Friday Orchid Blogging

Encyclia fragrans

This little guy has enough smell in it to carry several feet - and yes, it's one of my own, currently in bloom. It starts off, right after blooming, smelling like those fake spearmint-scented urinal cakes (not kidding). After a few days, it switches into more of a spearmint candy scent. And then a good week into it, it switches to wonderful, fresh, warm gingerbread. For real. The scent is amazing, and really strong. I found this little guy to be quite difficult, it hasn't been happy in years. But with my new lighting set-up, I bought some compact fluorescent bulbs for some of my plants, the roots took off and now it's quite happy - even has another flower spike coming up.

Enjoy. Read the rest of this post...

Cliff's Corner

The Week That Was 12/15/06

Another Week. More preposterousness to report.

So the mighty Tom DeLay graced our lives with his crooked snarl once again this past week, in a pose not seen since he took that "photo" while being processed at the big house for trying to subvert our constitutional system of government.

First, we got the emergence of DeLay "the blogger." Well not quite "blogger," as he admitted that someone else actually wrote everything that goes up on his infantile site. But he did say very proudly, on Hardball the other night, that "the ideas were his." Which means I hope that whoever is doing the writing for that blog has no plans for the next 2-7 years and enjoys the thought of conjugal visits.

In any case, DeLay's blog, GAIN, which stands for the something his party did not do in the House or Senate this past cycle--largely thanks to the fact that he's dirtier than Mark Foley's thoughts after watching an all-day marathon of The Goonies--got so many negative comments its first day online, that they took the comments down. And then I hear he illegally used DHS employees to find those responsible.

Second, we got DeLay the paranoid. In one of his usual reality-based statements, he claimed that Hillary Clinton would be the next leader of the free world, because "a liberal coalition, working in concert with the news media," would elect Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) to the White House in 2008. He also added that he "had never seen a more powerful coalition."

Ok Tom. Just to remind you, that coalition of religious zealots, corporate reach-arounds and pajama warriors you put together did a decent job of fooling enough of the country that the damage you've done over the past six years couldn't be undone by Harry Potter.

Regarding that liberal coalition, Tom, who exactly gets to be a member in the shady recesses of your lesion-saturated cerebrum? Is it only the mainstream media and liberal activists?

What about Jewish bankers, Masons, the ghost of Abbey Hoffman and SpongeBob SquarePants?

Finally, this past week with Democrat Ciro Rodriguez' stunning upset of Henry Bonilla for yet another House pickup, we got to see the results of Tom DeLay's perfidy aimed at stealing multiple Congressional seats in Texas.

So let me see. You launder corporate money. Work with Abramoff. And win the state house in Texas, all with the express purpose of taking five-six Democratic House seats. Well how's that working for you?

Let's see, bugboy, you couldn't beat Chet Edwards, lost Bonilla's seat and lost your own. So you picked up two seats. And now you will probably learn how best to manufacture car parts when not enjoying "yard time." Well done.

And thanks for giving us the corruption narrative, because that sure didn't play any role in our huge victory in November.

Come to think of it, please don't leave Tom. Keep giving your sound advice to the next generation of GOP Gorgons Read the rest of this post...

Senator Johnson is improving: "progress is encouraging"

Some good news from late this afternoon on the condition of the Senator from South Dakota:

Sen. Tim Johnson (D-S.D.) remains in critical but stable condition today after undergoing emergency brain surgery on Wednesday, but his doctors say he is making progress in his recovery, according to a statement released by the senator's office late this afternoon.

"Considering his initial presentation, his progress is encouraging," Anthony Caputy, chairman of George Washington University Hospital's neurosurgery department, said in the statement. "He is now stabilized and continues to show signs of responsiveness to the medical staff and the family."

I noticed that the GOP vultures had stopped circling over the Capitol and GWU Hospital today. They were out in full force yesterday and Wednesday. It was a disgusting display. Read the rest of this post...

Off topic and funny as hell

Not terribly work friendly, as links go. But true. Read the rest of this post...

