{"id":15289,"date":"2015-05-22T12:34:45","date_gmt":"2015-05-22T19:34:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15289"},"modified":"2015-05-22T12:34:45","modified_gmt":"2015-05-22T19:34:45","slug":"open-thread5222015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/22\/open-thread5222015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;5\/22\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Last night I returned from the shower and reached into my drawer for clean underwear.&#160; Imagine my horror when I discovered a handful of air!!!&#160; So I rose early this morning and did the dreaded task, but am now even more tired and further behind than before.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 5:05 (average 7:30).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2015-05-22-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\/the-energy-company-didnt-handle-21st-century-solar-power-well-so-she-paid-400-electric-bills\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>Her neighbors are paying $18 a month. Joyce Villegas has been paying almost $400 a month for over three years because of delays from Hawaiian Electric, the state&#8217;s utility company.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/Z0WlO18oQXA?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Here we have a case of a blue state trying to do the right thing, but failing to organize it properly. The result is that people still waiting are subsidizing the utility service of people who have installed panels. 1:1 buyback sounds nice, but it&#8217;s not realistic, because it ignores the need to maintain the power grid.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/humor\/borowitz-report\/biker-brawl-suspects-only-slightly-outnumber-republican-candidates\" target=\"_blank\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Suspects in the recent biker brawl in Waco, Texas, only slightly outnumber the 2016 Republican Presidential candidates, leading some voters to have difficulty distinguishing between the two groups, a new poll shows.<\/p>\n<p>According to the poll, voters who were presented the names of a biker-brawl suspect and a Republican Presidential candidate correctly identified both only thirty per cent of the time.<\/p>\n<p>For example, fifty-seven per cent of voters erroneously identified the former Texas Governor Rick Perry as a member of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, while forty-one per cent believed he belonged to the Cossacks.<\/p>\n<p>Adding to voters\u2019 confusion, the biker brawlers and G.O.P. candidates have identical views on a host of issues, such as gun rights and whether they would feel comfortable attending a gay wedding.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Andy is off in a couple places here. First, isn&#8217;t &quot;Wacko&quot; a better way to spell the town&#8217;s name? Second, he missed an obvious solution. Just replace the current clown car with the biker brawl suspects, who are eminently more qualified to govern.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/20\/foxs-food-stamp-smear-surfs-into-house-committe\/203719\" target=\"_blank\">Media Matters<\/a>: <\/font>Fox News&#8217; misleading smear of food stamp recipients as surfing freeloaders found its way into a congressional hearing aimed at examining the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP). <\/p>\n<p>On May 20, the House Committee on Agriculture held a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ustream.tv\/recorded\/62493392\" target=\"_blank\">hearing<\/a> addressing the &quot;Past, Present, and Future of SNAP.&quot; Throughout the hearing, Fox News&#8217; misleading 2013 <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/09\/foxs-shameless-misrepresentation-of-snap-recipi\/195338\" target=\"_blank\">special<\/a>, &quot;The Great Food Stamp Binge&quot; that attempted to make a surfing freeloader &quot;the new face of food stamps&quot; was referenced several times as evidence of abuse within the program. <\/p>\n<p>Fox&#8217;s misrepresentation of food stamp recipients found its way into the hearing when two members on the committee used the special as anecdotal evidence of abuse within SNAP. Rep. Bob Gibbs (R-OH) <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/embed\/clips\/2015\/05\/20\/40059\/aghearing-20150520-gibbssurfer\" target=\"_blank\">used<\/a> Fox&#8217;s example of a &quot;surfer out in California living on food stamps and eating lobster&quot; as evidence of abuse within the program, though he &quot;forg[o]t which network&quot; aired the special. <\/p>\n<p>Later, Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL) also <a href=\"http:\/\/mediamatters.org\/embed\/clips\/2015\/05\/20\/40060\/aghearing-20150520-yohosurfer\" target=\"_blank\">referenced<\/a> &quot;the surfer that was on one of the news channels,&quot; claiming, &quot;unfortunately, we see that in our districts, and I hear stories about that every day.&quot; <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The Republican Reichsministry of Propaganda, <em>Faux Noise<\/em>, has become the Republican Reichsministry of Policy.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/0522Cartoon.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0522Cartoon\" style=\"border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px\" border=\"0\" alt=\"0522Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/0522Cartoon_thumb.jpg\" width=\"654\" height=\"354\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last night I returned from the shower and reached into my drawer for clean underwear.&#160; Imagine my horror when I discovered a handful of air!!!&#160; So I rose early this morning and did the dreaded task, but am now even more tired and further behind than before. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 5:05 (average <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/05\/22\/open-thread5222015\/' 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-15289","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\/15289","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=15289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15289\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}