A few weeks ago, in my post "Death....and the Left", I said this:

How far will Schindler v. Schiavo go in allowing guardians and the government in terminating the lives of disabled patients?  Although evidence was presented in court by numerous doctors testifying through affidavits that she was not legally classified as being in a persistent vegetative state and that it was possible for her condition to improve, the order to starve her to death went through anyway.  The time where judges won't have to consider PVS for a death order to stand is coming sooner rather than later.

Well, it looks like that scenario did indeed came sooner rather than later.  The LaGrange (Ga) Daily News is reporting on another story where a family is desperately trying to save a 81-year old woman's life after she had her feeding tube taken out.

According to her nephew, Kenneth Mullinax, Mae Magourik hasn't eaten or received fluids since March 28th, and the hospice is keeping her sedated on morphine and ativan.

There's a problem, however (from World Net Daily):

According to Mullinax, his aunt's local cardiologist in LaGrange, Dr. James Brennan, and Dr. Raed Agel, a highly acclaimed cardiologist at the nationally renowned University of Alabama-Birmingham Medical Center, determined that her aortic dissection is contained and not life-threatening at the moment.

Mullinax also states that Gaddy did not hold power of attorney, a fact he learned from the hospice's in-house legal counsel, Carol Todd

GHPCO is a committed member and supporter of the Georgia Collaborative to Improve End of Life Care, a partnership of providers, academics, business leaders and community members that has worked together for the past 5 years to improve end of life care in Georgia. The accomplishments of the Collaborative include community education through Georgia Health Decisions' CRITICAL Conditions program; support of physician, nurse and allied health provider end of life education and training; outreach to community organizations; research on current practices and the Emmy award-winning documentary Final Choices: Changing a Culture. 

When I read the WSJ editorial praising the Justice Department for the job they had done on the Sandy Berger case on Thursday, I was a bit skeptical, but I didn't think it was anything worth noting.

In today's editorial, however, not only does it seem as if they're doing damage control on the behalf of the Justice Department, but they took a knock at doubting conservatives:

The confusion seems to stem from the mistaken idea that there were handwritten notes by various Clinton Administration officials in the margins of these documents, which Mr. Berger may have been able to destroy. But that's simply an "urban myth," prosecutor Hillman tells us, based on a leak last July that was "so inaccurate as to be laughable." In fact, the five iterations of the anti-terror "after-action" report at issue in the case were printed out from a hard drive at the Archives and have no notations at all.

and later:

Meanwhile, conservatives don't do themselves any credit when they are as impervious to facts as the loony left.

It seems as if the WSJ wanted to make this a mix between a news article and editorial.  However, it would have been better served as a news article, minus the commentary.

However, through it's editorializing the WSJ places the cart before the horse.  After all, informing readers about the facts while claiming they are being "impervious to facts" in the same piece doesn't make much sense, unless this assertion had been reported before.  WSJ never resported a statement like this previously, nor has any other media outlet - at least any that I've known - disputed any notes possibly destroyed by Berger.

Also, for Hillman to simply dismiss the note controversy as an "urban myth" is hot garbage.  People didn't make this up out of hot air.

The Washington Post:

The government source said the Archives employees were deferential toward Berger, given his prominence, but were worried when he returned to view more documents on Oct. 2. They devised a coding system and marked the documents they knew Berger was interested in canvassing, and watched him carefully. They knew he was interested in all the versions of the millennium review, some of which bore handwritten notes from Clinton-era officials who had reviewed them. At one point an Archives employee even handed Berger a coded draft and asked whether he was sure he had seen it.

If people were engaging in an urban myth, it was due to the information reported by the press, and Hillman waited until now to respond to it.  It was his failure to respond to the allegations that allowed for these "myths" to foster for so long.

Maybe the WSJ and the Justice Department is correct in stating Berger wasn't trying to engage in a cover up for the Clinton Administration.  However, that's still no excuse for giving him a slap on the wrist for stealing and destroying documents from the National Archives.  I still say Berger should have his Archive privilege taken permanently, and possibly some jail time added as well.

But as I said before, I'm not holding my breath.

- Now that college basketball is over, I'll be preparing for the NBA Playoffs.  I know I haven't mentioned the NBA much with the exception of the trade deadline, but I'll get into it soon.

