Friday Orchid Blogging

Colmanara Wildcat (now called Odontocidium Wildcat - ridiculous new name)

This is a relative, kind of, of the plant I showed you last week, the Sharry Baby. They're both oncidium type orchids, grow long spikes with lots of flowers. I just love Colmanara Wildcat, but it doesn't love me, or rather it didn't. Until I got some grow lights, the poor thing just died, and finally it's coming back. Hopefully mine will bloom in a year or so. This picture, I think, is from mine when I first got it (though it might be someone else's, I can't recall now!). Anyway, it's a gorgeous plant, supposedly not hard to grow, but that's not my story. You can see another picture I found online that shows more of the flowers and some of the plant here. There are a number of different types of Colmanara Wildcats, I think mine is Carmela (like the wonderdog), but not sure.

Enjoy. JOHN Read the rest of this post...

72-year old Gay bashing victim dies from injuries

Earlier this week, Andy at Towleroad made us aware of the brutal and senseless gay bashing of a 72 year old resident of Detroit. Today, the victim, Andrew Anthos, died from his injuries:

Though Anthos, 72, was visiting with friends as recently as Wednesday, his condition declined rapidly in the past two days and he was administered the last rites late Thursday in Detroit Receiving Hospital.

The attack, which left Anthos paralyzed from the neck down and virtually without speech, shocked the gay community, which reached out to his family with love and support -- as well as anger and a resolve for justice.

"There's going to be a great deal more attention now that this, unfortunately, has become a homicide," said Jeffrey Montgomery of Michigan's Triangle Foundation.

"We have worked with prosecutors here for many years, and all the buttons that can be pushed are being pushed right now," Montgomery said.

Don't tell us hate crimes don't matter. Don't tell us we don't need protections. Don't tell us we need to move on. Don't tell us that while members of our community are still being bashed. And, don't be mistaken: We're still not safe in America.

And a quick note: The religious right is lying to you. They say they oppose hate crimes legislation. No they don't. There already is a federal hate crimes law, and it covers the religious right (race, color, religion or national origin). What we're proposing is that the current federal law be broadened to include everyone (gender, disability and sexual orientation). The religious right is crowing about how this will make it a crime to criticize gay people. News flash, I criticize the religious right - they're a bunch of hateful loons - every day on this blog, and I'm obviously not going to jail. They're liars. If we're going to have a hate crimes law, it should cover everyone. Fair is fair. Read the rest of this post...

Small world

I'd posted eralier tonight a link to a Trompe l'Oeil expert who draws 3-D images on sidewalks. Well guess what, I photographed him at work in Edinburgh, Scotland and didn't even realize it was him until moments ago when I found the scene I photographed on the artist's Web site.

The scene, photographed by me from the correct side (and actually there's a better photo of it on his Web site).



The same scene, photographed from the wrong side.



You can check out lots more of his work here. And this one might be my favorite. Read the rest of this post...

Cliff's Corner

The Week That Was 2/23/07

Another week, more preposterousness to report.

So The Nevada Democratic Party somehow thinks it makes sense to have the closest living relative to Burmese State Television, the FoxNews Channel, televise a debate that will help choose our presidential nominee.

C'mon guys, you can tell us, is this secret plan to seduce Bill Bennett to the Luxor so you can plan for some major slots-based revenue enhancements? Because if there's one thing we know, it's that what happens to Bill Bennett's money in Las Vegas is that it stays in Las Vegas.

Yet, if this is not part of the plan, then this idea is so stupid, so very stupid, I am left speechless--kinda like Ted Stevens pondering the various complexities and spiritual implications of that series of tubes known as the Internets. The one and only Robert Greewald (discosure: we have worked together on projects and he has actually followed the capitalist ethic of paying me for my work) has just released a short film that is devastating, as his films always are, in displaying the level FoxNews will go to to discredit Democrat Barack Obama in his presidential quest.

