{"id":4604,"date":"2011-04-18T04:46:33","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T11:46:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=4604"},"modified":"2011-04-18T04:46:33","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T11:46:33","slug":"open-thread4182011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/18\/open-thread4182011\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;4\/18\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Yesterday I awakened around noon, turned in the TV and discovered, to my chagrin, that it wasn\u2019t Easter.&#160; <img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border-bottom-style: none; border-left-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-right-style: none\" class=\"wlEmoticon wlEmoticon-embarrassedsmile\" alt=\"Embarrassed smile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/04\/wlEmoticon-embarrassedsmile.png\" \/> I guess I was more tired than I thought, because I ate and slept the rest of the afternoon and evening.&#160; I am up to date on comments.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig-Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today it took me 3:52 (5:01 average).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2011-04-18-CE2504A965A9\">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.reuters.com\/article\/2011\/04\/18\/us-usa-syria-wikileaks-idUSTRE73H0E720110418\">Reuters<\/a>: <\/font>The State Department has secretly funded Syrian opposition groups, according to diplomatic cables released by WikiLeaks, The Washington Post reported on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>The cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million since 2006 to a group of Syrian exiles to operate a London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, and finance activities inside Syria, the Post said.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019d like to think that support for democracy is behind this, but I suspect that collusion with Israel is the cause.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/news.xinhuanet.com\/english2010\/video\/2011-04\/18\/c_13834206.htm\">Xinhua<\/a>: <\/font>The Tokyo Electric Power Company has also set out a detailed roadmap for ending what has become the world&#8217;s worst nuclear crisis in 25 years. The company is aiming to reduce radiation leaks at its Fukushima nuclear power plant within three months, and achieve a full shutdown in six to nine months.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I have to wonder if Tokyo Electric has been bought out by either BP or the GOBP.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/thevileplutocrat.com\/bile\/articles\/discoverys-new-network-for-rich-men\/\">The Vile Plutocrat<\/a>: <\/font>Discovery Communications Inc. is launching a television network for rich guys and their toys.<\/p>\n<p>[excerpt] Called Velocity, the new network will replace the current network HD Theater in some 40 million homes on Sept. 25.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">They should call it the RBC (Republican Beneficiaries&#8217; Channel).<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><a title=\"Nick Anderson\" href=\"http:\/\/comics.com\/nick_anderson\/2011-04-15\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" border=\"0\" alt=\"Nick Anderson\" src=\"http:\/\/c0389161.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com\/dyn\/str_strip\/362664.full.gif\" \/><\/a> <\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">OGIM!&#160; Yesterday really was Easter! (That was not intended to be a factual statement.)<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I awakened around noon, turned in the TV and discovered, to my chagrin, that it wasn\u2019t Easter.&#160; I guess I was more tired than I thought, because I ate and slept the rest of the afternoon and evening.&#160; I am up to date on comments. Jig-Zone Puzzle: Today it took me 3:52 (5:01 average).&#160; <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/04\/18\/open-thread4182011\/' 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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4604","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-35-id","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4604","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=4604"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4604\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}