Friday orchid blogging

Just got in under the wire.



This is an unknown paphiopedilum. I saw it at a greenhouse earlier this year and liked the bat-signal-esque fringe. I have a lot of photos of paphs, as we call them, because they're quickly becoming my favorite orchid. Sure, in my case they catch strange diseases that require you to give them all sort of horrid treatments that verge on chemo, but they have beautiful flowers and, I think, the plants are somewhat easier than other orchids. Of course, only time will tell.

Enjoy. Read the rest of this post...

Bush pits Katrina rebuilding against the rest of the budget

You just know this is going to be a lose-lose:

One day after pledging to undertake one of history's largest reconstruction efforts, President Bush served notice yesterday that rebuilding the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast will require spending cuts elsewhere in the federal budget.

Amid growing concern among congressional Republicans about the huge cost of the planned reconstruction effort, Bush said the federal government can foot the bill without resorting to a tax increase. "You bet it's going to cost money. But I'm confident we can handle it," Bush said. "It's going to mean that we're going to have to cut unnecessary spending."

I have a feeling most Americans view that whole Iraq thing as unnecessary spending. But Bush doesn't. They could also stop pushing for the tax cuts for the wealthy. But Bush won't.

We know do this. First, Bush and Rove will screw up the rebuilding and it will be unbelievably corrupt. Second, they'll use this as an opportunity to eviscerate every other social program. Third, we won't be any safer. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

So, what do you think now? Read the rest of this post...

We're all going to die, part II

Fuck. Read the rest of this post...

Good news. We all may be dead anyway.

Well, at least we now know Bush has the government ready to deal with any emergency.

From ABC News:

It could kill a billion people worldwide, make ghost towns out of parts of major cities, and there is not enough medicine to fight it. It is called the avian flu....

According to Dr. Irwin Redlener, director of the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, Bush's call to remain on the offensive has come too late.

"If we had a significant worldwide epidemic of this particular avian flu, the H5N1 virus, and it hit the United States and the world, because it would be everywhere at once, I think we would see outcomes that would be virtually impossible to imagine," he warns.

Already, officials in London are quietly looking for extra morgue space to house the victims of the H5N1 virus, a never-before-seen strain of flu. Scientists say this virus could pose a far greater threat than smallpox, AIDS or anthrax.

"Right now in human beings, it kills 55 percent of the people it infects," says Laurie Garrett, a senior fellow on global health policy at the Council on Foreign Relations. "That makes it the most lethal flu we know of that has ever been on planet Earth affecting human beings."....

"Each year different flus come, but your immune system says, 'Ah, I've seen that guy before. No problem. Crank out some antibodies, and I might not feel great for a couple of days, but I'll recover,'" Garrett says. "Now what's scaring us is that this constellation of H number 5 and N number 1, to our knowledge, has never in history been in our species. So absolutely nobody watching this has any natural immunity to this form of flu."....

Redlener, who is stationed at Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, has been working with New York City officials to get ready for the deadly epidemic.

"The city would look like a science fiction movie," according to him. "It's extremely possible we'd have to quarantine hospitals. We'd have to quarantine sections of the city."....

As for the hospitals, there would be scenes like the ones this past month in the stadiums of New Orleans and Houston after Hurricane Katrina.

Read the rest of this post...

FEMA's foul-up during Katrina was the rule, not the exception

Nice. Glad we aren't at war, or anything, where FEMA actually matters.

At least Dick Cheney is going to protect us. He promised, remember. Read the rest of this post...

Cheney to have surgery for leg aneurysm

May I just say that we were right asking for the past 3 weeks where the hell Cheney has been. We asked if he was ill. The mainstream media didn't ask squat. The vice president was pretty much missing the first week of the Katrina disaster and the MSM didn't ask squat. I'd be curious if this aneurysm is really no big deal, and I'd be curious if they're even telling us the truth about everything he's going in for - I don't believe a thing they say anymore.

I'd also note that it was Arianna Huffington who earlier this summer caught Cheney sneaking into a hospital in Vail. The White House denied it, but Arianna talked to folks at the hospital and it was clear the veep was there and it was clear his visit was anything but a regular check-up. Arianna pushed the story, the MSM ignored it. And I strongly suspect this is tied to Arianna's observations this summer.

From RawStory.com

ROLL CALL: CHENEY TO HAVE
SURGERY FOR ANEURYSM...

