{"id":13621,"date":"2014-09-07T00:09:07","date_gmt":"2014-09-07T07:09:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13621"},"modified":"2014-09-07T00:09:07","modified_gmt":"2014-09-07T07:09:07","slug":"open-thread972014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/07\/open-thread972014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;9\/7\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 139.&#160; What a rude awakening!&#160; I took a cat nap after breakfast and did not wake up until after supper. :-(&#160; Fortunately, I did my research before breakfast, so all I have to do is compose.&#160; Tomorrow is a Holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, and the mighty Broncos will be honored with the first Sunday night meditation.&#160; They hope to dine on small horse, but last time they tried, the small horses\u2019 Luck was amazing.&#160; This time, it\u2019s our pasture.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 3:55 (average 5:20).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-09-07-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\/it-might-be-the-most-mind-boggling-photograph-humanity-has-ever-taken\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>A special Upworthy partnership with the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.un.org\/climatechange\/summit\/\" target=\"_blank\">UN Climate Summit 2014<\/a>. Made possible by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.projectsunlight.com?source=Upworthy&amp;medium=referral&amp;term=[CuratedContetPage]&amp;campaign=Upworthyseptember2014\" target=\"_blank\">Unilever Project Sunlight<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/about-paid-content\" target=\"_blank\">Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>When you see photographs of the Earth from far away, the implications may not immediately be clear. This puts it all into perspective. <\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/923jxZY2NPI?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Amen!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2014\/09\/04\/1327217\/-Kansas-Secretary-of-State-yeah-the-birther-guy-says-Democrat-can-t-withdraw-from-Senate-race\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach\u2014the same birther guy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2012\/09\/14\/1131793\/-Kansas-Republican-establishment-goes-full-birther\" target=\"_blank\">who thought<\/a> it was a good idea to get President Obama&#8217;s birth certificate before considering a challenge to putting him on the ballot in 2012\u2014is trying to help incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts win reelection by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kansascity.com\/news\/government-politics\/article1512707.html\" target=\"_blank\">refusing<\/a> to allow the former Democratic candidate to remove his name from the ballot&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;Taylor, however, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/AaronBlakeWP\/status\/507612471985586177\" target=\"_blank\">says<\/a> he spoke with the head of the state&#8217;s elections division who told him that he&#8217;d done everything he needed to do in order to withdraw. Taylor&#8217;s withdrawal boosts the independent campaign of Greg Orman, who has a very good chance of unseating Roberts in November&#8217;s election. <\/p>\n<p>Assuming Taylor is telling the truth\u2014and given Kobach&#8217;s history as a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2012\/04\/18\/1084413\/-Racist-bigot-insists-that-YES-he-IS-advising-Romney-campaign\" target=\"_blank\">bigoted right-wing lunatic<\/a> I&#8217;d trust him over Kobach any day of the week\u2014then Kobach is going to have a hard time explaining what appears to be a nakedly partisan move.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">There is no crime Republicans will not commit to steal an election they cannot win legally. <strong>Get out the vote!!<\/strong><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/thinkprogress.org\/climate\/2014\/09\/05\/3563762\/canada-forest-degradation\/\" target=\"_blank\">Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>Canada <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.globalforestwatch.org\/2014\/09\/world-lost-8-percent-of-its-remaining-pristine-forests-since-2000\/#more-718\" target=\"_blank\">leads the world<\/a> in forest degradation, according to a new mapping project.<\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"http:\/\/www.globalforestwatch.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">project<\/a>, put together by World Resources Institute, Greenpeace and multiple other groups, uses interactive maps to display forest degradation and destruction around the world between 2000 and 2013. According to WRI, <a href=\"http:\/\/blog.globalforestwatch.org\/2014\/09\/world-lost-8-percent-of-its-remaining-pristine-forests-since-2000\/#more-718\" target=\"_blank\">more than 104 million hectares<\/a> (about 401,546 square miles) \u2014 a chunk of land the group notes is three times the size of Germany \u2014 of the world\u2019s remaining large, undisturbed forests, or Intact Forest Landscapes, were degraded in the last 13 years. The Northern boreal region of Canada, Russia and Alaska had some of the largest area of degraded forests, with the Amazon having the second-largest and the Congo basin the third. <\/p>\n<p>In Canada\u2019s tar sands region, forest fires and industrial development have destroyed or degraded almost two million acres of boreal forest since 2000, according to Peter Lee, Director of Global Forest Watch Canada. Lee told ThinkProgress in an email that Canada\u2019s main driver of forest destruction is an \u201cincreased frequency and extent of forest fires\u201d driven by climate change. These fires are likely converting areas that were once heavily forested into shrublands. Logging and road-building are the second-biggest causes of forest destruction and degradation, Lee said, and \u201cmassive increases in the pace and scale of energy developments, especially non-conventional oil and gas developments in northern Alberta\u2019s tar sands region and also in north-eastern British Columbia with the shale plays,\u201d is the third. <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I almost always have reason to compare Canada favorably to the US the, but in this case Harper and his Harlots are outdoing us. They must have taken a course in Koch \u2026 never mind.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0907Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"0907Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/0907Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"350\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I have mixed feelings about the pageant.&#160; Because I grew up in Atlantic City, it was the source of several pleasant childhood memories adolescent fantasies.&#160; I understand that it tends to objectify women, but at the same time, it provided more scholarship money to women than any other organization in the country.&#160; For me, it engendered respect for the beauty within women, not just without.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 139.&#160; What a rude awakening!&#160; I took a cat nap after breakfast and did not wake up until after supper. :-(&#160; Fortunately, I did my research before breakfast, so all I have to do is compose.&#160; Tomorrow is a Holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, and the <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/07\/open-thread972014\/' 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-13621","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\/13621","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=13621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13621\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}