- After the Finals, I don't know what will happen next.  I'm not into baseball as much, so mostly talk will be about offseason acquisitions until college football and NFL preseason starts up.  I tell ya; June-August is the longest period of the year sports-wise.

- I'm trying to find a new name for my blog.  "Expertise's Politics and Sports Blog" is simply too long and too basic.  I'm looking for something a little more creative.  If you have a suggestion, let me know.

- I'm trying to increase my posts daily, but there is only so much you can talk about that's actually interesting and hasn't been talked to death by the rest of the blogosphere within an hour of the news breaking.  Luckily I am up late at night, so I get a fresh look at the newspaper websites, but even then there is only so much you can talk about.

- I'll be the first to tell you that I don't have the largest readership in the blogosphere, but for the ones that do come on a regular basis, thanks.  I appreciate it and I hope you'll continue to visit.  Feel free to comment and to place your John Hancock on the tagboard.

Throughout the day there has been a lot of talk in regards to the news that the memo was traced to a member of Florida Senator Mel Martinez's office.

Over at National Review's The Corner, Jonah Goldberg said this:

I think it's probably good news -- or at least there's a positive side to the fact -- that the memo turned out to be real. It will probably caution some bloggers that simply because something is politically inconvenient and doesn't have an obvious explanation, that doesn't mean there's a dishonest liberal/media conspiracy at work. Better to learn that sort of lesson on a minor episode like this than something that grabs more attention.

But the question is, what did we learn?  While there's no question that a number of bloggers went a tad overboard once it was found out that ABC News and the Washington Post could not verify the statements they made in their respective articles on this topic, that doesn't mean Darling's admission vindicates them. 

They still couldn't verify any of their statements before Darling's admission.  Usually a journalist writes an article based on facts he/she can verify beforehand to be true, and the MSM didn't do that in this case.  ABC News or the WP couldn't do this, or they would have done so within a couple of days after being challenged (and a couple of days is actually giving them more time than is really needed).  Thus, they aren't off the hook.

Tim Graham responds appropriately:

The real lesson of the Schiavo memo is this: to the liberal media, every piece of internal Republican communication is potential news meat, especially if it can be used to make Republicans look bad. (Hopefully, freshman legislators learn this at orientation...) Every internal Democratic memo leak is clearly a Republican plot that should not see the light of day. The Washington Post and assorted other liberal apple-polishers may have accuracy on their side on this one, but they don't have balance.

And contrast the reaction of the media with the Schiavo memo and the Rockerfeller memo.  The media didn't initially care who created the Schiavo memo and more or less assumed it was geniune based on the word of the Democrats.  That, after all, is what started this whole fracas, because they couldn't back up their article when challenged and in some cases backed off of their assertions.

But the Rockefeller memo is a different story.  Instead of criticizing Sen. Rockefeller for politicizing intelligence for political gain - precisely what the Republicans are being criticized for in the Schaivo case - the media was more interested on who leaked the memo and how.  The one constant between both memos is that the media followed the Democrats' lead, whom wanted to use the leak as a smokescreen for Rockefeller's obvious exploitation of national intelligence.

Yet, there's no leftist bias in the media.  Right.

Over at The Kerry Spot (Geraghty, dude, it's time to change the name of the blog), Jim Geraghty posts a statement from a reader:

The Washington Post is getting all the credit for solving the Schiavo memo mystery, but in reality, it was the Washington Times that did the digging and pushing to find out what happened. Mike Allen of the WaPost was only able to write his story after the pressure from two Washington Times Capitol Hill reporters forced Martinez to get to the bottom of this and release his statement last night to all media outlets.

The Washington Times published a front-page story that reflected lots of leg work on the story by reporters Stephen Dinan and Brian DeBose. They contacted all 100 senators (either in person as they came off the floor or though their staff) and discovered that not one Republican had ever seen the memo and only one Democrat did — Harkin...

A fair reading of how this story has played out shows that the Washington Post misreported the story and the Washington Times set the record straight.

And Geraghty says:

Needless to say, the usual suspects are declaring this complete vindication for the Post. Yeah, yeah, and the Burkett memos might have been typed on a $17,500 typesetting machine that just happened to be in a Texas Air National Guard office.

Exactly.

The Washington Post is reporting that the legal counsel for Florida Senator Mel Martinez has admitted to writing the infamous Schiavo memo.  The counsel, Brian Darling, resigned from Martinez's office, which he accepted.

