Friday Orchid Blogging

Prosthechea cochleata (formerly Encyclia cochleata)

This is a species plant, i.e., it's not a hybrid of different orchids. It's pretty easy to grow, likes to dry out between waterings, though I've found that sometimes you can waterlog the roots and kill 'em. Mine, in the photo, does not have any scent, though some cochleatas (cochleatum?) do. The plant likes a good amount of sun, though like all orchids it can burn if you're not careful to acclimate it to the light, and once this baby starts blooming, it keeps putting out more and more flowers on the bloom spike for literally six to eight months. I remember I finally cut mine off last time out of concern it was taxing the plant too much - not to mention, after six months, you get a bit tired of the flower!

Anyway, it's a good plant, quite "common," but also quite cool. There's an "alba" version too, i.e., albino, that's quite cool as well.

Enjoy. Read More......

Right winger who led Public Broadcasting facing serious federal charges

Tomorrow's NY Times reports that yet another Bush appointee is wrapped up in a scandal:

Kenneth Y. Tomlinson, the head of the federal agency that oversees most government broadcasts to foreign countries, including the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, is the subject of an inquiry into accusations of misuse of federal money and the use of phantom or unqualified employees, officials involved in that examination said on Friday.

And, what a surprise. Tomlinson is a crony of Rove who is right smack in the middle of this scandal too:

The lawmakers requested the inquiry after Mr. Berman received complaints about Mr. Tomlinson from at least one employee at the board, officials said. People involved in the inquiry said it involved accusations that Mr. Tomlinson was spending federal money for personal purposes, using board money for corporation activities, using board employees to do corporation work and hiring ghost employees or improperly qualified employees.

Through an aide at the broadcasting board, Mr. Tomlinson declined to comment Friday about the State Department inquiry.

In recent weeks, State Department investigators have seized records and e-mail from the Broadcasting Board of Governors, officials said. They have shared some material with the inspector general at the corporation, including e-mail traffic between Mr. Tomlinson and White House officials including Karl Rove, a senior adviser to President Bush and a close friend of Mr. Tomlinson.

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Open thread

Off to dinner. Read More......

Republican voter fraud uncovered in Seattle

The Stranger has uncovered some pretty serious voter fraud by the GOP in Seattle. As has been noted to me, Washington state is a place where people win elections by the slimmest margins - Maria Cantwell won by 2000 votes; the mayor of seattle, Nickels, won by 3000 votes; Gregoire won by 133 votes, fewer than the 140 the GOP tried to steal this week.

So the 140 votes, that we know about, are a big deal. Lord knows where else in the state the GOP tried this, and how many total voters they actually tried to suppress from voting.

Voting is a civil right, there ought to be a federal investigation. Read More......

Kilgore flip-flops in Virginia, now embraces Bush

In the final days of the Virginia governor's race, Republican candidate Jerry Kilgore has flip-flopped, and is now embracing the embattled George Bush.

A week ago, Kilgore abruptly canceled an event with the president, seemingly because of Bush's plummeting polls and soaring scandals. But now Kilgore has done an about face, and in a last-minute email to supporters, he's embracing George Bush big-time.

The message is clear: If you like what George Bush has done to America, you'll love what Jerry Kilgore has in store for Virginia.

Here's a snippet from the email.

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"Moon the Klan" protest in Austin, TX on Saturday

Ok, THAT'S funny. Read More......

Justice Dept subpoenas Rep. Bob Ney (R-OH) over Abramoff

Bum, bum, bum. Another one bites the dust.

The Justice Department delivered a subpoena to Rep. Bob Ney (R-Ohio) this week, requesting documents to aid in its ongoing investigation of GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Ney disclosed Friday.

Ney has not been informed that he is the subject of any investigation, according to his spokesman, and said he would cooperate with the probe.

"As I have said repeatedly, we will cooperate fully with any inquiry. I voluntarily provided information to the Senate Indian Affairs Committee last year and I have offered to make myself available to meet with the House Ethics Committee," Ney said in a statement.

Abramoff was recently indicted on wire and mail fraud charges in Florida stemming from his acquisition of a casino boat chain. He remains under investigation in Washington by a task force of federal agencies led by the Justice Department. The Senate Indian Affairs Committee and Senate Finance Committee have also been conducting separate inquiries into Abramoff.

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4 PM Friday It's-Nearly-The-Weekend Open Thread

Hiding out in Camp David again this weekend Mr. President, or are you still playing dress-up "leader" in South America? No matter, wherever you are, they've got booze I'm sure. May we suggest this weekend's shot:

Absolutly Screwed

Scale ingredients to servings
1/2 oz Absolut® Mandrin vodka
1/2 oz orange juice

Mix OJ and Mandrin then enjoy.

