Midday open thread

• Happy, happy, happy! Thanks to your help, a member of the Daily Kos family won Working America's "My bad boss" contest. If you haven't already read her astonishing "Boss with no heart" story, you can do it here.
• Who knew that attaching plastic testicles ("truck nuts") to the front of motor vehicles would become all the rage in some locales? Apparently so, and it's gotten Virginia Tice a $445 fine in South Carolina under the state's indecency law.  She's taking the matter to court. Elie Mystal does a head-shake:
  

  So, for those playing along at home, South Carolina will defend to the death your right to display the Confederate Flag, the symbol of a regime committed to slavery and racial oppression, but plastic testicles is a bridge too far.

• Not stunned into paralysis by 9/11 attacks, Bush claims. That 7-minute delay was calculated, he said, to project calm in a crisis. Uh-huh.
• Peekaboo. A federal judge has ordered the government to unseal transcripts of Richard Nixon's 1975 testimony to a grand jury regarding the Watergate scandal. Historians sued to obtain the transcripts. Nixon died in 1994.
• Servers not crashed this time:

  House telephone lines were jammed Friday after President Obama again asked voters to keep pressure on lawmakers about raising the debt ceiling.

  Telephone circuits were reported at near capacity around 11:45 a.m.

  
  
• 
• Now he tells us:
  

  Ground the U.S. drone war in Pakistan. Rethink the idea of spending billions of dollars to pursue al-Qaida. Forget chasing terrorists in Yemen and Somalia, unless the local governments are willing to join in the hunt.

  Those aren?t the words of some human rights activist, or some far-left Congressman. They?re from retired admiral and former Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair?the man who was, until recently, nominally in charge of the entire American effort to find, track, and take out terrorists. Now, he?s calling for that campaign to be reconsidered, and possibly even junked.

• Mr. Secesh:
  

  Texas Gov. Rick Perry categorized abortion as a states? rights issue today, saying that if Roe v. Wade was overturned, it should be up to the states to decide the legality of the procedure.

  ?You either have to believe in the 10th Amendment or you don?t,? Perry told reporters after a bill signing in Houston.  ?You can?t believe in the 10th Amendment for a few issues and then [for] something that doesn?t suit you say, 'We?d rather not have states decide that.'?

  Ah, yes! Back to the "good ol' days."

• In case you were wondering while waiting for the House to vote on the debt ceiling how the Egyptians managed to get those pyramids so perfect, mystery solved: Giant protractors. Or maybe not.
• It's never too early to start planning for Netroots Nation 2012. For one thing, it's cheaper. Register between now and Aug. 19 and you'll save yourself money.

Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/o_xIrUKv4hg/-Midday-open-thread

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