I mean, does the Republican Party hand over its debates to the AFL-CIO? Does George W. Bush hand over his weekly radio slot to Jim Webb? Does Karl Rove plan his political campaigns around attacking gays because of a secret self-loathing due to his father's open homosexuality, a gap he fills by compulsively eating, growing his head to Zeppelinesque proportions and then developing a kindergarten plan for 2006, only to lose his enduring Republican majority to his own greed and stupidity?

Bad example.

Ok, doo I go on Rush Limbaugh's show? Well, no, because he doesn't seem to like me much. Here's what he had to say about me today (for real):

RUSH: Last night on CNN's Paula Zahn Now they were talking about hip-hop, the music, the culture, and the lyrics. Somehow my name came up in this discussion. The guest was somebody named Cliff Schecter, an expert. Never heard of him. He's from AmericaBlog.com, and this is what he said.

SCHECTER: There's misogyny throughout our culture. We just elected a new speaker of the House and Nancy Pelosi is a woman and all we heard all week were on her pantsuits, what this one looked like, what that one looked like. We didn't hear things about policy. You've got people on the right who are going out and screaming every day, people like Rush Limbaugh who scream feminazi, feminazi, feminazi.

He, of course, left out the part where I said after that last quote something like "and that's even when he's not on his usual pound of Oxycontin" (yes, I really did). Read the rest of what Limbaugh had to say about me, he's completely flummoxed.

Yet, in any case, go check out Robert's petition to OutFox the Fox folks and have the debate be covered by a less-biased source, like the White House. The petition should be easy to find when you get to the web page. Now, equally amusing, is Bill O'Reilly's recent paranoid, bed-wetting inspired hysteria over how NBC is "so liberal." Because, that's what I think when I look at a former sportscaster on MSNBC who leans left, whose time slot is surrounded by a right-wing pundit (Tucker), a former Democrat who voted for Bush in 2000 (The Hardball himself) and a former uber-conservative GOP Congressman (Scarborough). I guess you're so used to seeing the airwaves filled with extremist ideological diarrhea, Bill, that having one person with a different view than yours for one hour an evening would be just crazy diverse.

Oh and Bill, you may have missed it, but NBC weekend anchor Campell Brown is married to former CPA Administrator in Iraq, overall Bush lackey and new FOX CONTRIBUTOR Dan Senor. She must be a flaming liberal!

But in the spirit of your challenge, let's just examine the backgrounds of some of the big cheeses at Fox (and we'll even leave you out Bill, as a courtesy, because I'm good that way).

Rupert Murdoch, Owner of NewsCorp - Gives lots of dough. I am guessing 75-85% goes Republican by the looks of it (you do the math). His son was a really crappy distance runner on my high school track team and it still pisses me off.

Roger Ailes, President of FoxNews - Former Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George Bush media advisor. Looks like the Hamburglar without his mask on.

Tony Snow, Bush Spokesman - Former editor of the Washington Times and Bush I speechwriter. Then became Fox weekend anchor. Then conservative radio show host. Now Bush spokesman.

Brit Hume, Washington Bureau Chief - Brit was in the past an editor of the American Spectator while masquerading as a journalist. You may remember this putrid rag as the home of the Arkansas Project, a many-years effort to dig up dirt on Bill Clinton so he might eventually be impeached. It appears as if whatever was left over after Greta Van Susterin's extreme facial forms his current mug.

Sean Hannity - Ostensibly a host of a political show but still chooses to raise money for the GOP, a new low, even for your "news" station.

Bill Kristol, Charles Krauthammer, Fred Barnes, Newt Gingrich, Dan Senor, Michelle Malkin. All contributors. All dumber than malnutrition.

So you see Bill, you need to watch Robert's film. You zone has been spun pal.

For more on this and other stories go to cliffschecter.com. Read the rest of this post...

