AdamSmith

I am with Pasadena on this. One might also note, a bit cynically but from firsthand experience, the rare but extant scam of the escort who puts great emphasis on & energy into the bf experience as a tactic for avoiding or at least minimizing the actual down-in-the-weeds sexual time. Sounds odd, but I have encountered two who practiced that way.

Well, this is encouraging. Americans Are Way Behind in Math, Vocabulary, and Technology The United States ranks lower than other developed countries in many key skills, according to a new report. Roberto A. Ferdman The Atlantic Oct 9 2013, 7:31 AM ET A new global report (pdf) by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development finds that Americans rank well below the worldwide average in just about every measure of skill. In math, reading, and technology-driven problem-solving, the United States performed worse than nearly every other country in the group of developed nations. Americans have trouble with words… The report defines literacy as the “ability to understand, evaluate, use and engage with written texts to participate in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential” (p. 63). Only 78.3 percent of American adults reached a Level 2 (out of 5) in literacy, less than all other OECD members save Spain and Italy (p. 69). The average level of literacy in the U.S. is on par with that of Cyprus, Poland, and Austria (p. 65). ​OECD …and numbers… When it comes to math, American adults aren’t any better. In fact, they’re far worse. Numerical proficiency in the U.S.—defined as the “ability to access, use, interpret and communicate mathematical information and ideas in order to engage in and manage the mathematical demands of a range of situations in adult life” (p. 77)—ranks near the bottom of all participating countries. ​OECD Fewer than 34 percent of adults in the U.S. managed to score at a Level 3 (out of 5) or higher, while comparable numbers for countries like Japan, Finland, Sweden and the Netherlands were all well above 50 percent (p. 80). The US also has the second largest proportion of adults—9.1 percent—who scored below a Level 1, the most basic level of literacy (p. 81). …and even computers Americans are pretty behind when it comes to computer literacy, too. US adults scored toward the bottom in problem solving in a technology-rich environment, which the report describes as the intersection of “computer literacy” and “cognitive skills required to solve problems” (p. 88). ​OECD The U.S. scored on par with Estonia, Ireland and Poland, and had more adults with proficiencies below Level 1—15.8 percent—than another other participating country (p. 89). The problem mainly boils down to lacking skills among American young adults. Take a look: ​OECD While older American adults (aged 55-65) scored better than any other country, young adults did just the opposite: They were the most computer-challenged of the 20 participating countries (p. 110). ​OECD This post originally appeared on Quartz, an Atlantic sister site. http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2013/10/americans-are-way-behind-in-math-vocabulary-and-technology/280413/

I favor importing existing children over domestic manufacture of surplus units. So does the environment.

LOL Toolbox = skill set = bag of tricks Back when it was quieter & more contemplative I used to find televised golf commentary enjoyable. Soothing, hypnotic, conducive to afternoon napping. Now what is interesting is when the networks have gone out and 3D-scanned the greens beforehand, and can computer-generate the lie of the green and show the likely line of travel of the ball when putted. Golf being in essence not really a contest between the golfers but rather between each golfer and the course itself, or the golf course architect if you will.

Good God. If I were a woman I would be on tenterhooks for the Brave New World method to come about: children gestate in pig uteruses in a jar.

The pedophiles among us have no trouble at all with this look.

"Wasn't that little power pack that Dr. Smith used to control the robot right about here?"

