AdamSmith

Surely a subset of one or the other of my categories above, nyet?

Also that the Lord protects saints and fools.

Pope Francis to encounter a church in crisis in Brazil By Alessandro Speciale| Religion News Service, Updated: Thursday, July 18, 2:30 PMWashington Post VATICAN CITY — Six years ago, then-Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio of Buenos Aires attended a gathering of Latin American bishops at the Marian shrine of Aparecida in Rio de Janeiro and called for the Roman Catholic Church to go toward the “outskirts, not only geographically but . existentially.” Two years after the 2005 papal conclave where Bergoglio was the runner-up to Pope Benedict XVI, the speech helped raise his profile as a man to watch. Next week, Bergoglio will return to Aparecida and Rio, this time as Pope Francis. Though he won’t visit his native Argentina, the visit will draw attention to Latin America’s first pope and his appeal for a poor church that eschews worldly power. Francis will arrive in Rio on Monday (July 22) to preside over World Youth Day, a triennial gathering of the world’s Catholic youth that is sometimes dubbed a “Catholic Woodstock” where papal star power takes center stage. Brazil will encounter a pope unlike any in the church’s modern history, and Francis will find a church in crisis in the world’s most populous Catholic nation. In the first few months of his pontificate, Francis has set the church on a path of renewal through his simple, no-nonsense style that has won widespread support from Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In Rio, Francis’ trademark style will be on clear display: He will visit a “favela,” or slum, on foot and tour one of the world’s most dangerous cities in an open-top car, shunning the bulletproof popemobile of his predecessors. “He feels that for him, communicating directly with the people is better that way,” explained the Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, on Wednesday. Organizers expect more than 1 million young pilgrims, from 170 countries, to flock to Rio for the weeklong event. Brazil is home to some 123 millions Catholics and more than 400 bishops. Despite these numbers, according to a report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life published on Thursday, the Catholic share of Brazil’s population has shrunk from 92 percent in 1970 to 65 percent in 2010. This is largely a consequence of the growth of the country’s evangelical and Protestant churches, which have surged from less than 5 million members 40 years ago to 42 million in the latest census. Most worrisome, according to the report, the growth of Protestantism seems to be a consequence of “religious switching,” with the Catholic Church losing popularity among “younger Brazilians and city dwellers.” The trend seems to be accelerating in recent years, and World Youth Day’s organizers hope a charismatic pope can help revitalize the Brazilian church. Disaffection with the church seems to reflect the wider discontentment in Brazilian society that erupted in unprecedented unrest that has shaken the country in recent weeks. Protesting against widespread corruption and lavish government spending, hundreds of thousands of young Brazilians took to the streets in late June. The protests rocked the center-left government of President Dilma Rousseff just as Brazil prepares to showcase its newfound global power in hosting World Youth Day, soccer’s World Cup in 2014 and the Summer Olympics in 2016. Brazil’s defense ministry has deployed nearly 3,000 extra soldiers for the pope’s visit, and the Vatican is watching the situation closely. Lombardi said he is confident that “everyone will understand that the pope’s message is a message of solidarity with the whole society, calling for a peaceful life and adequate development for everyone.” Even if it pales in comparison with the estimated $13 billion the government is spending on the World Cup, the papal visit’s $150 million price tag — a third of it covered by Brazil — probably won’t make things easier. Responding to critics, Cardinal Odilo Scherer of Sao Paulo countered that the price is for World Youth Day should be considered an “investment in the young people.” While the papal trip to Brazil had originally been organized for Benedict, Francis — who has traveled away from Rome only once since his election — soon confirmed he would keep his predecessor’s engagement. Nevertheless, as Lombardi explained on Wednesday, he has asked for some changes to the original schedule. The visit to the Varginha favela, in one of Rio’s poorest and most troubled areas, was arranged in response to Francis’ personal demands, as well as a visit to a hospital for alcohol and drug addicts. Francis also is scheduled to meet a group of juvenile inmates. http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-faith/pope-francis-to-encounter-a-church-in-crisis-in-brazil/2013/07/18/11bebef6-efd8-11e2-8c36-0e868255a989_story.html

Don't think this one has been posted here before. Eek... http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jul/18/white-elephants-10-greatest-in-tempo