Aptly named AND it's got Vitamin C to ward off the bird flu!

Open thread away! Read More......

Why are the infamous "16 words" still being peddled on the White House Web site?

We all recall the now-infamous "16 words" in Bush's January 28, 2003 State of the Union address. The words that led Ambassador Joe Wilson to publicly inform the world that President Bush was misleading the nation.

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

You might be surprised to know the White House is still peddling those words, and the fact that Saddam Hussein had WMD, on the White House Web site.

Check out the following excerpt from a "fact sheet" on Iraq still live on the WH Web site:



And here's the entire page (click the image to see a larger, more-readable version):

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New Zogby poll: 53% of Americans say Congress should consider impeaching Bush if he lied about why we went to war in Iraq

This is a Zogby poll, it's the real thing.

Question: "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."

Adults (+/- 2.9% margin of error)
52.6% for impeachment
42.4% against impeachment

Likely voters (+/- 3% margin of error)
51.3% for impeachment
44.7% against impeachment

Independents (+/- 2.9% margin of error)
50.5% for impeachment
44.2% against impeachment

There are LOTS more results available online for likely voters and adults. It's fascinating.

Let's see how long the mainstream media ignores this obvious story. Read More......

It's official: Bush admits Karl Rove is still under investigation

No more FOX News and other GOP cronies claiming Karl was exonerated. From ThinkProgress. Read More......

Open thread

Just back from lunch. Miss anything? Read More......

PFAW and Ralph Neas Need to Think Bigger - MUCH Bigger

I received the People for the American Way email appeal on Scalito on Tuesday. It was a good piece, including a $100,000 challenge match from an individual donor, but it thinks too small.

The ask is similar to what's on the PFAW site www.savethecourt.org. Here's a specific quote:

We need to raise $500,000 NOW to get the message out that confirming Judge Alito to the Supreme Court would not be good for America. With your help, we will:

• Get hard-hitting radio and TV ads on the air about Alito's troubling record on civil rights, with targeted ads on African American and Hispanic radio
• Phone bank our members in key swing states, urging them to ask their Senators to oppose Alito - and put organizers on the ground
• Create and deploy Internet campaigns to mobilize hundreds of thousands of Americans

In the world of political advertising, $500,000 doesn't buy you much - Bush and Kerry combined spent close to a quarter of a BILLION dollars in the last election. Even in the current off-year election cycle, here's what Reuters is reporting on the volume of ads on ballot initiatives and the New York mayoral race:

New York led all markets in political advertising with 15,285 spots between August 1 and October 16, but California had six of the top 10 markets and 31,500 political commercials in those markets during that time, according to data released Thursday by Nielsen Monitor-Plus. California stations aired 44,122 political ads during the period in all markets, from Los Angeles to Eureka.

Los Angeles was the second-busiest market in the nation in political ads, with 7,796 spots to San Francisco-San Jose's 5,660 and San Diego's 5,182. Sacramento-Stockton-Modesto had just over 5,000 during that time, while Fresno-Visalia had 4,600.

All those ads cost a lot of money - millions. Just like the fight against Scalito is going to cost millions of dollars. As I said in an earlier post, the public is on our side -- now. Don't think that Conversatives are going to sit on the sidelines and think in terms of $500,000 and $1 million campaigns. Conservatives have been waiting for 40 years for this very moment. This is their all out fight, and we on the Left need to start thinking MUCH MUCH bigger than we are right now. Read More......

James Dobson's idyllic south, circa 1936

UPDATE: It appears Dobson was born in Shreveport, Louisiana. I'd like that confirmed via a trustworthy source, then you can start finding out what Shreveport was like in the 1940s.

Okay, anyone up on their southern history? How racially idyllic was Louisiana in the late 1930s and early 1940s?

A profile of Dobson this The Week magazine:

What’s Dobson’s background?
He was born in Louisiana in 1936, and remembers his hometown as an idyllic slice of heartland America. “There were no drugs in my racially mixed, public high school,” he wrote. “There were no punkers, no skinheads, no neo-Nazis, no freaks, no witches, and no gay or lesbian activists.” The only child of a minister in the Church of the Nazarene, which emphasizes study of the Scripture and opposes alcohol, tobacco, and premarital intercourse, Dobson committed himself to God when he was 3. He was attending Sunday services, and his father invited those who felt like doing so to gather at the front of the church. Dobson toddled down the aisle. “I recall crying and asking Jesus to forgive my sins.”