Committee to Protect Journalists issues scathing report on Obama administrationObama's anti-press measures 'are the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration' Beta Glenn Greenwald theguardian.com, Thursday 10 October 2013 11.07 EDT Barack Obama at the White House Photograph: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images (updated below) It's hardly news that the Obama administration is intensely and, in many respects, unprecedentedly hostile toward the news-gathering process. Even the most Obama-friendly journals have warned of what they call "Obama's war on whistleblowers". James Goodale, the former general counsel of the New York Times during its epic fights with the Nixon administration, recently observed that "President Obama wants to criminalize the reporting of national security information" and added: "President Obama will surely pass President Richard Nixon as the worst president ever on issues of national security and press freedom." Still, a new report released today by the highly respected Committee to Protect Journalists - its first-ever on press freedoms in the US - powerfully underscores just how extreme is the threat to press freedom posed by this administration. Written by former Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie, Jr., the report offers a comprehensive survey of the multiple ways that the Obama presidency has ushered in a paralyzing climate of fear for journalists and sources alike, one that severely threatens the news-gathering process. The first sentence: "In the Obama administration's Washington, government officials are increasingly afraid to talk to the press." Among the most shameful aspects of the Obama record: Six government employees, plus two contractors including Edward Snowden, have been subjects of felony criminal prosecutions since 2009 under the 1917 Espionage Act, accused of leaking classified information to the press—compared with a total of three such prosecutions in all previous U.S. administrations. Still more criminal investigations into leaks are under way. Reporters' phone logs and e-mails were secretly subpoenaed and seized by the Justice Department in two of the investigations, and a Fox News reporter was accused in an affidavit for one of those subpoenas of being 'an aider, abettor and/or conspirator' of an indicted leak defendant, exposing him to possible prosecution for doing his job as a journalist. In another leak case, a New York Times reporter has been ordered to testify against a defendant or go to jail." It goes on to detail how NSA revelations have made journalists and source petrified even to speak with one another for fear they are being surveilled: 'I worry now about calling somebody because the contact can be found out through a check of phone records or e-mails,' said veteran national security journalist R. Jeffrey Smith of the Center for Public Integrity, an influential nonprofit government accountability news organization in Washington. 'It leaves a digital trail that makes it easier for the government to monitor those contacts,' he said." It quotes New York Times national security reporter Scott Shane as saying that sources are "scared to death." It quotes New York Times reporter David Sanger as saying that "this is the most closed, control freak administration I've ever covered." And it notes that New York Times public editor Margaret Sullivan previously wrote that "it's turning out to be the administration of unprecedented secrecy and unprecedented attacks on a free press." Based on all this, Downie himself concludes: The administration's war on leaks and other efforts to control information are the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post's investigation of Watergate. The 30 experienced Washington journalists at a variety of news organizations whom I interviewed for this report could not remember any precedent." And this pernicious dynamic extends far beyond national security: "Ellen Weiss, Washington bureau chief for E.W. Scripps newspapers and stations, said 'the Obama administration is far worse than the Bush administration' in trying to thwart accountability reporting about government agencies." It identifies at least a dozen other long-time journalists making similar observations. The report ends by noting the glaring irony that Obama aggressively campaigned on a pledge to usher in The Most Transparent Administration Ever™. Instead, as the New Yorker's investigative reporter Jane Mayer recently said about the Obama administration's attacks: "It's a huge impediment to reporting, and so chilling isn't quite strong enough, it's more like freezing the whole process into a standstill." Back in 2006, back when I was writing frequently about the Bush administration's attacks on press freedom, the focus was on mere threats to take some of these actions, and that caused severe anger from vocal progressives. Now, as this new report documents, we have moved well beyond the realm of mere threats into undeniable reality, and the silence is as deafening as the danger is pronounced. Related matterAlong with David Miranda, I testified yesterday before a Committee of the Brazilian Senate investigating NSA spying, and beyond our latest revelations about economic spying aimed at Brazil, one of the issues discussed was the war on press freedoms being waged by the US and UK governments to prevent reporting of these stories. The Guardian, via Reuters, has a two-minute video with an excerpt of my testimony on that issue. UPDATEEdward Snowden was awarded this year's Sam Adams Whistleblower Award, and several of his fellow heroic whistleblowers - including Thomas Drake, Jesselyn Radack and Coleen Rowley - traveled to Moscow to present it to him. An excellent photo of that event is here. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/10/cpi-report-press-freedoms-obama

Ah, right -- or a marquesa.

Last December I got solicited at a craps table in Tropicana by an attractive Asian TVTS (M2F) escort. And got picked up (!) by a fellow patron at Fun Hog Ranch. See the thread on that establishment for how mgt there took a dim view of our shenanigans in the restroom. Even though he and I were the only 2 patrons in the place, there at 10:30 in the morning. And we were being very quiet! But in 3 weeks of drifting around town I saw no evidence of working guys in casinos or Fun Hog or Garage. And I was looking. I have to figure out how to look like more of a mark.

I was thinking just what EXPAT says. I know people with T-Mobile who encounter big dead zones even walking around Manhattan.

LOL Answering a trick question with a trick answer. Which trick taught you that trick? (How many tricks could a good trick trick...)

Not, unfortunately, a joke.

