Friday Orchid Blogging

Paph lowii blooming. This is not mine, nor my video. But it's quite cool.

Read the rest of this post...

New Poll: Everybody still hates Bush

A lot of us didn't like him before it was cool. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Have at it. Read the rest of this post...

New AMERICAblog bumper stickers

New bumper stickers in our AMERICAblog shop. Personally, I like the Americana theme juxtaposed with the liberal message. (FYI - We get a portion of every sale.) Thanks. Read the rest of this post...

Cliff's Corner

Note: I am doing a new weekly segment called Republican Sexcapades on the fun and funny Young Turks radio program every Thursday night from 8:05-8:20 EST on Sirius Satellite Radio. I'll include a link to windows media each week for those who don't get Sirius or want to watch anyhow. Click here for this week's epsiode.

And go here for my take on GOP division

The Week That Was 7/21/06

Another week. More preposterousness to report.

Just remember that every sperm is sacred. Or at least every embryonic stem cell that doesn’t belong to someone Arabic, Persian, Joe Wilson, North Korean, Hugo Chavez, one of John Fund’s girlfriends or anyone born more than five thousand years ago, you know, before the Earth was created.

Sam Brownback has apparently even decided to share his imaginary friends with us, the talking embryos. Or perhaps they’ve just mutated because of his party’s support of brown-fields, arsenic-laced water, mountain-top removal and pretty much every other plutocratic endeavor to turn your children’s backyard into Yucca Mountain while hiding behind the usual rhetorical amentia.

It’s called the Republican Culture of Corporate Life. And you better not even think of murdering that profit-margin, Commie!

I mean just because your air is filled with more crap than Bill Kristol’s pants when he’s shown reenactments of a battle in Karbala, doesn’t mean the Republicans aren’t darn serious about this respect for life stuff.

In Brownback’s case, his stirring presentation was only made possible because the GOP realized their initial choice, Idi Amin, is dead. But Brownback and 36 other dedicated Republican spermatozoonists were not about to let polls showing 80% of the public and 99.875% of those not worshipping at the altar of girdle-whipped, wack James Dobson stop them from putting on a show. So now with the exception of Lincoln Chafee, vulnerable Republican Senators from DeWine to Talent, Burns to Kyl, Ensign to Allen and Genghis to Kublai, have each put their theocratic signature on a debate more manufactured than Ralph Reed’s faith or Liddy Dole’s face. Have fun in the fall guys.

And how ironic that this ridiculous debate would occur right now. And I don’t mean in a George W. Bush “isn’t it ironic that I sweat when it’s hot” kinda way, but more in terms of how apropos it is that once again when danger is afoot “Yo Blair” was busy thinking about stem cells. Last time, he only ignored a document euphemistally named “Bin Laden determined to attack inside of U.S.” to come up with his patently mendacious position on this issue.

This time he watched as the fruits of his ham-handed, desultory, ranch-rat, “Russia is a really big place” diplomacy came to pass with North Korean missiles flying, Putin mocking him and the Middle East exploding into Newt Gingrich’s fourth fantasy wife, while he threatened and then used his first presidential veto on life-saving research Nancy Reagan, Orrin Hatch, Trent Lott and Bill Frist all support.

So if your family has a history of Alzheimer’s or Juvenile Diabetes you’ll want to be supporting Bush’s team in the November elections. Or if you’re getting up there in age. Or if you happened not to know that, like “China is really big too” and enjoy watching a 60 year old-man learn such edifying items on the world stage.

It’s enough to make you miss the days when his dad was puking on Japanese Finance Ministers and he was preparing to run for Governor of Texas so he could set the new standard for embryonic stem cells executed by lethal injection. Read the rest of this post...

Israel massing troops on Lebanese border

Where is Bush? Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Absolutely beastly outside.

Just a little high-tech update. Since I find it rather impossible to get good information on products online - there's just TOO much information, so I'm never really able to find a definitive source (or combination of sources) for what product I ought to buy, be it digital cameras, or more recently, white noise machines to help you sleep better.

So in that vein, let me share the results of two recent searches.

1. First, the white noise machine. I.e., a loud little thing that helps wipe out ambient noise so you can sleep better - and yes, I sometimes just use my fan, but when I travel I can't take my fan with me. Anyway, after much research, the hands-down winner with folks online - at least all the reviews I could find - is the following device:

Marpac Sound Screen MP980SS OR Marpac Sleepmate MP980SM (they're apparently basically the same thing, just different names). This thing got rave reviews, sells out quickly, and basically contains a loud little motor that makes a good deal of noise like a fan, and you can adjust the volume to some degree. No, unfortunately I get no commission if you buy one, just passing along some advice.

2. Second, a wifi detector/finder. Basically, a device that you can use when walking around town, or your apartment or home, that will detect whether there are any wireless Internet connections in the area. Interestingly, the reviews sucked for pretty much every product I could find, except one. Most of the units I read about do a poor job finding the wifi, and none of them (save one, that I could find) tell you if the wifi network you've found is encrypted or not (I.e., whether you can use it without a password). The device that does all this is:

Canary Wireless has released its $50 Digital Hotspotter. You can read a review from MacWorld here. This one is NOT something you can put on your keychain, but to me being able to see if the network is encrypted or not saves you from opening up your laptop on every street corner to try the connection only to find it fail.

Anyway, since this is an open thread, and I find researching this kind of thing rather a pain, thought I'd pass along the fruits of my googling. Read the rest of this post...

Bush & Lebanon: The gang that couldn't shoot straight . . . again.