Ok, so he was born in 1936, and since he remembers giving his life to Jesus at the age of 3, it's fair to say that his "idyllic" remembrance goes back to the same year, so let's start our investigation in the year 1939. What was Louisiana like from 1939 to 1954 (Dobson's youth) for blacks?

Also, high school usually starts at the age of 13 or 14, so that would put Dobson at 1949 or 1950 for starting high school. Where there any racially-mixed public high schools in Louisiana from 1949 to 1954 (the years he'd likely have been in high school)? Read More......

Greenspan flip flops again on the budget

Thankfully he's retiring soon so his never-ending flip flopping and debates with his own words will come to an end. As he approaches his final few months, now he wants to raise alarm about the budget deficits. Fortunately some in Congress are reminding him of his vocal support for the wreckless tax cuts forced by the GOP, which is now taking its toll on the US economy. It's easy to talk tough about "hard choices" now that he's leaving but where was he when Congress and Bush needed sensible talk while they were tearing things apart?

What part of throwing the burden on the middle class did he miss? When the economy sputters from the burdens of the tax cuts, war spending, corporate welfare and the baby boomers retiring, it is not going to be the top of the food chain who will need help. Where was Greenspan when those people needed him the most? Read More......

Friday Morning Open Thread

Almost the weekend.

If you live in Maine, vote early. Vote No on 1...so Maine Won't Discriminate. If you have friends, family, ex-lovers, college roommates in Maine, call them this weekend....make sure they vote NO on 1. Read More......

Michael Schiavo is getting political

Interesting development. Michael Schiavo, who knows more about how intrusive and persistent the theocratic right-wingers are, endorsed Tim Kaine for Governor in Virginia:

Schiavo based his endorsement on responses from Kaine and Republican Jerry Kilgore during their Oct. 9 televised debate when asked if governors should intervene in disputes within families over discontinuing life support for a loved one.

"I have seen firsthand what can happen when a governor disagrees with a single citizen. In Florida, Gov. Jeb Bush abused the power of his office in an attempt to replace my personal family decisions with his own opinions and political grandstanding," Schiavo wrote in a statement distributed by a Democratic consulting firm.

Conservatives vilified Schiavo for ordering the removal of the feeding tube that had sustained his wife for 15 years. In the resulting legal and ideological conflict, Congress, Jeb Bush and his brother, President Bush, all sought to have the tube reinserted. Terri Schiavo died March 31 after the tube was disconnected.

Mr. Schiavo sure does know firsthand how Republican officials were willing to involve themselves in the most important personal decisions a family can make. He might want to keep a close on the Scalito nomination. Nothing will be too private for a right wing courts packed with theocratic judges appointed by George Bush. Read More......

GOP slashes the budget in the Senate - perks for Big Oil, cuts for the poor

If there was ever any questions left about their allegiances, it's painfully clear now. Give more handouts to Big Oil by opening up ANWR for drilling and don't ask Mega Corporate Farms to join in the cuts. Don't even bother wondering who's going to get stuck with the bill because we've been here too many times already. Heaven forbid corporate welfare would be trimmed or tax cuts for the wealthy because it ain't gonna happen. Hell, they're all busy setting new records of profitability so naturally it's going to be passed on to those not as fortunate as the typical GOP donor.

The GOP likes to slap themselves on the back and brag about their ability to show fiscal discipline. I'd just call it brutality and bullying the weak. Payback is going to be a bitch in 2006 and 2008. Read More......

Another poll, another disaster for Bush

This is the ABC poll I mentioned hearing about earlier, it's apparently an ABC/Washington Post poll. It's an unmitigated disaster for Bush. And you better believe I'm happy. The more damaged that man is, the less danger he poses to our country and the world.

For the first time in his presidency a majority of Americans question the integrity of President Bush, and growing doubts about his leadership have left him with record negative ratings on the economy, Iraq and even the war on terrorism, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.

On almost every key measure of presidential character and performance, the survey found that Bush has never been less popular with the American people. Currently 39 percent approve of the job he is doing as president, while 60 percent disapprove of his performance in office -- the highest level of disapproval ever recorded for Bush in Post-ABC polls....

Bush has always retained majority support on his handling of the U.S. campaign against terrorism -- until now, when 51 percent have registered disapproval....

The survey found that 40 percent now view him as honest and trustworthy -- a 13 percentage point drop in the past 18 months. Nearly 6 in 10 -- 58 percent -- said they have doubts about Bush's honesty, the first time in his presidency that more than half the country has questioned his personal integrity....

Nearly 7 in 10 -- 68 percent -- believe the country is seriously off course, while only 30 percent are optimistic, the lowest level in more than nine years. Only 3 in 10 express high levels of confidence in Bush, while half say they have little or no confidence in this administration.

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