{"id":18733,"date":"2016-01-02T09:54:55","date_gmt":"2016-01-02T17:54:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=18733"},"modified":"2016-01-02T09:54:55","modified_gmt":"2016-01-02T17:54:55","slug":"open-thread122016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/02\/open-thread122016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–1\/2\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I spent most of the day resting, although I did cook myself a steak, cheese whipped potatoes, Asian veggies, and chocolate cake  (bought).  I successfully moderated portions, as my glucose level this morning was 97.  Sleeping without sheets is very uncomfortable.  And my helper-friend is still AWOL.  Tomorrow is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos\u2019 meditation with the chargers will be televised.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 2:45 (average 4:46).  To do it. click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a> (classic 11\/2015): <\/font>Sixty million people died in World War II, but fascism won. It didn\u2019t win on the battlefield. It didn\u2019t win right away. It won because the same fears, the same greed, the same hatred that fueled its growth in the first part of the twentieth century never went away. The symbols of fascism became anathema, but the causes \u2026 went deep. And gradually, slowly, one step at a time, all those vices became first tolerated, then treated as virtues, and then as the only acceptable view.<\/p>\n

Godwin\u2019s Law\u2014the contention that any argument will eventually come round to warnings about Hitler\u2014is twenty-five years old, but for much longer than that, we\u2019ve been taught that the use of that… f-word, is not to be taken seriously. Sure, every government program, new or old, is open to accusations of communism and warnings of a slippery slope toward some failed dictatorship. That\u2019s expected. But to even acknowledge our long, stumbling lurch to the right; the building force of corporate power; the relentless need for war; a police whose power of enforcement is divorced from law; a preening nationalism that rewards the full rights of citizenship only to those who fit an ever-narrower mold\u2026 You can\u2019t call it fascism. People will only laugh.<\/p>\n

Godwin’s Law – a common meme used by Republicans, other fascists, pseudo-intellectuals, and people with their heads in the sand, or in smellier places, whenever anyone points out the verifiable commonalities between today’s Republican Party and Germany’s National Socialist Party, before Hitler became dictator. The Republican Reich must be stopped.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>For decades, the south steps of the State Capitol have served as a staging area for rallies on issues ranging from abortion to immigration rights, but Friday was the first time that demonstrators walked around here with handguns on their hips.<\/p>\n

On a chilly, overcast day, more than 100 Texans gathered carrying an array of holstered weaponry \u2014 Glocks, Smith & Wessons and more \u2014 to mark a change in the law that lets them openly display the fact that they are armed. The practice had been banned in Texas since 1871.<\/p>\n

Similar demonstrations were held in several other Texas cities.<\/p>\n

\"0102openCARRY\"<\/p>\n

Look! The Republican Ammosexuals are exposing their penises.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>A self-described \u201cpro-family\u201d conservative said on Facebook he should be allowed to grab the nipples of breastfeeding mothers if a law banning women exposing breasts in public didn\u2019t pass. New Hampshire state Rep. Josh Moore (R) deleted the comment, but it was archived and posted by Slate<\/a>.<\/p>\n

How about grabbing Moore’s balls in public\u2026 with pruning shears?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0102Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I spent most of the day resting, although I did cook myself a steak, cheese whipped potatoes, Asian veggies, and chocolate cake  (bought).  I successfully moderated portions, as my glucose level this morning was 97.  Sleeping without sheets is very uncomfortable.  And my helper-friend is still AWOL.  Tomorrow is a holy day in 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-18733","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\/18733","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=18733"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18733\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18733"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18733"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18733"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}