Category: Uncategorized

In case you think I’m being overly paranoid about the Ahrimaniacs, here’s an email from one FZ, a doctor who is a director of Obstetric Anesthesiology:

I am sick and tired of all the “pro life” crowd -including you – Demanding we keep all these folks alive on feeding tubes. Are you willing to pay for them? I am not. It costs Medicare and Medicaid $50, 000 +/ year. Put your money where your mouth is.

Dr. Zerzorkian clearly didn’t read my column very carefully today, since I think a case can be made for the family deciding to remove a feeding tube, or to not put one in at the beginning. But there is no case whatsoever for using the police to forcibly deprive family members from trying to give an individual food and water.

I am not saying there is a right to feeding tubes; I am a libertarian after all. The government should not be paying for anyone’s health care in the first place. If the government was not requiring hospitals to hook all of “these folks” to feeding tubes in the first place, this debate and the demand for the government’s ability to end such feeding at will would not exist.

Il suo ultimo messaggio – All’umanita’ smarrita:

Carissimi Fratelli e Sorelle! Risuona anche oggi il gioioso Alleluja della Pasqua. L’odierna pagina del Vangelo di Giovanni sottolinea che il Risorto, la sera di quel giorno, apparve agli Apostoli e mostrò loro le mani e il costato« (Gv 20,20), cioè i segni della dolorosa passione impressi in modo indelebile sul suo corpo anche dopo la risurrezione. Quelle piaghe gloriose, che otto giorni dopo fece toccare all’incredulo Tommaso, rivelano la misericordia di Dio, che ha tanto amato il mondo da dare il suo Figlio unigenito« (Gv 3,16). Questo mistero di amore sta al centro dell’odierna liturgia della Domenica in Albis, dedicata al culto della Divina Misericordia. All’umanità, che talora sembra smarrita e dominata dal potere del male, dell’egoismo e della paura, il Signore risorto offre in dono il suo amore che perdona, riconcilia e riapre l’animo alla speranza. È amore che converte i cuori e dona la pace. Quanto bisogno ha il mondo di comprendere e di accogliere la Divina Misericordia!

My dearest Brothers and Sisters!

The joyous Hallelujahs of Easter ring out again today. This present page of John the Evangelist emphasizes the Resurrection, the evening of that day he appeared to the Apostles and showed them his hands and his side, (John 20:20), with those signs of his painful Passion indelibly marking his body even after the resurrection. Those glorious wounds that were touched eight days later by the doubting Thomas revealed the mercy of God, who had so much love for the world that He gave His only Son. (John 3:16). This mystery of love is at the center of the modern liturgy of Low Sunday, dedicated to the church of the Divine Mercy.

To the humanity that sometimes feels lost and dominated by the power of evil, by egotism and by fear, the Risen Lord offers a gift of his love that pardons, reconciles and reopens the spirit of hope. It is love that transforms the heart and gives peace. How much the world needs to understand and receive the Mercy of the Divine!

Of all the tributes to Pope John Paul II, Charles Krauthammer says it best:

It was Stalin who gave us the most famous formulation of that cynical (and today quite fashionable) philosophy known as “realism” — the idea that all that ultimately matters in the relations among nations is power: “The pope? How many divisions does he have?”

Stalin could only have said that because he never met John Paul II. We have just lost the man whose life was the ultimate refutation of “realism.” Within 10 years of his elevation to the papacy, John Paul II had given his answer to Stalin and to the ages: More than you have. More than you can imagine.

History will remember many of the achievements of John Paul II, particularly his zealous guarding of the church’s traditional belief in the sanctity of life, not permitting it to be unmoored by the fashionable currents of thought about abortion, euthanasia and “quality of life.” But above all, he will be remembered for having sparked, tended and fanned the flames of freedom in Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, leading ultimately and astonishingly to the total collapse of the Soviet empire.

“More than you have. More than you can imagine.” Krauthammer reminds us of the truth that lies beneath John Paul II’s first papal words to the world: “Be not afraid.”

All sports events in Italy this weekend were suspended in tribute to Pope John Paul II, who died Saturday night while thousands kept vigil in St. Peter’s Square and the faithful around the world reflected on his legacy.

“It was the only decision to be taken,” said Gianni Petrucci, president of Italy’s Olympic Committee….

The coaches of soccer powers AC Milan and Juventus on Friday had urged that no games be played in view of the pope’s worsening condition. “It’s fair that the sport is stopped … there are more important things than soccer,” Cagliari captain Gianfranco Zola said.

I very much admire the willingness of European athletes, especially soccer players, to demonstrate to their fans that there are more important things than sport. Keep in mind that Milan and Juve are tied for the Serie A lead at 66 points apiece with only a few games remaining in the season, and Milan was scheduled to play Brescia, the worst team in the league, yesterday. And earlier this year, when a player’s infant daughter unexpectedly died right before a La Liga match in Spain and it was too late to cancel the game, the two teams took the field as was required but refused to play, to demonstrate their sympathy for the bereaved player.

Not only were the fans not upset by watching ninety minutes of the two teams simply passing the ball back and forth, but instead, as the players walked off the field at the end of the game, they were saluted with applause.