Senate Dem Iraq legislation may codify Baker-Hamilton recommendation to remove combat troops from Iraq by March 2008

Let the Republicans freak out over the proposed Democratic plan. Pulling our combat troops out of Iraq by March 2008 is what the Baker-Hamilton Commission recommended. Let the Republicans, the White House, Dick Cheney call James Baker an Al Qaeda enabler, then watch the sparks fly. I had the pleasure of sitting in a small meeting with James Baker and a group of Senators once in the early 90s. Ornery Republican Senator Malcolm Wallop (R-WY) made a bit of a personal attack on Baker in the meeting, and Baker scolded Wallop like the Senator was some piddly schoolboy. It was a joy to watch. If the White House and the Republicans make Baker their enemy, this could get very interesting. Not to mention, the American people already supported the Commission's findings. The American people will have little problem giving the Bush administration ANOTHER YEAR to fix this mess, then call it quits. Having the Republicans yet again try to stymy a bipartisan consensus will not go over well. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

Trompe l'oeil pavement art. Brilliant.



More on trompe l'oeil here. Read the rest of this post...

Defense Secretary contradicts Army Surgeon General who contradicted top Army officials who contradicted the general in charge of Walter Reed

They really need to get their propaganda straight over there at the Pentagon. Apparently, things have changed - again - and the Walter Reed scandal is back into scandal status. This morning, you'll recall, it was lies all lies, per the Army Surgeon General. Yesterday those lies were being rectified and many already were fixed, per top Army officials. And the day before that the head of Walter Reed said the expose about Walter Reed was pretty much all lies.

Kind of hard to spin a 600,000 case backlog in veterans disability claims. But God knows they'll try. Read the rest of this post...

Financial guru Suze Orman is gay

She wishes she could marry her girlfriend. Wow.

In an interview for The New York Times Magazine this coming Sunday, financial guru and TV host Suze Orman gets on Deborah Solomon's case for not looking out for her own money, partly because "you are a woman." This inspires Solomon to ask Orman if she is married.

Orman says she "has a relationship with life," so Solomon presses her, and Suze then reveals that her "life partner" is Kathy Travis and, "We're going on seven years. I have never been with a man in my whole life. I'm still a 55-year-old virgin."

Orman says they'd like to get married, and both "have millions of dollars in our name. It's killing me that upon my death, K.T. is going to lose 50 percent of everything I have to estate taxes. Or vice versa."

Good for her. That was rather gutsy. Read the rest of this post...

Tony Blair reportedly hired psychics to find bin Laden

Obviously he didn't talk to Nancy Reagan, or he'd have gotten the RIGHT psychics. Read the rest of this post...

British draw-down from Basra a positive development

I read Juan Cole regularly, which anyone who reads me regularly knows. I rarely have analytical disagreements with Juan's assessments on Iraq. His blog is an invaluable resource, and his judgment has proven prescient repeatedly over the past few years. With that said, I have to disagree with his article at Salon today.

Juan begins by saying, rightly, that Vice President Cheney calling the British decision to redeploy 1,600 troops from southern Iraq by May "an affirmation of the fact that there are parts of Iraq where things are going pretty well" is quite absurd. This administration never tires of twisting premises to fit already-determined conclusions -- such as the dichotomy of rising insurgent attacks being a good sign because "they're desperate" or in "last throes" while reductions in attack levels are also a good sign because "we're winning", for example -- and the Vice President's most recent comments are no different.

The piece then goes on, however, to elaborate upon why things are not "going pretty well" in Basra to the extent that it seems like an argument against the troop withdrawal. Juan explains that supply lines for both Coalition troops and Iraqi oil supplies will be vulnerable, and warns that troops in the rest of Iraq, especially Baghdad, will be increasingly vulnerable to the intra-Shia conflict in the south. The article cites three battles just in February to show that Basra remains unstable, but the first includes an admission from British military sources that they might be doing more harm than good in Basra and the other two explicitly describe the violence as being between British troops and the Mahdi Militia. It's unclear to me that this violence would necessarily continue between Iraqis rather than lessening as British troops depart, taking with them the incentive for anti-occupation attacks.

And really, we're not talking about a huge number of troops. The British have just 7,100 forces in Iraq, and they plan to remove 1,600. Basra, the second-largest city in Iraq, has roughly 2.5 million people. Not exactly numbers that are going to make or break the security situation, and I remain unconvinced that the troops there are having a significant effect upon the levels of violence. In summer 2006, Iraqi officials announced that deaths were occurring in Basra at the rate of one every hour, and it's not like there's been an influx of British troops (or effectiveness) since then.

