{"id":5744,"date":"2011-09-01T01:02:12","date_gmt":"2011-09-01T08:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5744"},"modified":"2011-09-01T01:02:12","modified_gmt":"2011-09-01T08:02:12","slug":"open-thread912011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/01\/open-thread912011\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–9\/1\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was my day to co-facilitate a therapy group for former prisoners.  The group meets only once a month now, because they have finished the main program and have moved to aftercare.  It will disband after a year, and I will probably go back to volunteering weekly with a new group.  Over the two years I have worked with them, the men have really grown, and not one had their parole or probation revoked.  When I returned home I slept, because I had missed much of my morning sleep time.  I\u2019m current with replies.  Tomorrow I\u2019ll spend a large part of the day collecting the data for Thursday\u2019s monthly report.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today it took me 3:46 (average 5:05).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From CRN<\/a>: <\/font>The U.S. Justice Department has moved to block AT&T (NYSE:T<\/a>)\u2019s proposed $39 million acquisition of T-Mobile, with a civil antitrust lawsuit filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. <\/p>\n

In a statement, the DOJ said that the merger would lead to reduced competition, increased prices, and lower quality products and services for mobile telecommunications customers.<\/p>\n

Even though one union is highly upset about this, because AT&T promised to expand their work force, I think the DOJ decision is wise.  AT&T cannot be trusted, and every time they have taken over another carrier in the past, they have cut jobs.  They have eliminated over 100,000 jobs in the past year.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said US forces will leave Iraq as scheduled by year’s end, and that there will not be any permanent US bases in the country, a statement from his office said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

"The agreement on the withdrawal of American forces will be implemented on schedule by the end of the year, and there will not be any bases for US forces here," Maliki told Al-Ittijah TV channel in an interview to be broadcast later, it said.<\/p>\n

This has taken far too long.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Huffington Post<\/a>: <\/font>Not quite a year ago, NASA climatologist James Hansen joined hundreds of Appalachian coalfield activists, including Teri Blanton,<\/a> Maria Gunnoe<\/a>, Bo Webb,<\/a> Larry Gibson<\/a>, Mickey McCoy and Bob Kincaid<\/a> at a sit-in<\/a> in front of the White House, and called for the abolition of mountaintop removal mining. <\/p>\n

In an extraordinary act of solidarity, Blanton and other Appalachian coalfield leaders will join the growing climate justice sit-in<\/a> at the White House today, calling on President Obama to deny the TransCanada Keystone pipeline permit. Hansen, who has defined the pipeline decision as a litmus test for the Obama administration’s commitment to dealing with climate change, was arrested earlier this week. <\/p>\n

Kudos!  Go labor!!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"1Cartoon\"<\/p>\n

Mt Tabor as requested by Paul.<\/font><\/p>\n

\"1Mt<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s the little hillock in the foreground.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was my day to co-facilitate a therapy group for former prisoners.  The group meets only once a month now, because they have finished the main program and have moved to aftercare.  It will disband after a year, and I will probably go back to volunteering weekly with a new group.  Over the two years […]<\/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-5744","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\/5744","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=5744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5744\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}