Daily Caller sends teen reporter to 'grill' White House on Zimmerman verdict 16-year-old journalist-in-training Gabe Finger asked Jay Carney a 'ridiculous' question in Daily Caller stunt The midsummer somnolence of the White House briefing room was rudely disturbed Wednesday by a media intern with a provocative question about the Trayvon Martin case. "Because of the death threats being received by George Zimmerman and his parents, is the president going to take any action for their security, or are they on their own?" asked Gabe Finger, 16, a journalist-in-training at the Daily Caller. A Florida jury last week found Zimmerman not guilty in the February 2012 killing of Martin, a boy who was about Finger's age. The verdict has provoked passionate demonstrations of disagreement. The "death threats" could not be independently confirmed. Carney responded that the Zimmerman family is hardly quote "on their own," given that George Zimmerman owns a gun and demonstrably has the right in Florida to shoot dead anyone he perceives as threatening . "I would refer you to Florida authorities … The president has called for, echoing the statements of Trayvon Martin's family, for calm reflection in the wake of the verdict, and that continues to be his position, he certainly would oppose any violence of any kind." In an admirable display of journalistic tenacity, Finger followed up. "So they're on their own," he said. Gabe Finger @GabeemtheFinger Just angered Obama's press secretary. Word. 2:21 PM - 17 Jul 2013 Carney replied that if by "on their own" the Daily Caller meant they can now go about their lives secure in the knowledge that their private instincts about someone are enough in Florida to exculpate them should they track and execute that individual, then sure the statement was "ridiculous". "You can editorialize all you want and I have no doubt that you will, but that is a ridiculous statement," Carney said. Then he took a question about arming Syria's rebels. The Daily Caller has a history of stabbing at the country's open wound of racism. The news outlet took the lead last year in a campaign to stoke race-based fear and resentment at the height of the presidential campaign by peddling an old Obama video as racially incendiary. The campaign failed. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/18/daily-caller-intern-white-house

Passing without comment over the faintly kinky air hovering round the delicious syllables "royal assent," we turn to all-knowing Wikipedia... The granting of royal assent is the method by which any constitutional monarch formally approves and promulgates an act of his or her nation's parliament, thus making it a law. In the vast majority of contemporary monarchies, this act is considered to be little more than a formality; even in those nations which still permit their ruler to withhold the royal assent (such as the United Kingdom, Norway and Liechtenstein), the monarch almost never does so, save in a dire political emergency (see reserve power), or upon the advice of his or her government. While the power to withhold royal assent was once exercised often in European monarchies, it is exceedingly rare in the modern, democratic political atmosphere that has developed there since the 18th century... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Assent In a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government, a reserve power is a power that may be exercised by the head of state without the approval of another branch of the government. Unlike in a presidential system of government, the head of state is generally constrained by the cabinet or the legislature in a parliamentary system, and most reserve powers are usable only in certain exceptional circumstances. The reserve powers of the President of Ireland are called discretionary powers... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_power

Because...they're American?

It was not even during phone sex! ...and sweat, not lube. I swear. (In truth it was a small, especially fragile model of BlackBerry that I did not like in any event. When it died I resurrected a previous BlackBerry that was a brick shithouse by comparison, and could take any amount of moisture, so it seemed.)

Homeless nerd...

Ah. I asked because the way your original post was worded, you were saying that only 1.26% of black men are gay. My personal experience suggests 10% or so is a much more likely figure.

Your source for this number?

I once sweated onto my BlackBerry and short-circuited it beyond repair. The Verizon store looked at it and assured me that sweat is quite capable of damaging a cell phone.

http://cache.boston.com/bonzai-fba/Original_PDF/2013/07/17/Menino_to_Rolling_Stone__1374089137_4526.pdf

LOL Exactly. I'm waiting for the Mad magazine response -- some highly offensive ad for a 'Spaz' phone.

Your observation seems to me somewhat descriptive of media and advertising imaging of straight sexuality in the U.S., but not much to do with male same-sex representation or reality. It would be very interesting if you could identify the sources from which you draw these impressions.

Can SNL be far behind?

A woman is having an affair during the day while her husband is at work. Her 9 year old son comes home unexpectedly, sees them and hides in the bedroom closet to watch. The woman's husband also comes home. She puts her lover in the closet, not realizing that the little boy is in there already. The little boy says, "Dark in here." The man says, "Yes, it is." Boy - "I have a baseball." Man - "That's nice." Boy - "Want to buy it?" Man - "No, thanks." Boy - "My dad's outside." Man - "OK, how much?" Boy - "$250" In the next few weeks, it happens again that the boy and the lover are in the closet together. Boy - "Dark in here." Man - "Yes, it is." Boy - "I have a baseball glove." The lover remembering the last time, asks the boy, "How much?" Boy - "$750" Man - "Fine." A few days later, the father says to the boy, "Grab your glove, let's go outside and have a game of catch." The boy says, "I can't, I sold my baseball and my glove." The father asks, "How much did you sell them for?" Boy - "$1,000" The father says, "That's terrible to overcharge your friends like that...that is way more than those two things cost. I'm going to take you to church and make you confess." They go to the church and the father makes the little boy sit in the confession booth and he closes the door. The boy says, "Dark in here." The priest says, "Don't start that shit again."