I would not ask British troops to get in the middle of Iraq's southern civil conflict any more than I want U.S. troops in the midst of sectarian violence in the rest of the country, and I'm skeptical of the idea that this withdrawal is going to precipitate a precipitous decline for Basra's security. Are the Vice President's statements about the withdrawal demonstrating success completely full of it? Absolutely. Does this involve risks? Yes. But is it the right thing to do for the future security of both Iraq and the U.K. (and perhaps U.S.)? I think it is.

In his closing paragraph, Juan says, "Without a United Nations peacekeeping force or the like to tamp down violence, the British retreat from Basra is unlikely to produce positive results." I respectfully disagree, at least in the mid- and long- term. While worst-case scenarios are possible, I think this will ultimately be a positive development -- not because it reflects positive changes, but because it could portend them. If the security situation in Basra declines precipitously in the late spring and early summer (beyond the usual seasonal cycles of violence), I'll stand corrected, and I would have to reevaluate my support for significant Coalition withdrawal. But it's my hope -- and belief -- that this will begin to demonstrate that troop redeployment may not be quite the apocalypse remaining war supporters claim. Read the rest of this post...

Army Surgeon General: "More than half" our wounded vets aren't treated like animals

Well, don't I feel warm all over. As Joe noted below, the Army Surgeon General, Lt. Gen. Kevin Kiley, is now telling us that the Washington Post expose about the horrendous problems at Walter Reed is a pack of lies. (Ignore for a moment that the top military brass has already apologized for that pack of lies, and has assured us that the pack of lies are being fixed and that many of the lies have already been fixed (which isn't really true because one of the biggest problems is that they're 600,000 disability claims behind)).

But my favorite part of the Army Surgeon General's interview is the following statement:

But, remember, more than half the [soldiers'] rooms were actually perfectly OK.

Wow, more than half! That's really super! That's a bit like bragging that more than half of the pages WEREN'T sexually abused by Republican congressmen, or assuring your spouse that more than half the time you're NOT cheating on her (or as one of our readers commented, "And more than 95 percent of American cities HAVEN'T been flooded because of federal neglect of levees!")

Yes, this is the standard of excellence that George Bush and the Republicans have brought to our military. In the greatest country on earth, more than half of our wounded and maimed veterans aren't being treated like scum.

Heckuvajob, Kiley. Read the rest of this post...

Nancy Pelosi, smarter than Denny Hastert

Snappy little column in the Philly Inquirer about Speaker Pelosi.

In her first month as House speaker, Nancy Pelosi is demonstrating the spine and skill that prove she is no female lummox of the left.

Sorry, GOP, she's not just another nothingburger Dennis Hastert in a skirt.

Based on her performance, she is much smarter than her undistinguished Republican predecessor, who was little more than a superficially amiable front-man for the narrow-minded right-wingers who really ran the party.

She is more collegial, focused on getting serious things done. And heaven knows, she has far more in the way of personality, energy and collegial instincts to keep her diverse caucus moving.

UPDATE: Even more praise for Speaker Pelosi, this time from U.S. News (subscription only)

The White House Bulletin
February 22, 2007
Pelosi's Smooth Operation Surprises Even Some Supporters

House Republicans aren't the only ones expressing surprise at how effective and steady new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has been. Now top Democrats and their aides are complimenting Pelosi for running a smooth operation during her debut. "I've been surprised at how well it's gone," said a top Democratic aide and Pelosi ally. "I think we all thought something would go wrong but it's very steady," added the aide. Early expectations by both parties were that Pelosi would let her liberal politics pull her out of the mainstream or that intra-party differences would create an opening for Republicans to skewer the speaker. In fact, the only mistake so far has been Pelosi's belated explanation of her staff's bid for an Air Force jet to take her home, a mini-scandal that was quieted after Democratic aides set up a war room to fend off non-stop attacks from the GOP. Pelosi's success has stymied the GOP, which has moved to change its strategy of laying low. It was a plan endorsed in January by former House Speaker Newt Gingrich during a Republican retreat, but a plan he later rejected, as Pelosi appeared to be gaining strength and confidence. -- Bulletin exclusive from U.S. News

Read the rest of this post...

