grifters and petty criminals invading Florida

One of the problems with the Schindlers and the publicist-driven efforts to deny their daughter her wishes is that it has attracted a throng of grifters and criminals to Pinnelas Park. Looking at the statistics as reported below, only about 10% of the criminal arrests have been of Florida residents.

"Forty-six demonstrators have been arrested since Schiavo's feeding tube was removed, Forseth said. In all but one case they were charged with misdemeanor trespass outside the hospice, he said. Of those, five were from Florida, with the remainder from states such as California, Texas, Minnesota, Ohio, South Dakota and Pennsylvania. "

And at least one of the individuals who allowed their child to be arrested turns out to be a registered sex offender -- was the DCF on the case here or does being a supporter of Jeb Bush's position get one a DCF-Gestapo waiver card?

some interesting sites with information on the Schiavo case

Most of the media coverage of the Schiavo situation suggests that there some sort of relatively balanced "content" exists between Michael Schiavo and the Schinders and that it is perhaps just happenstance that every single one of the court decisions made has been against the Schindlers. The Associated Press articles, in particulare, seem to be present information in a format that the publicists for the Schinders would not be uncomfortable with.

Here are two sites that give a pretty good background and perspective on the facts in the case.

http://www.footballfansfortruth.us/archives/000872.html

http://abstractappeal.com/schiavo/infopage.html

King of corruptions thinking about quitting U.N. -- good riddance

So the revelations about all of the corruptions and scandal going on under his reign at the United Nations are finally starting to bother Kofi Annan. Most individuals in his position would have been troubled long before now but better late than never.

This creates an interesting opporunity for Bill Clinton who, it is said, has his eyes on this position. How many other official positions could BIll Clinton step into and actually represent an improvement in ethics over the previous office-holder?

Impeach Jeb Bush!

The story cited below, if true, demonstrates a lack of respect for the law by Governor Jeb Bush that can only be corrected by removing him from office. Whatever happens to Terri Schaivo will not change the fact of the Governor's misconduct and impeachment is an appropriate solution.

"Hours after a judge ordered that Terri Schiavo wasn't to be removed from her hospice, a team of Florida law enforcement agents were en route to seize her and have her feeding tube reinserted - but they stopped short when local police told them they would enforce the judge's order, The Miami Herald has learned."

Whether or not one agrees with the string of consistent court rulings regarding the Schiavo case, any thinking person is going to be more comfortable leaving that kind of determination to the court system which is designed to ferret out facts and keep it out of the political process where the influence of lobbyists and publicists is much greater than that of facts. In this case, the governor has let his official acts be influenced by lobbyists and publicists who have played on his religious beliefs. This is simply not acceptable in a free society.


The Florida democratic party has itself been on life support for the past few years; maybe the outrageous conduct of this out-of-control governor will cause them to spring back to life.

too much of a good thing

Recent news stories suggesting that anonymous calls to Florida's Department against Children and Families were part of the justification for Jeb Bush's aborted attempt to kidnap Terri Schiavo in order to deny her last wishes. Only a few anonymous calls were apparently necessary to motivate Jeb, a man who seems more and more to be bought and paid for by the Schindlers -- probably no "real" calls were even necessary, given Bush's desire to please the Schinders at almost any cost. But it looks like some folks are going overboard.

"Hundreds of protesters trying to keep Terri Schiavo alive are calling the Florida Department of Children & Families hot line each day, and officials are concerned they could be jamming the line for people who are trying to report abuse unrelated to the case.

'The Department of Children & Families appreciates the concern expressed in a number of heartfelt calls to the abuse hot line on behalf of Terri Schiavo's well-being. Inadvertently these callers may be putting other neglected, abused and vulnerable citizens at risk,' said DCF spokeswoman Zoraya Suarez on Friday. "

Of course, this begs the question as to what percentage of calls on a regular basis are vindictive and totally bogus calls like the Schindler-inspired calls and what percentage end up identifying actual "neglected, abused" citizens. As far as "vulnerable citizens at risk", I'm assuming we all fall in that category as long as Emperor Jeb Bush holds office. After all, if the Schindlers can buy him off, so can anyone else; maybe someone who wants to have your rights taken away!

opportunities and nut cases

Although the Terri Schiavo situation is unfortunate, there are plenty of folks around who already benefiting from the whole situation.

