The pope is fortunate that he is not married and living in Florida.

Hah!

Police in San Diego are searching for a gunman who swiped a bag of poop from a woman out walking her dog.

…

When the gunman discovered what was in it, he threw it down in disgust, pointed his gun at the 32-year-old woman and demanded money

Terri has died. Hopefully she will not have died in vain, and some good will somehow come from this fiasco.

Various news outlets are reporting on Michael Schiavo’s request of an autopsy on Terri’s body.

What it seems they have missed is that when a body is to be cremated, an autospy is required.

I had posted much more extensively on this, but it got lost in technical glitches, but the bottom line is that the mission statement of the medical examiner is to determine cause of death - and I don’t think it takes a lot of digging to figure that one out if Terri dies from starvation.

The real questions surround whether they will do bone scans and other tests for signs of past abuse or trauma. If not, then the whole autopsy thing is a sham.

“Claims have been made by, I guess, opponents of carrying out her wishes that there was some motive behind the cremation of Mrs. Schiavo [and] we felt it was necessary to make [the autopsy] announcement today,” attorney George Felos told reporters on Monday.

They HAVE to do the autopsy. It is the law (see 406.11 (1) (c)). Why would they say this like they are making some sort of generous effort?

More.

Asked whether the autopsy would include a body scan to check for broken bones, Felos said he did not know.

“We assume and are confident that [Pinellas County Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin] will do an excellent, appropriate job,” he said.

A March 1991 bone scan performed on Mrs. Schiavo showed evidence of “compression fractures” to her back, ribs, legs and ankles. Prior to being found unconscious in her St. Petersburg apartment the year before, Schiavo had not broken any bones, her friends say.

UPDATE: Looks like others are picking this up.
Hyscience
The Narrow
Curiouser & Curiouser

If you haven’t seen it yet, check out Taste of Liberty’s commentary.

There is a colossal battle going on in America. Not only is it colossal but it is of huge historic significance in the future fabric of the culture. This battle is for the power turf. It is a battle that will determine whether America ultimately becomes ruled by a few appointed judges or by those we elect to represent us. It is to determine whether judges are under the law, make the law, or are above the law.

Make no mistake, the Schiavo case is only the latest round in this battle. But the Schiavo case has inadvertently focused America on the place of the judiciary and its proper role in our land.

I have to admit, I’m skeptical of this story. But it’s apparently true, at least according the AP. If today was April 1st, I certainly wouldn’t believe it.

Anyway, check it out.

Debbie Coleman, whose 3- and 4-year-old daughters were asleep in the back seat, pulled over at a gas station just after midnight Tuesday.

“I asked if she needed help, and she just leaned back in the seat, hollered a little, and I looked down and there was the baby’s head,” said station co-owner Lloyd Goff, who was alerted to the emergency at pump No. 7 by a customer.

Goff said Coleman “threw her leg over the steering wheel, groaned once, and the rest of the baby came out.

“She caught that baby, put it to her chest, gave me a look, like, ‘I gotta go,’ closed the door, put the van in gear and away she went.”

It looks like our old buddy Stacey Campfield from Nashville is getting some more press for his blog. Here’s the story in the Tennessean.com:

Freshman representative calls it as he sees it and says he doesn’t plan to stop

Rep. Stacey Campfield has been taking a beating over his blog.

The Knoxville Republican’s Internet postings about goings-on at the state Capitol have been called less than ‘’outhouse worthy'’ by one lawmaker. And Democrats, displeased over some of Campfield’s writings last week, all but killed his proposal to make it illegal to point a laser device at a police officer or firefighter.

Campfield said he won’t stop.

‘’Once you cave into pressure, you’re no good as a legislator,'’ Campfield said.

Campfield, 36, is a freshman lawmaker, and he’s brought a way of communicating that is new to many on Tennessee’s Capitol Hill. On March 9 he launched a Web log, known in cyberspace as a ‘’blog,'’ to give his constituents an unfiltered view of how legislation is crafted.

I just wish that with all of the traffic he must be getting that he would put up a google ad or two to pay for a spelling and grammar checker. It’s not that no one ever can make typos on a blog, but he’s an elected official giving a look into “how legislation is crafted” and it’s not an occasional typo, it leaves the reader with an impression of a lack of educashun. Spelling errors and typos are two completely different things. And these are spelling mistakes, mixing up possessive and plural, or using the wrong homophone, which indicates a lack of reading.

