I’m writing for tomorrow, day 157. When this posts I won’t be here. I’ll be in Salem for prison volunteer work. I’m uploading my articles this morning, set to post themselves shortly after midnight. I know what the puzzle link will be. Hopefully, I can get back in and edit in my time tonight.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 5:02 (average 5:18). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Short Takes:
From Daily Kos: …There were two important articles in Foreign Affairs, the quarterly journal and associated website run by the Council on Foreign Relations. Yeah, yeah, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilaterals and all the tin-foil hat stuff notwithstanding, the simple fact is that some very powerful and very influential people have paid some eye-popping amounts of money to be counted as members of the CFR. And Foreign Affairs has a long, and I would even dare say, proud and enviable, history of publishing important articles that signaled major shifts or developments in USA policies, such as George Kennan's July 1947 X article explaining the new policy of "containment" of the Soviet Union…
For the last couple of days, JL from Care2 and I have been trying to figure out a way to post a legal excerpt of this article that conveys its bottom line. Frankly, it's just too complex and convoluted to do so. However it's just too important not to share. Therefore, please just take my word that you owe yourself this read and click through.
From Upworthy: A special Upworthy partnership with the UN Climate Summit 2014. Made possible by Unilever Project Sunlight. Read more.
There are 45,000 wildfires per year in the southeastern U.S. alone, and since 2000, we've had eight of the worst years for wildfires. Now, of course, it's not just climate change that's causing this, but after you watch this video, you'll understand reason number gazillion for us needing to do something about what's happening to our planet.
Climate change may not be beheading Journalists like ISIL, but it's here, it's npw, and ultimately, it's even more deadly.
From TPM: The recurring image in the latest Republican campaign ads is a lone militant walking across a barren land with the black banner of the Islamic State group.
Six weeks to Election Day, the once back-burner issue of national security is suddenly at the forefront amid rising American fears and the U.S. military's expanded campaign to destroy extremists in Iraq and Syria. The GOP, more trusted by the public in recent national polls to deal with foreign policy and terrorism, is using the threat as a political cudgel against Democrats in several Senate and House races.
"Radical Islamic terrorists are threatening to cause the collapse of our country," Scott Brown, the former Massachusetts senator trying to unseat first-term Sen. Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, says in a commercial. "President Obama and Sen. Shaheen seem confused about the nature of the threat. Not me."
Scott Brown and the Republican party, in addition to lying, are committing criminal sedition by trumpeting ISIL's intimidating propaganda against fellow Americans. How Shameful!
Cartoon:
Republicans would repeal all but #2.
12 Responses to “Open Thread–9/25/2014”
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Don't anybody else make the mistake I just did – I wrote a long and considered comment on all the points here – then just clicked through to the Daily Kos article again – and lost my comment….. oh dear!
Pat, write your long and considered comments in WordPad, NotePad, or whatever software you have that is basic, and cut and paste them when you are ready. Then you can go all over the map and not lose them.
Try a text edit or similar application as a place to write, copy & paste, edit your comments. With additional comments, save each change as you go along of your text edit app. Try opening, using another window when you want to read, refer to an article. Hope this helps you. Hugzzz.
After you have made all of your comments, check spelling and proof read it. Save it on your text edit app. Copy your comments from your text app and paste it into TC’s comment section and submit.
5:27. OK. we draggy-pants types are awake now: average up to 6:07.
Daily Kos – So America's "greatest minds" thought they could build wealth, keep it through crashes, and still avoid the pitchforks? I think they not only failed to be knowledgeable about cutting edge technology and resource limitations, but also about human beings. Well, they probably didn't consider us to be human. The diarist uses the term "wet dream" and I think makes a case that that is about how connected these people are with reality.
Upworthy – as a retired insurance professional, I am familiar with some of the less obvious consequences of wildfires (Dr Holdren didn't even mention the effect of insurance permiums – maybe he should have – some people need a dollar figure to understand things). In Colorado Springs, I have lived through smoke plumes from wildfires in Arizona. I haven't personally worked in fisheries, but I can see why they would also suffer (and we have enough problems harvesting enough marine fish to sustain the planet's like). I think I personally would rather be beheaded than die from the results of climate change – it's faster. I'm not young and I feel for those who have children and grandchildren. It will not be easy for them.
TPM – There are people more confused than Scott Brown about the nature of ISIL, but they are all tin-foil-hat Republicans, and Jeann Shaheen in not one of them. How ironic, and dangerous, that national polls trust Republicans more than Democrats to deal with terrorism, when it is Republicans who caused terrorism – and continue to practice it at home as well as abroad.
Cartoon – They might keep the other nine if there were a way to spell out that they were for the benefit of Republicans only. White Republicans.
Since this is an Open Thread, anyone have any thoughts on Eric Holder? I expect TC will post in a few days, but I was a little jolted, so thought I would throw it out.
3:15 No sticky fingers here.
3:27 I thought I avoided the sticky hairs. I guess not. A few grabbed me as I went by.
3:08 Not all that glitters is gold! Sometimes it is pretty pink flowers!
Daily Kos ~ I always knew the Wall St. bailout was a bad idea. The rich should have been allowed to"lose" their money. We would not have been affected as badly as we were.
Upworthy ~ How do you gget deniers to watch, listen and learn?
TPM ~ There they go with their scare tactics again. OH DEAR! I may get the vapors.
Cartoon ~ It's a good thing it wasn't our present Congress who had the job of adopting the Billl of Rights.
I hope you have a productive day at the prison.
Daily Kos: I read the article and it was mind blowing. How can our government not do a better job of protecting the average citizen? It is time for a thorough house cleaning, get rid of all these career politicians and elect people with some common sense.
Upworthy: No matter how many times that I share this information, I still have friends who refuse to believe in climate change. To me, this is a no brainer, I just cannot understand why so many are reluctant to believe it.
TPM: The GOP;s best tactic is to scare citizens and they have honed it to a fine art.
Cartoon: You are so right, TC. they would repeal all but the right to bear arms.
Puzzle — 3:08 Not all that glitters is gold! Sometimes it is pretty pink flowers!
Daily Kos — And it is about time!
Upworthy — "Climate change may not be beheading Journalists like ISIL, but it's here, it's npw, and ultimately, it's even more deadly." — Climate change is beheading Mother Earth with a dull but deadly sword.
TPM — Amen JD, I could not have said it better! The Republicanus/Teabaggers are a party of terrorists who lie, cheat, steal and defraud the citizens for their own agrandisement.
Cartoon — We certainly know that the theocrats would make their brand of Christianity the state religion, creating at the same time a must attend "blessing of the guns, armaments and munitions". And if the Republicanus/Teabaggers had their way, corporations would be people and only land owners would be able to vote. That would sure cut down the number of eligible voters.