Sports are great. I love NFL football, Serie A calcio, the English Premiership and FIFA soccer. But it is good when we are reminded, from time to time, that in the end, they are only games and money, nothing more.

Michael Ledeen writes on NRO:

It is utterly infuriating, almost maddening, to try to watch the Rosary at St Peter’s, because the accursed tv people just will not ever let us watch an event. They must tell us what to think about it, even as it is happening. And so we lose a sense of the real drama, we just cannot experience it for ourselves, they will always be there between us and real life.

Preach teacher! TV people, when something big is happening live, for the love of all that is good and holy, SHUT UP! If we wanted a non-stop description, we’d listen to the bloody radio. The absolute nadir of the TV news is not car chases or even the Jackson trial, it is watching some idiot talking head who probably scored under 1000 on his SATs trying to pontificate about the importance of whatever it is he’s “covering”.

No wonder the Internet is killing TV viewerships.

Some of you may recall Mr. John Scalzi from the recent Electrolite dustup. While Mr. Scalzi and I happen to hold diametrically opposed positions on the situation of women and the academy, we did have a friendly exchange of emails subsequent to the public flamethrowing.

I finished John’s first novel today, (his first CONVENTIONALLY-PUBLISHED novel, anyhow), and it was very entertaining. I’ll post a review of it here soon, but in the meantime I can state with some assurance that if you enjoy Heinlein or military SF, you will very likely get a kick out of OLD MAN’S WAR. I quite liked it myself.

Interestingly enough, he even managed to come up with a reasonable means of putting women in the military. In light of the way in which I first encountered the author, I found this more than a little amusing.

In case anyone happens to be interested, Elliott Wave International is going to be giving free access to its specialty services next week. These are the daily updates, ten or twelve per day, offering higher detail wave analysis while the markets are open. I’ve used one of their currency services to good effect over the last month, and if you’re into one of the markets they cover, I’d encourage you to have a look at it, especially if you’re skeptical.

It’s an art, not a science, but I believe it has a more rational basis than the conventional financial analysis and commentary, much of which is demonstrably absurd. It’s not magic nor does it work flawlessly, but I have found it to be a useful tool. I’ll post a link to the free access signup on the day it starts.

Full disclosure: I do not accept any money from EWI, but commissions from sales derived from this blog’s participation in their affiliate program have gone and will continue to go to charity and towards access to their various services.

Drudge is reporting that Pope John Paul II has died. Like many Protestants, I regarded the man with some degree of admiration and his office with some degree of skepticism. But all theological differences aside, he was a man of rare courage and forthright conviction who stood firmly for what he believed to be right. The Roman Catholic Church will be fortunate indeed if its cardinals are able to find a man of similar caliber to serve as his successor.

UPDATE – The Pope was reported as saying to Italian TV reporters: “I’m not dead yet!”

UPDATE II – Requiscat in pace….

From the Washington Post:

As many as 20 teenagers may have known ahead of time about plans for the shooting spree that resulted in the deaths of 10 people on the Indian reservation here March 21, tribal and federal officials said Friday.

Capt. Dewayne Dow of the tribal police told a group of parents, teachers and staff at a three-hour school board meeting that authorities believe as many as 20 students were involved.

I don’t see why this should be a problem for anyone. These kids have been learning that nothing is anyone’s fault and that there is no such thing as good or evil for at least nine years. Why should they do anything simply because one loser was planning to express himself and share his feelings in public? How can they be held responsible for doing something that they have been taught does not exist?

They know very well that they’re nothing but mammals and young Mr. Weise was simply doing what they do on the Hollywood channels. On what grounds would they possibly condemn him?

I just received a copy of the first anthology to which I contributed, which was surprisingly exciting for me. It will surprise no one here to know that the Original Cyberpunk contributed one of the best essays of the lot, which are about 75 percent interesting and occasionally insightful takes on THE HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY and 25 percent excuses for the writer to talk about her mother, herself, her interests and nearly everything but Douglas Adams or his work. Jacqueline Carey’s self-parodying piece on assuring the reader how she, an American, nevertheless “gets” British humor may be the most amusing essay for all that its comedy is inadvertant; it has to be read to be believed. Seriously, it’s entitled “Yes, I Got It.” Well, good for you, lady.

As for me, I contributed a number of run-on sentences, if you can believe that, as well as a take that is so entirely different from everyone else’s both in terms of substance and style as to cause the reader to conclude that I crashed the party. And yet, Don DeBrandt not only managed to top my a priori outrageous interpretation of the text, but did in a way that is surprisingly convincing until you put the book down and say to yourself: wait, that can’t possibly be right.

Anyhow, here’s the editor’s intro to my essay, THE SUBVERSIVE DISMAL SCIENTIST: DOUGLAS ADAMS AND THE RULE OF UNREASON
It’s a little known fact that Douglas Adams was close friends with Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman, whom he met while obtaining his doctorate in economics at the University of Chicago. An advisor and confidant to Margaret Thatcher, he was responsible for much of Thatcher’s economic platform and was instrumental in her rise to power. Actually no. None of that was true. But it could have been….

THE ANTHOLOGY AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE
BenBella Books
240 pages
$14.95