Terry Randall, for example, is basking in the publicity associated with the case and Terri Schiavo's brother has already hinted at launching a media career a la Mark Klauss once his sister dies. Another big winner is Tom Delay who has been successful in diverting attention away from questions regarding his ethics. The same can be said for the Roman Catholic church which is happy to issue daily pronouncements regarding Terri, something they have nothing to do with, while their silence continues regarding the decades of pedophile priest attacks on young people, something the Church not only had control over but was responsible for.

It is not clear whether Terri's parents, the Schindlers, are idiots who are just too stupid to interpret the obvious regarding their daughter's medical condition or whether they are opportunists basking in the publicity and planning to cash in. We'll have to see but I'm thinking they are getting addicted to being in the spotlight.

Now we come to the total nut cases that let themselves be aroused and manipulated by the likes of Randall and the Schindlers. " A man was arrested after trying to steal a weapon from a gun shop so he could 'take some action and rescue Terri Schiavo,' authorities said. "

And then we have Jeb Bush who has pretty clearly been manipulated by the Schindlers almost as much as the guy who was trying to steal a gun. Bush, of course, was not going to personally dirty his hands but was instead going to send his Department against Children and Families thugs to kidnap Terri. Althought that plan was halted before it could be implemented by the courts, the news stories report that Jeb is still looking for other ways to deny Terri's rights. At least the time around, the legislature is apparently unwilling to again be a pawn to the Schindlers. Jeb's term as governor can't end soon enough as far as I am concerned. I hope that others remember Jeb's lack of respect for the law if he runs for public office again in the future.

recall Jeb Bush

"Bob and Mary Schindler held onto the slim hope that Gov. Jeb Bush would somehow find a way to intervene or a federal judge who had turned them down before would see things their way. But Bush warned that he was running out of options."

To watch the way Jeb Bush has behaved over the past 18 months, you would think he had been bought and paid for by the Schindlerr family and was dedicated only to serving them instead of the millions of other Floridians. He has shown a total disregard for separation of powers. He has attempted to insert himself and the jack-booted thugs at the Department against Children and Families who serve him into personal matters that have been finally adjudicated by the courts and all possible appeals exhausted. He deserves to be recalled and thrown out of office before he does even more damage to the rights of state residents.

I hope that Floridians remember the lack of respect that Jeb Bush has shown for the law and, at a minimum, make sure he is never again provided with an elective office from which to practice his mischief. If he wishes to solely represent narrow special interests and not the broader public good, he should become a lobbyist and not pretend to be serving the public.

Jeb goes postal

The closest thing we have in Florida to Hitler's Gestapo is the Department against Children and Families (DCF). Among other things, this agency maintains secret non-reviewable lists of people against whom secret allegations have been made, much in the style of the local official thugs in Kafka's The Trial. DCF officials have also been implicated on numerous occasions in neglect of those unfortunate to be put in their charge; a level of negligence that would surely lead to criminal charges against normal civilians.

So what use would a self-styled conservative governor like Jeb Bush have with an agency with the frightening track record of DCF? Well, it turns out that having a bunch of thugs on the payroll is just fine for a governor who has designs on dictatorial (as opposed to gubenatorial) power.

Perhaps Jeb doesn't realize that each attempt that he makes to go outside and above the law makes him appear smaller and vindictive. Maybe this will please the small mob of rabble-rousers who are willing to throw out all of the laws and rules that govern society in order to achieve their ends but it scares the vast majority of thinking people who don't want government thugs interfering with the most personal of decisions.

"Maintaining there is new evidence suggesting Schiavo ``may have been misdiagnosed,'' Bush and the Department of Children & Families invoked a statutory process that typically allows DCF to intervene in abuse cases."