At least that brings a much needed answer as to where the memo came from and who wrote it.  However, another question pops up, as the Post explains how it got into Democratic hands:

Martinez, a freshman who was secretary of housing and urban development for most of President Bush's first term, said he had not read the one-page memo. He said he inadvertently passed it to Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who had worked with him on the issue. After that, officials gave the memo to reporters for ABC News and The Washington Post.

Harkin said in an interview that Martinez handed him the memo on the Senate floor, in hopes of gaining his support for the bill giving federal courts jurisdiction in the Florida case in an effort to restore the brain-damaged Florida woman's feeding tube. "He said these were talking points -- something that we're working on here," Harkin said.

First, I don't buy Martinez's explanation.  The idea that he just so happened to hand Harken the memo without knowing what he was giving him is not a reasonable excuse. 

Once Martinez was given the memo he should have:

(1).  Thrown it away and given Darling a reprimand.

(2).  Kept it away from the Senate floor and made sure there weren't any other copies.

I don't see how hard it was for Martinez to do this.  Maybe he somehow considered Harkin to be an ally (Harkin supported the Schiavo bill, but can hardly be considered a tweener) and didn't think he would spread the memo around.  Regardless, I think he knew what was on that paper.

With this article another piece has been added to the puzzle.  Of course, some would think the puzzle is complete, but that isn't the case.  You see, all of the Republican senators have been placed on record as saying they hadn't seen the memo.  Now this could go two ways.  Either there were some senators that were lying, as Martinez obviously was, and indeed saw the memo, or Martinez didn't pass it to anyone but Harken, who went to his party colleagues and smeared the Republicans with it. 

My intuition tells me that a little bit of both happened.  I don't think Harken was the only one that Martinez showed the memo to, but I think once Democrats got a hold of it, they were determined to make some political fortune out of it, which of course is how the Washington Post, New York Times, and ABC News got a hold of the story.  Having said that, I doubt if this story will be investigated any further than it already has, but it would be interesting to find out how it was truly distributed.

Finally, Hindrocket over at Powerline makes the case for retractions and corrections to be made by ABC News and the Washington Post:

Mike Allen, the Post's reporter, has previously said that the memo came from a Democratic Senator who said he got it from a Republican Senator. That is consistent with the current AP account. But the story that Allen wrote with a Post colleague on March 19 is not consistent with the current version of the facts. On March 19, Allen wrote:

Republican officials declared, in a memo that was supposed to be seen only by senators, that they believe the Schiavo case "is a great political issue" that could pay dividends with Christian conservatives, whose support is essential in midterm elections such as those coming up in 2006.

A one-page memo, distributed to Republican senators by party leaders, said the debate over Schiavo would appeal to the party's base, or core, supporters. The memo singled out Sen. Bill Nelson (news, bio, voting record) (D-Fla.), who is up for reelection next year and is potentially vulnerable in a state President Bush won last year.

In fact, if the current AP account is correct, the amazingly inept "talking points memo," which got the number of the Senate bill wrong, misspelled Terri Schiavo's name, and contained a number of other typographical errors, did not come from "Republican officials" or "party leaders," but rather from an anonymous, unknown staffer. Senator Martinez himself--forget about members of his staff--is a freshman senator, in office for three months, not a "party leader" or "Republican officials." (The plural in the Post's original article is interesting.) Also, the reporting by ABC and the Post suggested that the memo was widely or universally distributed among Republican senators, while a survey reported by the Washington Tmes indicated that none of the 55 Republican senators had seen it. So, if the current AP story is correct, it confirms that ABC and the Post mis-reported the story--in the Post's case, in an article that was picked up by dozens of other newspapers off the paper's wire service.

I bet I can guess what the Post and ABC News did:  they simply took the word of Harkin and the Democratic staffers at face value. 

"What's this?"

"A memo by those dirty Republicans."

"Who's is it?"

"We don't know...but it's been passed around the whole Senate floor by those guys."

"Well...it looks like I have a story to write."

That's pretty much how it went down.  I'll be surprised if the fact that they still haven't concocted proof that this memo was distributed on the Senate floor isn't swept under the rug.

---

UPDATE:  Malkin has responded to the Post article here and here.  There are a couple of points that I want to address.

First, did Mike Allen, the WP reporter who broke yesterday's Martinez story, try to set Malkin up?