People can use your cell phone, computer cam, and computer mic to spy on you without your knowledge

Oh yes, your privacy is gone. They can turn your cell phone into a bug, and they don't even have to touch it to set it up. They can beam the bug instructions into your phone so that even when your phone looks off, it's picking up everything going on around you.

Second, Macromedia Flash Player software on your computer, and most of us have it, can permit other Web sites to watch you and listen to you via your cam and microphone. And sure, you have to click the screen in order to let the site eavesdrop on you, but what if someone gets a hold of your computer while your out (a colleague, the cleaning lady, your kids, a battering spouse, the government) and clicks it for you? Or, what if someone sends malicious software to your computer that auto-clicks it for you - we know there's software that can do that.

We are quickly entering a period in which Americans will have little to no privacy left. Congress and our local officials need to get involved, now. Europeans have some serious privacy protections in place. Americans have very little. That needs to change. Read the rest of this post...

George Bush "happy" about lesbian mom-to-be Mary Cheney's impending pregnancy; says gay parents can be "loving" too

Boy, it must suck for the religious right to have the president they claimed as one of their own stab them in the back with a baby rattle. (Not that that would be anything new.) Bush didn't just say he was happy the two lesbians were having a baby. He didn't just say that gay parents provide the love a baby needs. But he expressly refused to say that children raised by gay parents are at a disadvantage over those raised by straight parents.

The religious right can kiss their war against gays goodbye. For the next 50 years, every time they complain about gay parents, gay adoption, or gay marriage, we're simply going to flash two pictures - one of Mary Cheney, and the other of George Bush.

Sucks to be hateful bigots who nobody likes any more. The joke is, of course, that the Republican party always hated the religious right, always considered them the crazy aunts in the attic. It's only now that the religious right may finally be starting to figure out the truth.

More from the Washington Post. Read the rest of this post...

Condi Rice says former Secretary of State James Baker wants to give Iran nukes

That's what she said. She and the president she works for are insane.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday rejected a bipartisan panel's recommendation that the United States seek the help of Syria and Iran in Iraq, saying the "compensation" required by any deal might be too high. She argued that neither country should need incentives to foster stability in Iraq.

"If they have an interest in a stable Iraq, they will do it anyway," Rice said in a wide-ranging interview with Washington Post reporters and editors. She said she did not want to trade away Lebanese sovereignty to Syria or allow Iran to obtain a nuclear weapon as a price for peace in Iraq.

Where in the Iraq Study Group report does it say that we should give Iran a nuclear weapon in exchange for talking with us about Iraq? I'm willing to bet it doesn't. There is no way that Baker, Lee Hamilton, former Senator Simpson or anyone else would have suggested that we give Iran a nuke, or the ability to make a nuke. That is simply an outright lie.

So Condi lied about Iraq. Gee, that's a new approach we've never tried before. That's all this administration knows how to do. Lie. They refuse to talk to our enemies because all Bush knows is war. They refuse to respond to good suggestions with legitimate critiques because all they know is lies.

Rice should be held accountable for dismissing the Iraq Study Group's recommendations based on an outrageous lie. Read the rest of this post...

New UK evidence shreds case for war in Iraq

I have never understood Blair's strong support for Bush and this war and am tired of all of the excuses his apologists dish out. A liar is a liar, no matter how posh the accent and no matter how clever or not the person is. In this case, I can appreciate the sensitivity of "national security" but isn't this a crisis of trust in the government? When a country is being dragged into war, which will have a deadly impact both on its own citizens as well as hundreds of thousands of others, don't people deserve the truth?

A devastating attack on Mr Blair's justification for military action by Carne Ross, Britain's key negotiator at the UN, has been kept under wraps until now because he was threatened with being charged with breaching the Official Secrets Act.

In the testimony revealed today Mr Ross, 40, who helped negotiate several UN security resolutions on Iraq, makes it clear that Mr Blair must have known Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. He said that during his posting to the UN, "at no time did HMG [Her Majesty's Government] assess that Iraq's WMD (or any other capability) posed a threat to the UK or its interests."