An American family pays $3,200 for a taxi to get out of Lebanon. It's like Katrina east; I'm just waiting for the bogus and hysterical reports of minorities going on a rampage and pictures of President Bush strumming a guitar.

A follow-up from Tuesday's post: looks like nobody will take proactive steps to resolve the situation. The U.S. has reportedly given Israel the green light to bomb for another week or so, and Lebanon isn't moving its troops (some of whom Israel inexplicably bombed; I wonder if it was an accident or a warning or something, as Israel hasn't extensively targeted Lebanon's army) to the south. So Israel will try to do in two weeks of bombing what it couldn't do in 20 years of occupation (um, good luck!), the U.S. will sit it out until Israel is done, and Lebanon is reduced to rubble and loyalty to Hezbollah (and other Islamist militants) increases in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East.

According to Israel's chief of staff, they're "turn[ing] back Lebanon's clock 20 years." Meanwhile U.S. foreign policy is being set back 30: if this keeps up, I think the President is going to have to start wearing sweater-vests and checking the Misery Index. Read the rest of this post...

Republican Iraq war supporter says it's time for a partial withdrawal, now

Republicans waving the white flag of surrender? Tony Snow is tongue tied. More from the Stakeholder, quoting yesterday's Wash Post:

The evolving Republican message on the war contrasts with the strong rhetoric used by House and Senate Republicans recently in opposing a deadline for withdrawal from Iraq. During a debate last month, Gutknecht intoned, "Members, now is not the time to go wobbly." This week, he conceded "I guess I didn't understand the situation," saying that a partial troop withdrawal now would "send a clear message to the Iraqis that the next step is up to you."

"If we don't take the training wheels off, we will be in the same place in six months that we're in today," he said.

Moderate Republicans now feel they have to run against the war to win re-election. That means, at least in moderate Republican to Democratic districts, Democratic challengers need to have no fear about talking about the war and using it to bash their Republican opponent. Read the rest of this post...

Bush thinks his Iraq policy is model for Middle East conflicts. Uh-oh.

According to an analysis in today's Washington Post, our great foreign policy leader believes that the current conflict in Lebanon is a step toward peace -- apparently using Iraq as a model:

In the administration's view, the new conflict is not just a crisis to be managed. It is also an opportunity to seriously degrade a big threat in the region, just as Bush believes he is doing in Iraq.

Bush believes he's doing that in Iraq, but no one else does. He's created new threats in the region -- and emboldened the very people he set out to vanquish. This is a disaster. Read the rest of this post...

Reid: Iraq is a "civil war"

Harry Reid is calling Iraq what it is:

Declaring that he believes the situation in Iraq has devolved into a civil war, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said Thursday he plans to try to bring the war back up for debate on the Senate floor.

The Nevada Democrat said he has been "somewhat gingerly approaching this.... No longer. There is a civil war going on in Iraq. In the last two months, more than 6,000 Iraqis have been killed. That's averaging more than 100 a day being killed in Iraq and we need to make sure there is a debate on this."

Bill Frist's spokesperson said talking about Iraq is a "bad summer rerun." The GOP loves to play politics with Iraq. They hate doing policy on Iraq because they have no policy besides "stay the course." Their course continues to be a disaster of epic proportions. Read the rest of this post...

The so-called liberal media in action

The wingnuts love to play the victim and whine about the liberal media but the facts just aren't there to support the myth. Media Matters has a great study on the Sunday talk shows and who is on air and let's just say the Democrats and liberals are not receiving equal access compared to the GOP and conservatives. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Just watched Tony Snow interviewed by Matt Lauer. See, what we don't all know is that the Bush team is really, really busy doing diplomacy -- lots and lots of diplomacy. If that's true, then we're in bigger trouble than we thought. Snow also proclaimed that democracies don't invade their neighbors. Apparently, democracies only invade countries half a world away.

Waking up to Tony Snow is not a good way to start the day.

UPDATE: On CNN, Snow just said that Hezbollah and other terrorists know the "the United States has disabled Al Qaeda." That's good spin but it's not what experts are saying:

Conventional wisdom -- and the Bush administration -- holds that the United States' attack on Afghanistan dislodged and weakened the al-Qaida terrorist organization.

It's back, a top terrorism expert told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Tuesday.

"Today, al-Qaida has not only regrouped, but it is on the march," said Bruce Hoffman, a terrorism expert at the Rand Corp. "Al-Qaida is now functioning exactly as its founder and leader, Osama bin Laden, envisioned it."

Bush and his staff are delusional. They've made the world a much more dangerous place. Read the rest of this post...

Baghdad curfew extended after brutal week of killing

But how can this be? I thought that once al-Zarqawi was caught the problem would be solved? Does this mean that al-Qaeda and Zarqawi were not the problem like many suggested before and after? Does this in fact prove that the countless photos and hype over dead Zarqawi was just another spin program by an administration that can only offer hype? As the death tolls mount quickly in Iraq another GOP story has been knocked back down to the real world and it ain't pretty. If you like spin and no results at best, with catastrophe in many cases, keep supporting the GOP. Read the rest of this post...

Bush knows that African-Americans do not trust the GOP

What ever gave him that idea? Why stop there, because it seems like Americans in general don't trust the GOP. The man in the bubble pops out briefly and he sure didn't look happy. At least he managed to actually talk at the NAACP annual meeting this year but as usual he failed to say much of anything. If Bush was hoping to somehow connect with black Americans, maybe he will have to wait until next time or at least do something to change the widespread mistrust and rejection of the GOP. Read the rest of this post...