{"id":6054,"date":"2011-10-07T00:03:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-07T07:03:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=6054"},"modified":"2011-10-07T00:03:08","modified_gmt":"2011-10-07T07:03:08","slug":"open-thread1072011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2011\/10\/07\/open-thread1072011\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–10\/7\/2011"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday  I got up early.  First I went through a backlog of almost 400 email items.  Then I attacked a pile of paperwork do seep that, somewhere near the bottom, I found junk mail from a guy named Noah who wanted donations to build a boat.  Then I tried to get some sleep, but as soon as I lay down,  helicopters showed up overhead and stayed there for several hours.  I feel exhausted.  I\u2019m current on replies.  Today I have errands to run, but mostly I\u2019ll try to rest.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today it took me 3:01 (average 4:37).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Houston Chronicle<\/a>: <\/font>Talk about your Monday from hell. Not only did Bridgett Nickerson Boyd’s car break down on her way to work, but when she pulled over to the side of the freeway, a sheriff’s deputy named Mark Goad pulled behind her, wrote her a ticket for driving on the shoulder, decided to arrest her, followed her to the hospital when her suddenly racing heart prompted a call to paramedics, then took her into custody again after she was treated by doctors and finally drove her to jail.<\/p>\n

To make matters worse, Boyd claims in a lawsuit that the handcuffs were put on her wrists painfully tight and that she was forced to listen to conservative broadcaster Rush Limbaugh "make derogatory comments about black people" all the way to the jail. Boyd is African-American.<\/p>\n

That certainly meets the definition for torture in my book!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>Faced with their worst budget crises<\/a> since the Great Depression, states, and cities have resorted to increasingly desperate measures to cut costs. State and local governments have laid off teachers, slashed Medicaid funding, and even started unpaving roads<\/a> and turning off streetlights. <\/p>\n

But perhaps the most shocking idea to save money is being debated right now by the City Council of Topeka, Kansas. The city could repeal an ordinance banning domestic violence because some say the cost of prosecuting those cases is just too high<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This defines the importance that Republicans place on women\u2019s rights.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>This October marks the 20th anniversary of the infamous confirmation hearings of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, in which he almost didn’t make it to the high court due to allegations that he’d sexually harassed Anita Hill at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. House Democrats would apparently like to commemorate this event by subjecting Thomas to a new round of hearings on the Hill. On the steps of the Supreme Court this morning, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) and others held a press conference calling on the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings investigating some of Thomas’s alleged ethical lapses.<\/p>\n

This will not happen, because House Republicans celebrate Thomas\u2019 abuse of power on their behalf, but it is good that that their blocking it will be an issue.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"7Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday  I got up early.  First I went through a backlog of almost 400 email items.  Then I attacked a pile of paperwork do seep that, somewhere near the bottom, I found junk mail from a guy named Noah who wanted donations to build a boat.  Then I tried to get some sleep, but as […]<\/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-6054","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\/6054","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=6054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6054\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}