No Happy Endings

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is "in critical condition after a brain hemorrhage." On Wednesday, Sharon "was rushed into surgery to relieve what doctors described as significant bleeding in his brain." Early Thursday he "was returned to the operating room following a CAT scan that revealed additional areas of cerebral bleeding." Surgeons say they "managed to stem the bleeding." Sharon's doctors and governmental officials called Sharon's condition "life-threatening." Omri Ceren of Mere Rhetoric is live-blogging the Prime Minister's condition, including summary English translations from the Israeli press.

AP reports neurosurgeons not involved in Sharon's treatment said:

a full recovery was not likely following such a massive stroke. They said it usually takes at least a day after the surgery to determine the extent of any damage.

Experts quoted in the New York Times say fewer than 20 percent survive strokes of this magnitude. Even should he live, this is "almost certainly the end of his political career," according to James Joyner of Outside the Beltway. The stroke's severity even exceeds the (ephemeral) curative powers of the "happy-ending" MSM.

Horrifyingly, as first reported by blogger Barak at Iris, Sharon's massive hemorrhage may have been triggered by medical malpractice in treating the mild stroke he suffered on December 18th:

The prime minister had been taking blood thinners since the first stroke to prevent another clot, but such drugs also raise the risk of cerebral hemorrhages, which account for only about 10 percent of strokes. Other possible causes are ruptured blood vessels, an aneurysm, or bulge in a vessel wall that bursts, or even chronic high blood pressure.

Reactions varied, depending on the social and political civilization of the observer. President Bush sent "best wishes and hopes to the Prime Minister and his family," and prayed for his recovery. Moving to the left, some "progressive" programmer exploited the Achilles heel of fuzzy-headed open source collectivism, personifying modern liberal sensitivities by editing Sharon's Wikipedia entry to suggest he'd moved to Hades, as Truth Caucus spotted and preserved in screen shot.


(source Truth Caucus)

At the extreme left edge, Palestinians provided more proof of the principles underlying the religion of peace:

In Gaza, . . . dozens of armed men from the Popular Resistance Committees, a small Palestinian militant group, fired guns in the air, screamed "Sharon is dead" and handed out pastries to motorists to celebrate the news that Sharon was ill.

But pastries and bullets couldn't satisfy Hamas:

"I am ready with my candies and my rockets and praying to Allah that Sharon dies. We have prepared a celebratory barrage of rockets ready to fire into Israel on the occasion of the death of our enemy," said Abu Abir, spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees, an umbrella group of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists responsible for firing hundreds of Qassam rockets and mortars at Jewish towns.

Preoccupied by paranoia over the supposedly impending American theocracy, Moonbats missed radical Palestinian Ahmed Jibril, head of the Syrian-backed faction Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, who called Sharon's stroke a gift from God:

We say it frankly that God is great and is able to exact revenge on this butcher. . . We thank God for this gift he presented to us on this new year.

The Jihadists also set a new speed record, issuing a fatwa on Deputy Minister Ehud Olmert only a few hours after he was named Sharon's temporary replacement. And they call Bush "Hitler."

My prayers and thoughts are with Sharon, his family and Israel.

(via LGF, Lawhawk)