{"id":12859,"date":"2014-05-26T00:00:52","date_gmt":"2014-05-26T07:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12859"},"modified":"2014-05-26T00:00:52","modified_gmt":"2014-05-26T07:00:52","slug":"open-thread5262014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/26\/open-thread5262014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;5\/26\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and actually feeling awake.&#160; I think I\u2019ve caught up my sleep deficit for now.&#160; Late this week I\u2019ll begin a program of physical therapy.&#160; It turns out that my bad leg is from degenerative arthritis of the back and hip.&#160; I also blew out my left shoulder again and cannot lift my arm above horizontal without intense pain.&#160; The following week is my two day trip to Salem to complete my institution specific training for increased volunteer access in the prison.&#160; So I have busy times ahead.&#160; It\u2019s a slow weekend for material, but I found some.&#160; Day 35.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Late Update<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I spent several hours trying to fix the similes in the graphic editor without success.&#160; It appears that, for security reasons WordPress has disables several of the features of that plugin for all but administrators (me).&#160; I found another editor that is not as full featured, but I\u2019m hoping it will give more features to more people.&#160; However, that will have to wait for another day.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 3:19 (average 5:32).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-05-26-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.sanders.senate.gov\/newsroom\/video-audio\/flashback-republicans-block-va-health-care-funds\" target=\"_blank\">Bernie Sanders<\/a>: <\/font><strong>Flashback: Republicans Block VA Benefits<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Republicans in February blocked important legislation from Sen. Bernie Sanders to improve veterans&#8217; access to health care among other things. Only two Republicans, Sens. Dean Heller and Jerry Moran, voted for the veterans benefits bill, which was endorsed by every major veterans organization. <\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Zk5ZJ6uVO9Y?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">What pathetic excuses! General Shinseki gave an order, expected it to be followed, and did not follow-up to make sure VA bureaucrats, with decades of experience falsifying numbers, were complying.&#160; That was certainly a major error on his part, but the problem is not his fault. The problem of Republicans thanking our veterans by gutting VA funding goes back to Saint Ronnie Ray Gun.<\/font>&#160; <font color=\"#0000ff\">Republicans are long on support for the troops as long as that support does not extend beyond using them as cannon fodder to foster economic imperialism. But providing them with flack jackets and safe vehicles, and taking care of them, when physically or emotionally maimed in battle, is more sacrifice than Republicans are willing to make.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/05\/25\/opinion\/sunday\/end-mass-incarceration-now.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>For more than a decade, researchers across multiple disciplines have been issuing reports on the widespread societal and economic damage caused by America\u2019s now-40-year experiment in locking up vast numbers of its citizens. If there is any remaining disagreement about the destructiveness of this experiment, it mirrors the so-called debate over climate change.<\/p>\n<p>In both cases, overwhelming evidence shows a crisis that threatens society as a whole. In both cases, those who study the problem have called for immediate correction.<\/p>\n<p>Several recent reports provide some of the most comprehensive and compelling proof yet that the United States \u201chas gone past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits,\u201d and that mass incarceration itself is \u201ca source of injustice.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That is the central conclusion of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nap.edu\/catalog.php?record_id=18613\" target=\"_blank\">two-year, 444-page study<\/a> prepared by the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the Justice Department and others. The report highlights many well-known statistics: Since the early 1970s, the nation\u2019s prison population has quadrupled to 2.2 million, making it the world\u2019s biggest. That is five to 10 times the incarceration rate in other democracies.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I could not agree more. The best way to be tough on crime is to be stingy with prison and long on community rehabilitation.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/tea-party-and-right\/7-most-absurd-right-wing-statements-week-sajak-and-coulter-lead-irrational-war?paging=off&amp;current_page=1#bookmark\" target=\"_blank\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font><strong>Ann Coulter defends Pat Sajak\u2019s right to be an absolute idiot by being an absolute idiot herself.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cWheel of Fortune\u201d gained a new fan in Ann Coulter, who just couldn\u2019t agree more with Sajak on climate change and liberals being Nazis and to blame for everything. Coulter helpfully pointed out the humor in Sajak\u2019s tweet to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/tv\/coulter-defends-pat-sajak-dems-equate-climate-denial-with-holocaust-denial\/\" target=\"_blank\">CNN\u2019s Erin Burnett<\/a> and then she upped the ante, because&#8230; she was on TV, and saying outrageous things is her brand. \u201cWe all have to believe in global warming, we all have to believe in immigration \u2014 either lots of immigration or even more immigration,\u201d Coulter said. \u201cWe have to believe that Trayvon Martin was killed by a brutal racist, and if you don\u2019t you get called all of these crazy names that Sajak is referring to.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>(Note: Even <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/news-amp-politics\/white-supremacist-flip-flops-george-zimmerman-says-trayvon-martins-killer-was\" target=\"_blank\">George Zimmerman\u2019s former neighbor<\/a>, a longtime white supremacist now admits Zimmerman is a racist.)<\/p>\n<p>But back to Pat and Ann. The liberal thought police, who for some reason believe in science, are so mean, Coulter says. They compare climate change deniers to &quot;Holocaust deniers.&quot; She also, totally inexplicably, said dealing with climate change would lead to genocide.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s where Coulter parts company with Sajak. He should not have said he was \u201cjust kidding\u201d in her view. She is not kidding when she asserts her multitude of ignorant positions, nor will you ever catch her being the least bit funny. Or human, for that matter.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">This is just one of seven absurd Republican statements from last week alone. Click through tor the other six. As for Coultergeist, it isn&#8217;t Halloween yet.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/0526Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0526Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"0526Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/0526Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"450\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The cartoon assumes the service person was single.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and actually feeling awake.&#160; I think I\u2019ve caught up my sleep deficit for now.&#160; Late this week I\u2019ll begin a program of physical therapy.&#160; It turns out that my bad leg is from degenerative arthritis of the back and hip.&#160; I also blew out my left shoulder again and cannot lift <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/05\/26\/open-thread5262014\/' 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-12859","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\/12859","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=12859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}