A four-year-old retarded girl was tethered to a mosque and starved to death in the hot sun, in Uttar Pradesh, to exorcise her demons.

I know, what’s the big deal? She’s just a girl.

Here’s another article that does nothing to clarify what Ted Williams actually wanted. But if he signed up himself, why aren’t the children producing the documentation?

And here’s another article stating that he had no interest in it when he was healthier.

Alcor will take (or at least in the past has taken) patients who were signed up by their families after a declaration of death, but they don’t like to have to deal with messy contentious situations like this. It’s possible that they didn’t know that the daughter would be opposed, and fight it.

And while I’ve said before that if it were up to me, the default in all cases would be cryonic suspension, I certainly wouldn’t force it on someone who didn’t want it (while I consider a refusal to take such measures a form of suicide, I believe that people have a right to suicide). If the son and executor can’t produce some evidence of Williams’ desire to be suspended other than their own word, given the evidence to the contrary, at least from the reportage to date, if I were the judge, I’d allow him to be cremated.

In this opinion piece by Uwe Siemon-Netto, he attacks cryonicists’ attempts to prolong their lives as, among other things, “unethical,” “immoral,” “abhorrent,” “selfish,” and something that only an atheist would do.

For faithful Jews, sticking a dead man in a tank and perhaps experimenting with him is abhorrent because it disturbs the eternal rest of the departed. To Christians, it is singularly egregious because it mocks the Holy Spirit, “the Lord, the Giver of Life,” as the Nicene Creed defines the third person in the Trinity.

He, like many, continues to miss the point. Calling these people “dead,” is an opinion, not a fact. Just what life-saving measures would he not consider an affront to God, and which ones will he refuse if the circumstances arise?

Though not combined, over at Jay Manifold’s site. (By the way, Jay just got laid off, so if anyone has any employment possibilities, you might want to mosey over there and check out his resume).

He’s got some more feedback and links on the frozen soul issue, and a nice memorial of Apollo XI, with his own memories.

Jim Crogan has an extensive piece in the latest LA Weekly (a lefty publication, for what it’s worth) on the connections between the OKC bombing and the Middle East.

It seems to remain difficult to get anyone in the mainstream media to touch this story.

Kevin McGehee is concerned about someone in cryonic suspension somehow retaining consciousness and going mad, like someone in a perpetual sensory deprivation chamber.

I’m not, for at least two reasons.

First, the suspendee is given a heavy dose of barbiturates to prevent any pain that occurs during the temporary resuscitation necessary to circulate the anti-freeze. Since the body doesn’t metabolize in suspension, this drugged state would persist until the body is repaired and revived.

Second, I find the notion that a body frozen at that temperature, with no ability for synapses to fire, could possibly have any consciousness at all to be much more unlikely than even the prospects for future reanimation.

There may be some good reasons not to be suspended, but this isn’t one that I would even consider.

Nine years ago today, White House counsel Vince Foster’s dead body was found in Fort Marcy park, outside of Washington, DC. And despite (or more correctly, because of) Ken Starr’s incompetent travesty of an investigation into the matter, the cause and location of his demise remains unknown.

I should add that today is also the twenty-sixth anniversary of the Viking landing on Mars.

Thirty three years ago today, men from earth first walked on its moon and another planet. For anyone who wants to commemorate this momentous event, we’ve developed a ceremony here.

Use it as an excuse to get together with family or friends. Many who have read it aloud found it a profound experience. And if you do, let me know how it went.

Jim Traficant (Dem. OH), who has nothing to lose at this point, having been convicted of enough crimes to put him behind bars for the rest of his currently natural life, will defend himself before the House next week in a futile attempt to keep his seat. The Repubs will vote against him because they have some principles and won’t put up with corruption, and the Dems will vote against him because he’s been disloyal and not willing to tolerate their own corruption (though he’s quite satisfied with his own corruption, which is why he’ll almost certainly be expelled).

Here’s hoping that he’ll blow the lid off all of the stuff that the House (and Senate) Democrats have been covering up for years, a coverup that he’s been not just asked, but threatened for years, to go along with.

This just may turn out to be “must-see TV.”

As an aside, I once met with Rep. Traficant in the subway between the House office buildings and the Capitol. He smiled and said, “How are you doing?” as though he knew me. That’s how pols get elected and reelected. They never know whose vote they might influence or whether they’re voters in their district, so the easiest thing is to assume that everyone is.