{"id":10868,"date":"2013-08-16T00:07:47","date_gmt":"2013-08-16T07:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=10868"},"modified":"2013-08-16T00:07:47","modified_gmt":"2013-08-16T07:07:47","slug":"open-thread8162013","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2013\/08\/16\/open-thread8162013\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–8\/16\/2013"},"content":{"rendered":"

Writing for tomorrow, day 63, I did get some sleep on my day of rest, despite the temperature at my desk reaching 99\u00b0.  It is cooler outside today, but it\u2019s still 88\u00b0 inside.  Tomorrow will be hot again.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:51 (average 6:03).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Despite polls that show broad public support for allowing same-sex couples to marry, New Jersey, to its great shame, has refused to follow the example set by other states in the Northeast \u2014 Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont \u2014 in granting marriage equality.<\/p>\n

A civil rights suit to be heard on Thursday in a New Jersey state court could finally change that. Brought on behalf of six couples and Garden State Equality, New Jersey\u2019s largest gay rights group, the case squarely addresses an urgent legal question for New Jersey that grows out of the United States Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in June<\/a> that ended the unjust denial of federal marriage benefits for married same-sex couples under the federal Defense of Marriage Act. <\/p>\n

I used to believe that marriage was more of a religious thing, and that civil unions for gay couples was a workable compromise, but I was wrong. As far as I know, in no state, not even Oregon, do civil unions confer all the rights and privileges enjoyed by married couples. Therefore this is not something states have the right to decide. It’s a basic human right.<\/font><\/p>\n

From MSNBC<\/a>: <\/font>Alarming failures plague the US Nuclear arsenal<\/font><\/p>\n

 <\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news<\/a>, world news<\/a>, and news about the economy<\/a><\/p>\n

Since January 1997, except for one 19 months period, the Secretary of Defense has been a Republican. The Democrat, Leon Panera, did not dismantle the Pentagon bureaucracy set in place by Republican administrations, especially that of GW ChickenHawk. However, the only time Minot passed was under Panetta. Rachel’s point is well taken, but as long as we have even one nuke, it needs to be managed by a higher standard of supervision than that of the party that brought us 9\/11.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Alternet<\/a>: <\/font>Remember all those deficit hawks who screamed that the federal deficit is spiraling out of control and must be stopped with spending cuts that have a funny way of hurting the pocketbooks of the most vulnerable Americans? Their excuse for ripping us off has been literally disappearing, but a new Google survey shows that not only do the vast majority Americans not know it \u2014 half of the public actually believes that the deficit is growing<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here are the facts: The U.S. budget deficit has been shrinking at a rapid rate over the last few months. The deficit peaked at 10.2 percent of GDP in 2009, but over the past four quarters, it has shrunk to a mere 4.2 percent of GDP. What\u2019s more, the Congressional Budget Office predicts<\/a> that the deficit will fall to 2.1 percent of GDP in 2015. <\/p>\n

Why such a disconnect? Unfortunately, disgraceful propaganda has left the public misinformed and confused. <\/p>\n

Do I have to tell you the source of that disgraceful propaganda?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"16Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Writing for tomorrow, day 63, I did get some sleep on my day of rest, despite the temperature at my desk reaching 99\u00b0.  It is cooler outside today, but it\u2019s still 88\u00b0 inside.  Tomorrow will be hot again. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:51 (average 6:03).  To do it, click here.  How did you […]<\/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-10868","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\/10868","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=10868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10868\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}