Jim

I think this clearly shows the need for a plant taxonomy forum

No - not pine drops. It's one of the coralroots, likely western coralroot - Corallorhiza maculata ssp mertensiana. It's a fairly common orchid. It's a saprophyte, that gets it's nutrition from decaying vegetation rather than from photosynthesis. It has no chlorophyll. Pinedrops (Pterospora andromedea) is readily identifiable by the persistent drooping seed pods.

"He “is definitely intelligent . . . certainly smart enough to be president of the United States”, says Dean Keith Simonton, a psychologist at the University of California"

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- The Taliban have claimed responsibility for a massive suicide car bombing that killed at least 18 people -- including two U.S. soldiers -- near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. "A coalition convoy was the target of a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device this morning near the U.S. Embassy here," according to Master Sgt. Chris Miller. The convoy was comprised of three armored Humvees. Journalist Tom Coghlan said the Humvee that bore the brunt of the explosion had its turret blown 30 yards from the site the the attack. The blast spread debris and body parts across the Massoud roundabout, about 50 yards from the embassy. (Watch flames, smoke pour from the wreckage of the car used as a deadly bomb -- 1:10) Video from the scene showed a charred, severed foot on the ground as military medics attended to a limp body dressed in military fatigues a short distance away. CNN's Anderson Cooper, at the scene of the attack, said: "This is a real sign of a resurgence of the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan. It is also a sign that the Taliban are increasingly adopting al-Qaeda-style tactics." (Watch Anderson Cooper reach the bloody blast site -- 0:50)

It is unfortunate but it is a primary source of information for may a folk. And given the sorry state of mass media in this country, and lack of any critical thinking by the reciepients, it goes far in explaining our current state of affairs. And I think K is correct. That is the current view of a majority of the US - they don't give a shit about much related to civic affairs or politics. It's not my job man.

After letting the dust settle on this one I find it curious why the conservative commentators are linking the Armitage confession with abosolution to the administration. Below is from the author of Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. Another book regarding the administrations lies. *At the time of her outing, Valerie Wilson was an undercover officer in the CIA whose mission had been to gather intelligence about WMDs in Iraq. She was the operations manager of the Joint Task Force on Iraq, a unit in the clandestine service of the CIA. This unit desperately tried to obtain evidence to back up the Bush administration's assertions about Saddam's WMDs, yet it found no such evidence. * Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, was the original leaker in the CIA leak case. But as he was disclosing information to columnist Robert Novak. Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other top White House aides were engaged in a fierce campaign to discredit Joseph Wilson. Rove even told MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews that the Wilsons "were trying to screw the White House so the White House was going to screw them back." I heard the author on the radio and he says (and wrote with sources) that yes the administration was out to squash and critical assessment, including Joseph Wilson. It was ironic that VPlane was actually head of a CIA group trying to find evidence to back up the president's claims regarding WMDs. See davidcorn.com for some book exerpts.

Needless to say I'm in no rush to pay it off early.

What were those people thinking? More evidence that a lot of folks run their finances as the Bushies run the federal treasury. 10 yrs to go on the 4.1% fixed 15 yr mortgage

Thanks for posting that link. I don't have cable and don't watch much of the tube but when I see a forceful commentary such as this I get some hope, just a little, that enough of the US population may wake up from their stupor and give these guys the kick in the ass they deserve.

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The smartest city in the United States is Seattle - 52.7 percent of its residents age 25 or older have completed a bachelor's degree or higher. The education rankings were released this month by the U.S. Census Bureau. The brainiest cities in the United States Top 25 cities with more than 250,000 population, ranked by percentage of bachelor's degrees among residents 25 and older Seattle's also been ranked as the most literate city in the United States by Central Connecticut State University, beating out Minneapolis, Washington and Atlanta. That rating was based on such things as the number of booksellers, libraries and newspaper circulation - as well as educational attainment. Many brainy people have flocked to the Seattle area to work in what's called the "knowledge economy." Companies headquartered there and in surrounding towns, including Microsoft, Amazon, Cray, Washington Mutual and Costco, all use heavy doses of information technology. Even another of the area's biggest employers, old-line Boeing, is also a glutton for technological solutions. Seattle also has more than its share of residents with advanced degrees: 20.5 percent. Only Washington, D.C., has more holders of advanced degrees. Many there work for the federal government, as well as for the think tanks and other nongovernmental organizations that form the heart of capital working culture. And good

The performance is just one of dozens of examples of his pea brain in action - or more accurately, inaction. In other countries the media would roast such patheic public speaking and lack of knowlege of issues. Here - the only true read you can get is on the John Stewart show. Sad.

With one notable exception. The US did not help Castro gain power, so he's not "one of ours".

FYI: Case in point. Check out Keith Olbermann's report on MSNBC regarding the terror alert game: http://www.truthout.org/multimedia.htm

It was interesting to listen to the US and UK news conferences regarding the capture of the suspected bombing plot. While Bush used the typical "war on terror", "islamo fascists", etc. phrases, the UK language was more like a crime investigation - suspects, investigation, etc. The Bushies push the war analogy as far as they can to serve a number of purposes. The first to scare everyone into the constant need for war preparation and the vasts amount of money flushed down the Pentagon toilet, and second, to use it as an excuse to broaden the executive powers under the radar and in unconstitutial ways. Hopefully this is the beginning of some judicial restraint.

