{"id":25539,"date":"2016-12-21T12:35:33","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T20:35:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=25539"},"modified":"2016-12-21T12:35:33","modified_gmt":"2016-12-21T20:35:33","slug":"open-thread-12212016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/21\/open-thread-12212016\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread &#8211; 12\/21\/2016"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today is the shortest day of the year (except for Lona, who sometimes lives upside down and bass ackwards. We wish our Pagan friends a Cool Yule.&#160; Today is a Wendy day, and I&#8217;m trying to write quickly, because she may come early, depending on what time she returns from Lost Wages.&#160; I gave her $2 to bet for me, so I expect to be independently wealthy by tomorrow.&#160; Happy Hump Day to al!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&#8217;s took me 3:10 (average 5:11).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2016-12-21-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Fantasy Football Update<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Here&#8217;s the latest from the playoffs of our own fantasy football league.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"15Playoffs\" 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=\"15Playoffs\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/15Playoffs.jpg\" width=\"750\" height=\"1300\" \/><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Congrats to Jack, Pam,k Robb and Vivian for winning and making it to the semifinals.&#160; Rob, Squatch, Patty Monster, and Dusty have games to determine 5th &#8211; 8th places.&#160; Seth and I have been kicked to the curb for the season.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=RdGDCQjGjVc\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube<\/a> (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/TheYoungTurks\/videos\" target=\"_blank\">TYT Channel<\/a>): <\/font>Operation Democratic Backbone <\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/RdGDCQjGjVc?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I agree. Here&#8217;s the link to<\/font> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.operationbackbone.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Operation Backbone<\/a><font color=\"#0000ff\">.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/kpdailyfunnies.blogspot.com\/2016\/12\/the-daily-show-donald-trumps-christmas.html\" target=\"_blank\">KP Daily Funnies<\/a>: <\/font>The Daily Show &#8211; Donald Trump&#8217;s Christmas (NOT HOLIDAY) Yule Log<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube-nocookie.com\/embed\/A_-E9eplAT4?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"560\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">They could not have been more appropriate.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2016\/12\/20\/us\/obama-drilling-ban-arctic-atlantic.html\" target=\"_blank\">NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>President Obama announced on Tuesday what he called a permanent ban on offshore oil and gas drilling along wide areas of the Arctic and the Atlantic Seaboard as he tried to nail down an environmental legacy that cannot quickly be reversed by Donald J. Trump.<\/p>\n<p>Mr. Obama invoked an obscure provision of a 1953 law, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.boem.gov\/ocs-lands-act-history\/\" target=\"_blank\">Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act<\/a>, which he said gives him the authority to act unilaterally. While some presidents have used that law to temporarily protect smaller portions of federal waters, Mr. Obama\u2019s declaration of a permanent drilling ban on portions of the ocean floor from Virginia to Maine and along much of Alaska\u2019s coast is breaking new ground. The declaration\u2019s fate will almost certainly be decided by the federal courts.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">While I appreciate what he has done the courts are still so packed with Republican cretins that I have little hope that it will survive. Nevertheless, we must <strong>RESIST<\/strong>!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"1221Cartoon\" 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=\"1221Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/12\/1221Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the shortest day of the year (except for Lona, who sometimes lives upside down and bass ackwards. We wish our Pagan friends a Cool Yule.&#160; Today is a Wendy day, and I&#8217;m trying to write quickly, because she may come early, depending on what time she returns from Lost Wages.&#160; I gave her <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/21\/open-thread-12212016\/' 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-25539","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\/25539","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=25539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25539\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}