{"id":13384,"date":"2014-08-05T00:02:10","date_gmt":"2014-08-05T07:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=13384"},"modified":"2014-08-05T00:02:10","modified_gmt":"2014-08-05T07:02:10","slug":"open-thread852014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/08\/05\/open-thread852014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–8\/5\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 106.  It\u2019s been a busy day.  I cleaned up a three day mess.  It was huge,  I got a haircut.  It was hot, but the barber shop is only three blocks away,  I had a big bowl of Gehenna <\/em>chili.  You know, when someone in the surrounding area lights a match, the fireball can be quite dramatic.  And, of course, I researched.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 4:10 (average 4:46).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>I’ll keep the commentary low, because the event speaks for itself. So much for the religious tradition the Republican party prides itself on and uses as the basis to deny so many rights. A recent bill introduced in the house<\/a> suggests a resolution honoring the Pope "for his inspirational statements and actions" as well as his goals to ameliorate inequality and promote solidarity.<\/p>\n

What do the Republicans think about this? According to reports from The Hill<\/a>, it looks like they aren’t too happy.<\/p>\n

\n

Only 19 of the 221 co-sponsors are Republicans. The dearth of GOP members on the measure could be attributable to assertions that the pope is \u201ctoo liberal,\u201d according to a Republican backer of the legislation.<\/p>\n

The source noted that Francis last year denounced \u201ctrickle-down economics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some Republicans believe the pope is \u201csounding like [President] Obama. [The pope] talks about equality \u2014 he actually used the term \u2018trickle-down economics,\u2019 which is politically charged,\u201d the GOP official said.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

There is a simple enough explanation for why the Pope sounds so like Obama to Republicans that they object. Pope Francis and Obama are both Christians. Republican Supply-side pseudo-Christians are NOT Christians.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>The nation\u2019s largest environmental group is earning money from an oil well on land it controls in Texas, despite pledging a decade ago not to permit new oil and gas drilling on land supposedly set aside for conservation.<\/p>\n

That revelation is contained in a forthcoming book about climate change by the writer and activist Naomi Klein<\/a>, and the essential facts of the case were confirmed last week by the Nature Conservancy<\/a>, the environmental group in question.<\/p>\n

The Nature Conservancy \u2014 which says it helps protect about 20 million acres in the United States \u2014 argues that it has had no choice in the case of the well. Under the terms of a lease it signed years ago with an oil and gas company and later came to regret, the group says it had to permit the drilling of the well in 2007.<\/p>\n

But the lease contains termination clauses, and Ms. Klein argues in the book that the Nature Conservancy could most likely have stopped the 2007 drilling. The group has earned millions of dollars over the years from gas and oil production on the property, though the 2007 well was not especially lucrative.<\/p>\n

Unless there is more about this issue that I do not know, I would suggest that there are better environmental groups to support than they are.<\/font><\/p>\n

From TPM<\/a>: <\/font>An Evanston, Ill. man fatally shot himself Sunday night while showing off a shotgun he thought wasn’t loaded to a group of friends, according to the Chicago Sun-Times<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Police were called to an Evanston home for an accidental shooting. They found Eric Zyzanski on the floor with a shotgun wound to the head, lying next to the shotgun.<\/p>\n

He was taken to the hospital and died about two hours later, according to police.<\/p>\n

According to witnesses, Zyzanski was in his apartment with friends, where he took out a shotgun and "began showing it off."<\/p>\n

His friends told him to put the gun away, so he proceeded to take two or three rounds out of the gun, according to police. He then pointed the gun at his cheek, said the gun was empty and pulled the trigger, witnesses said.<\/p>\n

Bye Bye Gunny Boo Boo!! Any needless loss of life is tragic and regrettable, but at least that Republican Ammosexual won’t be voting in November.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"0805Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 106.  It\u2019s been a busy day.  I cleaned up a three day mess.  It was huge,  I got a haircut.  It was hot, but the barber shop is only three blocks away,  I had a big bowl of Gehenna chili.  You know, when someone in the surrounding area lights a […]<\/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-13384","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\/13384","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=13384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}