This is probably the best thorough explaination of Terri Schiavo’s situation. I know in the previous blog entry I refused to comment on it saying all that had been said had already been said. However I’m going to reverse my thinking, and comment on it.
Terri’s parents are Catholic. Being the good Catholics that they are, they would disapprove of any extiction of life, as all life is precious in the eyes of this sect. Abortion, the death penalty, even birth control (since it prevents conception) are all off limits to this sect.
Do you really want your government or church deciding your fate? You yourself must control your own destiny. If there is one thing the Schiavo’s case has taught us, it is how important living wills are. Your life is really only between you and your God. I suspect that God finds all life precious, but didn’t have any trouble striking down the disobiedient. In VERY grey areas like vegetative states, I’m not so sure it is clear cut Biblically as everyone would like for it to be.
Terri died 15 years ago. Her shell is still alive, but there is no real cognitive thought. If indeed it was her wish to die if she ever was in a vegetative state, then so be it. Legally her husband makes that decision. Ultimately the fight should be about whoever should be her guardian, not about the feeding tube.
In any case the Terri Schiavo case has become a ugly public fight that should have been a quiet family decision. The state and national government should never have become involved. This is not in the spirit of democracy. I would not want to be put in the shoes of Schiavo’s family (on either side), and I hope I never have to make those very difficult decisions in life. Get a living will, folks.

You might have seen the story about the Egyptian girl having a second head removed. The head was part of a parasitic twin which never fully developed and is dependent on the host twin.
You really don’t hear too much about parasitic twins or even conjoined twins much. Mostly these come from 3rd world countries. I suppose in the U.S. and other developed nations, these type of twins would be classified as severly deformed and be terminated through abortion.
Here’s a webpage which has a large number of pictures of parasitic twins.

I’m glad someone else ( http://www.antimagnet.com/ ) doesn’t like them either. For me, it is not the fact that they are made in China. It’s that putting a magnet on your car has somehow become “trendy” in today’s society. I hereby refuse to follow the crowd just because something is trendy.
I fully support our troops. I know that their work is hard and difficult and is not something that I could do easily. I just think something else could be done rather than putting a magnet on your car. I wonder how many of these magneted cars have drivers who write to their soldiers…I’m talking a real personal letter (not email) or sending a care package to their troops. And I’m not saying that they don’t already. I’m just saying that this trend will soon end and where will our troop support be then? Are people still going to be supporting our troops in the DMZ in Korea who have been there for 50+ years? Or is the Iraqi War just trendy enough to put a ribbon on your car?

I’m not going to compare and contrast Calvin and Hobbes with Dylan and Klebold, but this guy did.

More Election Maps.
In 2000 we didn’t see these election maps posted all over the web. I guess its a Democrat’s response to the Republican perception that the country went overwhelmingly for Bush. Population means votes, not land masses.
But there are a few things that Democrat’s can’t argue with. Bush won the popular vote this time. Hence there are plenty of Liberals contemplating moving abroad.

The past news coverage has focused not on what George W. Bush is going to do in his next term, but why did Kerry loose? Kerry himself said in a Newsweek interview “I can’t believe I’m loosing to this idiot.”
Are we as a society moving closer to the right? The Republicans have won 6 of the past 9 presidential elections. The last 2 Democrat presidents were Southerners. Running a Southern Democrat presidental candidate is vital to breakup the stranglehold that most Republican candidates will always have on the South. Even then it usually doesn’t make much difference. Case in point: Al Gore (a so-called Southerner) lost his “home” state of Tennessee during the 2000 election. VP candidate John Edwards couldn’t carry his home state of North Carolina this year.
Democrats are becoming known for those far from mainstream issues like gay marriage. Middle America doesn’t care for that. They want lower taxes. They want the government out of their business. The Democrats are going to have to appeal to a larger fan base or just wait for the Republicans to screw up royally (i.e. Watergate). They still salivate when someone mentions Kennedy…the last “good” Democratic president. Even then JFK had his Bay or Pigs and Cuban Missle Crisis. Maybe they liked Kennedy because he and Jackie were part of the Beautiful People Marilyn Manson warned us about. LBJ rode on the coattails of Kennedy and got us quagmired in Vietnam.
At one time we needed a good hand-out president like FDR. We needed to get out of the Great Depression and hand-outs were a good way to do this. Most of my Democratic friends aren’t necessarily that liberal. They just don’t like the shady dealings of the Republicans. But then again, most all of them lie.
I am convinced that Bill Clinton did more for the Republican cause by having his affair with Monica than anything else. Sure, personal business is none of our business. But when someone looks at the American people and tells a bold face lie which he knew was wrong, that tends to alienate alot of moral people. That was shady, Slick Willie. Shady.
On the other hand some would argue that W. told a bold face lie that there was WMD in Iraq. Colin Powell must have believed it himself when he played CIA tapes for the U.N. I believe that George Bush really believed that there were WMD in Iraq. We all believed it. It was bad intelligence on our part.
I don’t care for the war in Iraq. I wish we could get out of it easily. The Democrats have not offered a viable solution for it. As a friend of mine said “It’s difficult to defeat an incumbent president in wartime.”

