Suffer little children...

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Baby death panel dismisses claim

Two babies, both terminally ill, suffer violent and distressing body spasms (known as agonal gasping) in the last moments of their short lives. What would you expect a doctor to do?

Dr Michael Munro of Aberdeen Maternity Hospital gave the children a massive dose of Pancuronium, with the full approval of the parents, which relieved the agonising spasms but also hastened their deaths. A humane response, you might think, providing these poor children and their parents some dignity and peace as the end approached.

But it took a medical panel to decide that Dr Munro had not 'acted inappropriately' and it is still to decide whether 'Dr Munro's actions have impaired his fitness to practice'.

In yesterday's Times Melanie Reid wrote this about the case:
The breathing tube was removed and a course of morphine was begun. The babies began to struggle to breathe, a normal part of the dying process (emphasis mine) known as agonal gasping. Were we Victorians, we would know this. These days, however, how many of us are well versed in the dying process? And how many of us imagine we could calmly nurse our child as it gasped its way to death, without crying out for succour?

Well, I suspect I've witnessed more deaths than Ms Reid and she's flat wrong about agonal gasping. Reflex gasping is common (occurring after death) and there is sometimes a short period of 'gasping respiration' prior to death, but it is not normal. These babies might have suffered this distressing breathing pattern (which results in much more pronounced spasms in young babies than in adults) for several minutes or even longer. To suggest that what needed to be done was the instruction of the parents in the 'realities of death' is, frankly, crass.

My brother suffered agonal gasping (together with some other distressing behaviour) during his last moments. What should have been a peaceful slipping away at the end of a terminal illness was, instead, a horrific and traumatic spectacle for all concerned. I wish there had been a doctor there willing to ease his ending. How could it have been anything but the right thing to do?

UPDATE: Wednesday, 11/07/07.  I'm delighted to see that Dr Munroe was cleared at his 'fitness to practice' hearing earlier today and is now free to resume his post.


The wrong man topped himself

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Campbell reveals suicide thoughts
In his entry for 10 August 2003 he said he wondered "whether what I discovered on reading my own diary would be so awful that I would want to top myself".

Dr Kelly killed himself after being named as the source of a report into the government's Iraq dossier. Mr Campbell wrote that he had left a holiday home in France on 10 August 2003 to pick up the diary to put forward as evidence for the inquiry. "As I left the house, and said goodbye to Fiona (his partner), I did actually wonder momentarily whether it would be the last time I saw her, whether what I discovered on reading my own diary would be so awful that I would want to top myself. "It was only a passing thought, but it was there, and it came back several times as I drove down to Marseilles.

"I knew I had done nothing wrong, but in this climate, things had gone beyond reason, it was like a drama or a novel, and nobody had control of events."

Hey! It's never too late.

Mors Ab Alto

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Tom Englehardt: Carnage from the Air and the Washington Consensus

...Beyond all else, there is the American attitude towards air power itself -- and, beyond that, toward modern war when fought on the planetary "peripheries" (even if those peripheries turn out to be the oil heartlands of our world). From World War II, through Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan and Iraq, our air wars have always visited death and destruction on civilians. In a future in which it is highly unlikely that American troops will ever fight Russians or Chinese or the soldiers of any other major power in set-piece battles, imperial war is likely to continue to take place in heavily populated civilian areas against guerrillas and insurgents of various sorts. Don't take my word for it. The Pentagon thinks so too and is engaged in extensive planning for such future wars -- involving weapons that leave its soldiers "at a distance" in the burgeoning urban slums of our planet.

So perhaps a modicum of honesty is in order. Iraq and Afghanistan are already charnel houses, zones of butchery for the innocent. In both lands, it's possible to make a simple prediction: As bad as things already are, if present trends continue, if the "Korea model" becomes the model, it's going to get worse. We have yet to see anything like the full release of American air power in Afghanistan, no less in Iraq, but don't count it out.

We in the U.S. recognize butchery when we see it -- the atrocity of the car bomb, the chlorine-gas truck bomb, the beheading. These acts are obviously barbaric in nature. But our favored way of war -- war from a distance -- has, for us, been pre-cleansed of barbarism. Or rather its essential barbarism has been turned into a set of "errant incidents," of "accidents," of "mistakes" repeatedly made over more than six decades. Air power is, in the military itself, little short of a religion of force, impermeable to reason, to history, to examples of what it does (and what it is incapable of doing). It is in our interest not to see air war as a -- possibly the -- modern form of barbarism.

Ours is, of course, a callous and dishonest way of thinking about war from the air (undoubtedly because it is the form of barbarism, unlike the car bomb or the beheading, that benefits us). It is time to be more honest. It is time for reporters to take the words "incident," "mistake," "accident," "inadvertent," "errant," and "collateral damage" out of their reportorial vocabularies when it comes to air power. At the level of policy, civilian deaths from the air should be seen as "advertent." They are not mistakes or they wouldn't happen so repeatedly. They are the very givens of this kind of warfare.

Read the whole article (and while you are there, sign up for Tom's email updates or 'Tomgrams'.)





Hidden reasons

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Neil Harding -LABOUR-SUPPORTER

Some Myths about New Labour dispelled.

Blair is responsible for the Iraq War and the civilians who have died there.

With or without Blair's decision to support Bush over Iraq, the Iraq War was going to happen. In fact there is an argument that British involvement has reduced casualties, because UK soldiers had a much better relationship (at least at first) with the Iraqi civilians than did the more trigger happy US soldiers.

Blair does bear responsibility for the deaths of British soldiers but these were volunteer soldiers not conscripts. You shouldn't join the army if you don't want to fight in wars. Any soldier could have refused to go, it was their decision...

