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Isn't it amazing, the resemblance betweeen father and son? They both have that famous Commander Guy "Duh" look.

As tensions mount over the prospect of a return to the Cold War, Bush prepares for a visit with President Vladimir Putin by going fishing. But we can always depend on our Bubble Boy to prepare for the important things.

Nor is a little terrorism across the pond a reason to call a halt to our pResident's fun and games.

But isn't it a good thing that Daddy Bush will be on hand for the visit by President Vladimir Putin? Else, Dubya might call President Putin, "Pooty-Poot" to his face.

It takes a special kind of arrogance to assign nicknames to colleagues and world leaders. Like a lot of conservatives, Dubya is nothing if not supremely arrogant. Let's just hope the clueless wonder of a Commander Guy refrains from patting President Putin on his head.

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine - After a 90-minute morning bike ride, Bush hopped aboard his father's speedboat, Fidelity III, and sped out into the chilly waters on his second fishing excursion in two days. His dad, former President George H.W. Bush, was at the wheel.

MOSCOW. - An upcoming meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President George W. Bush is unlikely to produce significant results, said Vyacheslav Nikonov, the president of the Polity Foundation think tank.

"The U.S. is currently a revolutionary power, which is changing the world, leading two wars, transforming regimes, and spending 25 times as much as Russia on its military purposes. Russia used to be revolutionary and is interested in a status quo now. We are not fighting with anybody and not changing regimes in other countries, and therefore it is quite difficult to reach an understanding given such different approaches," he said.

KENNEBUNKPORT, Me. — President Bush, seeking to change the tone of an increasingly caustic, fraught relationship with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, will urge him on Sunday to support a major escalation of economic pressure on Iran, senior administration officials said.

Washington - . . . Among other things that have irked Moscow are Washington's failure to revoke a piece of Cold War legislation that limits trade with Russia, the Jackson-Vanik amendment, and Washington's withdrawal in 2002 from a Cold War treaty intended to restrain an arms race, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.

Putin Bush Fishing Photo Politics Daddy Bush Cold War Pooty-Poot Maine Russia News

This can be done by stealing Phila's Friday Hope Blogging. It's a useful corrective for the general sense of gloom-and-doom I and quite a few others spread in our attempt to change things. Because some good change is taking place, and it needs to be given attention, too.

Is to make people frightened. This is important to remember when judging the coverage of the recent car bombing attempts in the United Kingdom. It's perfectly fine to report on the attempts. But it's not perfectly fine to spread panic or to make the attempts into something more sophisticated than they really are. That way the media serves the goals of the terrorists. Or so I think.

Another garden essay. The picture doesn't show any of the plants I write about, but it does show some red daylilies at about this time of the year.





I love lilies, the tall-stemmed perfumed white ones with enormous flower cups. They look unapproachably regal, like the cold queens of some ancient barbaric tribe. Yet their scent in a summer evening evokes much earthier thoughts: one thinks of skin and lips, husky voices whispering endearments, the ladies of the night.

As much as I love lilies I hate the lily beetle. This small orange-red beetle lives for two things: to destroy lilies and to copulate, and it is extremely successful in both. It appears to have no natural enemies in my garden, myself excluded, and each year it comes out a little more victorious in the war I wage against it. I am also getting tired of the manner in which it has turned my daily garden strolls into beetle crushing campaigns. I am beginning to think that my lily growing days may soon be over.

Or perhaps not. There are no good understudies for lilies as August star performers, and some stars are necessary for each month of the gardening season.

Roses are similar divas of the garden. My climbing roses are finally large enough to be admired from below. Their June dance of ivory, silk and lace coincides with the flowering of honeysuckles and leaves me drunk with the garden for days. But once the perfect flowers are gone, the awkward disease-ridden bodies remain to demand the gardener's attention.

Never mind that my roses were bought as disease-resistant, they seem to get blackspot almost before they get leaves. Organic remedies have no perceptible impact, so my blackspot treatment consists of careful removal of the sickened leaves. By August, the roses are close to skeletal, and the lilies are then also needed to draw the spectator's eye away.

Deciding the destiny of my lilies and roses is not going to be easy. Most real choices aren't. For whatever I choose, something essential will be lost: satiny petals, intoxicating scent and beauty of the floral form on the one hand, time and peace of mind on the other. And when the choice is finally made, regrets follow.

I still miss the delphiniums (delphinium elatum) to which I dedicated most of my compost, waking hours and miles of stake and string for several summers. The last summer I grew them they stood seven feet tall with hundreds of slowly opening sky blue eyes. Then one night it rained hard, and the following morning the delphiniums were lying helter-skelter across other plants, looking like duchesses who were dressed for a ball but chose instead to stand on their heads in mud puddles. This may have seemed funny to them, but was not my idea of a star performance. It wasn't too difficult to let them go. But I still have some regrets.