Stupid tricks that might now work

Although the Congress passed a private bill in haste and with total regard of any sort of conscience in an attempt to deprive Terri Shiavo of the right to have her last wishes honored, they left the actual dirty work to the Federal judiciary. Given that the state case has dragged on for seven years and the new law offers an opportunity to completely review all of the facts that had already been adjudicated, the Congress must have fully expected the new law to just cause more delay.

But that strategy might not be working too well. To issue an injunction or temporary restraining order, a judge must make a finding that the moving party would have a substantial likelihood of ultimately prevailing. In this case, although the Federal courts would not be abiding by the decisions previously handed down by Florida state courts (although how knows about all of the appeals into Federal courts which have been rejected), they would have to consider the same set of facts which strongly favor Terrii's rights over those of her parents to control her.

But rewarming over the same old arguments that have been rejected before looks like it isn't going to work. "But the judge told Gibbs that he was not completely sold on the argument. 'I think you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that you have a substantial likelihood' of the parents' lawsuit succeeding, said Whittemore, nominated by former President Clinton in 1999. " (I'm not sure what Clinton has to do with this as Hillary certainly did nothing to stop Terri's parents from interfering with her rights).

So what is next for the Schinders and their scheming allies. Perhaps a writ of mandamus demanding that the court rule in their favor. Perhaps a bit more editing of those tapes that have of Terri to show her speaking and asking President Bush personally for help.

challenger to democrats -- earn my vote!

It looks like the Republicans in Congress have gone off the deep end in their zeal to placate a vocal minority and trample Terri Schiavo's constitutional rights.

Their first effort, a bizzare misuse of the Congressional subpoena power, was promptly batted away by the courageous local judge who has endured endless litigation on this case.

But now the Congress is working on odious legislation that, depending on which version you look at, with either be a private bill to deny Terri her constitudional rights or a much larger piece of legislation that will broadly deny rights to many as well as federalize a vast array of private decisions.

But if the Republicans think that they are responding to a large grass roots effort, they are sadly mistaken. Instead, polls show that a large majority of Americans believe that Terri's own wishes not to be kept alive in a persistent vegetative state should be honored over the wishes of her parents to have her kept alive artifically to be some sort of showcase for their own needs.

Where are the Democrats? Why aren't they standing up against the outragous behavior of the Republicans? Give us a reason to support you and we might do it.

amateur neurology

One would hardly consider neurology to be an appropriate do-it-yourself pursuit. The typical neurologist is highly educated and trained in evaluating and understanding conditions of the brain, certainly one of the body's most complex organs.

But the Terri Schiavo case has brought out hundreds if not thousands of amateur neurologists who believe their own observations, typically based solely on a review of a heavily edited videotape, are superior to those of the highly education neurologists who have actually examined Terri Schiavo and reviewed the medical evidence related to her condition.

One example of the silliness afoot here is Peggy Noonan, a Wall Street Journal writer. Ms. Noonan does not mention any credentials or previous experience she has in the area of medicine or neurology but evidently she doesn't feel that kind of credentials are of any value in assessing Terri Schiavo's medical condition.

"At the heart of the case at this point is a question: Is Terri Schiavo brain-dead? That is, is remedy, healing, physiologically impossible?

No. Oddly enough anyone who sees the film and tape of her can see that her brain tells her lungs to breathe, that she can open her eyes, that she seems to respond at times and to some degree to her family. She can laugh. (I heard it this morning on the news. It's a childlike chuckle.) In the language of computers she appears not to be a broken hard drive but a computer in deep hibernation. She looks like one of those coma cases that wind up in the news because the patient, for no clear reason, snaps to and returns to life and says, 'Is it 1983? Is there still McDonald's? Can I have a burger?'

Again, life is mysterious. Medicine is full of happenings and events that leave brilliant doctors scratching their heads."

So what is wrong here? The fact is that Terri Schiavo is not "brain dead" but is in a "persistent vegetative state". In the condition she is in, those parts of the brain that control higher functions (that make us human beings) have died and been replaced by fluid. This has been confirmed by diagnostic scanning. She does not have an injury to her brain -- there is something else in the space where her brain used to be. The fluid that has replaced her higher brain is no more likely to convert back to brain tissue than a person who has had a limb amputated is likely to grow another one to replace it. A chameleon can regrow a tail that is lost but a human being cannot grow back an arm or a leg and a human being cannot grow back a brain.

