{"id":10742,"date":"2013-08-01T00:44:00","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T07:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10742"},"modified":"2013-08-01T00:44:01","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T07:44:01","slug":"open-thread812013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/01\/open-thread812013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–8\/1\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

As I write for day 49, It\u2019s only 79\u00b0 at my desk, but that will change, because the forecast is 85\u00b0 (add 15\u00b0 in my \u2018breezeway\u2019), and the humidity is 77%.  This the first time I have ever seen a forecast for \u201cdry thunderstorms\u201d.  I received what appears to be good news on my apartment.  I\u2019m approved and first on the list on the 17th, when the woman from county, supposedly with the rubber stamp, returns.  I\u2019ll believe it completely when I have a rent receipt in hand, but it looks good.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:14 (average 4:32).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>Responding to Pope Francis\u2019s suggestion that the Pope is not capable of judging gays, Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia contacted the Vatican today to say that he would be \u201cmore than happy\u201d to help the Pontiff do so.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he\u2019s having trouble judging homosexuals, well, then I\u2019m his man,\u201d Scalia told reporters after making his offer. \u201cI have over a quarter century of professional experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

I’m sure he would get lots of help from Teabag Thomas.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Me (data from Wikipedia<\/a>):  Where does our money go.  This is the longest Short Take (vertically) to date.<\/font><\/p>\n

\"1RedStatesTake\"<\/font><\/p>\n

Most donor states are blue. Most moocher states are red.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>A military judge on Tuesday found Pfc. Bradley Manning not guilty of \u201caiding the enemy\u201d for his release of hundreds of thousands of military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks for publication on the Internet, rejecting the government\u2019s unprecedented effort to bring such a charge in a leak case. <\/p>\n

But the judge in the court-martial, Col. Denise R. Lind, convicted Private Manning of six counts of violating the Espionage Act of 1917 and most of the other crimes he was charged with. He faces a theoretical maximum sentence of 136 years in prison, although legal experts said the actual term was likely to be much shorter. <\/p>\n

It has always been my position, along with that of Henry David Thoreau, author of Civil Disobedience<\/em>, that when one breaks the law in an act of civil disobedience, willingness to accept the punishment for so doing is what underlines the integrity of the act. That and more separates Manning’s heroism  from Snowden\u2019s behavior.  I’m pleased that Bradley Manning was acquitted of the most serious charges against him, which were not justified in my opinion. I salute Bradley Manning and hope that the actual term of his sentence is short, the shorter the better, with full credit for time served.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"1Cartoon\"<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I write for day 49, It\u2019s only 79\u00b0 at my desk, but that will change, because the forecast is 85\u00b0 (add 15\u00b0 in my \u2018breezeway\u2019), and the humidity is 77%.  This the first time I have ever seen a forecast for \u201cdry thunderstorms\u201d.  I received what appears to be good news on my apartment.  […]<\/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-10742","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\/10742","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=10742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10742\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}