{"id":10415,"date":"2013-06-11T02:26:02","date_gmt":"2013-06-11T09:26:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10415"},"modified":"2013-06-11T02:26:02","modified_gmt":"2013-06-11T09:26:02","slug":"open-thread6112013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/06\/11\/open-thread6112013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–6\/11\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m starting to like researching and writing earlier in the day enough that I just may make a habit of it.  I\u2019m a little down today, because tomorrow is a volunteer day in prison, and I\u2019m not quite up to ii yet.  I miss working to help my guys.<\/font><\/p>\n

Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

Today\u2019s took me 4:12 (average 5:26).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Short Takes<\/font><\/strong>:<\/p>\n

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>The National Security Agency moved swiftly and forcefully today to remind its employees of its longstanding zero-tolerance policy on conscience, warning that any violation of that policy would result in immediate termination. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you sign on to work at the N.S.A. you swear to uphold the standards of amorality and soullessness that this agency was founded upon,\u201d said N.S.A. director General Keith B. Alexander. \u201cAny evidence of ethics, decency, or a sense of right and wrong will not be tolerated. These things have no place in the intelligence community.\u201d <\/p>\n

To enforce the policy, General Alexander said that once a month all N.S.A. employees will be wired to a computer to take full inventory of what is going on in their minds: \u201cWe want to be sure they are spending their free time playing Call of Duty, not reading the Federalist Papers.\u201d <\/p>\n

This may be satire, but the thinking behind it is far too accurate for my comfort.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Crooks and Liars<\/a>: <\/font>Mary Matalin, a Republican strategist and former advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, on Sunday dismissed newly-appointed National Security Advisor Susan Rice as President Barack Obama’s "presidential pet."<\/p>\n

 <\/param><\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Leave it to a mouthpiece for ChickenHawk Cheney to dehumanize a distinguished civil servant. Matalin would not have referred to Rice as a "pet" had she been white. Only on Faux Noise<\/em>.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Mother Jones<\/a>: <\/font>Less than half<\/a> of Americans living with mental illness receive the treatment they need\u2014a failure that lands large numbers of mentally ill people in jails, emergency rooms, and on the streets. One provision of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, a.k.a Obamacare, would help fix the problem. Under the law, states will get hundreds of billions<\/a> in federal money over the next ten years to provide health care to 2.7 million poor mentally ill people who are currently uninsured<\/a>. But 17 states\u2014including some states with among the worst mental-health programs in the country\u2014are rejecting these funds.<\/p>\n

Click through to see the map. I don’t have to tell you which political party controls the states that are refusing federally funded help for their mentally ill citizens, putting both them and others at risk.<\/font><\/p>\n

Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"11Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m starting to like researching and writing earlier in the day enough that I just may make a habit of it.  I\u2019m a little down today, because tomorrow is a volunteer day in prison, and I\u2019m not quite up to ii yet.  I miss working to help my guys. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10415","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10415\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}