SEATTLE -- The suspicious shipping containers that prompted an evacuation at the Port of Seattle today did not contain any explosives. A Port of Seattle spokesman, David Schaefer, said the containers do not contain any explosives or radioactive materials, but officials are still trying to determine exactly what they do contain. A shipping terminal was evacuated after explosive-sniffing dogs hit on the two containers, which originated in Pakistan. Schaefer said it's not known what caused the dogs to indicate something suspicious was in the containers This- plus a fighter escort for a US bound plane because some woman was having an anxiety attack. I think the terrorists will break the bank by just continuing their email chats.

True. Leadership is lacking all around and the silence of some Arab states regarding violent tactics is unfortunate.

The crux, isn't it? Well for one I think they (and the US) need a more comprehensive strategy than bomb the crap out of them. Strangling the Palestian state has not worked so let try this: Stop making a land grab with the wall building, get rid of the strategy of cutting up Palestine into cookie cutter pieces with no hope of a functioning state, stop ripping up water projects and other infrastructure put in for the Palestinans by NGOs, foster a moderate government in Lebanon and Palestine through negoiation and less strong arm tactics. Get the land swap deal done already and stop dragging your feet. Stop demolishing houses for a buffer zone around the wall, discard the idea of collective punishment. That's a start at the root problems. If the US pulled the plug on the $4 Billion plus we give to Isarel each year I think we would see negoiations ramp up real quick. The US should have been engaged in the Israel/Arab situation long ago, not just at the crisis stage. But guess where our energies are being spent. You can't just threaten or ignore the players, particularly Syria and Iran, and then expect they're going to listen in the crisis situation. And they've seen the cards we played in Iraq and recognize the weakness and the opportunity. So again, a more sophisticated approach to the world stage than Rummy and Bushie can offer is needed.

And if that was their goal, who limit themselves to an artillery shell or two? It'd be interesting to see the analysis in which Israel concludes that it can advance it's interests by deliberately invoking condemnation and outrage through intentionally killing civilians. I feel like I must be missing something here. Israel has the capacity to kill every last civilian in Lebanon in short order if it chooses to, but only uses a fraction of it's millitary power, and takes as many precautions as is reasonably possible to avoid killing civilians, while Hezbollah holds nothing back and unleashes every bit of its arsenal while trying to kill as many civilians as possible, and use the civilian population as shields - but Israel is the actor singled out for condemnation? Having said all of that, even if they were equally bad, I'd take Israel's side for strategic reasons alone, so I'm hardly an impartial observer on this one.

Tale of the tape: Lebanon civilian casualties : over 600 Israeli civilian casualties from the "massive" rocket attacks: 18 I'd say the response is over the top.

It's their usual strategy, to pound the populace into pudding, thinking this will somehow pacify them in the long run. Good question though - why would you drop 500 lb bombs on residential housing? Hoping there's a couple of wackos among the innocents I suppose.

You're talking about the 1996 time, this time they only killed a third that many.

At least an intelligent question - you're close. My main concern is that Israel is a democratic state; and a powerful one. Forget about the issues about how it was established. It's there and deserves to be a sovereign state. Hezbollah and such are terrorists and kill civilians with that intent. The Israeli government kills many more civilians but says it's just in a days work of war. Is Israel excused from any morality because they say they didn't mean it, or will investigate it (the usual press release)? No. I'd say they have more moral and human rights responsibility because they are a powrerful democratic country, that supposedly values human rights. The purposeful targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure amounts to state terrorism. And I agree with you - a more precise ground offensive would likely have been more effective and minimized civilian casualties.

Recent Iraq civilian death estimates: between 39,000 and 44,000. But we didn't mean it. http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

In general, that's the strategy, except you forgot to add.......no matter the innocent body count. Another Bushism - We've never seen a problem we can't solve with bombs.

I wasn't selectively editing - I can't give you a blow by blow here. I don't thing the rocket firing started until the Israels started bombing civilian infrastructure in Palestine. While Israel certainly has the right to defend itself and is surrounded by a bunch of militant wackos, I don't see how this translates into the right to kill massive amounts of civilians (near 600 now vs the 18 in Israel)and employing a strategy of collective punishment. Their reaction is way overboard, and we're backing it. The strategy of slowly strangling the Palestinians wasn't working and that's how they ended up with Hammas in power. Now they've pounded the Palestinians and Lebanon, killed over 600 civilians, wounded over 2,000 civilians, caused over $2 billion in damages to homes, roads, power plants, etc., and made life miserable for a lot of folks not involved in the conflict. The result? Likely temporarily wounding Hezbollah and killing maybe 50-100 of the faithful. In the long term however they've just continued to pound innocent people and sowed the ground for Hezbollah recruits. The US strategy has always been to have Israel as our cop on the beat in the middle east. It's unfortunate that a people so stricken with a history of persecution choose to follow a ruthless policy towards civilians.