{"id":11947,"date":"2014-01-02T00:31:21","date_gmt":"2014-01-02T08:31:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=11947"},"modified":"2014-01-02T00:31:21","modified_gmt":"2014-01-02T08:31:21","slug":"open-thread122013-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/02\/open-thread122013-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;1\/2\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019ve been working my tail off for six hours preparing for tomorrow\u2019s monthly report, and researching this article, and cooking at the same time, so I\u2019m feeling pretty pooped today.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 3:36 (average 5:09).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-01-02-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/borowitzreport\/2013\/12\/people-who-can-still-afford-to-live-in-new-york-praise-bloomberg.html\" target=\"_blank\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>As the curtain comes down on the Michael Bloomberg era, the three-term mayor of New York received fulsome praise last night from his most appreciative constituency: the people who can still afford to live there. <\/p>\n<p>Harland Dorrinson, principal owner of the hedge fund Garrote Capital, hosted a black-tie dinner in the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York to pay tribute to a mayor who, in Mr. Dorrinson\u2019s words, \u201cput living in New York out of the reach of everyone except the deserving few.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTo a lot of people, Mike Bloomberg will be remembered for reducing smoking and improving people\u2019s diets,\u201d said Mr. Dorrinson. \u201cBut that shouldn\u2019t overshadow his greatest accomplishment, creating unaffordable housing throughout New York.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen Mike took office, this city was teeming with regular working people,\u201d Mr. Dorrinson said, shuddering at the memory. \u201cToday, it\u2019s a magnificent tapestry of investment bankers, real-estate developers, and Russian oligarchs.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">As much as I liked Bloomberg&#8217;s stance on gun-control, he was a Bankster&#8217;s wet dream, otherwise.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/he-starts-with-17-lego-pieces-and-ends-up-with-6-the-reason-why-involves-all-of-us-2\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>He Starts With 17 Lego Pieces And Ends Up With 6. The Reason Why Involves All Of Us.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/urewQRnA9iM?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Depressing as it is, he&#8217;s right!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/01\/01\/us\/florida-law-on-drug-testing-for-welfare-is-struck-down.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>A federal judge on Tuesday struck down as unconstitutional a Florida law that required welfare applicants to undergo mandatory drug testing, setting the stage for a legal battle that could affect similar efforts nationwide. <\/p>\n<p>Judge Mary S. Scriven of the United States District Court in Orlando held that the testing requirement, the signature legislation of Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican who campaigned on the issue, violated the protection against unreasonable searches. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe court finds there is no set of circumstances under which the warrantless, suspicionless drug testing at issue in this case could be constitutionally applied,\u201d she wrote. The ruling made permanent an earlier, temporary ban by the judge. <\/p>\n<p>Mr. Scott, who had argued that the drug testing was necessary to protect children and ensure that tax money was not going to illegal drugs, said that the state would appeal the ruling. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Extremist Republican Governor Scott wants you to believe that his profit from owning the lab that does the testing has nothing to do with it. Geez! You can fertilize the lawn with that one!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0102Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"0102Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/0102Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"450\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been working my tail off for six hours preparing for tomorrow\u2019s monthly report, and researching this article, and cooking at the same time, so I\u2019m feeling pretty pooped today. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:36 (average 5:09).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; How did you do? Short Takes: From The New Yorker: As <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/02\/open-thread122013-2\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/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-11947","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\/11947","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=11947"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11947\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}