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Saturday, March 26, 2005
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"The old American republic is well and truly dead.": " Gore Vidal will turn 80 this fall, meaning we likely have only a short time left with one of our greatest and most underappreciated national treasures. For now, you shouldn't miss this interview with him, though fair warning: it won't make you feel particularly hopeful for the future of our country. Or, for that matter, the present. "
(Via apostropher.)
Must read!
There is also something in the water--let us hope it was put there by the enemy--that has made Americans contemptuous of intelligence whenever they recognize it, which is not very often. And a hatred of learning, which you don't find in any other country. There is not one hamlet in Italy in which you can fail to find kids desperate to learn. Yes, there are areas where they might be desperate to become members of the Mafia, but that's because they don't have any money. And a country like Italy is not rich, not as rich as we are. But there isn't a kid in Italy who can't quote Dante. There's no one in America now who knows who Shakespeare is, because they stopped teaching him in high schools.
1:09:15 PM 
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Assessing Awareness: "As Terri Schiavo remains in hospice care and without a feeding tube, new questions are being raised about her level of awareness. How is a 'persistent vegetative state' different from a 'minimally conscious state,' and how do neurologists diagnose the difference?"
(Via NPR's Talk of the Nation.)
A great discussion of the terms used in this discussion.
12:58:42 PM
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Man arrested for Michael Schiavo threat A man has been arrested and charged with offering a $250,000 reward for killing Michael Schiavo. Richard Alan Meywes was arrested in Fairview, North Carolina by the FBI and the Buncombe County Sheriff's Office. On March 23, the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office forwarded an email to the FBI in Tampa which purportedly offered a $250,000 bounty on 'the head of Michael Schiavo.' The email placed an additional $50,000 bounty for the elimination of a judge who recently denied a request to intervene in the Schiavo case.
"
(Via Oliver Willis - Like Kryptonite To Stupid.)
11:42:36 AM
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Jeb Bush's 'Culture of Life' In Deadly Action: " Jeb Bush is all for ‘life’…as long as it doesn’t get in the way of more tax cuts.
Agency probes group homes’ deaths: A federally funded watchdog group is investigating the recent deaths of four disabled Floridians amid an aggressive campaign by the state to cut millions of dollars from programs that provide medical care for disabled people in community settings.
Two developmentally disabled adults who lived in group homes in Brandon, and two others under the care of The ARC in St. Lucie County, have died since October 2004, a month after the state required the operator of the two Brandon group homes to change the way residents received nursing care.
A woman at one Brandon home developed such a severe infection at the site of her feeding tube that she has been hospitalized in intensive care since Feb. 13.
Will we see Randall Terry demonstrating about this outside the statehouse? Somehow I rather doubt it. "
(Via Discourse.net.)
11:39:43 AM
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© Copyright 2005 Steve Michel.
Last update: 4/19/2005; 3:45:28 PM.
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I love this stuff. Astronaut Leroy Chiao and Cosmonaut Salizhan Sharipov will spend six hours outside the International Space Station, beginning 1:25am ET on Monday.