Roll Call's Mary Ann Akers to reveal: 'The vice president is slated to have an elective surgical procedure to treat an aneurysm in the artery behind the right knee that was discovered earlier this year during a routine checkup,' spokesman Steve Schmidt said. 'It is a condition that needs to be addressed so as not to become a problem over time,' said Schmidt, who declined to say at which hospital the surgery
will be performed. Schmidt said the procedure will be performed under local anesthesia and will involve 'a short hospital stay.'

Cheney, 64, had quadruple bypass surgery in 1988 and had a defibrillator implanted in his chest three years ago. He has suffered four heart attacks.

Read the rest of this post...

City Streets at Night, our correspondent, Kyle, sums up his last night in New Orleans

Johnny White’s bar, on the corner of Bourbon and Orleans in the French Quarter, is the last source of authenticity in a city now dominated by media and military. For those who have stayed, the small operation on the corner is their crossroads for information, cigarettes and beer.

A bartender named Squirrel lights a dozen tall candles as darkness sets in. The ice has been finished off so everything is warm, but no one seems to care. Outside a small crowd gathers around a nine-inch screen powered by C batteries to watch Monday Night Football. The streets are pitch black.

New Orleans is a ghost town. We walked twenty blocks around the French Quarter in darkness. Imagine a modern American city completely empty and lifeless. The two and three story balconies lean over us with their iron frames and cast even darker shadows for the sidewalks to hide behind. It felt more like a haunted house than a formerly functioning metropolis.

Back inside the bar, a local Bourbon resident began telling me his story. His decision to stay was rooted in the gay community within the French Quarter, his pets, and Bourbon Street itself. He then asked “If the media can stay, why can’t I?” I inquired as to whether or not he’d like to see his family who lived in Minneapolis, Minnesota. “They think I’m crazy, but my life is here. My pets are here. I could go and stay with them if I wanted to.” Another concern was the possibility of not being allowed back into New Orleans. This became a common theme among the survivors. Squirrel’s leg required medical attention. The bartender acknowledged the injury as he poured another drink. “If I go for help, they’ll evacuate me.”

As my conversations continued in the bar it became clear that these people were deeply traumatized. The survivors were fighting for shreds of normalcy. The gay man asked if I could get some cabana boys to come to New Orleans. I told him that I’d try to get a tugboat-full shipped in. Bob Brigham chimed in that I was as good as any. We all had a good laugh. For a moment, things were normal and we were just a group of guys chuckling at a Bourbon Street bar.

Tensions rose as the night went on and the situation manifested itself in those deeply affected. One regular started to get into it with Squirrel. The bartender responded by first calling for the man to go and then waving a crowbar. The mood ground to a halt and we decided to go. Squirrel agreed with our move and sighed, “I’m sorry you guys.”

I’m sorry too. Read the rest of this post...

Consumer Confidence After Katrina WORSE than after 9/11

If the President caught a break with the public after 9/11, this time the public just isn't buying it. From Reuters:

U.S. consumer confidence plummeted to a 13-year low in early September, battered by record high gasoline prices and the full force of Hurricane Katrina, a report showed on Friday.

Separate data showed the U.S. current account deficit, the broadest measure of U.S. trade with the rest of the world, narrowed in the second quarter but remained at levels seen as unsustainable over the long term.

The University of Michigan's closely-watched consumer sentiment index fell to 76.9 in September from 89.1 in August, far below Wall Street forecasts and the 81.8 hit after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

The current conditions dropped to the lowest level since December 2003 while the expectations index plummeted to the lowest since February 1992.

"If these declines were part of the normal economic cycle we would now call for a recession in the United States. But they aren't; the index is responding to a shock, and we expect it quickly to rebound," said Ian Shepherdson, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics.

The result was similar to trends in other consumer surveys as well as a string of major polls showing waning support for the Bush administration's economic policies.

"I think there's probably also a degree of loss of confidence in the government," said David Sloan, economist at 4CAST Ltd. in New York.

It's encouraging to see that the public gets it and is holding the President accountable for failed leadership, let's just hope that we don't end up in a recession as a result. Read the rest of this post...

New Orleans city lights turned on for Bush, then off again after he left

President Potemkin. Read the rest of this post...

Great article about the Democrats and their courage problem

Great op ed by the famous Chicago playwright David Mamet in the LA Times.

The Democrats, similarly, in their quest for a strategy that would alienate no voters, have given away the store, and they have given away the country.

Committed Democrats watched while Al Gore frittered away the sure-thing election of 2000. They watched, passively, while the Bush administration concocted a phony war; they, in the main, voted for the war knowing it was purposeless, out of fear of being thought weak. They then ran a candidate who refused to stand up to accusations of lack of patriotism.

