{"id":14572,"date":"2015-01-23T00:58:05","date_gmt":"2015-01-23T08:58:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14572"},"modified":"2015-01-23T00:58:05","modified_gmt":"2015-01-23T08:58:05","slug":"open-thread1232014-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/01\/23\/open-thread1232014-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–1\/23\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 79.  I\u2019m hurrying, because I have to leave soon for volunteer work in prison.  I\u2019ll be meeting with around 100 guys.  This is the only article.  I\u2019ll probably be scarce for a couple days.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 2:29 (average 4:15).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/strong>: (All Andy)<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>A new Oxfam report indicating that the wealthiest one per cent possesses about half of the world\u2019s wealth has left the richest people in the world \u201creeling with disappointment,\u201d a leading billionaire said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters in Davos, Switzerland, where he is attending the World Economic Forum, the hedge-fund owner Harland Dorrinson said, \u201cI think I speak for a lot of my fellow billionaires when I say I thought we were doing a good deal better than that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Calling the Oxfam findings \u201csobering,\u201d he said that he hoped they would serve \u201cas a wake-up call to billionaires everywhere that it\u2019s time to up our game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite frankly, a lot of us thought that by buying politicians, rewriting tax laws, and hiding money overseas, we were getting it done,\u201d said Dorrinson, who owns the hedge fund Garrote Capital. \u201cIf, at the end of the day, all we control is a measly half of the world\u2019s wealth, clearly we need to do more\u2014much more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy has them pegged, and they have the Republican Party working hard to increase their share to 100%.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>In a poll taken on Tuesday night, a wide majority of Americans said that they now believe that they could be elected to the United States Senate.<\/p>\n

The results reflected a renewed sense of the inclusiveness of the American political system, as those surveyed said that they believed that anyone could serve in the Senate regardless of intelligence, the ability to speak, or any other qualifications whatsoever.<\/p>\n

While those responses indicated that, as of Tuesday night, at least, Americans were energized about the possibility of their future careers in Washington, other results were not so encouraging.<\/p>\n

Andy knows that a pig’s nuts would be a better Senator than Pig Nuts.<\/font><\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) shared more folksy stories of her childhood on Wednesday, telling reporters that she used to wear a bucket on her head for no apparent reason.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d be walking outside our house and see a bucket lying there, and I\u2019d say to myself, \u2018That\u2019s a perfectly good bucket, I think I\u2019ll put it on my head,\u2019 \u201d she said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t because I needed a hat or anything. I must have had, oh gosh, a half-dozen hats or so. I just wanted to wear a bucket.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ernst said that during her youth, she was known for poking a hole in a large piece of corrugated cardboard and wearing it as a poncho.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t for the life of me tell you why I did that,\u201d she said. \u201cI just liked the look of it, I guess. Nobody paid much attention to it. People sure don\u2019t notice your cardboard poncho when you\u2019re wearing a bucket on your head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Andy, I think people liked it, because the bucket muffled what she was saying.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0123Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 79.  I\u2019m hurrying, because I have to leave soon for volunteer work in prison.  I\u2019ll be meeting with around 100 guys.  This is the only article.  I\u2019ll probably be scarce for a couple days. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 2:29 (average 4:15).  To do it, click here.  How did […]<\/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-14572","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\/14572","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=14572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}