{"id":9887,"date":"2013-01-30T02:27:08","date_gmt":"2013-01-30T10:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=9887"},"modified":"2013-01-30T02:29:48","modified_gmt":"2013-01-30T10:29:48","slug":"open-thread1292013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/30\/open-thread1292013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;1\/29\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I&rsquo;m actually starting to feel a bit better, but my chest is still sufficiently congested, that I don&rsquo;t want to come back too soon and knock myself back.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m current with replies.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m still shooting for 2\/1.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m uploading it a day late, because I thought I had done so yesterday.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today&rsquo;s took me 3:29 (average 4:41).&nbsp; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2013-01-29-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&nbsp; 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:\/\/front.moveon.org\/when-its-easy-for-anyone-and-everyone-to-get-a-gun-this-happens\/\" target=\"_blank\">MoveOn<\/a>: <\/font>When It&#39;s Easy For Anyone And Everyone To Get A Gun, This Happens<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div style=\"text-align: center\"><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/pshared.5min.com\/Scripts\/PlayerSeed.js?sid=281&amp;width=560&amp;height=345&amp;playList=517644706\"><\/script><br \/>\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/on.aol.com\/Video\/Gun-Fails-A-Comprehensive-Collection-To-Commemorate-Gun-Appreciation-Day-517644706\" style=\"font-family: verdana; font-size: 10px\" target=\"_blank\">Gun Fails: A Comprehensive Collection To Commemorate &#39;Gun Appreciation&#39; Day<\/a><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">To operate a car, you have to prove that you know the law and safety procedures in a written test in addition to proving that you can physically operate the vehicle safely. This vid&rsquo;s Republican InsaniTEA is the best evidence that the same standard ought to apply to firearms?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From Dotti: <\/font>STRESS MANAGEMENT TECHNIQUE<\/p>\n<p>Just in case you are having a rough day here&#39;s a stress management technique recommended in all the latest psychological journals.<\/p>\n<p>The funny thing is that it really does work and will make you smile.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>1. Picture yourself lying on your belly on a warm rock that hangs out over a crystal clear stream.<\/p>\n<p>2. Picture yourself with both your hands dangling in the cool running water.<\/p>\n<p>3. Birds are sweetly singing in the cool mountain air.<\/p>\n<p>4. No one knows your secret place.<\/p>\n<p>5. You are in total seclusion from that hectic place called the world.<\/p>\n<p>6. The soothing sound of a gentle waterfall fills the air with a cascade of serenity.<\/p>\n<p>7. The water is so clear that you can make out the face of the republican you&#39;re holding underwater.<\/p>\n<p>See it worked. You&#39;re smiling already.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Dang!! It DOES work!! \ud83d\ude09<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/economy\/latest-pathetic-conservative-attack-social-security-disability-fraud-hysteria\" target=\"_blank\">Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Conservatives are not happy. Despite their best efforts, the public continues to give Social Security <a href=\"http:\/\/www.aarp.org\/work\/social-security\/info-08-2010\/social_security_75th.html\">a big thumbs up<\/a>, and the President has just launched his second term with a speech hailing the program as a force that strengthens America.<\/p>\n<p>You can understand their frustration. They&rsquo;ve tried so very hard to make Americans think that we cannot afford to treat sick, disabled and elderly people with dignity while we subsidize the rich and fight unnecessary wars. But the public hasn&#39;t bought their solvency fabrications. And we haven&rsquo;t been fooled by various pretenses for cutting, from the &ldquo;chained CPI&rdquo; adjustment to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/news-amp-politics\/giant-lie-trotted-out-fiscal-conservatives-trying-shred-social-security\" target=\"_blank\">extending the retirement age again<\/a>. Even the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.alternet.org\/news-amp-politics\/6-reasons-joseph-stiglitz-and-other-top-economists-think-means-testing-medicare\" target=\"_blank\">means-testing ruse<\/a>, cloaked as sensitivity to the poor but intended to drain public support for the program, hasn&rsquo;t worked out for them so far.<\/p>\n<p>Conservatives still hate Social Security. Since the day the program was passed under Franklin Roosevelt, the greedy rich who don&rsquo;t want to pay taxes and the financiers who want to stick Americans with private retirement accounts on which they can charge fees continue to invent new ways to attack and discredit the country&#39;s best-loved program. The think-tank minions and PR units attached to these Scrooges keep themselves up at night imagining new ways to dupe the public into accepting grotesque economic inequality as the norm and a downgraded future as the price we must pay for Wall Street greed.<\/p>\n<p>Now the Social Security haters are taking a page from the Welfare Queen smear campaign book of the &lsquo;90s to conjure a new scapegoat for all that is wrong with America: the Disability King. According to this meme, the problem with America&rsquo;s economy and society is vast numbers of lazy, lying, good-for-nothing loafers cheating the American taxpayer through disability fraud.<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Click through for the rest. It&#39;s worth it. This Republican claim is pure garbage. When I applied for Social Security disability, winning my case took over three years, during which I often had to choose between medicine and food. I pulled two of my own teeth, because my county allows only one emergency dental visit per year. When my case finally came to trial, the judge took one look at my records and said that my benefits should have been approved on day one. The point is, that getting approval is so difficult, and the waiting for approval is so demeaning, that the very notion of widespread disability fraud is patently absurd.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"29Cartoon\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/29Cartoon.jpg\" style=\"display: inline\" title=\"29Cartoon\" width=\"650\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&rsquo;m actually starting to feel a bit better, but my chest is still sufficiently congested, that I don&rsquo;t want to come back too soon and knock myself back.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m current with replies.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m still shooting for 2\/1.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m uploading it a day late, because I thought I had done so yesterday. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today&rsquo;s <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/01\/30\/open-thread1292013\/' 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-9887","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\/9887","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=9887"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9887\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9887"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9887"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9887"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}