The lilies and roses would be much more painful to lose, as they, at least, complete their performances, and all the understudies I know for them are just that, understudies.

So should I grow them or not? There should be a third answer to this dilemma, just like there should be one for other difficult choices in life.

I submitted something to Sugasm. It's due out on Monday. While surfing among the other contributors (we're supposed to find our favourite three) I found this...pearl...this jem...this tender...heartbreakingly hot, hungry, tasty...gift at No Girls Toy.

Just so's we can be clear...
Yours truly believes that heterosexuality is such a giant, played out, laughable, ignorant, stunted cliche.

I really like men with other men. It gives me T in overdrive envy, sideburns envy, hard muscle rubbing against hard muscle envy, blood pumpin' erectile flesh jutting up against blood pumpin' erectile flesh envy.

Salivary glands gone into extreme overload. My inner faggoty voyeur is rising and smiling.

How many times d'you think I'll watch this and share this with Papsi in the next few days and weeks?

Oh, and in terms of the big muscle, youth culture stuff, I have my analysis turned on (pun intended)...do you have yours?

if what you're reading here grips you, holds you, fascinates you, provokes you, emboldens you, pushes you, galvanizes you, discomfits you, tickles you, enrages you so much that you find yourself returning again and again...then link me.

Silly Site o' the Day

Deborah Siegel, PhD is a writer and consultant specializing in women's issues. She is a Fellow at the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership and co-editor of the anthology Only Child. She has written about women, sex, families and popular culture and has been featured in Psychology Today, USA Today, The New York Times, Time Out New York and Ms.

Deborah took time out from her participation in the National Women's Studies Association (NWSA) Conference, June 28-July 1 in St. Charles, Illinois to email the answers to my questions on her new book, Sisterhood Interrupted, From Radical Women to Grrls Gone Wild.

Here's Deborah...

Friday Cat Blogging (™ Kevin Drum)

1. River Vices, which is a blog about politics in my hometown; has a great post about the problem letting religious zealots control government and media.  The post is called Evanjekylls, which is how many southern Ohioans say Evangelicals.
2. I get some link love, and I personal compliment from Tereza at anti-Racist Parent in an essay about predominantly white schools.
3. Also, via Racialicious Carmen is providing a free e-book called “How To Be An Anti-Racist Parent”
4. Migra Matters on the case of Alex and Yaderlin Jimenez (a good education for people who don’t know about immigration policy, in particular the myth that marrying a US citizen is just going to solve all of your problems).
5. (Saw this one on the news, and found it on a blog.)  A New Jersey High School decided to black out a yearbook photo of two male students kissing. I also though it was interesting that the two male students are black (One guy may have been a dark complexioned Latino, but he sure could pass for black in the picture.), and the school appeared to be predominantly white.¹  Now before anybody says well they don’t need pictures of students provocatively kissing in the yearbook; I actually agree with that, but that would mean that they should have blacked out the other pictures of heterosexual students kissing.  The gay black couple got blacked out,² and the heterosexual white couples were muggin’ it up all over the book.
6. Reappropriate on Black/Korean tensions in the $54 million pants lawsuit. (By the way–the judge lost the case.)
7. Racists attacked Tariq’s Mosque, and the people at the Mosque need support.
8. It looks like Isiah Washington may have gotten a raw deal.  He still appears to have made the homophobic slur, but not in the context as it was originally suggested.  Keith Boykin has the details. Here and Here

Ok, this is getting way too long, and it’s also an open thread, so feel free to add your two cents on other issues.

1. I’m noting this not because I think racism was a motivator, but because people often treat gay and lesbian people of color as invisible (back)
2. Ironic word choice intended. (back)

Best. O’Reilly. Ever.

Apparently there is a rampant infestation of pink-pistol-toting lesbian gangs (seriously), wreaking havoc on cities across the nation with their combat boots, short haircuts, and unnatural love of softball. They are recruiting children in schools to be members of their “lower socio-economic crew” — I suspect from the same school Emperor Misha attended (you know, the one where he learned how to fist himself to orgasm in the 6th grade).

To quote the brilliant Mr. O’Reilly, “It makes sense if you had lawless gay people that they would do this sort of thing.”

Thank God for brave culture warriors like Bill who are willing to shed light on the kind of filth that one comes across when doing the valuable journalistic work of Googling “lesbian gang-bang.”

Thanks to Thom for the link.