Open Thread–7/3/2012

 Posted by at 9:30 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics
Jul 032012
 

I’m headed out to physical therapy today and have several errands to run while I’m out.  I will not have time to distribute links to today’s articles until tomorrow.  I am not current with replies and plan to catch up by tomorrow.  Tomorrow appears routine.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 4:29 (average 5:08).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: The Power To Fight The Koch Brothers Is Sitting Next To Your Toilet

3koch

Thou shalt not be a Koch sucker!

From NY Times: Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign threw cold water on a central Republican attack line on Monday, saying that President Obama’s health care mandate should be thought of as a penalty and not a tax.

That message, delivered first by a top aide to Mr. Romney on television and later by the campaign, contradicts top Republican Party officials and leaders in Congress, who have spent the last several days eagerly accusing the president of levying a new tax.

Isn’t it nice when the circular firing squad isn’t Democratic, for once?

From USA Today: Just in time for the summer, the ALCU in New Jersey is offering a free app that allows citizens to secretly record and store their encounters with police, The (Newark) Star-Ledger reports.

It follows the release in June of the ACLU New York’s "Stop and Frisk" app, which is available in English and Spanish.

What an excellent idea!

Cartoon:

3Cartoon

Red states, get over it!

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  12 Responses to “Open Thread–7/3/2012”

  1. Jerry Critter says:
    July 3, 2012 at 11:27 am

    3:59  Just squeezed in under 4 minutes.

  2. Jerry Critter says:
    July 3, 2012 at 11:29 am

    Republicans think of all taxes as penalties.  

    • TomCat says:
      July 4, 2012 at 9:53 am

      Not really, Jerry.  As long as Republicans can protect the 1%, they are happy to raise taxes on the rest of us.

  3. Lynn Squance says:
    July 3, 2012 at 3:46 pm

    Puzzle — I was the horse's ass and squeezed right out of the picture!
     
    MoveOn — I will not knowingly be a Koch sucker!  I had to buy some paper plates and one of the big names of course is 'Dixie"  Knowing that the Koch brothers have Georgia Pacific, I looked on the package.  Georgia Pacific in the fine print so down it went!  Most of the other products aren't for sale in my area.
     
    Tax versus Penalty — SCOTUS calls it a tax and at this point that's all that matters.  Republican/Teabaggers are just parsing semantics over an issue that will affect relatively few people (only those who can afford healthcare insurance but don't buy it).  This only serves to increase the misinformation and lies, and distract people away from real issues like jobs and the economy. 
     
    ACLU — What does it say about a society that needs to resort to such apps?  Nothing good.
     
    Cartoon — Just months later, 19/11/1863 on the occasion of the consecration of the National Cemetery at Gettysburg after the reburial of Union soldiers,  Lincoln would make his address at Gettysburg using these words:
     

    Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
     
    Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
     
    But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

     
     This is a well known speech,  but has so much time passed since then that people have forgotten the message?

    • TomCat says:
      July 4, 2012 at 9:56 am

      Some days!

      It's enough to send you to the park, looking for large leaves.

      Agree.

      Agree.  Most cops are fine, but folks need to protect themselves from the bad apples.

      That's why we repeat history so often.

  4. mamabear says:
    July 4, 2012 at 2:24 pm

    I am just glad I don't buy Koch products anymore.

  5. Patty says:
    July 5, 2012 at 7:50 am

    I don't buy any Koch products at all. The list is endless and is not just paper products.
     

    • TomCat says:
      July 5, 2012 at 10:41 am

      Here's the list:

      Angel Soft toilet paper

      Brawny paper towels

      Dixie plates, bowls, napkins and cups

      Mardi Gras napkins and towels

      Quilted Northern toilet paper

      Soft 'n Gentle toilet paper

      Sparkle napkins

      Vanity fair napkins

      Zee napkins

      Georgia-Pacific paper products and envelopes

      All Georgia-Pacific lumber and building products, including:

      Dense Armor Drywall and Decking

      ToughArmor Gypsum board

      Georgia pacific Plytanium Plywood

      Flexrock

      Densglass sheathing

      G/P Industrial plasters (some products used by a lot of crafters)

      FibreStrong Rim board

      G/P Lam board

      Blue Ribbon OSB Rated Sheathing

      Blue Ribbon Sub-floor

      DryGuard Enhanced OSB

      Nautilus Wall Sheathing

      Thermostat OSB Radiant Barrier Sheathing

      Broadspan Engineered Wood Products

      XJ 85 I-Joists

      FireDefender Banded Cores

      FireDefender FS

      FireDefender Mineral Core

      Hardboard and Thin MDF including Auto Hardboard,

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