Judge for yourself.  Here's the email he sent Malkin:

From: "Mike Allen"
To: "Michelle Malkin"
Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2005 1:37 PM
Subject: WP request

Howdy--I'm doing an article for tomorrow about what senators are saying about the Schiavo memo--I'd love to include your comments--I'd be interested in how you took an interest in this, where you think the memo originated, why you think it came from Democrats, etc.--We remain anxious to pin down the author and if you have clues, I'd love to pursue them--Appreciatively, Mike

Is it possible that by the time Allen emailed Malkin he knew about Martinez and Darling's role in the Schiavo memo?  If he did, that would mean he was trying to do a hatchet job to Malkin and possibly other conservative bloggers (he emailed Hindrocket too, but to the best of my knowledge only to relay the article to him, as that's the only correspondence Hindrocket mentioned).  I'm not saying they wouldn't have deserved it if they gave him the soundbites he wanted, but still; I think he tried to pull a "gotcha".

Also, I think Malkin went a bit too far with this statement:

After I blogged my criticism of Claybourn, he quickly and contritely retracted the post--unlike ABC News or the Post.

That's stretching the truth, as Claybourn retracted the story four days after Malkin and others questioned Claybourn's sources.  Others might call that quickly, but I wouldn't.  It's true that Malkin was on top of the matter in the middle of the night and wrote a critique questioning the validity of Claybourn's sources.  But Claybourn only retracted his story once he could no longer rely on his sources.  That's not a knock on Claybourn either; he took credit for the errant story and did so responsibly.

As far as Claybourn's link to Martinez's office, it will be interesting to see how Claybourn moves forward with this information.  But I'm starting to wonder whether he can actually confirm that the two sources that claimed to work for Martinez actually does.  Claybourn's already responded to the WP article here, but didn't mention his connections with the Martinez office. 

Maybe Malkin's right.  There is a lot more of this story to be told.

He let a herb like Rod Blagojevich hustle him.

Aiight, there was a bet on the NCAA Title game.

So, Easley goes all out. He puts up barbecue, of course. But check this out...he gets Western AND Eastern NC style. From the west, he gets the classic Lexington BBQ, and then would get some eastern style from The Barbecue Joint in Chapel Hill. That's two different pounds of barbecue, AND he adds some cole slaw, hushpuppies, and a six-pack of Cheerwine.

And what does Blago bet in return?

A goddamned pizza...from Champaign. And a two liter of Orange Crush. WTF?

And I bet that fool was all hyped after Carolina won. Probably running around like, "yeah I'mma get me some PIZZAAAAA"

One of his aides probably said, "But sir, we can get pizza two blocks down the street. You could have had that shit delivered in half an hour, or it was free."

I mean, THIS motherfucker. How you gonna get got by a dork like Blago?

At least Obama and Durbin had to come out of the pocket for Dole and Burr. They get some Eli's cheesecake and D'Arcy's horseshoe sandwiches out of the deal. Easley ain't get shit but some tired pizza and some soda that he could have gotten in the drink machines in the lobby.  The pizza will be cold and the soda will be warm by the time it gets there.  At least you can reheat barbecue with no problem.

He should be impeached for this incident.

(Photo:  AP/Yahoo)

This is what it's all about.

The North Carolina Tar Heels complete the Big Ten Massacre:  defeating three Big Ten teams in the Elite Eight, Final Four, and the NCAA Championship Game to give Roy Williams his first NCAA Title and the Tarheels' fourth championship in the school's history.  I remember the Tarheel win in 93, and this one is much sweeter than that one because of everything this team went through.  They went 8-20 two years ago, and now they're the National Champions.

One day a movie producer or a documentary film maker will get smart and place this story on the big screen.  The last five years has been a roller coaster for Tarheel fans and and for those seniors, and would make one helluva story.  The Maryland documentary was great, but UNC's has the potential to be even better

The Tarheels proved two things on Monday night:

   1.  They are a team.  Not simply individual talent, but a team.  Led by Sean May, whom Illinois had absolutely no answer for, everyone had their roles.  Felton was the play caller and the assist man.  McCants was the mid-range scorer.  Manuel and Noel were the defensive guys.  Jawad helped run the floor on transition.  All that noise we heard from the talking heads throughout the weekend turned out to be completely wrong, and you could tell they didn't have a clue of what they were talking about.

