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An excerpt from last Sunday's 60 Minutes segment, "The Cost of Dying": Charlie Haggart is 68 years old and suffering from liver and kidney failure. He wants a double transplant, which would cost about $450,000. But doctors have told him he's currently too weak to be a candidate for the procedure. At a meeting with Haggart's family and his doctors, Dr. Byock raised the awkward question of what should be done if he got worse and his heart or lungs were to give out. He said that all of the available data showed that CPR very rarely works on someone...

In a world going increasingly off the rails, we offer these occasional rants and reality checks as a public service. Just how mad is the world? Or rather, how much madder is it since our last rant (what, three days ago?)? More importantly, is it correct grammar to nest question marks like we just did? We'll discuss some recent happenings, and you can decide for yourself. Item: A particular brand of baby crib has been on the market from 1993 to 2008. That's 15 years. It comes to light just now, a year after the model has been discontinued, that...

In case you hadn’t heard, the US Marxist Party’s Senate vote to ostensibly “continue debate” on its draconian version of “we will now control everything you say and do” ObamaCare proposed bill passed by 60-39—along straight party lines. The last minute purchase of corrupt Marxist-Democrat Senator votes (with OUR tax money) at over $100Millions a pop clenched the deal. The ObamaGov is placing the final nails in the coffin of our Republic and is replacing it with its onerous and totalitarian Marxist presence.

Germans don't want KSM or the other turds to die.

I'm usually adept at catching the embedded politics, in tv and movies, and I usually change the station or turn it off when I do. Tonight was the first time, and I was taken aback by it, that I discerned such tactics in the series "Bones"

Capital punishment is back in the news. There were actually those who protested the execution of mass-murdering Islamic terrorist John Muhammad, just as there will, no doubt, be those who protest the execution of mass-murdering Islamic terrorist Nidal Malik Hasan. More alarming to me is what appears to be an increase in people saying that capital punishment doesn't square with their "Christian faith." Let's get something straight: There are few things the Bible is more clear about than the fact that God commands us to put murderers to death. Not only does he command it, but he says that failure...

Bisphenol-A, a chemical found in hard, clear plastic used to make everything from baby bottles to food packaging, may increase the risk of erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems in male factory workers exposed to large amounts of the substance, according to a study conducted in China. The health effects of BPA have been hotly debated; although some studies have linked BPA to a risk of brain damage, birth defects, hyperactivity, heart disease, early puberty, obesity, and prostate cancer, other research suggests that the low level of exposure from plastics doesn't pose a health risk to adults. (The picture is...

Like his neighbors, Jonathan Bird had grown tired of hearing tires squeal on the street outside his Wylie home. When the 28-year-old confronted five teens about the annoyance just before midnight Saturday, they responded by beating him to death on a neighbor's lawn, police say. Four of the five suspects charged with murder are 16 years old. Their names are being withheld because they are minors. The fifth suspect is 17-year-old Ethan Dorris of Wylie.

Islamists in southern Somalia have stoned a man to death for adultery but spared his pregnant girlfriend until she gives birth. Abas Hussein Abdirahman, 33, was killed in front of a crowd of some 300 people in the port town of Merka. An official from the al-Shabab group said the woman would be killed after she has had her baby. Islamist groups run much of southern Somalia, while the UN-backed government only control parts of the capital. This is the third time Islamists have stoned a person to death for adultery in the past year. Al-Shabab official Sheikh Suldan Aala...

TAMPA - One photograph shows a beautiful baby girl with a fat, happy face. Another shows a dead 5-month-old with sunken eyes. She weighed 6 pounds. Her autopsy showed no body fat. Without being told it's the same child, you'd never be able to tell. When Polk County investigators responded to a call Sunday about a baby not breathing at the Lakeland home of Tivasha Logan and Chauncey Gardner, they found more beer than baby food, Sheriff Grady Judd said. There only were about 2 ounces of formula inside the one can they saw.

Pregnant women are considered at high risk for suffering complications or death from the new H1N1 pandemic swine flu. So they’re near the top of the list for getting vaccinated. A new international study calculates that up to 400 out of every million pregnant women who receive such swine-flu shots will experience a miscarriage within 24 hours.

