{"id":10884,"date":"2013-08-17T01:40:09","date_gmt":"2013-08-17T08:40:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10884"},"modified":"2013-08-17T01:40:09","modified_gmt":"2013-08-17T08:40:09","slug":"open-thread8172013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/17\/open-thread8172013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–8\/17\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing for tomorrow, day 64, I feel pretty wilted, because the forecast cooler day did not happen.  At 10:00 PM, I was blowing 87\u00b0 superheated air in from the breezeway to cool off the apartment.  Ugh!  Tomorrow evening my Broncos have a preseason pretend worship with the Seachickens, so I shall be attending the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:25 (average 4:40).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Iowa congressman Steve King was the star speaker at a \u201cStop Amnesty\u201d rally in Richmond, Virginia, Monday, and supporters stayed away in droves \u2014 the crowd was estimated at between 30 and 60 people, almost none of whom appeared to be valedictorians or drug mules with calves the size of cantaloupes. Despite the disappointing turnout, King offered more of his trademark crazy, warning that Latins will sap and impurify [sic] America\u2019s precious bodily fluids.<\/p>\n

30 – 60 is 30 – 60 TOO MANY!<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>\u2026Put it all together, and it\u2019s a discouraging picture. We have an ill-informed or misinformed electorate, politicians who gleefully add to the misinformation and watchdogs who are afraid to bark. And to the extent that there are widely respected, not-too-partisan players, they seem to be fostering, not fixing, the public\u2019s false impressions. <\/p>\n

So what should we be doing? Keep pounding away at the truth, I guess, and hope it breaks through. But it\u2019s hard not to wonder how this system is supposed to work. <\/p>\n

This is Krugman’s conclusion to an excellent editorial. Click through for a most informative read.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>Two days after an American became the first athlete to speak out against Russia\u2019s new anti-gay law at the track and field World Championships in Moscow, the United States Olympic Committee staked out its position on the law. Instead of offering support for gay athletes, though, the head of the USOC said that athletes at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi should \u201ccomply\u201d with the Russian law that bans \u201chomosexual propaganda.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe athletes are always going into countries with laws different than his or her own country. They\u2019re going to agree with those laws in some ways, they\u2019re going to disagree with those laws in other ways,\u201d USOC chief executive Scott Blackmun told Russia\u2019s R-Sport [Russian Tea Party delinked<\/em>]. \u201cIt\u2019s our strong desire that our athletes comply with the laws of every nation that we visit. This law is no different.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bull! If the games are not moved, the athletes should either boycott them or flaunt the law at every opportunity.  Once Blackmun made this statement, I already knew to which political party he belongs, and sire enough, he is a Republican supporter of Little Lord Willard<\/a>.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"17Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing for tomorrow, day 64, I feel pretty wilted, because the forecast cooler day did not happen.  At 10:00 PM, I was blowing 87\u00b0 superheated air in from the breezeway to cool off the apartment.  Ugh!  Tomorrow evening my Broncos have a preseason pretend worship with the Seachickens, so I shall be attending the Church […]<\/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-10884","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\/10884","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=10884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10884\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}