   2.  This is Roy Williams's team, not Matt Doherty's team.  Another myth generated by the talking heads.  Yes, Doherty recruited them, which gives him, say, 10% of the credit.  But make no mistake about it; Roy Williams made them a great team.  In fact, I'd say that McCants and Felton would have transferred if Doherty had stayed.  Sean May wouldn't have been as good as he is right now either.  With Doherty at the helm, UNC would have been lucky to have made the NCAA Tournament, much less win the championship.

Next year is still looking up for the Heels, and with May returning we are an instant title threat again.  I expect Marvin Williams to return for one more year, and possibly Raymond Felton as well.  David Noel will be a defensive specialist and his athleticism will help the Heels on both ends, and hopefully Williams has recruited some guards to help with ballhandling.

Regardless, the road to the NCAA title will once again come through Franklin Street.  If those guys stay, I have no doubt that there isn't a team in the nation that will be able to handle the street.  If Duke could do it in 91 & 92, why can't we do it in 05 & 06?

whether or not I will liveblog the national championship game tonight.

Why?  Well I'm tempted to take a trip up to Franklin Street in Chapel Hill.  If I do, and the Tarheels win, I definitely won't be here.   And you probably won't hear from me again until Tuesday night (a brother gotta recover).

I probably won't make the decision until the last minute.  Just check in anyway.

I mean, can you really blame me for not missing out on this kind of fun?


(Photo:  WRAL Channel Five)

I didn't think so.

And folks, that was only Saturday, when they came out 7,000 strong in a span of a half hour after UNC whored Michigan State.  They're expecting 20,000 plus for the victory party tonight.

*nods*  I think I'mma have to go.  Yeah.

(Photo:  Yahoo's The Contender Page)

First, I want to apologize for the last two weeks.  I haven't covered this show like I did at the beginning.  I watched Sergio vs. Najai, which was a decent contest, yet I was away from home refereeing a basketball tournament.  I completely missed last week's Peter vs. Miguel competition.  Although I saw the fight online, I didn't think it was right to write up a show that I didn't see.  Oh well.

The ironic thing about my reviewing absence was that there wasn't any kind of drama, as Ishe vs. Ahmed (which got me quite a few visitors, I might add.  Thanks for coming) was climatic, and Ahmed's defeat ended the drama for those two weeks.  No matter, because the drama got turned up a notch this week.  More on that later.

We start the show off with reactions to the returned Peter Manfredo's victory over Miguel Espino last week.  Peter's win marked the first victory for the East Coast, and that gave him and his teammates a boost going into this week.

We find out this week that the fighters had already met and had decided the matchups for the six remaining fighters who haven't fought.  Anthony Bosante didn't object to his predetermined opponent, Jimmy Lang, right in front of the guys, but during interview time he did have a problem with it.  He didn't think it was right that every other boxer was trying to decide his fight for him.  He promised a surprise if the West team won the mission and he had to make the decision.

With Peter's win, the East Coast gets their first reward, and it was to go to NBC Studios in Burbank to see the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.  Gallagher, the gym manager, took them to the show and to hang out with Leno afterwards.  The West Coast didn't like that, as it was the first time they had to stay home, and they had nothing to do.  All Jesse did was lay on the bed and complained about how boring it was.  Ishe said the reward was going to be a booster for the East Coast so they could continue to win.

This week's mission was the medicine ball race.  Set up on an overpass at a California Dam, the teams had to roll the medicine balls over to a spot just above the overpass, fill the nets with the balls, then use a rope to lift the balls up to the overpass to be stacked onto a pickup.  The team who stacks all of their balls into the pickup first wins.

The West started out REALLY shaky in this one, as they lost a lot of time when they would drop the net, because they had to climb up the dam's shield in order to get their net all the way down to refill.  The East had a pretty huge lead at the beginning, but they wouldn't place enough balls in the net each time, which means more trips.  That allowed the East to catch up, and the deciding factor was the last trip, as one of the East's medicine balls fell out of the net.  That gave the West Coast another victory.

Now it was drama time, as the official challenge was made.  Anthony stepped up from the West Coast to make the challenge, and everyone expected him to challenge Jimmy as they all planned.  However, Anthony challenged Brent instead, which angered both Jimmy and Anthony's West Coast teammates.  Jimmy walked off, accusing Anthony of betraying him.  Anthony responded to both teams, saying he feeds his family and so he makes his own decisions. 