LOGAN COUNTY, W.Va. (WSAZ) -- A body has been discovered underneath a bridge in Logan County. The county's EMS director says emergency crews have been out all night looking for a 56-year-old man who lived at a local nursing home. The man went missing around 10:30 p.m. Monday night. Right now, crews are trying to identify the body that was found in the river underneath the Middleburg Island Bridge, but they do believe this is all connected. Family members tell WSAZ.com Charles "David" Milon, 56, of Logan County, went missing from the Logan Center late last night and they believe...

Did you catch the Death=Change=Obama joke? LOL!

As Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger once said so well, one major difference between Protestants and Catholics is that Catholics pray for the dead: "My view is that if Purgatory did not exist, we should have to invent it." Why? "Because few things are as immediate, as human and as widespread—at all times and in all cultures—as prayer for one"s own departed dear ones." Calvin, the Reformer of Geneva, had a woman whipped because she was discovered praying at the grave of herson and hence was guilty, according to Calvin, of superstition". "In theory, the Reformation refuses to accept Purgatory, and...

Is This Haunting Picture Proof That Chimps Really DO Grieve? MICHAEL HANLON 27th October 2009 [Pic in URL] United in what appears to be deep and profound grief, a phalanx of more than a dozen chimpanzees stood in silence watching from behind the wire of their enclosure as the body of one of their own was wheeled past. This extraordinary scene took place recently at the Sanaga-Yong Chimpanzee Rescue Center in Cameroon, West Africa. When a chimp called Dorothy, who was in her late 40s, died of heart failure, her fellow apes seemed to be stricken by sorrow. Enlarge Chimpanzees...

I awakened the other morning from a dream to a vivid certainty. The certainty is that America is in mortal danger. Our country has reached a pivot point in its national existence, and the American people must now decide whether this country will be victorious or join the long line of historically vanquished nations. Here is the dream:

The Sweet Singer's verse is concerned to a large extent with total abstinence and violent death -- the great Chicago fire, the railway disaster of Ashtabula, the Civil War, the yellow fever epidemic in the South. She sings death by drowning, by smallpox, by fits, accidents by lightning-stroke and sleigh. "Julia is worse than a Gatling gun," wrote Bill Nye; "I have counted twenty-one killed and nine wounded, in the small volume she has given to the public." She also greatly relishes normal infant mortality, especially in cases where the little victim possesses blue eyes and curling golden hair; but...

The US government is on an unsustainable path. Deficits are soaring and the Obama administration is planning massive tax hikes. Moreover, businesses have little reason to hire already because of massive overcapacity. Add increasing health care costs to the list of reasons for businesses not to hire. Given that government spending crowds out private investment, these policies all but assures that unemployment is going to remain high for a long time as noted in Structurally High Unemployment For A Decade. Killing The Goose Last week in Thoughts on the Economy: Problems and Solutions I listed the problems and some of...

The God Chasers by Tommy Tenney Book Excerpt & Commentary I recently finished THE SHACK by William P Young and HE LOVES ME by Wayne Jacobsen. I found both of them deeply moving, Biblical, edifying and helpful in drawing me closer to God. Subsequently, a Navy Friend/ Christian Bro of 30+ years read me the riot act about THE SHACK. I found his rants about “heresy” completely without substance. Turns out he had not read it. Sheesh. It is, after all, a NOVEL! And, I found it exceedingly Biblical. Some important Biblical truths, doctrines are affirmed with a sentence...

Caroline Schermerhorn, a longtime writer for Envoy Magazine, died of cancer on September 11, 2009. A young wife and mother of six, she was always happy and laughing and cheerfully at the center of so many circles of family, friends, and parish life. That she is gone now is an ache I feel every day; many times throughout the day. I cannot begin to imagine the anguish her husband, children, and family have been experiencing at her loss. I only worked with her. They lived with her. If I feel an ache, the pain they are feeling now must be...

