Maxine, and their other children made the initial decision to withhold kidney dialysis and other treatments when it became clear that he could not recover. Representative DeLay, at the time in his third term in the House, did not object, the newspaper's report said.
Mr. DeLay, now the Republican leader of the House, has been at the center of Congress's efforts to intervene in the Schiavo case and has taken an unusually public role.
In a meeting before the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian group, Mr. DeLay linked the Schiavo case to a broader attack on both him and the conservative movement in general. In press releases and statements on the House floor, he spoke of Ms. Schiavo in explicitly religious and moral terms.
"Congress has a legislative and moral duty to do what we can to protect her," Mr. DeLay said on March 17, after the House passed a measure intended to prevent the withdrawal of Ms. Schiavo's feeding tube. "Her life is being threatened, and we have it in our power to act on her behalf. Every human life deserves at least that much."
A spokesman for Mr. DeLay did not return telephone calls or an e-mail message on Sunday.
However, Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, said that Mr. DeLay did not act inconsistently, and that the congressman's father could not be compared to Ms. Schiavo, who was receiving no medical treatment other than nutrition and hydration through a feeding tube.
"Two different situations," Mr. Perkins said. "With Terri Schiavo, there was no plug pulled, there was no respirator taken away from her. She was simply by court order deprived of food and water."

J-j-j-j-jackass

Today's word boys and girls is "jackass". As in, 'hey kids, our President really acted like a jackass when he was hypocritical for the millionth time in his presidency by signing the Sciavo law".

It's so fascinating when politicians act like they know this woman personally and that they know all of the facts surrounding the case. Of course, if Dr. Bill Frist paid more attention to details and facts, he wouldn't believe that tears and sweat can give you AIDS. Southern redneck!

(courtesy of Yahoo News)

WASHINGTON - The federal law that President Bush (news - web sites) signed early Monday in an effort to prolong Terri Schiavo's life appears to contradict a right-to-die law that he signed as Texas governor, prompting cries of hypocrisy from congressional Democrats and some bioethicists.

In 1999, then-Gov. Bush signed the Advance Directives Act, which lets a patient's surrogate make life-ending decisions on his or her behalf. The measure also allows Texas hospitals to disconnect patients from life-sustaining systems if a physician, in consultation with a hospital bioethics committee, concludes that the patient's condition is hopeless.
Bioethicists familiar with the Texas law said Monday that if the Schiavo case had occurred in Texas, her husband would be the legal decision-maker and, because he and her doctors agreed that she had no hope of recovery, her feeding tube would be disconnected.
"The Texas law signed in 1999 allowed next of kin to decide what the patient wanted, if competent," said John Robertson, a University of Texas bioethicist.
While Congress and the White House were considering legislation recently in the Schiavo case, Bush's Texas law faced its first high-profile test. With the permission of a judge, a Houston hospital disconnected a critically ill infant from his breathing tube last week against his mother's wishes after doctors determined that continuing life support would be futile.
"The mother down in Texas must be reading the Schiavo case and scratching her head," said Dr. Howard Brody, the director of Michigan State University's Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences. "This does appear to be a contradiction."
Brody said that, in taking up the Schiavo case, Bush and Congress had shattered a body of bioethics law and practice.
"This is crazy. It's political grandstanding," he said.
Bush's apparent shift on right-to-die decisions wasn't lost on Democrats. During heated debate on the Schiavo case, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., accused Bush of hypocrisy.
"It appears that President Bush felt, as governor, that there was a point which, when doctors felt there was no further hope for the patient, that it is appropriate for an end-of-life decision to be made, even over the objection of family members," Wasserman Schultz said. "There is an obvious conflict here between the president's feelings on this matter now as compared to when he was governor of Texas."
White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan termed Wasserman Schultz's remarks "uninformed accusations" and denied that there was any conflict in Bush's positions on the two laws.
"The legislation he signed (early Monday) is consistent with his views," McClellan said. "The (1999) legislation he signed into law actually provided new protections for patients ... prior to the passage of the '99 legislation that he signed, there were no protections."
Wasserman Schultz stuck by her remarks when told of McClellan's comments.
"It's a fact in black and white," she said. "It's a direct conflict on the position he has in the Schiavo case."
Tom Mayo, a Southern Methodist University Law School associate professor who helped draft the Texas law, said he saw no inconsistency in Bush's stands.
"It's not really a conflict, because the (Texas) law addresses different types of disputes, meaning the dispute between decision-maker and physician," he said. "The Schiavo case is a disagreement among family members."
Bush himself framed the Schiavo decision this way Monday.

"This is a complex case with serious issues, but in extraordinary circumstances like this, it is wise to always err on the side of life," the president said during a Social Security (news - web sites) event in Tucson, Ariz. He didn't mention the 1999 Texas law.

Looking Forward

The future sometimes can be bright, and frightening. In a few years, who knows, I may have a family. I may have a new job. I may have neither. But one thing is certain. At some point, I'm going down. No, not to Florida, but to the big burning fire on the corner of 6th and State. Yes, I'm talking about the crematorium. Who decides when I go there, however, may not actually be my decision, though. At least, it appears that way what with the current Sciavo case in Florida.