In doing this, Anthony pretty much alienated everyone.  Jimmy, Jesse, Ishe and most of the guys publicly rooted for Brent to win the fight.  Jesse called Anthony a coward and accused him of fighting what they considered the easier fighter in Brent.  Jimmy was a pretty tall guy with a long reach that would give Anthony problems.  That night, everyone went out to the bar while Anthony stayed home to keep his mind on the fight.  A number of them told Brent to knock him out.  Later on in the press conference, a number of guys called Anthony out again for ducking Jimmy, particularly Ishe.  Anthony responded, saying Ishe wasn't his promoter and he decided the fight based on what he felt was the best for his family.

Did you buy that?  I didn't either.

So the fight was Anthony Bonsante vs. Brent Cooper.  Anthony was from Shakopee, Minnesota while Brent is from Hermitage, Tennessee.  Both were journeymen, and had lost before.  They were two of the older ones in the competition, as Anthony was 34 and Brent was 31.  Anthony was a single dad with two kids, Brittany and Derek.  Brent is married but doesn't have any kids.

The next morning Ishe and Brent held a small bible study session, and Brent talked about his faith and how everything he does was through God's will.  He was confident that God wanted him to win the fight and to eventually be the winner of The Contender.  I found it interesting that he knew what God actually wanted, but anyways...

Anthony meanwhile, was a homesick man, as he was breaking down everytime he talked about his kids and talked to them on the phone.  As he was in his locker room during pre-fight his mom had surprised him by bringing the kids with her to see him fight, and he immediately broke down once he saw them.  It was truly a touching moment.  Anthony promised to win the fight.

Many celebrities were at the fight, as usual.  Vin Diesel, Burt Reynolds, and Mario Lopez were all on hand to see this one.  Stallone tries to make every fight a star-studded affair, which is a plus.  When Anthony came out of the dressing room for the fight, both teams stayed quiet and didn't say a word or move a muscle.  You could tell who they were rooting for.  His kids cheered, which was the only ones that really mattered for him.

Previously, Sugar Ray Leonard hyped up Brent's handspeed, as he sparred with him earlier.  He was right; Brent had good handspeed, but the problem was he was only hitting air.  Anthony's punches were right on target, however, and he came after Brent with straight jabs that he never blocked.  I wish I could see the CompuBox numbers, because it seemed like Anthony landed about 60% of his punches, and they all were power punches.  At one point in the first round it looked like Anthony would stop Brent quickly, but Brent finished with a bit of aggression at the bell, which got Jesse's approval.

With the way Brent finished the round, Leonard thought Anthony may have punched himself out.  Brent came out to Round 2 pretty strong, getting a couple of hooks that knocked Anthony off balance.  He stood toe to toe with him for a few seconds until Anthony stepped back and circled the ring.  Once again Leonard felt Anthony was fatigued and Stallone thought he could lose the round due to his stalling.

That's when it happened.  Anthony counterpunched Brent by unleashing a straight left jab that completely tore open Brent's eye.  From that moment on it was Anthony's round, as he unleashed a fury that eventually closed his eye, and was sure to impair Brent for the rest of the fight.

The writing on the wall was clear, and Brent's wife nor Ishe could help Brent for what was coming, as Round 3 was all Anthony.  Anthony threw hooks and jabs that hurt Brent, and it was obvious that he couldn't defend himself early into the round.  Many people called for the ref to stop the fight, which he eventually did.  It was the first ref stoppage of the show, and it was pretty brutal.

Ishe and Jesse, who have been outspoken throughout the whole show, didn't like it one bit.  Jesse told Stallone that it was an example of someone taking the easy way out.  Ishe was steamed, and he now wanted a piece of Anthony to avenge Brent's loss.

Brent was hurt, both physically and mentally, but his faith wasn't.  He just rationalized it as something that wasn't in God's plan.  Stallone talked to him and wished him well, and afterwards he hung up his gloves.  Anthony celebrated in the ring

Next week, the drama continues, as I'm sure Anthony will have problems with the rest of the fighters.  They've teased a big confrontation, and I wouldn't be surprised if we see Stallone bend the rules a little and let two fighters that have already fought get into the ring.  Anthony vs. Ishe perhaps?

We'll see what happens.