So, what about the video tape? As was brought out in some of the neverending court cases, the video tape found on the web site was extracted from many, many hours of tape in an attempt to show something that is not real. Terri Schiavo does not have the ability to track things with her eyes but her eyes do more randomly. Under the basic facts of probability, Terri's random eye movements will, given enough observations, track some other object completely by chance.

mischief afoot in tallahassee?

So, the question of the hour is whether the Florida legislature, along with a duped and willing Governor Jeb Bush will again contravene the wishes of Terri Shiavo and prolong her existence in a persistent vegetative state?

Last time around (about 18 months ago), the legislature passed a hastily and poorly conceived private bill that was declared unconstitutional. This time, member of the Florida House are afoot with much more mischief, crafting another private bill but in the form of a broader measure that would deny the rights of many more Floridians. The governor, turning a deaf ear to Michael Shiavo's request that he actually consider the facts in this case, is ready to sign anything put in front of him.

The media, anxious to show this to be a real two-sided dispute have consistently published with a slant favoring the position of the Schindlers, Terri's conniving and controlling parents. In the view of the media, the option of the 19 or so "experts" collected by the Schindlers is considered to be equivalent to the actual medical specialists and experts that have examined Schiavo and concluded her condition offers no hope for recovery. The media generally don't mention that the Schindler "experts" are mostly charlatans and grifters, none of whom have actually examined the patient or read her medical history. The bottom line is that brain areas that have turned to fluid are not going to grow back and be restored to function any more than an amputated limb is. Perhaps the Schindlers really are clueless enough to believe what they say but no competent expert has agreed with them. The courts who have actually reviewed the evidence have consistently rules against the Schindlers. Their attempt to lobby the legislature to pass another bad private bill is based on their knowledge that the legislature (and this governor as well) are unlikely to consider any actual facts before going ahead.

Another wild card in the case is the insertion of Florida's gestapo-like Department against Children and Families. Generally operating with no effective oversight, this is a scary group of misfits, evidently anxious to curry favor with the governor.

running for higher office?

We seem to be seeing a lot of Citrus County Sheriff Jeff Dawsy on the Tampa television stations, conducting various press conferences on the Jessica Lunsford case. Since the case has dragged on for three weeks, it hardly seems like something that Dawsy would be particularly proud of. In addition, the press conferences don't seem to be particularly enlightening, essentially revealing only information that was already available.

Jeff Dawsy was recently re-elected Sheriff with a quite impressive vote total running against two opponents.

Is Jeff Dawsy using the tragedy of the Jessica Lunsford disappearance to garner some major media market publicity in preparation for a later launch for higher office? Dawsy seems to like to spend taxpayer money on expensive high-tech equipment and it not clear whether the taxpayers of semi-rural Citrus County are going to want to buy all of the "toys for boys" that Dawsy seems to crave. As far as Dawsy's plans for higher office, we will find out for sure later but remember that you saw it here first!

When not to hire a publicist?

The case of Terri Schiavo is the poster child for the importance of having good publicists on the payroll. If you thought that six years of consistent losses in every court system that would take a pleading would spell the end of the legal struggle you would be wrong because having a good publicist opens up a whole new front; the legislative and executive branchs. Remember that the legistlative and executive branches are completely susceptible to the kind of lobbying and manipulation that is the strength of publicists -- no need to attempt to manipulate the facts to influence Governor Bush or the members of the Florida legislature; they don't care about them!

But this article is not about when to hire publicists but when you don't need to. Take Tom Sneddon, for example, the Santa Barbara county district attorney who is carrying on a jihad against Michael Jackson. At one point, he had hired a publicist but that plan was dropped due to public outcry. Instead, it appears that Sneddon has a "special friend" in the media in the form of Diane Dimond, Court TV's "reporter" on the Jackson case.

But even with anti-Jackson partisans in the media, Sneedon's case looks pretty weak. I don't claim to have any knowledge of how prosecutors select the cases to pursue but I have to think that this one is a poor one by any measure.

