{"id":15484,"date":"2015-06-22T12:19:05","date_gmt":"2015-06-22T19:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=15484"},"modified":"2015-06-22T12:19:05","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T19:19:05","slug":"open-thread6222015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/22\/open-thread6222015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;6\/22\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Outside there is a huge racket as the maintenance people are working on my side of the building this week.&#160; I\u2019m not complaining, but I do hate being blasted out of a cat nap, after sleeping poorly, and if I want to do any solar basking, I\u2019m likely to get drenched while walking out of range.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 2:55 (average 4:25).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2015-06-22-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Fantasy Football Recruiting<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">We still need two new players for <\/font><a href=\"http:\/\/lbf.league.fantasy.nfl.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Lefty Blog Friends<\/a><font color=\"#0000ff\"><\/font><font color=\"#0000ff\">, our fantasy football league.&#160; How about you?&#160; For more information, <\/font><a href=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/10\/politics-plus-fantasy-football-2015\/\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a><font color=\"#0000ff\"><\/font><font color=\"#0000ff\">.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/robertreich.org\/post\/122118187155\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Reich<\/a>: <\/font><strong>#11. WHY MEDICARE ISN\u2019T THE PROBEM; IT\u2019S THE SOLUTION<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/DdEPeLUZAXY?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">The Reich on the left pulled a fast one on me and came up with number 11, but true to form, our Reich is right, and the Reich in the right, the Republican Reich, is wrong. I could not find this on MoveOn, so please click through to <a href=\"http:\/\/robertreich.org\/post\/122118187155\" target=\"_blank\">Robert Reich<\/a>, and share it from there.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2013\/01\/18\/1180129\/-Massive-Fracking-Burnoff-Can-Be-Seen-From-Outer-Space\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a> (classic: 1\/2013): <\/font>A reporter for NPR discovered a strange new light (see circled area above) where there used to be only North Dakota grassland.&#160; The light <a href=\"https:\/\/www.impartial-review.com\/stories\/massive-fracking-burnoff-can-be-seen-from-outer-space\">is produced by<\/a> a massive 15,000 square mile area of fracking natural gas flareoffs produced by over 150 companies who have determined that it&#8217;s cheaper to burn-off about 29% of the natural gas that is produced by their oil wells.&#160;&#160; <\/p>\n<p>The current levels of burning gas from the field inject two million tons of carbon dioxide into the air each year which is the equivalent amount of pollution caused by 2.5 million cars.&#160; The flares produce carbon oxides, nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxide and particulates.<\/p>\n<p>The burnoff is equivalent to 30% of the total U.S. natural gas production. Currently, there is no legislation that requires fracking companies to recapture the natural gas they produce through fracking, although it&#8217;s only slightly more expensive <a href=\"http:\/\/switchboard.nrdc.org\/blogs\/vgowrishankar\/no_one_cries_wolf_louder_than.html\" target=\"_blank\">to recapture the natural gas<\/a>.&#160; Most of the companies have obtained government permission for the flare-offs with annual renewals.&#160; The industry argues that until the wells are completed it&#8217;s too expensive to recapture the natural gas.&#160; <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"NASA image acquired April 18 - October 23, 2012&#10;&#10;This image of the United States of America at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012. The image was made possible by the new satellite\u2019s \u201cday-night band\u201d of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as city lights, gas flares, auroras, wildfires, and reflected moonlight.&#10;&#10;\u201cNighttime light is the most interesting data that I\u2019ve had a chance to work with,\u201d says Chris Elvidge, who leads the Earth Observation Group at NOAA\u2019s National Geophysical Data Center. \u201cI\u2019m always amazed at what city light images show us about human activity.\u201d His research group has been approached by scientists seeking to model the distribution of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and to monitor the activity of commercial fishing fleets. Biologists have examined how urban growth has fragmented animal habitat. Elvidge even learned once of a study of dictatorships in various parts of the world and how nighttime lights had a tendency to expand in the dictator\u2019s hometown or province.&#10;&#10;Named for satellite meteorology pioneer Verner Suomi, NPP flies over any given point on Earth&#39;s surface twice each day at roughly 1:30 a.m. and p.m. The polar-orbiting satellite flies 824 kilometers (512 miles) above the surface, sending its data once per orbit to a ground station in Svalbard, Norway, and continuously to local direct broadcast users distributed around the world. Suomi NPP is managed by NASA with operational support from NOAA and its Joint Polar Satellite System, which manages the satellite&#39;s ground system.&#10;&#10;NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data provided courtesy of Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center). Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, and the Department of Defense. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.&#10;&#10;Instrument: Suomi NPP - VIIRS &#10;&#10;Credit: &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt; NASA Earth Observatory&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Click here to view all of the&#160;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/Features\/NightLights\/&quot;&#160;rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&#160;Earth at Night 2012 images&#160;&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Click here to&#160;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/NaturalHazards\/view.php?id=79800 &quot;&#160;rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&#160;read more&#160;&lt;\/a&gt;&#160;about this image&#160;&lt;\/b&gt;&#160;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/audience\/formedia\/features\/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html&quot;rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;NASA image use policy.&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/centers\/goddard\/home\/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;NASA Goddard Space Flight Center&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt; enables NASA\u2019s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA\u2019s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency\u2019s mission.