My Other Contender Posts:

1.  The Contender Quarterfinals:  Ishe vs. Sergio
2.  The Contender, Episode Eight:  Jimmy vs. Joey
3.  The Contender Episode Seven:  Juan vs. Tarick
4.  The Contender Episode Six:  Anthony vs. Brent
5.  The Contender Episode Three:  Ishe vs. Ahmed

On April Fools Day (how ironic) Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich signed an "emergency rule" (aka royal decree) ordering pharmacies to provide contraceptives for women:

"Our regulation says that if a woman goes to a pharmacy with a prescription for birth control, the pharmacy or the pharmacist is not allowed to discriminate or to choose who he sells it to or who he doesn't sell it to," Blagojevich said. "The pharmacy will be expected to accept that prescription and fill it ... No delays. No hassles. No lectures."

Fernando Grillo, head of the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation, said the emergency rule clarifies an existing requirement.

"This rule is in response, a very affirmative and strong response, that we will not tolerate pharmacies and drug stores in the state of Illinois not meeting their obligation to the women of this state in providing them good health care," Grillo said.

Of course, Grillo is spinning, because it isn't clarifying anything that wasn't already clear to begin with.  Blago wrote a law that expanded the existing rule to the pharmacies, and placed the burden of a woman's sexual responsibilities onto the pharmacist.

This rule was in response to a case in Chicago where a pharmacist refused to provide birth control pills to two women at the Osco Pharmacy in downtown Chicago.   According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the pharmacist didn't deny them the contraceptives outright; he only stated that he personally wouldn't sell the contraceptives to them, and asked if they would come back when another pharmacist was on duty.   Osco and the American Physicians Association defended the pharmacist, saying that he had a right to evoke the state's "conscious clause".

Blago however stated that the "conscious clause" only counted towards doctors, not pharmacists (as if pharmacists aren't medical personnel as well?), and evoked an order that forced every pharmacist to provide contraceptives whether they liked it or not.

But the decree didn't stop there.  The national media (AP, Washington Post, etc) didn't report this:

Under the emergency rule, if the contraceptive is not in stock, the pharmacy must order it or transfer the prescription to another local pharmacy of the patient's choice, Blagojevich said. If the pharmacist does not fill the prescription because of a moral objection, another pharmacist needs to be available to fill it without delay.

Hence, the woman's responsibilities are placed onto the pharmacist, despite his moral or religious objection.  If he isn't able to provide them the pills, he then has to find it for them.

It shouldn't be surprising that at the press conference announcing this mess (real player required) Blago was huddled around several members of the so-called women's rights and special interest groups from Illinois and Washington were all there to celebrate this declaration.  After all, Blago's their boy. 

And Blago also announced a probe into the incident, which could result in a heavy fine for Osco or possibly result in the store being shut down...all because of some broads who felt entitled to get birth control pills there and no where else.

Don't get me wrong; I'm for contraceptive use.  In fact, I wish people would use it more often, because there's enough bad ass kids in this world with terrible parents.  But I also believe in a business's right to reject a patient because of moral beliefs. 

Chicago's a big city.  You mean to tell me Osco was the only pharmacy to get what she wanted?  She couldn't wait for another pharmacist to get there to fill the prescription?  Businesses shouldn't be forced by the government to sell something because the governor wants to rub noses with the feminists.

Sexual responsibility lies with the two (or if you're a freak like that, more) people that are engaging in the sexual activity.  Period.  If you don't have protection, then don't have sex.  I don't see what's so hard to understand about that.  Instead, we're being led to believe that people are like some jacked-up rabbits that can't control themselves and get knocked up on impulse.  I'm not buying that. 

And the imposition of several state governments and the federal judiciary - forcing businesses to provide contraception, forcing insurance companies to include contraceptives in their medical coverage - isn't helping a thing.  In fact, it's hurting the medical industry more than it's helping, because that's more costs you're placing on companies and more stress you're placing on people in the medical field.  People may see this as a little thing at first, but little things have a way of manifesting into big things.

It's no surprise that every two-bit leftist is advocating socialist health care, and more than likely if a Democratic president enters the White House, that will be their first major domestic goal.  If that happens, I can see a major exodus of people out of medical school and out of the health care profession entirely.

This is one of the issues that will make or break that goal.  Someone in Illinois needs to stand up to Blago and the feminist groups and tell them to get lost.  Hopefully it will be the pharmacist they have tried to do a job over.  I would like to see this go to the Supreme Court.