I...hoped that Blair had some hidden reason to justify his support of Bush (I still hope this will come out in the future) and that his support would garner some influence in other policy areas like climate change and debt cancellation. We do know that Blair stopped Bush bombing Al Jazeera, which would have been a terrible inflamation of the conflict and has probably saved many lives there, so that is some comfort. Blair's success in getting other concessions out of Bush's regime seems scant to say the least. We will have to wait and see to judge whether Blair's decision will have saved lives in the long term.


Ha, ha, ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha, ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha, ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha, ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha, ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha,ha, ha,ha,ha,ha....................................


Daytripper

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It's a public holiday in Aberdeen and it's been a gloriously warm and sunny day, so we drove the 16 or so miles south to Stronehaven to visit Dunnottar Castle. Scotland is a beautiful country and we're lucky to be so close to such a wonderful coastline. If only the weather could be like this every day...
Dunnottar Castle is a dramatic and evocative ruin. As you wander around the extensive buildings you are almost surrounded by sea with gulls and other seabirds wheeling and screaming around the cliffs below you. If the outline is a little familiar, this may be because Dunnottar Castle was the location for the 1990 film version of Hamlet starring Mel Gibson.


Even if there was no castle at Dunnottar, the site would immediately catch the eye - an enormous flat-topped rock with sheer cliffs on three sides. This site was chosen in Pictish times as place of strength and by Saint Ninian as a place of retreat. Dunnottar is more than a topographical curiosity since this rock and the buildings on it have reflected in miniature much of the rich and tragic story of Scottish history.


William Wallace, Mary Queen of Scots and the Marquis of Montrose have all graced the Castle with their presence. Most famously though, it was at Dunnottar Castle that a small garrison held out against the might of Cromwell's army for eight months and saved the Scottish Crown Jewels, the 'Honours of Scotland', from destruction.



More pictures here

You couldn't make it up

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Look who's coming to the 'rescue' of British Jews -

Richard Fucking Littlejohn! 
(Tonight, C4, 8pm)

I'm not sure if this pudding-faced, racist, homophobe's concern about anti-Semitism extends to Jews who happen to be gay as well, or African, we'll have to watch and see.

Also check out the posts at Jews sans Frontieres here, here and here.

And Johann Hari's excellent piece:
In one of his semi-literate columns this week, Dick Littlejohn says – yet again – that the left loves to “smear” him as racist, homophobic, sexist etc...spare us your lying bullshit about these facts being “a smear”, when you are happy to smear the victims of genocide as irrelevant tribal morons, smear gay people as closet paedophiles, and smear the supporters of gay equality as insane obsessives.



Up the shitter, for Christ's sake

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Anal Sex According to the Word of God
If you’re going to have sexual contact before marriage, why not just go the whole nine yards and have regular sex? There are many good reasons for having anal sex instead. The first reason is practical: having conventional vaginal intercourse can lead to unwanted pregnancies. While it’s true that the Lord bade us to “be fruitful and multiply,” (Gen 1:22) the Bible also counsels that “For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven.” (Ecl. 3:1) Pregnancy outside of wedlock can have dire and life-altering consequences for all those involved. Having anal sex allows you to greatly reduce this risk.

Second, for a young woman who has never engaged in sexual intercourse, having anal sex allows her to preserve her virginity (i.e., maintain an intact hymen) until marriage. There is no greater gift that a bride can give than to offer her pure, unsullied maidenhead to her husband on their wedding night.

Finally, anal sex allows both partners to save the most intimate and powerful sexual act, that of face-to-face vaginal intercourse, for their mates in marriage. This type of sexual relationship represents the most powerful union between a man and a woman, and so it rightfully should be reserved for one’s life partner. Fortunately, you can engage in anal sex prior to marriage and still be able to share the deeper, more meaningful act of consecrated love through vaginal intercourse with your wedded spouse.


Via Advice Goddess


628 to go

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Guardian Film - 1000 films

Via Justin
'Our team of experts has picked what we believe is the essential 1,000 films - those that best sum up the dazzling achievement and variety of the movies. '
A few of my favourites from the list: Double Indemnity, Soylent Green, Bad Day at Black Rock, The King of Comedy, The Lavender Hill Mob, The Taking of Pelham 123 and Bagdad Cafe.

I've managed to see just 372 of the 1000 which is a bit poor really. But I rarely visit the cinema anymore. I almost always end up wanting to throttle some noisy oik behind me. But we've got an account with Amazon DVD rental and our own 'mini-cinema'. The projector produces a very good image, better than a lot of multiplexes. Not exactly Cineworld, at just 84 inches, but if you sit close enough and turn the lights down...



And we dont have to pay ten quid for a packet of Maltesers!




Any chance of another commutation Mr President?

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Facing execution for driving a car
The State of Texas plans to execute Kenneth Foster Jr. August 30 for the 1996 murder of Michael LaHood Jr. What makes Foster’s case unique is that he killed no one--and the state of Texas is first to admit this. How is this possible? Texas’ Law of Parties, adopted in 1974, allows prosecutors to hold all those present legally responsible for a crime. Because Foster was driving the car carrying Mauriceo Brown the night Brown shot LaHood, prosecutors were able to try Kenneth as if he was the shooter. Texas is on track to perform its 400th execution since 1982 this summer...Texas is on track to perform its 400th execution since 1982 this summer. The case of Kenneth Foster Jr. - a Black man sent to death row for driving a car - is a testament to how rotten Texas’s machinery of death truly is.


Via Dvorak who had this to say about his link:

'Don’t anybody get hung up on the reporting source I used for this. In fact, it’s kind of interesting (and sad) that I couldn’t find a current, ‘regular’ news source that mentions this guy’s case. Guess it’s not news to execute one more poor, black guy no matter the reason.'