Yesterday the cardiologist told me she thinks I may have had a ‘silent’ heart attack, so I’ll need to go back twice later this month, once for a stress test and once for an echocardiogram. My COPD flared badly, and I’m worn out. I’ll be intermittent for the next month, because I’ll have a lot of medical appointments to deal with. My plan for today is to post just this Open Thread, catch up on a huge backlog of comments here, and make the rounds of sites where I post links to clean up my message backlogs there. Then tomorrow, I hope to blog normally.
Tomorrow I will be the featured guest in the Lies My Country Told Me Blogtalk Radio show. If you’d like to listen in, it will be at 2 PM EDT (11 AM PDT). Just click the link.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 5:27 (average 5:46). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From MoveOn: Whoa: Did FDR Call It Or What?
FDR was psychic. He predicted Willard.
From NY Times: Forty years after the United States stopped spraying herbicides in the jungles of Southeast Asia in the hopes of denying cover to Vietcong fighters and North Vietnamese troops, an air base here is one of about two dozen former American sites that remain polluted with an especially toxic strain of dioxin, the chemical contaminant in Agent Orange that has been linked to cancers, birth defects and other diseases.
On Thursday, after years of rebuffing Vietnamese requests for assistance in a cleanup, the United States inaugurated its first major effort to address the environmental effects of the long war.
Mitigating that injustice has been far too long in coming. Lets not forget, we also need to clean up and remove the Agent Orange in the House of Representatives.
From CNN: Donald Trump is set to get a ‘unique’ gig at the Republican National Convention in late August, an aide to the real estate titan confirmed on Friday.
"Mr. Trump’s role will occur at the Tampa Bay Times Forum (site of the convention), though the specifics of the role are not being released at this time. The role, like Mr. Trump, is unique and will be memorable for all those in attendance at the convention and those watching around country. Stay tuned," Executive Vice President and Special Counsel Michael Cohen told CNN.
LOL! Shaving his head, perhaps?
Cartoon:
12 Responses to “Open Thread–8/10/2012”
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4:47 Almost one minute better than the average, but I don't think this time will fly today.
3:56 You definitely had your wings clipped this time! Ok Patty, bring it on home!
It wasn't my day at all!
3:52 Just barely got this one.
The Donald will put on the white greasepaint and red nose to go with his clown hair. Then he, and a lot of other clowns (like all the Fox News people) will see how many of them can be stuffed into a limousine.
Get better, Tom. We're rooting for you.
LOL! Thanks Marva!
Hope you feel better soon TomCat :)mamabear
Thanks Mama. I deleted your other comment because the graphic didn't take. to use image embed code, you need to go into the HTML using the source button in the editor.
Puzzle — 3:56 when I finished sneezing my head off! Just call me Mademoiselle Butterfly! I am sure Patty will be Madame Butterfly!
MoveOn — Rmoney "Trust me!" In those 2 words is enough manure to fertilise all the veggie gardens and fields of the entire nation! FDR knew Republicans. I'd say he knew they would only get worse as time went on. Either psychic or damn smart!
Agent Orange — "The Marshall Plan (officially the European Recovery Program, ERP) was the large-scale American program to aid Europe where the United States gave monetary support to help rebuild European economies after the end of World War II in order to prevent the spread of Soviet communism. The plan was in operation for four years beginning in April 1948 . The goals of the United States were to rebuild a war-devastated region, remove trade barriers, modernize industry, and make Europe prosperous again." (from Wikipedia) It was even offered to the Soviets but they declined it, and included West Germany, Austria and Italy to name a few. $13 billion dollars in aid over 4 years.
So now, after 40 years, the US is finally ponying up to assist the Vietnamese in the clean up of the environmental damage. I am sure that the Vietnamese were not easy to negotiate with but too much time has elapsed. From Wikipedia:
"During the Vietnam War, between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed nearly 20,000,000 US gallons (80,000,000 l) of material containing chemical herbicides and defoliants mixed with jet fuel in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, as part of Operation Ranch Hand. The program's goal was to defoliate forested and rural land, depriving guerrillas of cover; another goal was to induce forced draft urbanisation, destroying the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside, and forcing them to flee to the U.S. dominated cities, thus depriving the guerrillas of their rural support base and food supply. …
United States Air Force records show that at least 6,542 spraying missions took place over the course of Operation Ranch Hand. By 1971, 12 percent of the total area of South Vietnam had been sprayed with defoliating chemicals, at an average concentration of 13 times the recommended USDA application rate for domestic use. In South Vietnam alone, an estimated 10 million hectares of agricultural land were ultimately destroyed. In some areas TCDD concentrations in soil and water were hundreds of times greater than the levels considered "safe" by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Overall, more than 20% of South Vietnam's forests were sprayed at least once over a nine-year period."
But it wasn't restricted to the Vietnam War nor to Vietnam. More from Wikipedia:
"In 1978, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency suspended spraying of Agent Orange in National Forests, due to a threefold increase in miscarriages in women living near forests that had been sprayed.
A December 2006 Department of Defense report listed Agent Orange testing, storage, and disposal sites at 32 locations throughout the United States, as well as in Canada, Thailand, Puerto Rico, Korea, and in the Pacific Ocean. The Veteran Administration has also acknowledged that Agent Orange was used domestically by U.S. forces in test sites throughout the US. Elgin Air Force Base in Florida was one of the primary testing sites throughout the 1960s."
Such catastrophic damage that was responsible, without doubt, for some of the devastating famines in Vietnam, but also horrendous health problems in the Vietnamese population, as well as American service persons. As I recall, there was denial of benefits to American vets for years, and still some are denied.
I found it both fascinating and disturbing to read the Wikipedia article on Agent Orange, a chemical manufactured by Monsanto and Dow Chemical. Here's the link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_orange .
And the political 'Agent Orange', John Boehner? May he and all his toxic minions be bounced from the Congress so that they can no longer poison the American people with their lies and obstruction.
You hit a nerve with this one TC. Sorry to be so long winded,
Trump — Gag the guy at the gig! Better still, let Rmoney use his barbering skills that he learned in school on Trump!
Cartoon — Perhaps a trip to the Bermuda Triangle aboard his yacht would be appropriate for Rmoney. The cancelled stamp on that stamp should be right on top of Rmoney's picture!
Good time!
Indeed he did, because of how they fought to prevent Social Security.
And for all that harm, Dow and Monsanto made $millions.
Good idea!
Amen!
Will we now forget that Romney is not fit to run a Lemon-Ade -Stand?
Trump would be a good carnival barker.But, I just fervently hope that, no matter what his role, he is so off the wall that he embarrasses them to the point of no return – and that it is televised during prime time and then picked up by every network and run senselessly for days on end.