Key quotes from Pope Francis interview with atheist journalist: Stop ‘Vatican centric’ thinking By Elizabeth Tenety, Washington Post October 1 at 1:20 pm In an interview published Tuesday with La Repubblica journalist Eugenio Scalfari, Pope Francis added more meat to his previous critique of the Catholic Church’s hierarchy, with the leader of the world’s 1.2 billion Catholics picturing a world without religious proselytism, calling for all people to follow their own consciences, and laying out a plan for reforming the Vatican. In a phone call arranging the interview, scheduled as follow-up to a previous public exchange the two had on the pages of the Italian newspaper, Francis promised to embrace Scalfari, an atheist, with a hug during their meeting, an event that included jokes as well as heartfelt discussion of one another’s beliefs. Scalfari’s report, translated into English on La Repubblica’s Web site, shows a pope who rejects blind deference to hierarchy, one who is eager to engage with the world beyond the walls of the church, even when his words may make Catholics uncomfortable. “I have the humility and ambition to want to do something,” Francis said, ”to be open to modern culture,” a mission that he said church had previously promised but failed to follow through on. That vision, said Francis during the interview, includes a broad view of moral decision-making, outreach to non-believers and a restructuring of the church to make it more “horizontal.” Below are some key quotes from the interview. On atheists and believers trying to convert one another: Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us. Sometimes after a meeting I want to arrange another one because new ideas are born and I discover new needs. This is important: to get to know people, listen, expand the circle of ideas. The world is criss-crossed by roads that come closer together and move apart, but the important thing is that they lead towards the Good. On following your conscience: Q. Your Holiness, is there is a single vision of the Good? And who decides what it is? A. Each of us has a vision of good and of evil. We have to encourage people to move towards what they think is Good. Q. Your Holiness, you wrote that in your letter to me. The conscience is autonomous, you said, and everyone must obey his conscience. I think that’s one of the most courageous steps taken by a Pope. A. And I repeat it here. Everyone has his own idea of good and evil and must choose to follow the good and fight evil as he conceives them. That would be enough to make the world a better place. On a “Vatican-centric” view of the church and world: Heads of the Church have often been narcissists, flattered and thrilled by their courtiers. The court is the leprosy of the papacy. It is what in an army is called the quartermaster’s office, it manages the services that serve the Holy See. But it has one defect: It is Vatican-centric. It sees and looks after the interests of the Vatican, which are still, for the most part, temporal interests. This Vatican-centric view neglects the world around us. I do not share this view and I’ll do everything I can to change it. The Church is or should go back to being a community of God’s people, and priests, pastors and bishops who have the care of souls, are at the service of the people of God. On clericalism: When I meet a clericalist, I suddenly become anti-clerical. Clericalism should not have anything to do with Christianity. St. Paul, who was the first to speak to the Gentiles, the pagans, to believers in other religions, was the first to teach us that. On a rare mystical experience after being elected pope: Before I accepted, I asked if I could spend a few minutes in the room next to the one with the balcony overlooking the square. My head was completely empty and I was seized by a great anxiety. To make it go away and relax, I closed my eyes and made every thought disappear, even the thought of refusing to accept the position, as the liturgical procedure allows. I closed my eyes and I no longer had any anxiety or emotion. At a certain point I was filled with a great light. It lasted a moment, but to me it seemed very long. Then the light faded, I got up suddenly and walked into the room where the cardinals were waiting and the table on which was the act of acceptance. On the role of the church in the modern world: …Our goal is not to proselytize but to listen to needs, desires and disappointments, despair, hope. We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace. Vatican II, inspired by Pope Paul VI and John, decided to look to the future with a modern spirit and to be open to modern culture. The Council Fathers knew that being open to modern culture meant religious ecumenism and dialogue with non-believers. But afterwards very little was done in that direction. I have the humility and ambition to want to do something. On restructuring the church: I am the Bishop of Rome and Pope of the Catholic world. The first thing I decided was to appoint a group of eight cardinals to be my advisers. Not courtiers but wise people who share my own feelings. This is the beginning of a Church with an organization that is not just top-down but also horizontal. Read the full interview for more of Francis’s views on the value of liberation theology, and a fascinating exchange between Scalfari and Francis on how atheists and Catholics see reality. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/wp/2013/10/01/key-quotes-from-pope-francis-interview-with-atheist-journalist-stop-vatican-centric-thinking/

Would an erection be transitive or intransitive?