&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Follow us on &lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/twitter.com\/NASA_GoddardPix&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Twitter&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Like us on &lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Greenbelt-MD\/NASA-Goddard\/395013845897?ref=tsd&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Facebook&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Find us on &lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/instagram.com\/nasagoddard?vm=grid&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Instagram&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;\" 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=\"NASA image acquired April 18 - October 23, 2012&#10;&#10;This image of the United States of America at night is a composite assembled from data acquired by the Suomi NPP satellite in April and October 2012. The image was made possible by the new satellite\u2019s \u201cday-night band\u201d of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS), which detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses filtering techniques to observe dim signals such as city lights, gas flares, auroras, wildfires, and reflected moonlight.&#10;&#10;\u201cNighttime light is the most interesting data that I\u2019ve had a chance to work with,\u201d says Chris Elvidge, who leads the Earth Observation Group at NOAA\u2019s National Geophysical Data Center. \u201cI\u2019m always amazed at what city light images show us about human activity.\u201d His research group has been approached by scientists seeking to model the distribution of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels and to monitor the activity of commercial fishing fleets. Biologists have examined how urban growth has fragmented animal habitat. Elvidge even learned once of a study of dictatorships in various parts of the world and how nighttime lights had a tendency to expand in the dictator\u2019s hometown or province.&#10;&#10;Named for satellite meteorology pioneer Verner Suomi, NPP flies over any given point on Earth&#39;s surface twice each day at roughly 1:30 a.m. and p.m. The polar-orbiting satellite flies 824 kilometers (512 miles) above the surface, sending its data once per orbit to a ground station in Svalbard, Norway, and continuously to local direct broadcast users distributed around the world. Suomi NPP is managed by NASA with operational support from NOAA and its Joint Polar Satellite System, which manages the satellite&#39;s ground system.&#10;&#10;NASA Earth Observatory image by Robert Simmon, using Suomi NPP VIIRS data provided courtesy of Chris Elvidge (NOAA National Geophysical Data Center). Suomi NPP is the result of a partnership between NASA, NOAA, and the Department of Defense. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.&#10;&#10;Instrument: Suomi NPP - VIIRS &#10;&#10;Credit: &lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/www.earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt; NASA Earth Observatory&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Click here to view all of the&#160;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/Features\/NightLights\/&quot;&#160;rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&#160;Earth at Night 2012 images&#160;&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Click here to&#160;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/earthobservatory.nasa.gov\/NaturalHazards\/view.php?id=79800 &quot;&#160;rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;&#160;read more&#160;&lt;\/a&gt;&#160;about this image&#160;&lt;\/b&gt;&#160;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/audience\/formedia\/features\/MP_Photo_Guidelines.html&quot;rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;NASA image use policy.&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/www.nasa.gov\/centers\/goddard\/home\/index.html&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;NASA Goddard Space Flight Center&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt; enables NASA\u2019s mission through four scientific endeavors: Earth Science, Heliophysics, Solar System Exploration, and Astrophysics. Goddard plays a leading role in NASA\u2019s accomplishments by contributing compelling scientific knowledge to advance the Agency\u2019s mission.&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Follow us on &lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/twitter.com\/NASA_GoddardPix&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Twitter&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Like us on &lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/Greenbelt-MD\/NASA-Goddard\/395013845897?ref=tsd&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Facebook&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;&#10;&#10;&lt;b&gt;Find us on &lt;a href=&quot;http:\/\/instagram.com\/nasagoddard?vm=grid&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;Instagram&lt;\/a&gt;&lt;\/b&gt;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/0622Frack.jpg\" width=\"400\" height=\"267\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">What a bunch of mother frackers!! Since this is visible from outer space, at least aliens touring the solar system will know that the earth is not a safe place to land, without having to risk being gunned down by a Republican Ammosexuals.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2015\/06\/22\/us\/campaign-donations-linked-to-white-supremacist.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>The leader of a white supremacist group that has been linked to Dylann Roof, the suspect in the murder of nine African-Americans in a Charleston, S.C., church last week, has donated tens of thousands of dollars to Republican campaigns, including those of 2016 presidential contenders such as Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum and Rand Paul, records show.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">&quot;Uranus Inspector&quot; said he&#8217;ll return the money, and I suspect that &quot;Idiot, Son of Idiot, Named after Idiot&quot; and &quot;Frothmeister&quot; will both do likewise, although none had any objection to taking money, in the first place, from an organization widely known as White Supremacist and listed as such by SPLC. They will get the money funneled back into their campaigns through white supremacist Republicans that haven&#8217;t been caught killing anyone recently.&#160; Click through for more Republicans in thrall to murderous white supremacists.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0622Cartoon\" 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=\"0622Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/0622Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Outside there is a huge racket as the maintenance people are working on my side of the building this week.&#160; I\u2019m not complaining, but I do hate being blasted out of a cat nap, after sleeping poorly, and if I want to do any solar basking, I\u2019m likely to get drenched while walking out of <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/06\/22\/open-thread6222015\/' 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-15484","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\/15484","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=15484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15484\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}