{"id":5875,"date":"2011-09-18T00:14:42","date_gmt":"2011-09-18T07:14:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=5875"},"modified":"2011-09-18T00:14:42","modified_gmt":"2011-09-18T07:14:42","slug":"open-thread9182011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/09\/18\/open-thread9182011\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–9\/18\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I slept late, ran a few errands and did some volunteer paperwork.  I considered going by the demonstration in pioneer square, but my COPD was flaring up, and I had to return home. I\u2019m current on replies.  Tomorrow I will be engrossed in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today it took me 3:29 (average 4:16).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From LA Times<\/a>: <\/font>A paper special U.S. peace envoys David Hale and Dennis Ross presented to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas on Thursday that was supposed to sway him away from going to the United Nations was what caused Abbas to take a final stand in favor of going, according to Nabil Shaath, a member of Abbas\u2019 Fatah Central Committee.<\/p>\n

I understand that the paper favored Israeli retention of settlements built on Palestinian land.  Clearly, since the paper had the opposite effect as desired, the State Department under Clinton has little understanding of the region.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Politico<\/a>: <\/font>Administration officials assert that \u201cConfidence Men: Wall Street, Washington, and the Education of a President\u201d by Ron Suskind is infested with errors, both big (what they characterize as misquotations and distorted narratives) and small (several names, a birth date, a publication date, an employer, an unemployment rate, etc.) and gives a distorted and inaccurate picture of the White House under Obama.<\/p>\n

This is the book that revealed that Geithner ignored Obama\u2019s order to break up Citibank.  While I have no doubt that the work contains minor errors, Suskind\u2019s reputation is quite good, and I have difficulty believing that he would include such a claim without source checking it.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Boston Globe<\/a>: <\/font>Most of the top Republicans running for president are embracing plans to partially privatize Social Security, reviving a contentious issue that fizzled under President George W. Bush after Democrats relentlessly attacked it.<\/p>\n

There is only one valid way to reform Social Security.  Scrap the cap!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"18Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I slept late, ran a few errands and did some volunteer paperwork.  I considered going by the demonstration in pioneer square, but my COPD was flaring up, and I had to return home. I\u2019m current on replies.  Tomorrow I will be engrossed in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today it […]<\/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-5875","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\/5875","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=5875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}