Before I rip into his spelling again, I would like to note that I do appreciate his efforts for openness, and his sense of humor, including the ability to laugh at himself. I just think he ought to proofread his postings or have someone else do it if he can’t. It’s not that hard to paste your text into Word and hit the grammar and spell checker before posting, and would greatly improve the public perception of him individually, and the image of Tennessee based on the educational quality of those that get elected to state office.

A couple of examples - and I’m not even going to bother with the grammar, just the spelling.

March 30:

Wow! What a day, this site just gets bigger and bigger. To the blogers that made this site grow thanks, if I knew how to link our sites I would but until I was elected I probably spent all of 2 hours a year on the computer ,if that (no need to say it, I will say it for you…. We know ,it shows) . Today was quite an experience I had everything from applause and congratulations, from people on both sides of the isle. To a few people ignore me and let me know that I wouldn’t be able to even pass gas in the state house .Most were very nice and took it with good temperament and even joked about it some were just nervous to be around me .The response from the other blogers,email,radio call in shows and telephone calls has been great I appreciate it all the good and the bad A few legislators came to me with story’s I should tell and encouraging me to keep it up don’t worry i am not going to change but I still want to encourage other legislators to blog. You don’t have to be outspoken but its still a great way to communicate. Come on in the waters fine and if I can do it so can you. For those I had dinner with don’t worry I wont reveal your name. In this one case I will protect the guilty;-)

Or how about this one:

Well it seems that the word is out as to what happened at the calendar committee last Thursday (one of my bills was for all intense and purposes killed by the speaker and friends for what was quoted on this blog)but,thanks to some of my fellow blogers in the room and a few critical interns for said speaker confirming the story by trying to rub it in(oops!!) the Tennessian is doing a AP story about this blog site and the stir it has caused I guess blogers really do hear it first .Hopefully this will open some eyes of voters to problems legislators face as well as the power of this new media to some legislators.

I saw a bunch more yesterday, but didn’t snapshot them and they appear to have been corrected, so I’ll stop there.

Mr. Campfield, I applaud your efforts. Just please, at least use Microsoft Word’s spell checking, and if you feel extremely enterprising, hit Shift+F7 too. I get embarrassed for you every time I read your blog.

UPDATE: Rep. Campfield has responded with a completely reasonable point. (See comments). To that end, here is a quick primer.

1. Open up Microsoft Word. (Start / Run, then type “Winword” and hit Enter).
2. Type whatever you want to say.
3. You will see that your spelling mistakes are underlined in red, your grammar mistakes are underlined in green. (Right clicking will give you some choices to fix them).
4. Once you have it right, highlight it by dragging your mouse until it turns reverse (dark background, light letters).
5. Copy the text by pressing “CTRL” and while holding that down, press “C” (or you can right click the mouse and choose “copy” or you can choose “Edit” from the menu and choose “copy.”
6. Paste it into your blog text area by pressing “CTRL” and while holding that down, press “V” (or right click and choose “paste”).

If that’s too much work, so be it. But there it is, now you know how. :-)

Oh, one more thing. Spell check only fixes spelling errors. “Isle” instead of “aisle” or “story’s” instead of “stories” will show up as green (grammar) not red (spelling).

UPDATE again: Wow. It just got even easier. Since you are using blogger as your blog host, go here and it tells you how to do it. One click is all it takes, right inside the blogger editing interface!!! Cool. But remember, it only makes sure that what you typed is a correctly spelled word, not that it is used correctly.

The new stadium at the Fisher Cats Ballpark is almost ready, but there is one big test remaining. What happens if all of the toilets are flushed, can the system handle it? Enter, the “Little Leaguers from Manchester East, North, Central and West as well as Bedford and Derry”:

With that remote possibility in mind, an important test — the Super Flush — takes place tomorrow at the new city-owned stadium. And the Fisher Cats management has recruited Little Leaguers to be on hand to flush toilets — all 103 of them — in synchronization.

“Young boys like to flush toilets for whatever reason,” said Shawn Smith, president and general manager of the New Hampshire Fisher Cats. The Super Flush is advised in order to clear any impurities out of the system.

Kiruba Shankar, India’s top blogger, is pressing the end button:

I didn’t start this to make money. But now, I’m too preoccupied with Google Adwords and how to make more money.

