{"id":12405,"date":"2014-03-21T00:04:04","date_gmt":"2014-03-21T07:04:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=12405"},"modified":"2014-03-21T00:04:04","modified_gmt":"2014-03-21T07:04:04","slug":"open-thread3212014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/21\/open-thread3212014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread&ndash;3\/21\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and although I\u2019m still both tired and busy with volunteer related chores, I did get enough sleep to return to functional mode.&#160; When I hold up two fingers, now I see only four. ;-)&#160; That means I much better off than yesterday!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Jig Zone Puzzle<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Today\u2019s took me 2:49 (average 4:49).&#160; To do it, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.jigzone.com\/puzzles\/2014-03-21-CE2504A965A9\" target=\"_blank\">click here<\/a>.&#160; How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Short Takes<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.upworthy.com\/he-used-to-recruit-for-them-now-hes-working-against-their-message-and-they-want-him-dead\" target=\"_blank\">Upworthy<\/a>: <\/font>Here&#8217;s a guy who climbed out of the depths of hate and continues to risk his own safety to make positive changes in this world. We often forget that people actually are capable of change \u2014 even this kind of person.<\/p>\n<p>&#160;<iframe loading=\"lazy\" height=\"360\" src=\"\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TEGKUPMUoC4?rel=0\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"640\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe> <\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">This man&#8217;s story explains a lot of the rationale behind my volunteer work in prison, and why I wish no<\/font> <font color=\"#0000ff\">harm to befall Republicans. It is my sincere hope that they might see the light and change.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/online\/blogs\/borowitzreport\/2014\/03\/us-freezes-putins-netflix-account.html\" target=\"_blank\">The New Yorker<\/a>: <\/font>In what was described as a major ramping up of sanctions, Secretary of State John Kerry announced on Tuesday that the United States had frozen Russian President Vladimir Putin\u2019s Netflix account, effective immediately.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cUnless and until Mr. Putin calls off the annexation of Crimea, no more \u2018House of Cards\u2019 or \u2018Orange Is the New Black\u2019 for him,\u201d Mr. Kerry said. \u201cThe United States will not stand by and reward the annexation of another sovereign nation with a policy of streaming as usual.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">Poor GOP Pootie!! Next, Vladimir Putin (R-RU) could even lose his access to watch Duck Dynasty!!<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">From <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2014\/03\/18\/1285607\/-If-Our-Founding-Fathers-Were-All-Christians-Why-Did-They-Say-This\" target=\"_blank\">Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>Nobody can deny the fact that Christianity has played a huge role in our history. From the first Thanksgiving to the ideas of Jesus Christ that are embroidered in our culture today, Christianity and the Bible is responsible a big part of our heritage.<\/p>\n<p>However, many conservatives will take this fact way out of context. They&#8217;ll think that you have to be a Christian to be patriotic, which is simply not true. Following the more secular teachings of Jesus Christ (being charitable, loving one another, treating strangers with kindness) is what the men who founded this country were for.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t want to waste my time listing all these obscurant far-right arguments, so instead I&#8217;ll list the facts straight from our forefathers.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>\u201cIf I could conceive that the general government might ever be so administered as to render the liberty of conscience insecure, I beg you will be persuaded, that no one would be more zealous than myself to establish effectual barriers against the horrors of spiritual tyranny, and every species of religious persecution.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&#8211; George Washington, letter to the United Baptist Chamber of Virginia (1789)<\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\">I&#8217;ve included just one of the statements from our founding fathers that debunk the lies of Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians. Click through for a bunch more.<\/font><\/p>\n<p><font color=\"#0000ff\"><strong>Cartoon<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" title=\"0321Cartoon\" style=\"display: inline\" alt=\"0321Cartoon\" src=\"https:\/\/www.7thstep.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/0321Cartoon.jpg\" width=\"650\" height=\"350\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, and although I\u2019m still both tired and busy with volunteer related chores, I did get enough sleep to return to functional mode.&#160; When I hold up two fingers, now I see only four. ;-)&#160; That means I much better off than yesterday!! Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 2:49 (average 4:49).&#160; <a href='https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/03\/21\/open-thread3212014\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35,3,5,47],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12405","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-open-thread","category-personal","category-politics","category-religion","category-35-id","category-3-id","category-5-id","category-47-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12405","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=12405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12405\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}