Cheney, whose policies have helped rebuild al Qaeda, continues over the top attacks

Let's review:

1) Just this week, we learned that Al Qaeda is back; Bin Laden has reasserted his authority;

2) Last fall we learned that the nation's 16 intelligence agencies concluded that the Iraq war has hurt the U.S. efforts to fight terrorism while serving as a recruiting boon for jihadist terror networks;

3) The Iraq war is a monumental failure and there has never been a real plan from the Bush/Cheney Administration to get the U.S. out of the quagmire.

So, what does Dick Cheney do? Continues his irrational and hysterical attacks on the Speaker:

Vice President Dick Cheney refused Friday to take back his charge that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's opposition to President Bush's Iraq war buildup is playing into the hands of the al-Qaida terrorist network.

"If you're going to advocate a course of action that basically is withdrawal of our forces from Iraq, then you don't get to just do the fun part of that, that says, 'We'll, we're going to get out,' and appeal to your constituents on that basis," Cheney said.

Now, we know Dick Cheney will never admit he's wrong. They don't do that.

I have heard from several reliable sources that if the U.S. pulled out of Iraq, the Sunnis and Shias would both work to destroy al Qaeda in their country. If that's true, then the Bush/Cheney administration is actually playing in to the hands of al Qaeda. No surprise, Bush and Cheney have been played by al Qaeda for six years now. Read the rest of this post...

Army now attacking Wash. Post reports over the Walter Reed scandal

Because in the Bush Administration, one never takes responsibility for any mistake, a top Army official attacked the Washington Post for writing the Walter Reed articles:

The Army's surgeon general yesterday criticized stories in The Washington Post disclosing problems at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, saying the series unfairly characterized the living conditions and care for soldiers recuperating from wounds at the hospital's facilities.

"I'm not sure it was an accurate representation," Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, chief of the Army Medical Command, told reporters during a news conference. "It was a one-sided representation."

One-sided? It was the side of wounded troops.

Took them a week to come up with this "blame the messenger" strategy. These are the people running the war in Iraq. Read the rest of this post...

Friday Morning Open Thread

Rescind the war authorization. Perfect. Let the Republicans go on the record saying they want Bush to keep that authorization that he lied to get in the first place.

Thread please. Read the rest of this post...

Give your brain a chance and skip your next meeting

Sounds like corporate "think outside the box" meetings really are rubbish after all.

People have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group, new research suggests.

Scientists exposed study participants to one brand of soft drink then asked them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others.

Read the rest of this post...

UK moving towards investigation into Iraq mistakes

This is probably not how Blair wanted to leave office though this is his legacy. The debate now is about the timing, with some wanting to review later when emotions are less involved while others have seen enough and want to move now. At the earliest it sounds like the investigations will not start until after Blair is gone in the summer which his successor Gordon Brown dislikes because it will divert attention from his own agenda. With Blair boldly denying any responsibility for the catastrophe in Iraq, it might be difficult to avoid bringing him back to reality as he departs.

The Government is under mounting pressure to hold an early inquiry into the mistakes made in Iraq as Tony Blair refused to apologise for the chaos engulfing the country.

Heavyweight demands for a wide-ranging investigation came in a five-hour debate in the House of Lords led by the former foreign secretary Lord Hurd of Westwell, who won the backing of several other former cabinet ministers.

Read the rest of this post...

Wimbledon joins US Open and Australia Open with equal pay

One of the finest sporting events just became better. Tennis great and pioneer Billie Jean King laid the groundwork for this decades ago and is obviously pleased with this announcement. There is no reason why men and women should be paid differently. Who knows, maybe the corporate world will catch up one of these days as well with equal pay. Read the rest of this post...