{"id":10656,"date":"2013-07-20T00:36:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-20T07:36:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10656"},"modified":"2013-07-20T00:36:53","modified_gmt":"2013-07-20T07:36:53","slug":"open-thread7202013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/07\/20\/open-thread7202013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–7\/20\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a little cooler here this morning, but it won\u2019t last, so I\u2019m just trying to get by, as I write for tomorrow, day 37.<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s took me 3:18 (average 4:19).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

From PR Watch<\/a>: <\/font>Despite widespread public opposition to the education privatization agenda, at least 139 bills or state budget provisions reflecting American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) education bills have been introduced in 43 states and the District of Columbia in just the first six months of 2013, according to an analysis by the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of ALECexposed.org<\/a>. Thirty-one have become law.<\/p>\n

ALEC Vouchers Transfer Taxpayer Money to Private and Religious Schools<\/h6>\n

News Corp CEO Rupert Murdoch has called public education a "a $500 billion sector in the U.S. alone that is waiting desperately to be transformed."<\/p>\n

But this "transformation" of public education — from an institution that serves the public into one that serves private for-profit interests — has been in progress for decades, thanks in large part to ALEC.<\/p>\n

Barf Bag Warning!<\/strong> Click through to learn what you will wish was not so.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>All economic data are best viewed as a peculiarly boring genre of science fiction, but Chinese data are even more fictional than most. Add a secretive government, a controlled press, and the sheer size of the country, and it\u2019s harder to figure out what\u2019s really happening in China than it is in any other major economy. <\/p>\n

Yet the signs are now unmistakable: China is in big trouble. We\u2019re not talking about some minor setback along the way, but something more fundamental. The country\u2019s whole way of doing business, the economic system that has driven three decades of incredible growth, has reached its limits. You could say that the Chinese model is about to hit its Great Wall, and the only question now is just how bad the crash will be. <\/p>\n

As always, Krugman supports his case superbly. Click through for an excellent, albeit troubling, read.<\/font><\/p>\n

From MSNBC<\/a>: <\/font>Issa Bird, Issa Plane, Issa Load of BS!<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Like Lawrence, I agree that the law should be enforced as it is written. But Issa and the Republican Party are interested only in manufacturing a scandal, where none exists. They don’t give a damn about the law. To answer Lawrence’s final question, they fall between zilch and nil.<\/font><\/p>\n

Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"20Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s a little cooler here this morning, but it won\u2019t last, so I\u2019m just trying to get by, as I write for tomorrow, day 37. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:18 (average 4:19).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Short Takes: From PR Watch: Despite widespread public opposition to the education […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10656"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10656\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}