This is a bloom I grew early last year, I think. The plant is a phragmipedium - you remember those, with the blooms so many of you hate. And this one has a darker parent on one side, thus the flowers are dark red, which I find rather cool. It also has rather long petals (I think they call them sepals in the orchid world, though I may be getting that one wrong). Anyway, it's a pretty cool plant, not terribly hard to grow - it likes it moist, you never let the growing medium dry out, and try to give it as much sun as it can handle - near full-sun indoors in the winter, full sun outdoor in the early summer, then dappled sun as August approaches (or you'll burn the plant). Also, as with many orchids, to help promote flowering give it a good six weeks, if you can, of temps dropping at nights by at least 15 degrees from where they were during the day - nights in the 50s are perfect. The flowers take a while to form, and I think the flowers last several weeks - I got two flowers out of this one stalk at the same time.
Anyway, like I said, pretty cool plant. Oh, and you have to be careful about it rotting at the base of the plant. Water it before noon, and avoid letting water sit in the top of the plant.
"I like his aggressiveness and everything, and I had nothing against the House majority man, but I felt that we had enough evidence, not only me, but the other grand jury members," Gibson said.
The grand jury foreman also takes great exception to accusations that he and 11 other grand jury members followed the lead of Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle instead of following the evidence.
"It was not a rubber stamp deal. It was not an overnight deal. If we needed extra information, it was provided to us," Gibson said.
BENNETT: Let me just tell you, when it comes to abortion, my wife's program, Best Friends, has kept more young women from having abortions because they don't get pregnant because they take her good counsel...
HANNITY: Let me...
BENNETT: Than the entire black caucus. She has done more for inner city black girls than the entire black caucus. So I will not bow my head to any of these people.
I just wanted to post this because it's interesting, and I know Josh and like him, he went with me on that voyage-of-the-damned to Scotland. He writes for Redstate.org, a VERY conservative blog.
Josh argues that the last thing the right needs to do is wrap itself around Delay, and thus go down in flames with him. I think Josh is right, about that point at least. In any case, it's interesting to see some conservatives suggesting that Delay should be dumped.
"Conservative leaders across the country are working now to make sure that any politician who hopes to have conservative support in the future had better be in the forefront as we attack those who attack Tom DeLay."
-- Morton Blackwell, 31 March 2005
Good call, Morton. Now that the indictment of the erstwhile House Majority Leader is an accomplished fact, the wisdom of chaining the conservative movement to Tom DeLay is apparent even to the most fervent of the true believers. The fall of Tom DeLay is not merely a parable of hubris in one man: it is the tale of ego begetting ill-judgment in the conservative movement at large.
The pity is that Republicans who care more about their party than about the cult of personality attendant to its key figures have long warned of this day. We knew all along that Tom DeLay was a bully -- ask the Heritage Foundation about his penchant for petty grudges. We knew all along that he was, on a fundamental level, unprincipled -- ask him about the fat in the Federal budget. We knew all along that he was mostly interested in power for its own sake -- recall, please, that he sought a House rules change to protect his leadership position in this very circumstance. And we knew that if it came to an indictment, it would be the end...
We shouldn't be offering stupid amendments to help the soldiers get reimbursed for armor they already purchased (that's the current Democratic plan). The soldiers are STILL buying their own armor. If they can find the armor to buy, our focus shouldn't be solely on reimbursing them, it should be on buying the damn armor now - they can find a vendor, why can't we? And just as important, maybe we need to provide each combat soldier with a voucher so they can buy their armor, rather than expecting them to find the money and then we reimburse them (and oh, if they don't have the money, too bad, they don't get armor under the current reimbursement scheme).
This is the kind of issue you shut down congress for. I have a very sick feeling that the Dems will do what they always do. Come up with an amendment. Offer it in a vacuum. Don't do any grassroots, any great media, no public events, and absolutely no coordination with the blogosphere other than handing us a press release. You'll simply offer the amendment up (Hillary and her independent commission amendment come to mind), let it get voted down, then think you've won.
Please, wake up Democrats. If you don't get it on an issue this obvious, then you aren't going to get it until we basically throw you guys out of office and put some Dems with a backbone and a brain in power. How many election failures do we have to have before we finally have that little revolution we all keep talking about? These guys on the Hill miss the same opportunities over and over and over again, yet we leave them all in power, and then we wonder why we keep losing.
Please, don't just offer a stupid amendment. Run with this, shut down the building for our troops. Demand that a good amendment, whatever it is, be passed or NOTHING proceeds in Congress (other than perhaps hurricane relief).
And finally, what would the Republicans do if Clinton had short-changed our troops during war time? Do you think all they'd do is offer a stupid amendment? No, they'd have an entire campaign laid out with their far-right non-profits working the grassroots and all the media (talk radio, TV, etc.), they'd launch a filibuster against any and all legislation until Bill Clinton finally stopped killing our troops, they'd have public events with soldiers, and soldiers families, and veterans, begging the president to stop sending our kids out to die without the armor they need. Hell, they'd probably start calling for the impeachment of the commander in chief.
That's how you organize a real campaign. It's not offering one single stupid amendment and hoping the earth will move. You have to make the earth move, not wait for the earth to move for you.
Any US military out there reading this, or their friends and families? Once again, you're hearing of this outrage from a liberal blog. Not from Republicans, who are the ones you keep thinking care more about our troops, but from Democrats. This is absolutely outrageous. I may be upset about the snuff-porn scandal we've been reporting on all week, but that doesn't mean I want our troops to die in battle because we haven't given them the equipment they need. Yes, I think this war has become a very sad joke, but leaving our men and women as sitting ducks is hardly the answer.