The Republicans, like the perpetual raiser at the poker table, became increasingly bold as the Democrats signaled their absolute reluctance to seize the initiative.

John Kerry lost the 2004 election combating an indictment of his Vietnam War record. A decorated war hero muddled himself in merely "calling" the attacks of a man with, curiously, a vanishing record of military attendance. Even if the Democrats and Kerry had prevailed (that is, succeeded in nullifying the Republicans arguably absurd accusations), they would have been back only where they started before the accusations began.

Control of the initiative is control of the battle. In the alley, at the poker table or in politics. One must raise. The American public chose Bush over Kerry in 2004. How, the undecided electorate rightly wondered, could one believe that Kerry would stand up for America when he could not stand up to Bush? A possible response to the Swift boat veterans would have been: "I served. He didn't. I didn't bring up the subject, but, if all George Bush has to show for his time in the Guard is a scrap of paper with some doodling on it, I say the man was a deserter."

Read the rest of this post...

Sci-Fi Friday, it's a good thing

Read the rest of this post...

Why did environmental groups force Bush to stay on vacation?

The Bush administration appears to be trying to blame environmentalists for the Katrina disaster.

Damn environmentalists. Why oh why did you have to force our Dear Leader to stay on vacation until the third day AFTER the hurricane struck?

Federal officials appear to be seeking proof to blame the flood of New Orleans on environmental groups, documents show.

The Clarion-Ledger has obtained a copy of an internal e-mail the U.S. Department of Justice sent out this week to various U.S. attorneys' offices: "Has your district defended any cases on behalf of the (U.S.) Army Corps of Engineers against claims brought by environmental groups seeking to block or otherwise impede the Corps work on the levees protecting New Orleans? If so, please describe the case and the outcome of the litigation."

Cynthia Magnuson, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, said Thursday she couldn't comment "because it's an internal e-mail."

Shown a copy of the e-mail, David Bookbinder, senior attorney for Sierra Club, remarked, "Why are they (Bush administration officials) trying to smear us like this?"

Read the rest of this post...

Analysis: It's about politics for Bush

Major papers are offering post-speech analyses. It's clear that the White House is first and foremost are running a political campaign to save Bush's butt. Of course, this wouldn't be necessary if Bush did his job in the first place.

Washington Post "A Bid to Repair a Presidency":

The main text of President Bush's nationally televised address last night was the rebuilding of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, but the clear subtext was the rebuilding of a presidency that is now at its lowest point ever, confronted by huge and simultaneous challenges at home and abroad -- and facing a country divided along partisan and racial lines.

Hurricane Katrina struck at the core of Bush's presidency by undermining the central assertion of his reelection campaign, that he was a strong and decisive leader who could keep the country safe in a crisis. Never again will the White House be able to point to his often-praised performance after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, without skeptics recalling the fumbling and slow-off-the-mark response of his administration after the hurricane and the flooding in New Orleans.

New York Times "Amid the Ruins, a President Tries to Reconstruct His Image, Too":

George W. Bush, whose standing for the last four years has rested primarily on issues of war and peace, introduced himself to the nation on Thursday night in an unfamiliar and somewhat uncomfortable new role: domestic president.

The violence of Hurricane Katrina and his faltering response to it have left to Mr. Bush the task not just of physically rebuilding a swath of the United States, but also of addressing issues like poverty and racial inequality that were exposed in such raw form by the storm.

The challenge would be immense for any president, but is especially so for Mr. Bush. He is scrambling to assure a shaken, angry nation not only that is he up to the task but also that he understands how much it disturbed Americans to see their fellow citizens suffering and their government responding so ineffectually.

Read the rest of this post...

GOP on Bush: We are not sure he knows what he is getting into

Chris has a great post below about the NY Times article on how some of the GOP doesn't want to fund Katrina rebuilding.

One line in that article really struck me. Apparently, now they're just figuring out he doesn't know what he is doing. Anyway, seems like not all is well in the land of the right wing. They are worried about their President's plans and capacity:

But they are increasingly edgy about the White House's push for a potentially open-ended recovery budget, worried that the president - in trying to regroup politically - was making expensive promises they would have to keep.

"We are not sure he knows what he is getting into," said one senior Republican official who requested anonymity because of the potential consequences of publicly criticizing the administration.

Of course he has no idea what he is getting into. Never has.

The GOP needs to understand, this isn't really about rebuilding the South. It's a political campaign masterminded by Karl Rove. Bush has his political guru running the show, so no questions. Just do it.

