{"id":9724,"date":"2012-12-11T04:03:14","date_gmt":"2012-12-11T12:03:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/?p=9724"},"modified":"2012-12-11T04:03:14","modified_gmt":"2012-12-11T12:03:14","slug":"open-thread12112012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/2012\/12\/11\/open-thread12112012\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread–12\/11\/2012"},"content":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sorry, but I still feel like something I should bury in the deep end of my kitty-box.  I\u2019m current with replies.  I hope I\u2019m back tomorrow.<\/font><\/p>\n

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

Today\u2019s took me 3:40 (average 4:39).  To do it, click here<\/a>.  How did you do?<\/font><\/p>\n

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

From MoveOn<\/a>: <\/font>What’s The Big Deal About Fracking? This. This Is The Big Deal<\/font><\/p>\n

\"11frack\"<\/p>\n

If you ask me, that’s a big fracking deal!<\/font><\/p>\n

From NY Times<\/a>: <\/font>The cadet, Blake Page [the cadet who dropped out of West Point because of proselytism], detailed his complaint in an article for The Huffington Post<\/a>, accusing officers at the academy of \u201cunconstitutional proselytism,\u201d specifically of an evangelical Christian variety. <\/p>\n

On the phone on Sunday, he explained to me that a few of them urged attendance at religious events in ways that could make a cadet worry about the social and professional consequences of not going. One such event was a prayer breakfast this year at which a retired lieutenant general, William G. Boykin, was slated to speak. Boykin is a born-again Christian, and his past remarks portraying the war on terror in holy and biblical terms were so extreme that he was rebuked<\/a> in 2003 by President Bush. In fact his scheduled speech at West Point was so vigorously protested that it ultimately had to be canceled<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Page said that on other occasions, religious events were promoted by superiors with the kind of mass e-mails seldom used for secular gatherings. \u201cIt was always Christian, Christian, Christian,\u201d said Page, who is an atheist. <\/p>\n

For the officers in charge of West Point to conduct such evangelism is a clear violation of the First Amendment, because they are establishing extreme right-wing pseudo-Christianity as the de facto religion of a government funded and operated service academy.  They need discipline for their failure to protect the Constitution of the United States.<\/font><\/p>\n

From MSNBC<\/a>: <\/font>Fleecing the Sheeple<\/font><\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/font><\/p>\n

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

There is really only one thing for people who have spent their money on the Republican racket to say: Ba-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a!<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m sorry, but I still feel like something I should bury in the deep end of my kitty-box.  I\u2019m current with replies.  I hope I\u2019m back tomorrow. Jig Zone Puzzle: Today\u2019s took me 3:40 (average 4:39).  To do it, click here.  How did you do? Short Takes: From MoveOn: What’s The Big Deal About Fracking? […]<\/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-9724","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\/9724","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=9724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.politicsplus.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}