After the mortgage business imploded last year, Wall Street investment banks began searching for another big idea to make money. They think they may have found one. The bankers plan to buy “life settlements,” life insurance policies that ill and elderly people sell for cash — $400,000 for a $1 million policy, say, depending on the life expectancy of the insured person. Then they plan to “securitize” these policies, in Wall Street jargon, by packaging hundreds or thousands together into bonds. They will then resell those bonds to investors, like big pension funds, who will receive the payouts when people...

I discovered George Osborne was younger than me. Only by two months. But still: younger George Osborne's Tory conference speech last week left me in a state of shredded despair. Not because of anything he said, but because I'd just discovered he's younger than me. Only by two months, but still: younger. In a correctly functioning universe, my advanced age would make me his superior. If I deliberately knocked a glass of milk on to the floor, he'd have to clean it up. He'd be on all fours, scrubbing desperately at the floorboards while I sat back in my chair,...

A former Cottonwood man who served 10 years on Texas death row until his murder conviction was overturned last year by an appellate court was killed Saturday in a solo truck crash in eastern Texas. Michael Toney, a 43-year-old Redding native, was killed when his pickup, which had oversized tires, rolled while going around a curve on Farm Road 347 in the rain Saturday morning, a spokeswoman with the Texas Department of Public Safety in Jacksonville said Monday. He was thrown from the pickup and died at the scene, she said. Toney, who had long maintained his innocence, was released...

After World War II, the U.S. government invested an enormous amount of money in medicine; medical research, medical procedures and medical technologies. This investment made contemporary scientific medicine into American medicine, characterized by a continuing flow of new treatment possibilities. These advances raised all kinds of ethical questions. Some were personal and individual, others were social and political. Both type questions are addressed by a new academic discipline called bioethics. The first attempt to develop a scientific medicine took place in Greece in the 5th century B.C. It was called Hippocratic medicine. Closely linked with this first scientific medicine was...

John Couey, convicted of killing 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, had died of cancer, according to Jessie's grandfather, Archie Lunsford. "We got a call from the warden this morning," said Lunsford. Mark's mother, Ruthie, said this "is the best news she has heard." Couey, 51, had been in Florida State Prison near Jacksonville. He died 11:15 a.m. today at a Jacksonville hospital, state Department of Corrections spokeswoman Gretl Plessinger said. "So far, no one has claimed his body," she said. "If no one claims it, he'll be buried in an inmate cemetery at Union Correctional Institution in Starke."

A TEENAGER died and more than 20 people were injured when swarms of bees escaped from their hives after the van transporting them crashed into a truck and overturned on a motorway near the resort of Marmaris, in southern Turkey. Rescue workers, police, medics and beekeepers tried for more than an hour to release two people trapped inside the vehicle, their faces carpeted with angry bees. One of the pair, aged 18, died in hospital from the combined effect of injuries sustained in the crash and multiple bee stings. Three others were in intensive care in hospital. About 20 people...

Health officials have confirmed that a fifth person, a 16-year-old, has died from the swine flu in Dallas County. WFAA-TV reported that the teen was a student at Berkner High School in Richardson. A Richardson school district spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment this morning.

Yes, there are death panels. Its members won't even know whose deaths they are causing. But under the health care bill sponsored by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, Montana Democrat, death panels will indeed exist - oh so cleverly disguised as accountants. The offending provision is on Pages 80-81 of the unamended Baucus bill....

Key Senate health bill's deadly fine print

Army officials still are not releasing any information about the death of a decorated Kansas Army National Guard member nearly two months after his body was found at Fort Sill, Okla. On his 36th birthday, 1st Lt. Jeremy Clawson was found dead July 21 along a road near one of the firing ranges at his post in Fort Sill, Okla., according to The Associated Press. His death is being investigated by the post's Criminal Investigation Division. ----------advertisement----------- After being activated by the Guard in December 2008, 1st Lt. Clawson arrived at Fort Sill in January and was assigned to the...

When animals die, their corpses exude a particular "stench of death" which repels their living relatives, scientists have discovered. Corpses of animals as distantly related as insects and crustaceans all produce the same stench, caused by a blend of simple fatty acids. The smell helps living animals avoid others that have succumbed to disease or places where predators lurk.