Where is your president? Where is YOUR Secretary of Defense? Where is your Republican congress?
Nowhere.
Ask yourself how many times this issue has come up over the past several years, and how many times Bush and Rumsfeld lied to you about the problem being fixed in a couple of months.
Nearly a year after Congress demanded action, the Pentagon still hasn't figured out a way to reimburse U.S. troops for body armor and equipment they purchased to better protect themselves while serving in Iraq.
For Marine Sgt. Todd Bowers that extra equipment — a high-tech rifle scope bought by his father for $600 and a $100 pair of goggles — turned out to be a life-or-death purchase. And he has never been reimbursed.
Bowers, who is from Arizona but going to school in Washington, D.C., was shot by a sniper during his second tour in Iraq, but the round lodged in his scope, and his goggles protected his eyes from the shrapnel that struck his face.
"We weren't provided those going to Iraq," he said yesterday. "But they literally saved my life."
He and other soldiers and their parents are still spending hundreds and sometimes thousands of dollars for armor they say the military won't provide. One U.S. senator said yesterday he will try again to force the Pentagon to obey the reimbursement law it opposed from the outset and has so far not implemented.
Great, he can advise them all on how to get indicted:
Indicted Texas Rep. Tom DeLay will serve as a "very powerful adviser" to the Republican leadership while he battles the conspiracy charge that forced him to step aside as House majority leader, a GOP spokesman said Thursday.
"His experience and insight for over a decade of the Republican majority is invaluable to our leadership and to our members and will be used wisely," said Ron Bonjean, spokesman for Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill.
New York Times reporter Judith Miller was released from jail late yesterday and is scheduled to testify this morning before a federal grand jury investigating whether any government officials illegally leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media, according to lawyers involved in the case.
Lots of drama associated with Judith Miller. Bottom line is that it looks like Fitzgerald's case is wrapping up:
One lawyer said it could become clear as early as next week whether Fitzgerald plans to indict anyone or has negotiated a plea bargain.
Also Thursday, the U.S. military announced the deaths of five U.S. soldiers Wednesday in a roadside bombing during combat in Ramadi, west of Baghdad, a hotbed of Iraq's insurgency.
It was the deadliest single attack against American troops in more than a month, bringing to 1,934 the number of U.S. service members who have died since Iraq's war started in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. More than 140 people, including 13 U.S. service members, have been killed in the past four days.
But don't worry. Seriously, Bush is going to give a speech soon.
Froomkin asks "Is Bush losing Congress?" Better question might be "Is Bush just plain old losing it?":
His second-term agenda is in shambles. His spending plan for Hurricane Katrina has torn his party apart. Support for his increasingly unpopular war is eroding. His political capital is spent.
And now he's lost his Hammer.
For President Bush, who was already seeing his influence wane in Congress, yesterday's indictment of Rep. Tom DeLay -- forcing the iron-fisted House majority leader to step down from his leadership post -- was an enormous blow.
Furthermore, DeLay's troubles add to the sense that the Republican Party and the White House are under siege, plagued by missteps and ethics scandals.
California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in a widely expected move vetoed a bill on Thursday that would have allowed gay couples to marry.
The Republican governor had earlier this month indicated he would veto the bill passed by California's Democrat-led legislature. The bill was the first of its kind approved by a state legislature.
Schwarzenegger said he would leave the contentious issue of same-sex marriage to voters and the courts. "I do not believe the legislature can reverse an initiative approved by the people of California," he said in a written statement.
"This bill simply adds confusion to a constitutional issue," Schwarzenegger wrote. "If the ban of same-sex marriage is unconstitutional, this bill is not necessary. If the ban is constitutional, this bill is ineffective."
Bad actor, worse liar. The Republican Party can't have it both ways. In Massachusetts and on a Federal level, it's the Courts that need to be controlled. Bad Activist Court, Bad Court!
But Arnold says what? "Schwarzenegger said he would leave the contentious issue of same-sex marriage to voters and the courts."
Black is white! White is black!
On gay issues, the Republicans aren't about scholarly legal interests, they are about one thing and one thing only -- hate.
It's time we ALL see it for what it is and call it by the name it deserves.
Miller left an Alexandria, Va. jail at 3:55 p.m., a jail official said.
She was released after she had a telephone conversation with the Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, sources said. In that conversation, Libby reaffirmed that he had released Miller from a promise of confidentiality more than a year ago, sources said.
Wonder if seeing the DeLay/Frist/Katrina house of cards start to fall got her to start singing...
To get a sense of what may be shown in these images, one has to go back to press reports from when the Abu Ghraib abuse scandal was still front page news.
This is how CNN reported it on May 8, 2004, in a typical account that day:
...A military report about that abuse describes detainees being threatened, sodomized with a chemical light and forced into sexually humiliating poses...
"'The American public needs to understand we're talking about rape and murder here. We're not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience,' Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina told reporters after Rumsfeld testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee. 'We're talking about rape and murder -- and some very serious charges.'
"A report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba on the abuse at the prison outside Baghdad says videotapes and photographs show naked detainees, and that groups of men were forced to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped. Taguba also found evidence of a 'male MP guard having sex with a female detainee.'...
The military later screened some of the images for lawmakers, who said they showed, among other things, attack dogs snarling at cowed prisoners, Iraqi women forced to expose their breasts, and naked prisoners forced to have sex with each other.
Phrag Wossner Super Grande