I didn’t start this to build big traffic. But now, I’m too preoccupied analyzing traffic patterns and how to build them further.

I didn’t start this to become India’s top blogger or to be the most influential one. But now that I have, I’m too preoccupied retaining that position.

Obviously, somewhere I lost focus. And I quite don’t like that.

Why can’t you pay attention anymore?:

Dr. Edward Hallowell, a psychiatrist who’s studied attention deficit disorder for more than a decade, has identified a related disorder he calls attention deficit trait, and he says it’s reaching epidemic proportions in the corporate world. Unlike attention deficit disorder, or ADD, people aren’t born with ADT. It’s the result, he contends, of the modern workplace, where the constant and relentless chatter coming from our computers, phones and other high-tech devices is diluting our mental powers.

From Scrappleface:

Attorney George Felos today said that his client, Michael Schiavo, entered the 11th day of depriving his wife of food and water looking peaceful and “as beautiful as I’ve seen him in years.”

Via David Limbaugh.

Short, Sad Life Of Terri Schiavo. Check out this paragraph:

Michael Schiavo, who was at the bedside of his wife Terri when she died, told Larry King that he lives now with another woman with whom he has two children.

(For those still not awake yet this morning, Terri is not dead yet).

Via Wizbang.

As Drudge, the AP and others headline things like “Jesse Jackson to the Rescue,” one has to wonder about his timing.

Why would he come now?

It seems that doctors indicate that her organs are failing and even a reinsertion at this point may not save her. If he cares so much, why did he not step up earlier?

I have to admit, I’m skeptical of his motives with regard to the timing. I’m glad he is standing for Terri here, but a bit earlier would have been more effective in saving her life (possibly by swaying some votes in the Floriday legislature, as Sen. Daniel Webster noted), even if not as effective from a PR standpoint for Mr. Jackson himself.

Am I the only one wondering?

I guess it’s time for a comment policy. Here it is, short and sweet.

1. This is our blog and we reserve the right to remove or edit any comment for any reason at any time.
2. Reasons that we would likely remove a comment include, but are not limited to, the following.

• Name calling. “Stupid” “Idiot” “Moron” etc. Let’s stick to discussing ideas, not attacking the individuals behind those ideas.
• Threatening wishes or statements. “You should have your feeding tube removed.” “You should burn in hell” - you get the picture.
• The comment is stupid, idiotic or moronic and doesn’t contribute to the discussion at all.

We encourage discourse from those who disagree with any of our posts, just do it rationally and be respectful of the various authors on Myopic Zeal and our commenters and readers. If dialogue is respectful and reasoned, we can all learn from each other and gain new perspectives.

Anyone want a hug?

There’s a funny tussle going on in Texas. It essentially boils down to:

Governor Rick Perry: “Hutchison said nice things about Hillary”

Senator Kay Baily Hutchison: “You did too, in 1993.”

CNN is reporting the following:

The lead lawyer for Terri Schiavo’s parents filed an emergency petition with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta late Tuesday, contending he has found a new argument to have Schiavo’s feeding tube reinserted.

The petition submitted by attorney David Gibbs said the federal judges who rejected the previous efforts to have Schiavo’s feeding tube reinserted violated a Supreme Court precedent that requires them to consider the full record, not just the procedural history from the state court.

Maybe they haven’t given up.

Court agrees to review.

In other Terri news, check out this offer from CodeBlueBlog.

To prove my point I am offering $100,000 on a $25,000 wager for ANY neurologist (and $125,000 for any neurologist/bioethicist) involved in Terri Schiavo’s case–including all the neurologists reviewed on television and in the newspapers who can accurately single out PVS patients from functioning patients with better than 60% accuracy on CT scans.

I will provide 100 single cuts from 100 different patient’s brain CT’s. All the neurologist has to do is say which ones represent patients with PVS and which do not.

If the neurologist can be right 6 out of 10 times he wins the $100,000.

UPDATE: Michelle has picked up the CodeBlue offer, as have Jeff Blogworthy and Xrlq.

Lawmaker Wants Teachers In Hawaii Weighed For Obesity:

A state lawmaker has suggested Hawaii’s public schoolteachers be forced to weigh in as part of the fight against obesity in students, KITV in Honolulu reported.

