{"id":13029,"date":"2014-06-19T00:01:11","date_gmt":"2014-06-19T07:01:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13029"},"modified":"2014-06-19T00:01:11","modified_gmt":"2014-06-19T07:01:11","slug":"open-thread6192014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/19\/open-thread6192014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;6\/19\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and while I\u2019m not back to 100%, I am well enough to put away my groceries from Store to Door and write articles for tomorrow.&#160; Nevertheless, I shall be brief.&#160; Day 59.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 3:02 (average 5:15).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-06-19-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.upworthy.com\/she-didnt-think-she-had-a-problem-with-gay-people-but-anderson-cooper-cleared-that-right-up\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>There are plenty of folks in this country who still aren\u2019t comfortable with marriage equality or even the fact that gay people exist. I don\u2019t think that necessarily makes them bad human beings. However, I do think that makes them fair game for public shaming, especially when they&#8217;re being hypocrites about it. Thankfully, Anderson Cooper is on the task.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JbE_yLCyA3A?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Isn&#8217;t it nice that CNN wasn&#8217;t acting like the Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, Faux Noise, for a change. When two men kiss in a celebratory manner, it doesn&#8217;t bother me at all, but as much as I hate to admit it, when two guys start getting hot and heavy, I do feel a little queasy. However, I recognize that it&#8217;s the aftermath from years of gay-hate programmed into me from before I can remember. I did not see the light until my late 40s.&#160; I can&#8217;t help that, but I can and do choose to respond, instead, based on what I know, that their feelings are just as authentic as any I have ever had toward a woman.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/borowitzreport\/2014\/06\/mccain-calls-for-emergency-blame-game-on-iraq.html\" target=\"_blank\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Citing the deteriorating situation in the war-torn nation, Senator John McCain (R-Arizona) on Saturday called for Congress to convene an emergency blame game on Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a dire crisis,\u201d McCain said. \u201cIt\u2019s time to roll up our sleeves and do some serious finger-pointing.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>McCain said that he hoped Congress would act swiftly to assign blame to a long list of culprits he identified, including President Obama, the Joint Chiefs, the media, and everyone who did not vote for him in the 2008 election.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Did Andy peg McConJob, or what?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2014\/06\/16\/1307351\/-In-San-Jose-a-minimum-wage-increase-and-falling-unemployment\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font><\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s another example to point to when opponents of a higher minimum wage claim that it would cost jobs. The minimum in San Jose, California, has gone from $8.00 an hour to $10.00 and then $10.15, and University of California-Berkeley economist Michael Reich has been studying <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/story\/money\/business\/2014\/06\/14\/minimum-wage-san-jose\/9968679\/\">the results<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>[The minimum wage increase] directly and indirectly affected 70,000 of the city&#8217;s 370,000 workers, Reich says. <\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>San Jose restaurants, which Reich says were most affected by the pay increase, raised menu prices by an average 1.75%, according to his study. He says there has been no discernible impact on employment.<\/p>\n<p>The unemployment rate in the San Jose metro area, in fact, has fallen to 5.4% from 7.4% in March 2013. The San Jose Downtown Association says the number of restaurants in the district has increased by 20% the past 18 months.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">That&#8217;s good ammo, but if the Republican is also an Ammosexual (likely), don&#8217;t bother. They have lost the capacity for thought.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0619Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"0619Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/0619Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"450\" \/>\\<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and while I\u2019m not back to 100%, I am well enough to put away my groceries from Store to Door and write articles for tomorrow.&#160; Nevertheless, I shall be brief.&#160; Day 59. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:02 (average 5:15).&#160; To do it, click here.&#160; How did you do? Short <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/06\/19\/open-thread6192014\/' 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-13029","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\/13029","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=13029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}