This could get interesting. Those right wingers on the Hill read the polls, too. Are they going to let Bush drive them off the cliff? Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

I just can't get past the fact that Bush put Rove in charge of rebuilding the South. How can anyone take them seriously? Read the rest of this post...

Why does the GOP hate Americans?

Quiet about wild spending in Iraq and massive corporate welfare during the GOP reign, now that Americans need help, GOP leaders such as Tom Coburn think that the poor and homeless can just fend for themselves. Nice "united we stand" attitude.

"There has never been a time where there is more total spending and more wasteful spending in Washington than we have today," said Pat Toomey, a former Republican congressman from Pennsylvania and the head of the conservative Club for Growth. "There is ample opportunity to find the offsets we need so that this does not have to be a fiscal disaster as well as a natural disaster."

So you guys have been running Congress for how many years and the White House since 2000 and you still have budget problems? Where the hell have you been and what have you been doing? Now that Americans need some help, suddenly it's time to run the other way. They should have thought about this before breaking the bank with tax cuts and an unnecessary war in Iraq.

Are these really the people we want jamming through a bogus commission on Katrina? They've made the mess with the budget and failed to protect Americans so why should we trust them now? Read the rest of this post...

Tyson Foods being sued for discrimination

Black workers at a Tyson Food facility in Alabama are suing the company for violations of the 14th Amendment breach of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The meat-packing industry has been very close to this administration (Tyson also initially supported Clinton) who have helped the industry grow by lax labor, safety and health standards laws, not to mention business practices that have been very unfriendly to small suppliers. The allegations in this case are disgusting but these companies have enjoyed free reign under this administration which cares more for big corporates than average people, as we well know.

A group of black workers is suing the world's largest poultry meat producer, accusing it of tolerating a racist workplace where African Americans were routinely abused and a "whites only" sign was pinned to the lavatory door.

...the workers allege that the lavatory was padlocked and only white workers were given a key, that workers hung a noose in one of the recreation rooms and annotated a picture of monkeys with the names of black staff. When the workers complained, they say the plant manager told them the facilities had been locked because they were "nasty, dirty [and] behaved like children".

Tyson Foods was one of several meat-packing companies highlighted by a report earlier this year by Human Rights Watch, which said jobs in the meat industry were among the most dangerous in the US. It said: "Dangerous conditions are cheaper for companies, and the government does next to nothing."

Read the rest of this post...

Bush delivers a lead balloon speech

Go figure. The photo-op president just isn't getting the response that he used to get these days. After so many lies for so long, people either don't believe him or take a wait and see attitude.

"Let's see what happens in six months, how much of what he says happens," said Kettelhut, 65, visiting Las Vegas from Kingman, Ariz. "You can say whatever you want. It's what happens down the road that counts."

Samuel Lewis, 31, questioned why Bush did not act faster and said the president's remarks were empty promises. "He is telling me he is going to rebuild my city ... but what about all the stuff I lost? What about jobs?"

"I've been in Third World countries where situations of this sort were handled better," said New Orleans resident J.J. Smith, 61, a retired communications specialist for telephone companies who watched the speech in a Baton Rouge, La., hotel bar.

"At that point, words alone would have been significant ... But now it's after the fact, so actions are more important," he said.

But don't worry, there are still a few apologists out there.

"He knows what happened here," Parker said. "He's been here. But he's just the middle man. Congress has the say-so."

Read the rest of this post...

Welcome To The Dark Ages

When the Catholic Church isn't demonizing gays instead of kicking out pedophiles, it's welcoming a convention of exorcists. Makes your head spin, doesn't it? Read the rest of this post...

Late nite thread

Don't you sleep sounder at night knowing Bush is at the helm? Read the rest of this post...

Thieves steal dead soldier's boots

Yeah, those Bush-lovers really do love our troops. Read the rest of this post...

Bush Defeats One Enemy: The Environment

Rolling Stone shines a light on Bush's attacks on the environment.

In recent months, the administration has opened up millions of acres of pristine land to developers, allowing them to log and mine without leaving behind "viable populations" of wildlife.

It allowed the import of methyl bromide, a cancer-causing pesticide that was due to be banned this year under an international accord signed by Ronald Reagan, and it scrapped plans to regulate lead paint in home-renovation projects, placing millions of children at risk for brain damage.

And on August 8th, taking advantage of solid Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, Bush signed into law his long-stalled energy bill, a grab bag of industry favors that provides $10 billion in oil, gas and coal subsidies while exempting Halliburton and other polluters from environmental laws.

Scary stuff. This lame duck can still foul the nest. Read the rest of this post...