{"id":18312,"date":"2015-12-13T10:25:00","date_gmt":"2015-12-13T18:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=18312"},"modified":"2015-12-13T10:25:00","modified_gmt":"2015-12-13T18:25:00","slug":"open-thread12132015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2015\/12\/13\/open-thread12132015\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–12\/13\/2015"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have a nurse coming this morning to help me set up services at home, so if this is late, that\u2019s why.  Tomorrow I have to go to TriMet to have my wheelchair measured, so expect only a Personal Update, and that late.  Today is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  My Broncos service is with the Raiders, and I get to see it.  Wooo Hooo!!<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From Daily Kos<\/a> (Classic 10\/2014):<\/font>It’s been in the news. Now it has been confirmed.<\/a> As of this past weekend, Raymond Leo Burke,<\/a> America’s highest-ranking cardinal at the Vatican, was officially removed from the Vatican’s Supreme Court, and demoted to chaplain of the Knights of Malta, where he will reign with much less responsibility. The ultra-Conservative and anti-gay cardinal, continuously challenges the jurisdiction of Pope Francis, and the Catholic Church’s new receptive stance on homosexuality. <\/p>\n

How ironic it is to find the demoted cardinal is from the United States. What does that say about America – that even the Catholic Church and a pope are ahead of so many anti-LGBT lawmakers and extremists in this country.<\/p>\n

Weeks after taking office in 2013, Pope Francis asked, ‘Who am I to judge?’<\/a> speaking of the LGBT community. <\/p>\n

Although I disagree with Francis on many issues, he is more willing to coexist than any other Pope has been.<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>Senator Ted Cruz of Texas surged to a 10-point lead in a new poll released Saturday of likely Republican caucusgoers in Iowa, signaling that his campaign is gathering momentum and suggesting that a long nominating fight is ahead.<\/p>\n

Donald J. Trump, who continues to lead most national polls, was second in the Iowa poll, with 21 percent naming him as their first choice, compared with Mr. Cruz\u2019s 31 percent.<\/p>\n

Ben Carson, after leading an October survey by the same pollster<\/a>, commissioned by The Des Moines Register and Bloomberg Politics, tumbled to 13 percent, followed by Senator Marco Rubio of Florida at 10 percent.<\/p>\n

If anyone could be worse than Hairball, it’s Uranus Inspector.<\/font><\/p>\n

From Think Progress<\/a>: <\/font>In a literally world-changing deal that was almost unthinkable just a year ago<\/a>, some two hundred leading nations unanimously embraced a plan<\/a> that will leave most of the world\u2019s fossil fuels unburned.<\/p>\n

As part of a concerted effort to avoid catastrophic climate change, the world unanimously committed to an ongoing effort of increasingly deeper emissions reductions aimed at keeping total warming \u201cto well below 2\u00b0C [3.6\u00b0F] above preindustrial levels.\u201d The full text of this Paris Agreement<\/a> goes even further, with the parties agreeing \u201cto pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5\u00b0C above preindustrial levels, recognizing that this would significantly reduce the risks and impacts of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

Already, global coal use appears to be plateauing, and global oil use will likely follow suit in the next decade as countries ratchet up their CO2 targets.<\/p>\n

To get an idea of how challenging these negotiations have been, imagine trying to get a substantive agreement on any major topic in the U.S. Senate if the requirement for success were unanimity! Tragically, conservatives in Congress<\/a> are doing everything that they can to undermine this deal, which is humanity\u2019s best chance to avoid decades if not centuries of needless suffering for billions of people.<\/p>\n

In my view, this plan does not go far enough, but I prefer it to nothing at all.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

\"1213Cartoon\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a nurse coming this morning to help me set up services at home, so if this is late, that\u2019s why.  Tomorrow I have to go to TriMet to have my wheelchair measured, so expect only a Personal Update, and that late.  Today is a holy day in the Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  […]<\/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-18312","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\/18312","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=18312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18312\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}