{"id":6668,"date":"2012-01-07T00:12:49","date_gmt":"2012-01-07T08:12:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=6668"},"modified":"2012-01-07T00:12:49","modified_gmt":"2012-01-07T08:12:49","slug":"open-thread172012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/07\/open-thread172012\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;1\/7\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Yesterday I slept most of the day, and when I finally surfaced, I felt well enough to do a little research and writing.&#160; Although excessively brief, I\u2019m current with replies.&#160; Today is a high holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzles<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Yesterday it took me 4:05 (average 4:57).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2012-01-06-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; Today it took me 4:25 (average 5:20).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2012-01-07-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">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.youtube.com\/watch?v=ws0WSNRpy3g&amp;amp;feature=colike\" target=\"_blank\">You Tube<\/a>: Hallelujah Corporations.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ws0WSNRpy3g?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Hat Tip to Miss Kitty at Care2.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/politics\/la-pn-tea-party-members-of-congress-a-wellheeled-lot-20120105,0,3192346.story\" target=\"_blank\">LA Times<\/a>: <\/font>Members of the tea party movement that swept into power in 2010 may be anti-elitist in their rhetoric, but their personal finances tell a different story.<\/p>\n<p>While the median average net worth in the U.S. House of Representatives was $755,000 in 2010, the comparable figure for the House Tea Party Caucus\u2019 60 members was $1.8 million, according to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.opensecrets.org\/news\/2012\/01\/tea-party-house-members-wealthy-gop.html\" target=\"_blank\">an analysis<\/a> by the Center for Responsive Politics.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">What better evidence could there be that the Teabaggers are top-down astro-turfed?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/current.com\/shows\/countdown\/\" target=\"_blank\">Current<\/a>: Keith\u2019s Worst Persons for 1\/5<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"270\" src=\"http:\/\/current.com\/bc\/1368237897001?linkBaseURL=http%3A%2F%2Fcurrent.com%2Fshows%2Fcountdown%2Fvideos%2Fworst-persons-ron-paul-joe-arpaio-and-new-hampshire-state-reps-kingsbury-twombly-and-vita\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"480\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\" target=\"_blank\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"webkitallowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">There you have it: the Republican spectrum from criminal to nuts.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/2012\/01\/06\/us-usa-economy-idUSTRE7BM0AB20120106\" target=\"_blank\">Reuters<\/a>: <\/font>Employment growth accelerated last month and the jobless rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent, the strongest evidence yet the economic recovery is gaining steam.<\/p>\n<p>Nonfarm payrolls increased 200,000 in December, the Labor Department said on Friday. It was the biggest rise in three months and beat economists&#8217; expectations for a 150,000 gain.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">In spite of European difficulties, triggered in part by the Republican recession here, and in spite of Republican attempts to sabotage our economy at every turn,&#160; measures taken by Democrats are finally beginning to bear some fruit.&#160; Were it not for Republican interference, the recovery would be further along.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline\" title=\"6Cartoon\" alt=\"6Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/6Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"270\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I slept most of the day, and when I finally surfaced, I felt well enough to do a little research and writing.&#160; Although excessively brief, I\u2019m current with replies.&#160; Today is a high holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb. Jig Zone Puzzles: Yesterday it took me 4:05 (average 4:57).&#160; To do <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/07\/open-thread172012\/' 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-6668","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\/6668","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=6668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6668\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}