PC wolves on the prowl take on one of their own

"In a sharp and unexpected rebuke to University President Lawrence H. Summers, members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) voted that they lack confidence in his leadership this afternoon."

It is one thing for political correctness bigots to attach campus republicans and other conservatives but now they are after one of their own, Lawrence Summers, president of Harvard University and an individual with spotless liberal credentials. Ouch! -- maybe Summers will start to understand what it is like to be a consevative in a place like Harvard.

AOL keeps the spirit of P.T. Barnum alive

American Online (AOL) has done a remarkable job of keeping P.T. Barnum's adage that "there is a sucker born every minute" alive and well in these modern times.

In the early to mid 1990s, it was AOL that came up with the brilliant stragegy of not only pricing its Internet service much higher than all competitors but also providing a much more unwanted email, telephone, and web-based advertising to those premium-paying customers than their competitors (who charged less for service) did. Adding insult to injury, AOL also charged premium rates to advertisers who were anxious to reach the gullible AOL subscriber base.

The con caused AOL's stock price to go so high that they were able to purchase Time Warner, a company with real assets. Of course, the legitimate "magic" didn't quite last that long so AOL executives had to phoney up some numbers to make the Time Warner deal pass the sniff test. But not to worry, the deal was done and all of the AOL principles handsomely paid out before Federal investigators figured out the scam

But the AOL customer base has been eroding and AOL has even had to reduce the amount of advertising blasted to the remaining paying customers. So what is the company to do? Apparently, the answer is to further exploit the AOL customer base by making use of the intellectual property contained in instant messages. Is this going to work? Remember P.T. Barnum.

Can Howard Dean hide his records?

While most everyone has forgotten Howard Dean's refusal to release records from the period he served as Vermont governor, the wheels of justice have been slowly turning and, so far, not to Dr. Dean's benefit.

A recent court ruling suggests that Dean cannot arbitrarily seal 86 boxes of documents for 10 years but must instead identify each document for which he is requesting privilege and why. Ouch!

Remember the media stampede over George W. Bush's military records, a stampede even after he had authorized the military to release all of them. How different things were for the democrats opposing Bush. Howard Dean would not release his records as governor nor would John Kerry release his military records. In fact, the demand for Bush military records was so great that it led to the production of the forgeries that led to Dan Rather's downfall.

what's not to like about Ward Churchill?

Ward Churchill has become a darling of the liberals in this country but how long will it last?

A little background. Churchill is a professor at the University of Colorado (CU). He became a darling of the liberal establishment by writing a piece accusing the victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks of somehow being at fault for their own fate and being the equivalent of Nazis. Even more endearing to liberals, Churchill has claimed himself to be an American Indian. But as more and more facts have come out, it is unclear how long Churchill can remain a favorite of any but the most extreme liberals.

Conservatives found Churchill's comments blaming the 9/11 victims for their own cowardly murders to be patently offensive. His claims that the victims were equivalent to Nazis was the kind of comment that could only appeal to liberals as far left as the moveon crowd, who, after all, had attempted to popularize comparing George W. Bush to Hitler. Churchill immediately became a wanted speaker on liberal campuses but, at the same time, conservatives were asking why someone like this should be drawing a paycheck from a taxpayer-funded organization and, even worse, beginning to look into some of Churchill's other activities.

First, Churchill critics found that Churchill was not an American Indian at all although he had apparently claimed so when he got his position at CU. It is hard to understand how someone could keep their job after misrepresenting their ethnicity to a liberal quota-encouraging institution like a university but I guess attacking the 9/11 victims has tended to immunize Churchill from the kinds of things that would happen to most other people (particularly conservatives).

Next, it was discovered that Churchill had copied a piece of copywrited artwork and sold prints of the pirated material. When caught, Churchill claimed that he had received approval from the artist he had copied who, fortunately for Churchill, is no longer alive to make any comments on the matter.

Now, however, Churchill had been found to have plagiarized another professor's work and has apparently also made threats to his victim. In this case, the victim of Churchill's plagiarism is still alive.

