{"id":6962,"date":"2012-02-02T00:03:16","date_gmt":"2012-02-02T08:03:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=6962"},"modified":"2012-02-02T00:03:16","modified_gmt":"2012-02-02T08:03:16","slug":"open-thread222012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/02\/02\/open-thread222012\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–2\/2\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday there was a little excitement here.  I got up early to collect the data for January\u2019s monthly report.  Then I did my online shopping.  Afterwards, feeling quite tired, I went to bed for my normal afternoon sleep.  Less than an hour later, the fire alarm rousted me.  A Mexican Restaurant on the ground floor of my building had a kitchen fire.  So I threw on my clothes and my coat, grabbed my O2<\/sub>, and headed for the street, firefighters coming up the stairs as I was going down.  I had to wait about ninety minutes, before I could return.  Please don\u2019t worry.  The fire was in the opposite corner of the building from me.  I was never in any danger.  I never even smelled smoke.  However, I\u2019m bleary eyed, because I\u2019ve had no sleep.  I\u2019m current with replies, although I was shorter than usual.  Today is rest and recover time.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today it took me 3:35 (average 5:17).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From City AM<\/a>: <\/font>ROYAL Bank of Scotland chief executive Stephen Hester has bowed to growing political pressure and agreed to waive his bonus. <\/p>\n

Hester decided to forego the award of 3.6m shares, worth around \u00a3960,000, after the Labour party said it would force a House of Commons vote on the issue in a bid to make the government block the controversial payout. <\/p>\n

Friends of Hester told City A.M. he had spent the weekend considering his options and had decided to relinquish his 2011 bonus after it became clear the political row would not die down. They said the issue was threatening to distract him from the job of nursing the bank back to health. <\/p>\n

A big Hat-Tip goes to Patricia G who tipped me off about this item.  She and other progressive British heroes protested this Bankster\u2019s bonus until Parliament took note, and his greed gave way to self-preservation.  Kudos to them!<\/font><\/p>\n

From Reuters<\/a>: <\/font>The Indiana state Senate on Wednesday gave final approval to a new law allowing workers at unionized businesses to avoid paying union dues, the last major legislative hurdle to making Indiana the first "right-to-work" state in the nation’s manufacturing belt.<\/p>\n

No state has approved a right-to-work law since Oklahoma a decade ago, and Indiana is being closely watched nationwide during a presidential election year. The Senate vote of 28 to 22 was followed by calls of "shame, shame" from members of the public outside the chamber.<\/p>\n

Governor Mitch Daniels will likely sign the bill Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Shame!  Shame!  It\u2019s a black day for Indiana. :-(.  Here\u2019s Rachel.<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

From Truth-out<\/a>: <\/font>Today, the nation is abuzz over Mitt Romney bluntly cold comment: "I’m not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there."<\/a><\/p>\n

This is not a slip of the tongue. This is what he believes. We know, because he said it before.<\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t it ironic that Rmoney<\/em> credits the safety net at the same time that he and his goose-stepping pals are fighting to destroy it.  They are not concerned with the poor, because they govern exclusively for the benefit of millionaires, billionaires, and corporate criminals.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"2Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday there was a little excitement here.  I got up early to collect the data for January\u2019s monthly report.  Then I did my online shopping.  Afterwards, feeling quite tired, I went to bed for my normal afternoon sleep.  Less than an hour later, the fire alarm rousted me.  A Mexican Restaurant on the ground floor […]<\/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-6962","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\/6962","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=6962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}