Open Thread–7/9/2012

 Posted by at 11:10 am  Open Thread, Personal, Politics, Religion
Jul 092012
 

Yesterday was just miserable here, and I got very little sleep.  It will be about 5° cooler today, but the walls here are still radiating heat from yesterday.  I’m pushing to get the blog up, before the heat of the day hits, because tomorrow I have physical therapy and  may post only an Open Thread.  I’m current with replies, but was brief.

Jig Zone Puzzle:

Today’s took me 3:46 (average 5:04).  To do it, click here.  How did you do?

Short Takes:

From MoveOn: What The People Crying For A Repeal Of Obamacare Are Failing To Grasp

9hcr

Republicans consider that wonderful. Bankruptcies leave the carrion of wrecked families that feeds the 1%,

From San Francisco Chronicle: Protesters unfurled a “Koch Kills” banner and shouted “shame on you” as wealthy donors to presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney rounded a corner in Range Rovers, Denalis and other luxury vehicles on their way to a fundraiser at the Southampton, New York beach house of David Koch, an energy billionaire.

Details about yesterday’s $50,000 per-person dinner were spare. Brothers David and Charles Koch closely guard their privacy and prefer to spend their political dollars through non- profit groups that don’t disclose their donors.

Evil is afoot from the richest Koch Suckers in the world!  Kudos to the protestors!

From Think Progress: Current Republican State [CO] Senator Kevin Grantham took on Wilders’s message that the West “should forbid the construction of new mosques.” Asked about the proposed ban, Grantham told the Statesman he was for considering it:

You know, we’d have to hear more on that, because, as he said, mosques are not churches like we would think of churches. They think of mosques more as a foothold into a society, as a foothold into a community, more in the cultural and in the nationalistic sense. Our churches — we don’t feel that way, they’re places of worship, and mosques are simply not that, and we need to take that into account when approving construction of those.

The notion that Mosques are not “places of worship” is an absurd extension of Wilders’s bigotry.

If Islam is not a religion, neither is Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christianity.

Cartoon:

9Cartoon

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  10 Responses to “Open Thread–7/9/2012”

  1. Jerry Critter says:
    July 9, 2012 at 1:25 pm

    3:39  Close one today.

  2. Lynn Squance says:
    July 9, 2012 at 1:25 pm

    Puzzle — 4:35.  I have to admit that you were right TC — eventually my times have become better and I think I am more and more around average or a bit better.
     
    MoveOn — Sad statistics!  Such things only make the sick, sicker!  Too bad Harry didn't kill the filibuster rule when he had the chance!  My nasty side wants to say to the Republican/Teabaggers "Suffer, baby, suffer!" but my more humane and prominent side says "I hope you don't have to experience the pain and suffering from health issues that others have experienced."
     
    Romney is a Koch head — Apparently there were 3 fundraisers yesterday but the Koch one was the biggest.  If you paid $5,000 you could have had lunch with Eric Cantor, the little worm, 'just down the street'!  Also, according to the article, Mr Obama is supposed to announce an extension of the Bush tax cuts but only to those making under $250,000.  Now that, I think, is purely a political move.
     
     Think Progress — "…Our churches — we don’t feel that way, they’re places of worship, and mosques are simply not that,…"
    This Grantham has been drinking too much InsaniTea!  With all the hatemongering against gays, abortion, and Muslims coming out of these so called Christian churches, they are far from true Christian churches and places of worship!  Mosques are places of worship, as well as education and social activity, no different than other churches.
     
    TC "If Islam is not a religion, neither is Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christianity." — Better recalculate a few tax returns where church donations were used as tax deductions.  I'd love to do that to Rmoney's return!
     
    Cartoon — A walk down nostalgia lane.  I was raised in Brantford, Ontario, the "Telephone City", and Bell's home at Tutela Heights (part of more rural Brantford and Brant County) was always a favourite.  At the Bell Telephone Company office in Brantford, there is a very large statue of Bell sitting in a chair just outside the main doors.  Of course it was the duty of every child to sit on his lap.  As I recall from my childhood, the first use of the "telephone" was in Canada at Tutela Heights between Bell and Watson.  I suspect that this was 'the accident' referred to in Wikipedia's information on Bell.  Here is some info from Wikipedia:
     

    The Bell Telephone Company, a common law joint stock company, was organized in Boston, Massachusetts on July 9, 1877 by Alexander Graham Bell's father-in-law Gardiner Greene Hubbard, who also helped organize a sister company — the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company. The Bell Telephone Company was started on the basis of holding "potentially valuable patents", principally Bell's master telephone patent #174465.
     
    The two companies merged on February 17, 1879 to form two new entities, the National Bell Telephone Company of Boston, and the International Bell Telephone Company, soon-after established by Hubbard and which was headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.  Theodore Vail then took over its operations at that point, becoming a central figure in its rapid growth and commercial success.
     
    The National Bell Telephone Company subsequently merged with others on March 20, 1880 to form the American Bell Telephone Company, also of Boston, Massachusetts.
     
    Upon its inception, the Bell Telephone Company was organized with Hubbard as "trustee", although he was additionally its de facto president since he also controlled his daughter's shares by power of attorney, and with Thomas Sanders, its principal financial backer, as treasurer.  The American Bell Telephone Company would later evolve into the American Telephone & Telegraph Company (AT&T), at times the world's largest telephone company. …
     
    The Bell Patent Association (a name later assigned by historians), was technically not a corporate entity but a trusteeship and a partnership, and was first established verbally in 1874 to be the holders of the patents produced by Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson.
     
    Approximate one third interests were at first held by Gardiner Greene Hubbard, a lawyer and Bell's future father-in-law; Thomas Sanders, the well-to-do leather merchant father of one of Bell's deaf students (and who was the very first to enter into an agreement with Bell); and finally by Alexander Graham Bell himself. Hubbard would subsequently register some of his shares with two other family members. An approximate 10% interest of the patent association was later assigned by its principles to Bell's technical assistant Thomas Watson, in lieu of salary and for his earlier financial support to Bell while they worked together creating their first functional telephones.
     
    The verbal Patent Association agreement was first formalized in a memorandum of agreement on February 27, 1875. The Patent Association's assets would later became the foundational assets of the Bell Telephone Company.

     
    I think Bell would be amazed, but also pleased, at how far the telephone has come, and at all the spin-off developments.  Thanks for this memories blaster TC!

    • TomCat says:
      July 10, 2012 at 9:25 am

      Told ya so! 😉

      Couldn't agree more.

      But it's a good political move, because if forces Republicans to define themselves, because they will not budge.

      He's be so amazed, he wouldn't even notice Republicans.

  3. SoINeedAName says:
    July 10, 2012 at 2:27 am

    I really do appreciate the Historical Cartoons – thanks!

  4. Patty says:
    July 10, 2012 at 6:19 am

    The wealthy do not have to worry about health care costs and the others who are griping about "Obama-Care" have probably never been sick a day in their lives.
     
    Thanks to the super-fund raiser thrown by the Kochs for all their friends, Mittens has surpassed Pres. Obama in fund raising for another month by millions.
     
    I think Grantham should be put back into his straight-jacket.

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