On Wednesday, August 12, a man holding a sign that said “Death to Obamaâ€� at a town hall meeting in Maryland was detained and turned over to the Secret Service for questioning, which is pursuing an investigation into charging him with threatening the president. As well they should. I fully and absolutely agree with this arrest, since anyone who threatens the president is breaking the law and should be prosecuted. It doesn’t matter that Obama was not at the meeting nor that the man was unarmed: the threat all on its own is a federal crime, according to the United...

Leg size may be a more accurate indicator of risks than the waistline. We know having a large waistline is unhealthy. But larger thighs, it appears, may protect against heart disease and premature death. A study published on BMJ.com, the website of the British Medical Journal, found that men and women whose thighs are less than 23.6 inches have a higher risk of premature death and heart disease compared with those with thighs exceeding that size. Having thighs that are even bigger, however, confers no added benefit. The study is the first to suggest that thigh size matters. The measurement...

Since the near collapse of Wall Street from the sub-prime mortgage crisis, traders have been jonesing for a return to the adrenaline rush they once enjoyed from the slew of exotic financial instruments cooked up in the dark recesses of special hedge fund units. And according to a piece in the New York Times, they have found it with a ghoulish scheme gambling on death, by repackaging life insurance policies sold for a fraction of their worth by sick and desperate elderly people. Once people die, the investors make money. And it’s much more profitable if you die sooner rather...

Journal of the American Medical Association Vol. 302 No. 1, July 1, 2009 The Obligation to Participate in Biomedical Research G. Owen Schaefer, BA; Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD; Alan Wertheimer, PhD JAMA. 2009;302(1):67-72. Abstract: The current prevailing view is that participation in biomedical research is above and beyond the call of duty. While some commentators have offered reasons against this, we propose a novel public goods argument for an obligation to participate in biomedical research. Biomedical knowledge is a public good, available to any individual even if that individual does not contribute to it. Participation in research is a...

Death shock kills 33 G.S. RADHAKRISHNA AND G.C. SHEKHAR Hyderabad/Chennai, Sept. 3: Thirty-three supporters of Y.S. Rajasekhar Reddy, most of them poor farmers, died since they learnt about their leader’s death this morning. Some committed suicide while others suffered cardiac arrests after confirmation that the Andhra Pradesh chief minister’s helicopter had crashed, killing him and the four others on board. The casualties are among the highest reported after a popular leader’s demise or misfortune in the south, where such incidents are not unheard of. In neighbouring Tamil Nadu, two dozen supporters of M.G. Ramachandran consumed poison or set themselves on...

to death on the NHS Patients with terminal illnesses are being made to die prematurely under an NHS scheme to help end their lives, leading doctors warn today. In a letter to The Daily Telegraph, a group of experts who care for the terminally ill claim that some patients are being wrongly judged as close to death. Under NHS guidance introduced across England to help doctors and medical staff deal with dying patients, they can then have fluid and drugs withdrawn and many are put on continuous sedation until they pass away. But this approach can also mask the signs...

Deutsche Bank and other financial institutions manage complex funds that buy up Americans' life insurance policies and pay their premiums in return for their payouts. But angry German investors are finding that Americans aren't dying as quickly as expected -- and that only the bankers are making a buck.

It’s not my purpose or intent to list his sins and weaknesses or those of his brothers, John and Robert. But while these are mostly covered up or overlooked by the national media, all conservatives know the mistakes of a conservative become the focal point of much of their obituary. This is the double standard that the national media apply to liberals and conservatives. I wonder how many well-read readers or the general public know that Joseph Kennedy, the father of John, Robert, and Ted, in the 1930’s was a well-known anti-Semite and was an admirer of Adolph Hitler and...

Ezekiel J. Emanuel, Obamacare, and Death Panels by rayharvey on August 27, 2009 Poor misunderstood Ezekiel J. Emanuel. Ezekiel, if you don’t know, is the older brother of the statist Rahm Emanuel, and recently Ezekiel got his feeling hurt. In an interview he just gave the Associated Press, Monday (August 24th), Ezekiel said this: “I’m completely dumbfounded. I’ve been in academic disputes before, but I never thought I’d be disparaged on Sunday morning talk shows and in the papers, being distorted in ways that can only be described as willful and intentional.” What Ezekiel Emanuel is referring to here is...