"The CU Board of Regents ordered the review [of Churchill's work] after the public outcry over an essay Churchill wrote comparing victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to notorious Nazi bureaucrat Adolf Eichmann. Since then, Churchill has come under fire for some of his other writings and speeches, his scholarship, his claim of American Indian ancestry, and even his artwork."

So, will the review panel be willing to take tough action against Churchill or will this turn out to be more like a CBS-style review panel? Even liberals who still love Churchill despite his flaws shouldn't shed any tears for him since, even if he loses his job, he is likely to find employment in some George Soros-funded enterprise if not with Osama bin Laden himself.

another frivolous lawsuit bites the dust

With just a week remaining until Michael Schiavo can once again attempt to implement his wife Terri's wishes to not be kept alive by artificial means in a persistent vegetative state, her nutty controlling parents, their politically motivated allies, and the group of charlatans and hucksters that surround them are doing everything possible to keep the game going.

Today, the judge in the case blew away a politically-motivated attempt by the inept state Department [against] Children and Families (DCF) to slow the wheels of justice.

"A judge ruled Thursday that the state's social services agency cannot delay the removal of the feeding tube keeping brain-damaged Terri Schiavo alive. ... Circuit Judge George W. Greer ruled that the agency's attempt to get involved at this point was inappropriate and "appears to be brought for the purpose of circumventing the court's final judgment ... in violation of the separation of powers doctrine."

The story, posted on local6.com contains the usual slant suggesting that most of the story was written by publicists employed by the Schindlers (Terri's parents) who have shown a willingness to resort to any lengths to deny their daughter her wishes. Calling Terri "brain-damaged" is quite an understatement since where her brain used to be has been replaced by fluid.

the Terri Schiavo case

Don't count on the mainstream media in Florida to provide unbiased facts regarding the Terry Schiavo case. In most cases, they seem to be getting the material they are promoting directly from the publicists working for the Schindlers, Terris' parents.

Recently, the Schindlers have been able to get favorable media publicity regarding their claim that there exist "medical experts" who dispute the diagnosis of persistent vegetative state. Bloggers have filled in critical facts here when the Florida newspapers and television stations have failed to do so.

"These experts seem very impressed with the own CVs, but as Amp notes, none of the affidavits addresses the implications of Terri's cerebral cortex having been destroyed and replaced by fluid. (As evidenced by several previous brain scans.) Nor does anyone attempt to defuse the observation that Terri's movements can be explained by non-conscious processes but not by higher brain activity because she doesn't actually have those higher brain centers anymore. "

Privileges of the wealthy

One thing about rich people is that they can style themselves as experts on anything they want and the various minions who serve them will always be suitably impressed. For example, Barbara Streisand, a very wealthy entertainer, has styled herself as a policy expert and none of the liberal democrats who enjoy here money are inclined to criticize her. One might think that someone who inherited money (as opposed to earning any of it) would be less likely to fall into such a situation.

Teresa Heinz Kerry (called THK) below has done nothing other than marry well to entited her to a fabulous amount of money and, having that much money, she can make a complete fool of herself and no one close to her will utter a peep.

So now comes By Joel Connelly of the very liberal Seattle Post-Inteligencer to praise Teresa.

"What made Teresa Heinz Kerry so refreshing to some voters, and threatening to others on the 2004 campaign trail, is summed up when THK talks about her speech to last year's Democratic convention: 'Nobody told me what to do,' she told a Saturday fund-raiser here. The implicit afterword: Nobody better try."

And why would anyone interfere with her making a fool of herself? The folks at Newsweek wrote a rather revealing piece after the election talking about the drinking and general strange conduct. Brother Connelly characterizes the Newsweek piece as "a gossipy, superficial book"

But "THK" knows even more than we thought. She complains about Catholic prelates attempting to practice their religion. But even more interesting is the fact that she has evidently become an expert on voting machines and computers stating that

"Two brothers own 80 percent of the machines used in the United States," Heinz Kerry said. She identified both as "hard-right" Republicans. She argued that it is "very easy to hack into the mother machines."

We can all certainly be thankful that we don't have that kind of loose cannon as First Lady.