Recently Colorado rejected an inituative which would have scrapped the winner take all plan for electoral votes. If it had passed, Colorado’s 9 electoral votes would have been split based on vote percentage of each candidate.
Personally I think this plan would have been a good thing. Take 3 states which are traditionally Democrat. New York (31 electoral votes), Illinois (21), and California (55). If a Democrat wins Los Angeles/San Francisco, Chicago, and NYC, they pretty much have have a lock on 107 votes (potentially almost 40% of the 270 votes needed to win a majority). It would make much more sense to break up the electoral votes on any state which reaches 20 or more electoral votes.
Take California. Bush probably rarely visited California because he could not overcome Kerry’s lead in LA and San Francisco. So the rest of the state didn’t matter. It could potentially help Democrats too. Texas’ 34 electoral votes could be split among a Democrat and a Republican. I realize that Texas went over whelmingly for Bush this time around, but splitting the vote could work very well with a non-Texan Republican.
I’m not so sure this would be put into place easily. I think it is upto each state who they distribute electoral votes. Since I’m pretty sure Illinois and New York’s leglislatures are controlled by Democrats, I doubt they would “fix” something that is in their favor.

I’m trying to keep up with all the election results based on these maps:
County By County Map (via USA Today).
3-D County Vote
Purple Mountain Majesties. Shows we’re not red or blue…we’re purple. (via boingboing
Purple Map per County
U.S. By Population Density
Purple Based map showing size represenation distortion based on population
And finally…
This Electoral Atlas shows every outcome of every U.S. Election.

I’m still trying to figure out how Bush won the election. When more voters turn out, traditionally it is in the favor of Democrats. But this time it turned in favor of the Republicans. Those in the heartland voted for Bush, while those in big urban areas went for Kerry. I’m being told it was the religious right which helped win it for Bush.
Like I said before, Kerry supporters must be more vocal. While the Republicans, except for Foxnews and talk radio, are more silent. The rest of the world hates Bush mostly, but Mr. and Mrs. America (think “American Gothic” Painting) like him. What was this election about? The war in Iraq? Family Values? Kerry’s flip flops? The war on terrorism? The economy? I’m not even sure myself. I didn’t watch the debates, I don’t really pay attention to mainstream news. I refuse to watch Fox News because it is so biased.
Was it really about family values? Were churches across the country subtly telling their members who to vote for by preaching pre-election sermons on moral political issues? Is this a trend among the electorate? Are the very things that the Democrats support killing their party support among middle America? I remember the first issue Clinton took on when he took office was lifting the ban on gays in the military. I didn’t understand this because I felt there were more pressing issues when should be addressed. Likewise this killed any support he wanted to achieve among mainstream Americans.
Was it about the war in Iraq? I thought it was. I’m sick of the war. It shouldn’t have happened. It was a bad idea, yet I do feel that Saddam was a bad man and needed to be detained somehow. Invading another country without global support sets a bad precidence. No wonder the world hates us. And it is a quagmire which we might not be able to get out of easily. I support our troops, but I’m not so sure this war is jusitified.
Bush may not be perfect, but he did what I felt was impossible. Gain re-election.

On my way to work yesterday (election day), I saw at least 2 groups of people holding up Kerry signs by the road. I think Kerry supporters are more vocal than Bush supporters, hence my misbelief that Kerry would win this election. You don’t exactly see a conservative equivalent of Michael Moore making a Fahrenheit 9/11. Well there’s always that other film, but you never hear of it in the mainstream media.
Thoughts on last night: I didn’t care for the Kerry supporters behind the MSNBC newsdesk which would cheer everytime they reported Kerry had won a state. This isn’t Sportscenter. This is supposed to be fair and balanced news reporting. I want the facts and not some DNC (or GOP) campaign rally behind the newsdesk.
Get some reporters who can identify states on a map. One Foxnews reporter pointed at Mississippi and called it Louisiana. Ugh. These are supposed to be expert analysts?
So I guess we’ll see 4 more years of Michael Moore’s complaining. Probably another film or two. Probably more junk in Iraq. It’s a quagmire which I’m not sure we’ll get out of easily.
I like Bush, but I think he could be less polorizing to the country. I think he had the bad luck of having 9/11 in his presidency, hence the massive job loss. Kerry is a liberal Mass. senator. More people voting for Kerry were…in reality…voting against Bush. They didn’t necessarily like Kerry all that well, but they hate Bush.
I guess if anything it shows just how divided we are. South and west going for Bush; the more populous northern states going for Kerry. We are a polorized nation and probably will continue to be throughout years to come.