Mr Ross revealed it was a commonly held view among British officials dealing with Iraq that any threat by Saddam Hussein had been "effectively contained".

He also reveals that British officials warned US diplomats that bringing down the Iraqi dictator would lead to the chaos the world has since witnessed. "I remember on several occasions the UK team stating this view in terms during our discussions with the US (who agreed)," he said.

"At the same time, we would frequently argue when the US raised the subject, that 'regime change' was inadvisable, primarily on the grounds that Iraq would collapse into chaos."

With this report, how could Blair still drag the UK into this war and why?

Mr Ross says he questioned colleagues at the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence working on Iraq and none said that any new evidence had emerged to change their assessment.

"What had changed was the Government's determination to present available evidence in a different light," he added.

Sounds familiar. Read the rest of this post...

Follow-up on Saudi ambassador's resignation

Several people in the comments Tuesday asked about the sudden resignation of Prince Turki al-Faisal, the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. His predecessor, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, served for a whopping 22 years and was extremely close with the Bush family (many reports indicated that Bandar was one of the first primary foreign policy advisers to George W. Bush) so such a short tenure for Turki is quite surprising.

In the context of the current Middle East maelstrom, there has been plenty of speculation about the real reason for departure (in a nice nod to traditional American political lies, the official reason is that the ambassador wants to spend more time with his family -- ohhhhkayyy).

In just the past few weeks, the Saudis have made constant headlines. First with a highly inflammatory WaPo op-ed by a consultant to the ambassador, which indicated that the Kingdom was planning to intervene in Iraq on the side of the Sunnis and drastically increase oil production to lower world prices and put economic pressure on Iran. The consultant was subsequently fired and his writing disavowed by the Saudis. Aside from the fact that the Kingdom doesn't have the military firepower to do much in Iraq (or especially against Iran) and my extreme skepticism about their ability to ramp up oil production to the levels needed to carry out such a plan, the fact that they'd even be talking about these things is significant. Then there was Vice President Cheney's trip to Saudi, which supposedly involved a tongue-lashing and warnings about U.S. actions, and finally protests against rumors of a U.S. plan to support the Shia against the Sunnis in Iraq's civil war.

Clearly U.S.-Saudi relations are at a difficult moment. Even with all that, however, it's important to remember that all politics is local (despite the American urge to make everything about us), and from what I can glean, this fight appears to be basically an internal Saudi one. Bandar is said to be offended at how much everyone in D.C. liked Turki, and Bandar is trying to keep moving up in the Kingdom's government, while Turki's brother, Saudi foreign minister Prince Saud al-Faisal is in poor health, as is his wife. Add that to speculation of a shakeup in the Kingdom's government, and the internal machinations may have overtaken Turki's ability and/or willingness to do the job.

While it doesn't seem to be a resignation in protest, at least not against the U.S., it certainly is another indicator of problems with U.S. foreign affairs and growing discontent within the region over Iraq and the future of U.S. policy. Read the rest of this post...

Visits to Syria by Senators irritates Tony Snow and the Bush Team

Because the Bush White House has been so adept at foreign policy, the spokesperson is challenging the credibility of U.S. Senators who are visiting Syria. The New York Times reports on Tony Snow's "harsh words" about Bill Nelson and the other Senators who are headed to Damascus:

With the Democrats about to take control of Congress after an election that was widely viewed as a referendum on the war, the visits reflect an increasing willingness to challenge the White House over foreign policy. The sharpness of the White House response suggests an appetite to use the issue as a basis for a political fight.

“We think it’s inappropriate,” Tony Snow, the White House press secretary, said on Thursday, adding, “The concern here, among other things, is that this does not strengthen the hand of democracy in the region.”

Mr. Snow said the visits “may cost some people their credibility.”

The White House has no credibility. None. Nothing Bush has done has strengthened the hand of democracy in the region. He's made it worse.

