I’m writing early. Tomorrow is day 11. Grrrr… The Supreme Court has apparently kicked the can until next year on Affirmative Action.
Jig Zone Puzzle:
Today’s took me 3:54 (average 8:00). To do it, click here. How did you do?
Fantasy Football:
We still NEED two more players in our lefty league. For more info. click here.
Short Takes:
From LA Times: The Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal from the Obama administration and decide whether the president may make temporary “recess appointments” to federal offices when the Senate takes a short break during the year.
The case is to be heard in the fall, and it is likely to yield an important decision on the constitutional powers of the president to execute the duties of his office in the face of Senate opposition. It could also have an effect on President Obama’s final years in the White House.
I’d rather nuke the filibastards with the nuclear option on the filibuster than leave it to the five fascist Injustices of SCROTUS.
From The New Yorker: A U.S. intelligence agency was so busy spying on three hundred million Americans that it failed to notice one dude who was working for it, a spokesman for the agency acknowledged today.
“I guess we were so busy monitoring the everyday communications of every man, woman, and child in the nation that we didn’t notice that a contractor working for us was downloading tons of classified documents,” the agency spokesman said. “It’s definitely embarrassing, for sure.”
Of course, no such statement was made, but it should be.
From NY Times: …Billed as Louisiana’s first atheist service and titled “Joie de Vivre: To Delight in Being Alive,” it was presided over by Jerry DeWitt, a small, charismatic man dressed all in black with slick, shiny hair.
“Oh, it’s going to be so hard to not say, ‘Can I get an amen?’ ” he said with a smile, warning people that this was going to be more like church than they might expect. “I want you to feel comfortable singing. And I want you to feel comfortable clapping your hands…
At last! Services for the atheist faith! 😉
Cartoon:
A win for the good guys!
13 Responses to “Open Thread–6/25/2013”
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3:57 Damn, you pulled into dock just before me!
3:30 I've got my sailin' shoes on now.
3:41 I tripped trying to put mine on.
Monster Mashed!
Puzzle — 3:57 Damn, you pulled into dock just before me!
NY Times — I think a snowball has a better chance in hell than getting SCOTUS to favourably rule for the president. The Injustices will follow party line even though they are 'independent', non partisan.
The New Yorker — Oops!
NY Times — Interesting. I would sometime like to be able to sit through a gathering like that to understand and appreciate better the atheist point of view.
Cartoon — The Native Americans may have won that battle, but it has been sadly all downhill since WRT the relationship with European Americans and Washington.
Nope! patty mashed it on all of us.
We were right.
Really!
I wouldn't mind.
That's why I intended to say, ans should have said 'rare win'.
Loved the New Yorker article – very funny – and very apt!
BTW – I saw part of a very depressing expose on Channel Four's Dispatches last night – the government here has an apparently secret section called the SDS (anyone else get the shivers with those initials?) who devoted themselves not only to undercover work dedicated to discrediting protest movements – but even to trying to discredit the family of the murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence! This shocks and horrifies me and others more than I can say! Some of the undercover 'agents' targetted women and had sexual relations with them – one case lasting six years! It is disgusting – instead of trying to fight crime they are trying to discredit and possibly to create incidents that discredit protest movements which are trying to get truth and justice – both for specific people and for the general population.
We have become the 52nd state – and the GOP equivalents here seem to be winning – argh!
There's more here, should you be interested….
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/03/police-spies-identities-dead-children
It just shows that we need all to be involved in democracy from the ground up in every country – to try and stop this happening.
Replying to both. J edgar Hoover was notorious for such blackmail. The common practice of assuming the identity of dead children for espionage go back at least to WWI.
Re: presidential recess appointments
If the president can't appoint the people he needs, then the kind of government inaction that we now see in the House, who are working only a few months next year, will spread to the rest of government. This is dangerous. One crazed faction within our 3 branches of government should not be able to hijack the rest of government into inertia.
I fully agree, Angie.
The New Yorker – U.S. Seemingly Unaware of Irony in Accusing Snowden of Spying… lol…
LA Times – Didn't bushy make a number of appointments during recess? If so, why can't Obama do the same thing…? Why wait for SCROTUS!
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Amen, Jim!
He isn't waiting. the case SCROTUS is taking up is Republicans trying to stop him from doing it.