{"id":6764,"date":"2012-01-15T00:11:06","date_gmt":"2012-01-15T08:11:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=6764"},"modified":"2012-01-15T23:07:56","modified_gmt":"2012-01-16T07:07:56","slug":"open-thread12152012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/15\/open-thread12152012\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;1\/15\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Yesterday I started working early to get my research done and as much written as possible in the morning, to free me for deep spiritual meditation on the holy Ellipsoid Orb for the rest of the day, with emphasis on the Denver\/New England meeting in the evening.&#160;&#160;&#160; The game was disappointing, because the Patriots outclassed the Bronco in every area.&#160; They clearly deserved to win.&#160; I can&#8217;t complain.&#160; The Broncos made it to the conference semi-finals in what they always intended to be a rebuilding year with a brand new head coach and a brand new rookie Quarterback.&#160; They outperformed expectations.&#160; I\u2019m current with replies.&#160; WE are getting our first sow showers of the winter.&#160; Tomorrow is another high holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today it took me 4:30 (average 4:50).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2012-01-15-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Final Religious Agony<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"background-image: none; border-right-width: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; display: block; float: none; border-top-width: 0px; border-bottom-width: 0px; margin-left: auto; border-left-width: 0px; margin-right: auto; padding-top: 0px\" title=\"0114-Broncos10-Patriots45\" border=\"0\" alt=\"0114-Broncos10-Patriots45\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/0114-Broncos10-Patriots45.jpg\" width=\"704\" height=\"104\" \/><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/crooksandliars.com\/kenneth-quinnell\/walkergate-expands-top-aide-given\" target=\"_blank\">Crooks and Liars<\/a>: <\/font>An ongoing John Doe investigation into possible illegal activity by aides to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) expanded when Walker&#8217;s spokesperson, Cullen Werwie, was <a href=\"http:\/\/bloggingblue.com\/2012\/01\/11\/why-was-cullen-werwie-given-immunity-in-milwaukee-county-john-doe-investigation\/\" target=\"_blank\">given prosecutorial immunity<\/a>. Speculation as to the reasons for the immunity, which authorities haven&#8217;t revealed, don&#8217;t signal good news for Walker.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Werwie was Walker\u2019s travelling press aide, giving him close access to Walkers day to day activities and communications.&#160; It does not look good for Fartfuhrer Walker.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/tech\/science\/story\/2012-01-14\/volcano-water-electricity\/52553902\/1\" target=\"_blank\">USA Today<\/a>: <\/font>Geothermal energy developers plan to pump 24 million gallons of water into the side of a dormant volcano in Central Oregon this summer to demonstrate new technology they hope will give a boost to a green energy sector that has yet to live up to its promise.<\/p>\n<p>They hope the water comes back to the surface fast enough and hot enough to create cheap, clean electricity that isn&#8217;t dependent on sunny skies or stiff breezes \u2014 without shaking the earth and rattling the nerves of nearby residents.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Once again, Oregon leads the way in environmentally sane practices.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/headline\/2012\/01\/14-0\" target=\"_blank\">Common Dreams<\/a>: <\/font>Europe has been plunged into a fresh crisis after France was stripped of its coveted AAA credit rating in a mass downgrade of nine eurozone countries by the ratings agency Standard &amp; Poor&#8217;s.<\/p>\n<p>S&amp;P said austerity was driving Europe even deeper into financial crisis as it also cut Austria&#8217;s triple-A rating, and relegated Portugal and Cyprus to junk status.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Now that Europe has demonstrated the failure of austerity, Republicans will be all the more anxious to institute it here.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: inline\" title=\"15Cartoon\" alt=\"15Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/15Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"380\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Yesterday I started working early to get my research done and as much written as possible in the morning, to free me for deep spiritual meditation on the holy Ellipsoid Orb for the rest of the day, with emphasis on the Denver\/New England meeting in the evening.&#160;&#160;&#160; The game was disappointing, because the Patriots outclassed <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/15\/open-thread12152012\/' 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-6764","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\/6764","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=6764"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6764\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6764"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6764"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6764"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}