To understand just how pathetic and puerile the Bush team is, note the press release they sent while Nelson was in Damascus:

While Mr. Nelson was in Damascus, the White House on Wednesday issued a statement under Mr. Bush’s name in which the president called for the immediate release of Syrian political prisoners. “Syrians deserve a government whose legitimacy is grounded in the consent of the people, not brute force,” the statement said.

Mr. Snow said Thursday that the statement was not timed to coincide with Mr. Nelson’s visit.

Sure, Tony. They make everything personal. Read the rest of this post...

John McCain demanding even MORE American troops sent to Iraq

John McCain is a far-right conservative. He always has been. Yes, he occasionally veers to the middle on issues like campaign finance, and that's great. But on most issues, John McCain is an arch conservative Republican. If you think the answer in Iraq is sending even more Americans to die, then please do consider McCain for president. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Another week with no progress in Iraq. Just more death and destruction while our President does some listening and learning about the war he started. It's absurd. Beyond absurd. This is, however, Rumsfeld's last day on the job.

So, what else? Start threading the news. Read the rest of this post...

Bush policies making US even less popular in Arab world

I didn't think it was possible to become even less popular in the region, but Bush somehow managed to do it.

The panel, led by former Secretary of State James Baker III and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton, also called for a renewed U.S. effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a way to defuse regional tensions.

"?What the poll says to me is Baker-Hamilton are right,"? Zogby said.

"?If America wants to salvage itself and improve its standing and get the credibility and legitimacy it needs to lead in Iraq, it needs to do something to earn the trust of allies in the broader region,"? he said.

The survey released by the Arab American Institute found that more than 80 percent of people in Saudi Arabia and Egypt had negative opinions of the United States, similar to previous years, but attitudes worsened in Morocco, Jordan and Lebanon.

The biggest increases were in Jordan, where negative U.S. ratings climbed to 90 percent from 62 percent and Morocco, where they grew to 87 percent from 64 percent.

Attitudes toward American people, movies and democracy were more negative than positive in most of the five countries.

Read the rest of this post...

Massive arms corruption investigation stopped - national security cited

This is beyond belief and I hope that we don't see similar results when Congress starts their own investigations into corruption. Why are so many countries getting dragged through the mud for this industry which seems to act outside of the law? Ike warned the US about this industry when he left office but the problem only gets worse. I understand how the "defense" industry prospers though I fail to see how democratic countries prosper.

The remarkable intervention was announced by the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, who took the decision to end the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into alleged bribes paid by the company to Saudi officials, after consulting cabinet colleagues.

In recent weeks, BAE and the Saudi embassy had frantically lobbied the government for the long-running investigation to be discontinued, with the company insisting it was poised to lose another lucrative Saudi contract if it was allowed to go on. This came at a time when the SFO appeared to have made a significant breakthrough, with investigators on the brink of accessing key Swiss bank accounts.

However, Lord Goldsmith consulted the prime minister, the defence secretary, foreign secretary, and the intelligence services, and they decided that "the wider public interest" "outweighed the need to maintain the rule of law". Mr Blair said it would be bad for Britain's security if the SFO was allowed to go ahead, according to the statement made in the Lords by Lord Goldsmith. The statement did not elaborate on the nature of the threat.

BAE claimed that it was about to lose out on a third phase of the Al-Yamamah deal, in which the Saudis would buy 72 Typhoon aircraft in a deal worth £6bn. The Saudis had also hinted that they would do a deal with the French instead if the inquiry pushed ahead. A 10-day ultimatum was reportedly issued by the Saudis earlier this month.

Sounds dangerous, indeed.

Clare Short, Mr Blair's former cabinet colleague, said: "This government is even more soiled than we thought it was. It means that BAE is above the law."

She added: "The message it sends to corrupt businessmen is carry on - the government will support you."

Let's export this kind of democracy everywhere, huh? Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Just curious, do people like these open threads? Should we have more of them? Do people prefer them with some specific question asked, about a specific issue? Or just open open? Read the rest of this post...