BEIJING (AFP) – A pair of lead poisoning scandals affecting at least 2,000 children in China are just the latest in a seemingly endless string of pollution scares exposing the dark side of the nation's economic boom.

A new report commissioned by the International Atomic Energy Agency says that Iran's nuclear energy program may contain "military dimensions." In other words, the report states that Iran may be working towards acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. The report was issued just prior to the annual meeting of IAEA member states which is scheduled to convene next month in Vienna. A senior Iranian envoy angrily denounced the assessment as "fabrication," insisting his country has gone out of its way to be transparent and cooperative. The report alleges that Iran is refusing the agency's repeated requests for explanations and documentation over...

Torture-slayings trial, Day 9: Victim's families: Jury 'let us down' with Letalvis Cobbins verdict KNOXVILLE - The families of a young Knox County couple tortured and killed in January 2007 tonight sharply criticized a jury's decision to spare defendant Letalvis Cobbins the death penalty. "I think the jury has let us down," said Mary Newsom, mother of murder victim Chris Newsom. "I think they've let Channon and Chris down. We were hoping for the death penalty." After deliberating a little more than two hours, the jury delivered its verdict about 6:50 p.m. in Judge Richard Baumgartner's courtroom. The judge polled...

Jurors in Knoxville, Tenn., have begun hearing arguments in a trial over the grisly deaths of a white couple – allegedly at the hands of a gang of black men and one woman who tried to conceal DNA evidence by dousing one victim with bleach. According to court documents, the two were tied up, blindfolded and taken to one defendant's rental home. Shortly thereafter, Newsom was sexually assaulted, shot in the head, set on fire and his body was left beside railroad tracks. The attackers allegedly took 24 hours to kill Christian, raping her multiple times and spraying bleach in...

The first of four alleged members of a black gang scheduled to be tried for murder for the torture-slayings of a young white couple has been found guilty on multiple counts by jurors in Tennessee. WND reported just days ago when the trial was begun for Letalvis Cobbins on counts of first-degree murder and others for the 2007 deaths of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom. Carjacking victims Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom The brutalized bodies of the victims showed evidence that the attackers had tried to destroy DNA evidence by dousing Christian with bleach and Newsom's body was burned beyond...

A new web site claims to give the odds on you dying next year, or for whatever period you select, based on a few simple questions. The site, DeathRiskRankings.com, is the brainchild of researchers and students at Carnegie Mellon University. It provides answers based on publicly available data from the United States and Europe, comparing mortality risks by gender, age, cause of death and geographic region. Put your info in, and it produces the probable causes of your demise and provides insight on the timing of that unfortunate event. The site can compare such things as the odds of death...

It may be months before Ted Kennedy's U.S. Senate seat is filled, but it took only minutes Wednesday for the chatter to start over possible successors - among them his mourning widow, Victoria. The stakes are high. Kennedy's death now deprives Democrats of the 60-vote "supermajority" that the party could theoretically use to push through health care reform and other top item

<p>The death of Sen. Edward Kennedy quickly became a rallying cry for Congress to pass health care overhaul legislation.</p> <p>House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office sent an email to reporters at around 2:30 a.m. today, just hours after his death, calling for the passage of health care overhaul. “Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality health care for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration,” the statement read.</p>

In a case that's been widely ignored by the mainstream media, justice prevailed today as Letalvis Cobbins was found guilty of the vast majority of charges, including that of first-degree murder. Cobbins was one of a group of thugs who carjacked, then raped, tortured and murdered two Knoxville residents. For more on the story, see the Knoxville News-Sentinel. http://digg.com/d311xYc

Startlingly -- and wholly involuntarily — President Obama is teaching us that, as Thomas Jefferson often said, "the people are the ultimate guardians of their own liberty." The growing resistance to the president's goal of state-controlled health care is moving more of us to act on our constitutional power to protect our quintessential individual liberty -- to decide for ourselves how long we are going to stay on this Earth.