State Rep. Rida Cabanilla introduced a resolution in the house requesting that the Board of Education establish an obesity database among public schoolteachers.

“You cannot keep a kid to a certain standard that you yourself is not willing to keep,” Cabanilla said.

It seems to me that efforts should be focused on whether they are teaching well and have appropriate academic skills rather than eating well.

If you haven’t checked out The Empire Journal’s work on the Schiavo case, here’s a link to all of their articles. They’ve done a lot of work here.

Here is something from Monday that I missed:

In a stunning revelation by a reliable informant who spoke on condition of anonymity, The Empire Journal learned late Sunday that while the Schiavo case was still pending in the Florida courts, the law clerk to DCA Chief Judge Chris W. Altenbernd was allegedly unethically discussing the case in public, a gross violation of the Florida Code of Judicial Conduct which should have immediately disqualified Altenbernd from all future involvement in the Schiavo case including his recent denials in the case, if not his removal from judicial office.

The Colorado Court’s decision to overturn the death sentence conviction because some of the jurors consulted the Bible is generating a bit of discussion around the web. (Here is the actual court ruling in pdf).

Or, said another way, the court has ruled to discriminate against jurors with poor memories (see the dissenting opinion highlighted below).

In a sharply divided ruling, Colorado’s highest court on Monday upheld a lower court’s decision throwing out the sentence of a man who was given the death penalty after jurors consulted the Bible in reaching a verdict. The Bible, the court said, constituted an improper outside influence and a reliance on what the court called a “higher authority.”

“The judicial system works very hard to emphasize the rarified, solemn and sequestered nature of jury deliberations,” the majority said in a 3-to-2 decision by a panel of the Colorado Supreme Court. “Jurors must deliberate in that atmosphere without the aid or distraction of extraneous texts.”

Check out what James Joyner has to say here.

Presumably, people who would consult the Bible for clues in how to weigh delicate moral issues are deeply religious. What if the same people had relied on their understanding of religious teaching but without actually looking anything up in the book? Would that be permissible? I’m guessing yes. What’s the difference, exactly?

Presumably, jurors in Colorado can refer to notes or, for example, a judge’s written instrtuctions in order to clarify questions they might have. Thus, this is not an injuction against jurors with bad memories.

And Jeffrey over at ThreeBadFingers has a stinging review.

As I read this, jurors are expected to take from their experiences, convictions, backgrounds and beliefs to make reasoned judgment and moral decision, so long as the source of that reasoned judgment and moral decision is not distracting or prejudicial, unless it is recalled from memory without assistance of written text, because written text may carry to much authority, producing certainty in one’s own moral decision and reasoned judgment. Ah, now it is clear. Certainly this is Judicial Reasoning at its finest.

Note that the dissenting judges in the case had the following to say:

To this end, the court instructed the jurors to “apply [their] reasoned judgment in deciding whether the situation calls for life imprisonment or the imposition of the death penalty” (emphasis added). The court further told the jurors that “you must still all make a further individual moral assessment of whether you have been convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that the death penalty, instead of life in prison, is the appropriate punishment for [Harlan] in this case” (emphasis added). As such, the jury instructions squarely directed the jurors to consider their moral and religious precepts, as well as their general knowledge, when making a reasoned judgment about whether or not to impose the death penalty.

The biblical passages at issue here constituted either a part of the jurors’ moral and religious precepts or their general knowledge, and therefore were relevant to the jurors’ court-sanctioned individual moral assessment.

And this…

However, by choosing to define the written version of these commonly known biblical passages as “a higher authority,” the majority elevates form over substance. Many people know large parts of the Bible by heart and can quote certain passages verbatim with persuasive alacrity, particularly when the ideas in those passages are as widespread and generally known as those referenced here. It is without doubt that a juror may relate passages of scripture from memory during deliberations, and that such recitation would not even be considered extraneous, much less prejudicial. It makes little sense, therefore, that the exact same passage in written form is somehow enshrined with an authority that the spoken or remembered passage lacks. In so holding, the majority puts death penalty jurors in an impossible bind; jurors are instructed to make the ultimate decision about life or death based on their individual moral assessment – so long as their individual moral assessments are made from memory.

Red State Law Blog has more:

The Secular Taliban strikes again. They won’t be happy until religion is extirpated from our society and culture. I am not a big fan of the death penalty, but I am deeply disturbed by decisions like this that treat discussion of Bible verses by jurors as unlawful.

