Open Thread – 9/12/2010

Yesterday did not go at all as planned.  Normally I wake up at around 7 AM, but I slept in until noon.  Since that CPAP machine screwed up my natural sleeping pattern for two months, I have not gotten the rhythm back.  I looked for feed reader to replace Bloglines, which is going offline.  I expected it to be easy.  No such luck.  Most of the alternatives try to do so much that they do nothing well, and Google Reader remains mud slow.  After eliminating all the web based solutions I could find, I looked at desktop readers and settled on FeedDemon.  So far, I am very impressed with it.  I did squeeze in time to reply to comments.  Today is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, so I will be spending most of the day in …um… religious pursuits.  Good luck to you who are playing in Lefty Bloggers Plus.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today it took me 4:17.  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From Alternet: While the planning wasn’t intentional, tea partiers and Glenn Beck groupies will get a chance to really make good on their protestations that their ranks aren’t polluted by racists. That’s because conservative activists, some affiliated with Beck’s 912 Project, have organized a big march and rally on the Mall on the very same day, and in virtually the same place, as the National Black Family Reunion. Started 25 years ago by civil rights icon Dorothy Height, the reunion was created to showcase the strengths of the black family.

The NBFR usually pulls about 250,000 visitors, so they will have too big a size advantage for the Teabaggers to risk a violent assault.

From Willamette Week: In the wake of questions about Republican gubernatorial nominee [in Oregon] Chris Dudley’s residency during his first stint playing for the Portland Trail Blazers, WW asked Dudley and Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber for their tax returns from 1994 through 1998. The issue is whether Dudley lived in Washington, which has no income tax, from 1994 to 1998 as he claims, or whether he lived at least part of the time in Oregon, which has among the nation’s highest income tax rates.

Yesterday, Kitzhaber agreed to turn over his returns.

Dudley’s spokesman, LeRoy Coleman, said the Dudley campaign would consider the request but has not yet responded with a definitive answer.

Gee, I wonder why?  I predict Dudley Do Wrong will not cooperate.

From Think Progress: Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID) attended a ribbon-cutting event for the Health West clinic in Aberdeen, Idaho. Crapo praised the clinic, which will specialize in assisting low-income patients in rural areas, saying, “What is happening right here in Aberdeen today is one of the core pieces of the solution that we need in America today.” What Crapo did not mention in his praise for Health West is that most of its funding came from the stimulus package that he opposed.

Where was the media asking him why he opposed it, if it is a core piece of the needed solution?  Frankly I think that when the states Senators and Reps oppose an initiative, their states should get no funding from it.

Cartoon: from Cagle.com

Which team do you want to win?