In case you don't know, Ms. Sciavo has been in an eggplant-type state for roughly 15 years. Her husband claims that she never wanted to live like this. Her parents say that she should be kept alive by all means necessary. And the GOP, well…other than believing that you can get AIDS from tears or sweat (Dr. Bill Frist), well they simply can't keep their hands off this case. After all, the Christians are watching. The Christians are watching.

So, in another act of pandering to their "core" base, the GOP is making decisions for the family. They are trying to get a feeding tube added back to Ms. Sciavo's daily regimen of blank-staring, smiling, and eyes-opening exercises. Why? Because her parents want her alive.

How sad. And whether you think she should be alive or dead isn't even the main issue. The fact that the House and Senate (and President) are all willing to intervene into such a personal, family matter is frightening. At a maximum, the state government should be involved in this.

Then again, when your governor's name is Bush and you lose, you do what comes naturally: option a) cry to daddy. Option b) cry to Dub-ya.

And so that brings us to where we are now. A media and political circus.

I can only hope that one day when I go, my wishes will at least be fulfilled by family members and not by any political right-wing agenda. I guess it's time to make sure my wishes are in writing, if not, look what could become of me.

Etiquette? Say What?!

As I approach the golden age of 30, there are lots of changes I’m noticing amongst myself, and all of my friends as I reach the age where “families” slowly become the focus of each others lives. And, if there’s one thing that chaps my ass more than anything as I get older, it’s the fact that people seem to have lost all sense of etiquette and courtesy when it comes to asking personal questions and sharing personal information.

Does it have something to do with the culture we live in? Have we all become so numb with “reality” entertainment that we can’t even separate private from public information anymore? Do we have to know or share everything with people?

There are tons of examples out there for both topics, but two of them stand out more so, especially as 30 approaches…and both have to do with children.

One of the common examples I’ve witnessed of people looking for more information than they deserve to know deals with the topic of having children. I’ve had this question asked of me several times, but more often, I’ve watched friends and strangers get asked why they haven’t had or when will they have children.

What’s so bad about a question? Well, if it’s about how many goals Brendan Shanahan is going to score or about what you may think of Michael Jackson, knock yourself out. But when it comes to asking someone a question as personal as this, it’s best if you just shut up.

The fact that people seem to think this topic is any of their business is dumbfounding to me. And yes, there are times that the recipient of the question is willing to talk about subjects like this. Fine. Let that person bring it up. 90% of the time, I’ve seen the look on peoples faces as they try to get out of the conversation and frankly, it’s frightening. Bottom line, something as personal as this isn’t anyone’s business unless the person chooses to make it public. You wouldn’t walk up to someone and say, “Hey Bob, that herpes thing you had in college flaring up again now that you’re with Tina," when Tina is standing right in front of you, would you?

The second and by far most annoying/disturbing thing that I’ve seen over the last two years is the growing number of “Personal Declaration” emails.

What are these, you ask? Well, I deem a Personal Declaration email as one that includes more than five names in the "To:" box. Also, the email is as one-sided as a debate on Fox News. They are often written as follows:

“I, I, and me. Oh yeah, and myself, and my baby. Well we, I and me, not you, but me, and still…I’m talking about me…but more so…my baby. And my baby, and not your baby. Where is your baby? I, I, and me. Sincerely, me.”

It’s understandable that people don’t want to lose touch with friends and they want to keep others informed, but to do this in such a non-personal way is demeaning to the reader, and more importantly, to the sender.

Now, should emails like this be outlawed? Not necessarily. But, there should be some rules in place. After research and experience in dealing with emails such as this, I've been able to come up with a simple set of rules for these types of emails. If they are followed, your friends will think much higher of you (even though they won't tell you to your face). Here they are:

Rule #1 – Limit emails like this to no more than one every three months. Letting people know you haven't forgotten about them is great. But, if you feel like you need to talk about yourself more than once a quarter, then maybe you need more friends, or, you just need to pick up the phone more often. Which brings us to ...

Rule #2 - Remember to ask about how other people are doing. A simple act of sincerity and concern for others can go a long way.

Rule #3 – If 1-3 sentences of narrative are included, there’s a 4-photo limit. If more than one paragraph of narrative is included, there’s a 2 photo limit. Evereyone likes pictures...to a certain number. Yes, we know that junior is getting bigger. I don’t need a scrapbook showing me so. A quarterly reminder? Sure. That’s great…and appreciated.

Rule #4 – Keep the email to fewer than three paragraphs. Like an advertisement, keep the message short and sweet. Don’t go on and on and on about yourself and/or your baby. It’s a baby. They do baby-type things.

What’s that? Your kid took a dump in the diaper? Guess what…he’s four months old. That’s what happens. Kid starting to grow a tooth? Shocker. He’s getting older. Junior starting to get into everything...and he’s going on two years old? Wow, you have just blown my mind away with that information.

Which brings us to the last and most important rule of Personal Declarations.

Rule #5 – Do not divulge too much information! This rule can NOT be understated enough. If you are extremely close to any of the people you are sending this email too, then this should not be an issue in the first place because they will already know this information most likely. If not, why go into too much detail with people you are casual friends with anyway?

Do you want to let people know how much you miss them and appreciate their support? Sure. Great. Appreciation and sincerity are terrific virtues. Do you want to tell people how thrilled you were with the gifts you received at your recent baby shower? Sure. Are 25 people interested in knowing that the breast-pump the Anderson’s bought you ‘doesn’t leave rings around my nipples’ and 'produces incredible volume'? Probably not.