{"id":14356,"date":"2014-12-23T00:00:31","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T08:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=14356"},"modified":"2014-12-23T00:00:31","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T08:00:31","slug":"open-thread12232014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2014\/12\/23\/open-thread12232014\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–12\/23\/2014"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 48.  In a little over an hour, my Broncos will begin their service in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, and I shall be in full meditation mode.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:22 (average 4:39).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

Religious Agony<\/strong>:<\/font><\/p>\n

\"1222-Broncos28-Bengals37\"<\/p>\n

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

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>More than a century has passed since Norman Angell, a British journalist and politician, published \u201cThe Great Illusion,\u201d a treatise arguing that the age of conquest was or at least should be over. He didn\u2019t predict an end to warfare, but he did argue that aggressive wars no longer made sense \u2014 that modern warfare impoverishes the victors as well as the vanquished.<\/p>\n

He was right, but it\u2019s apparently a hard lesson to absorb. Certainly Vladimir Putin never got the memo. And neither did our own neocons, whose acute case of Putin envy<\/a> shows that they learned nothing from the Iraq debacle.<\/p>\n

Click through. Paul Krugman is right. Republicans adopted Putin (R-RU) into the Republican Party, because of his hatred of gays and bellicose attitude. "GOP Pootie" is a poster child for Republican imperialism and bigotry.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Raw Story<\/a>: <\/font>The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday declined to extend a stay sought by Florida officials defending the state\u2019s ban on same-sex marriages, allowing gay marriages to proceed in Florida next month.<\/p>\n

Weddings would be allowed to start on Jan. 6 under an order by the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta earlier this month.<\/p>\n

Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas dissented from the Supreme Court\u2019s decision. <\/p>\n

Great News! The votes from SS and TEAbag are no surprise.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Daily Kos<\/a>: <\/font>While we’re "debating" torture, access to basic health care and the veracity of climate change, the rest-of-the-world is simply advancing transformational infrastructure like you would not believe.<\/p>\n

In Switzerland, the world’s longest rail tunnel<\/a> — straight through the Alps — is about to open.<\/p>\n

\n

At 57 kilometres, the Gotthard Base Tunnel, which will travel through the Alps between the northern portal of Erstfeld and Bodio in the south, will become the longest rail tunnel in the world once complete, stripping the title from Japan\u2019s 53.85 kilometre Seikan Tunnel.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Meanwhile, the ancient tunnels between New York City and New Jersey — dating from 1910 and about 4,400 meters long — are so old — and damaged from recent hurricanes — that they risk forced closure — and economic catastrophe for America’s largest city — at any time.<\/p>\n

Click through. Instead of giving all the money to the 0.1% we could be building amazing things here.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"1223Cartoon\"<\/p>\n

Borrowed from Europe.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m writing for tomorrow, day 48.  In a little over an hour, my Broncos will begin their service in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb, and I shall be in full meditation mode. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:22 (average 4:39).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Religious Agony: Short Takes: […]<\/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-14356","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\/14356","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=14356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}