TenPal comments on Three Bad Fingers’ discussion:

Three Bad Fingers covers more judicial fun as we swear on the Bible, then use tongs to remove it from the courtroom because it is “distracting and prejudicial” (I can think of one bad finger that will do here).

BlogBat, in a post titled “Jurors Gone Wild” has this to say:

Never mind the numerous biblical references made by the defense in the trial along with those of their own witnesses and the defendant himself, apparently biblical morality can only be consulted to get a person out of a conviction. Also never mind the fact jurors are instructed to use their personal value systems as moral guidance in their decisions.

Legal XXX also has an opinion:

I’m tempted to chalk this up to judicial arrogance, but arrogance at least sometimes has the veil of intelligence.

If you haven’t read it yet, check out Nat Hentoff’s piece.

She is not brain-dead or comatose, and breathes naturally on her own. Although brain-damaged, she is not in a persistent vegetative state, according to an increasing number of radiologists and neurologists.

Among many other violations of her due process rights, Terri Schiavo has never been allowed by the primary judge in her case—Florida Circuit Judge George Greer, whose conclusions have been robotically upheld by all the courts above him—to have her own lawyer represent her.

Greer has declared Terri Schiavo to be in a persistent vegetative state, but he has never gone to see her. His eyesight is very poor, but surely he could have visited her along with another member of his staff. Unlike people in a persistent vegetative state, Terri Schiavo is indeed responsive beyond mere reflexes.

…

Michael Schiavo, who says he loves and continues to be devoted to Terri, has provided no therapy or rehabilitation for his wife (the legal one) since 1993. He did have her tested for a time, but stopped all testing in 1993.

…

Terri Schiavo has never had an MRI or a PET scan, nor a thorough neurological examination.

…

Frist added: “The attorneys for Terri’s parents have submitted 33 affidavits from doctors and other medical professionals,all of whom say that Terri should be re-evaluated.”

…

As an atheist, I cannot speak to what he describes as his abandoned wife’s ultimate destination, but I can tell how Wesley Smith (consultant to the Center for Bioethics and Culture)—whom I often consult on these bitterly controversial cases because of his carefully researched books and articles—describes death by dehydration.

In his book Forced Exit (Times Books), Wesley quotes neurologist William Burke: “A conscious person would feel it [dehydration] just as you and I would. . . . Their skin cracks, their tongue cracks, their lips crack. They may have nosebleeds because of the drying of the mucous membranes, and heaving and vomiting might ensue because of the drying out of the stomach lining.

“They feel the pangs of hunger and thirst. Imagine going one day without a glass of water! . . . It is an extremely agonizing death.”

…

Contrary to what you’ve read and seen in most of the media, due process has been lethally absent in Terri Schiavo’s long merciless journey through the American court system.

“As to legal concerns,” writes William Anderson—a senior psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and a lecturer at Harvard University—”a guardian may refuse any medical treatment, but drinking water is not such a procedure. It is not within the power of a guardian to withhold, and not in the power of a rational court to prohibit.”

And check out this column from Friday by Joe Ford in the Harvard Crimson.

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.

…

Essentially, then, we have arrived at the point where we starve people to death because he or she cannot communicate their experiences to us. What is this but sheer egotism? Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, this is obviously an attempt to play God.

…

Besides being disabled, Schiavo and I have something important in common, that is, someone attempted to terminate my life by removing my endotracheal tube during resuscitation in my first hour of life. This was a quality-of-life decision: I was simply taking too long to breathe on my own, and the person who pulled the tube believed I would be severely disabled if I lived, since lack of oxygen causes cerebral palsy. (I was saved by my family doctor inserting another tube as quickly as possible.) The point of this is not that I ended up at Harvard and Schiavo did not, as some people would undoubtedly conclude. The point is that society already believes to some degree that it is acceptable to murder disabled people.

Others commenting on these articles include
GOP3
Irish Elk
Graham Lester

UPDATE: Another perspective, via Patterico.

For a libertarian, the crux of the Terri Schiavo case is the woman’s own preferences; and of course, her preferences are a matter of dispute. That’s why, of all the plug-pulling cases in the country, it’s this one that’s become so polarizing: Each side can project its own wishes onto a woman who can’t speak for herself.