{"id":13598,"date":"2014-09-03T00:07:25","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T07:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13598"},"modified":"2014-09-03T00:07:25","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T07:07:25","slug":"open-thread932014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/03\/open-thread932014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–9\/3\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 135.  It has been an incredibly busy day, so this is tomorrow\u2019s only article.  I cleaned in preparation for a maintenance inspection.  I ordered groceries for delivery tomorrow from Store to Door.  I learned that the prison has approved  joint executive body meetings this month.  During the week if the 21st of this month, I\u2019ll be spending two nights in Salem for joint meetings between the Officers of out outside group and the officers of my guys\u2019 inside group for planning and coordination.  I got my motel reservation and bus tickets.  I negotiated the migration of this blog to more a more powerful server while renewing our HSP service until September, 2016.  The blog may be offline, starting at about 2 AM Pacific time until that transition is complete.  If you could not get through, that\u2019s why.  I\u2019m so swamped, I even stole last year\u2019s cartoon again.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 4:06 (average 5:47).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>All over Mexico, children have begun making their way to school for the start of a new year \u2014 many stepping into run-down buildings without running water, new textbooks or trained teachers.<\/p>\n

Spending is not the issue. Mexico budgets more for education, as a proportion of gross domestic product, than Brazil, Spain and even Switzerland. So where does the money go?<\/p>\n

According to one calculation now appearing on a new \u201cabuse meter\u201d \u2014 a giant electronic billboard hovering over a busy intersection here in the capital \u2014 about $2.8 billion annually goes into the pockets of 298,174 no-show teachers and administrators who collect pay without working.<\/p>\n

While I agree that Mexican teachers and administrators should not be paid for not working, it’s rather hypocritical of us to criticize. After all Republicans in Congress get paid a hell of a lot more than Mexican teachers, and they do even less than nothing.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>In what he called \u201ca provocative and defiant act,\u201d President Obama charged on Tuesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin has started letting his calls go directly to voice mail.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the White House before this week\u2019s NATO summit, a visibly furious Obama said that Putin\u2019s new practice of letting his calls go straight to voice mail \u201champers our ability to discuss the future of Ukraine and other important issues going forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having left dozens of voice mails for the Russian President, Obama said that he tried to reach him via e-mail on Monday night but received an out-of-office auto reply.<\/p>\n

\u201cGiven what he has been up to in Ukraine over the past few weeks, I find it impossible believe he has been out of the office,\u201d Obama said.<\/p>\n

No matter what Andy says, Obama is wasting his time trying to get in touch with Vladimir Putin (R-RU). Just like other Republicans, \u201cGOP Pootie\u201d will just lie to him anyway.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>At the beginning of the year, we heard a lot of talk about how 2014 was going to be another Republican wave year, like 2010, or bigger [Limbarf delinked<\/em>]. Now, however, it’s clear that 2014 has not followed the same trajectory as 2010.<\/p>\n

By this time in 2010, Democratic fortunes were sliding downhill fast, according to generic congressional ballot polling questions. This year\u2014not so much. Take a look at the trends (Loess curves):<\/p>\n

\"0903Loess\"<\/p>\n

Based on the Loess curves, we should win easily, but due to Gerrymandering Republicans have marked the cards and stacked the deck.  No doubt Joanne will agree that neither of us has ever said that it comes down to turnout. Riiiiiiiiight!! Get out the vote!<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0903Cartoon\"<\/font><\/p>\n

And the Holy Light broke forth from the Ellipsoid Orb!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 135.  It has been an incredibly busy day, so this is tomorrow\u2019s only article.  I cleaned in preparation for a maintenance inspection.  I ordered groceries for delivery tomorrow from Store to Door.  I learned that the prison has approved  joint executive body meetings this month.  During the week if the […]<\/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-13598","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\/13598","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=13598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13598\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}