The top 9,486 ways Jay Carney won’t answer your questions (interactive)Jay Carney doesn’t have an answer for that. He hasn’t discussed that subject with the president. He will refer you to the Department of [insert agency here]. He refuses to speculate on that. He’ll have to get back to you. But he appreciates the question. A Yahoo News analysis of the 444 briefings through June 18 that Carney has held since becoming White House press secretary has identified 13 distinct strains in the way he dodges reporters' question. Since Carney held his first daily briefing with reporters in the White House Brady Press Briefing Room on Feb. 16, 2011, for example, he’s used some variation of "I don’t have the answer" more than 1,900 times. In 1,383 cases he referred a question to someone else. But will he at least speculate on hypotheticals? No. In fact, he has refused to do so 525 times. In the following interactive, you can browse all 9,486 of Carney’s most-used responses and verbal crutches. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/top-9-486-ways-jay-carney-won-t-104907191.html The main function of a White House press secretary is to shape messaging for the administration, which often requires stymieing questions as a form of damage control. Reporters got several doses of that at Friday's briefing, including a rather repetitive back-and-forth over what kind of aid (arms? weapons? U.S. troops?) America is sending to Syrian rebels. "We have stepped up our assistance, but I cannot inventory for you the elements of that assistance. And as the president said, I cannot and will not get into some specifics about the assistance that we provide," Carney said. When pressed further? "We can't comment on specifics around our program." And further? "I'm simply saying that given the nature of the assistance that we provide, the way in which we implement our assistance ... I can't give you an itemized list or be specific about every single aspect," he said. "I think I've given the answer that I can give." Reporters also heard many "as you know's," some "I'm not going to's" and several referrals. The referral to another agency or person is one of Carney's favorite evasive maneuvers. During the 43-minute briefing on Jan. 25 alone, for example, Carney referred reporters to the Justice Department four times, the National Labor Relations Board twice, the State Department twice, once to the historic precedent of recess appointments, once to a New York Times article, once to a speech that President Barack Obama delivered earlier in the week, and once to the Defense Department. As should be abundantly clear, Carney doesn't have all the answers. As he recently reminded the gathered reporters at his briefing, he and his team are mere mortals battling an army of professionals bent on stumping him. "We have a team here that works really hard trying to anticipate the questions you're going to ask. The problem is, there's a lot of you and you're good at your jobs and you're smart. And we almost invariably do not anticipate every question that you ask. So sometimes we don’t have the answers, and sometimes we need to go back and get them," Carney said during the May 22 briefing. That was a rare moment of effusive praise for the press. It followed what had been a rough series of briefings for Carney amid controversy over the 2012 attack in Benghazi, Libya, the Internal Revenue Service scandal and the Justice Department's secret seizure of journalists' phone records. Those stories put Carney in a tougher-than-usual spot to speak for Obama and the White House, share information and shape the president's message, all without creating new controversy as he stood behind the podium. More often than not, the imperative to do no harm prompts a total nonanswer from Carney. This results in the "I have no personnel announcements" for you today, referrals to other individuals and other gems that the press readily anticipates and often mocks. Carney's recent predilection for saying "I appreciate the question," upon hearing a question he very likely did not appreciate, even prompted Politico to release a video montage May 14 of all those responses. With good humor, Carney acknowledged it the next day. "You know it’s a personal question, but a great question," Carney told CBS News White House Correspondent Mark Knoller, who asked whether Carney personally dreaded the briefings amid the controversies. "Do you appreciate it?" Knoller added, prompting laughter in the room. "You beat me to my punch line," Carney said. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/top-9-486-ways-jay-carney-won-t-104907191.html

I was surprised to see a fair amount of this in NYC: casual heroin use among the white middle class (other races too). More often snorted or smoked than shot up, as the article notes.

Slew of court challenges threaten NSA's relationship with tech firmsUnlikely coalition takes NSA – and the telecoms firms who own much of the web's infrastructure – to court over bulk surveillance Spencer Ackerman guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 17 July 2013 08.37 EDT An avalanche of legal challenges to the National Security Agency threaten to upend one of the most delicate balances the surveillance agency labors to strike: its critical relationship with telecommunications and internet companies. An unlikely coalition of advocacy groups are taking the NSA to court, claiming the bulk surveillance it conducts on Americans phone records and their online habits is unconstitutional. One of them is aiming beyond the NSA itself, and at the companies the NSA partners with for much of that data. The NSA's relationship with those companies is critical, since much of the telecommunications infrastructure of the United States is owned and operated by private firms. While the lawsuits face significant obstacles, they stand a chance of splitting the financial and legal interests of the telecoms firms and and Internet Service Providers from those of the NSA – something that could restrict the surveillance efforts more than any legislation Congress is likely to pass. "Without the companies' participation," said former NSA codebreaker William Binney, "it would reduce the collection capability of the NSA significantly." The lawsuits, which take several different paths to blocking the bulk surveillance, are proliferating quickly. One filed on Tuesday in a California federal court united a coalition of 19 gun owners, human-rights groups, Muslim organizations, environmentalists and marijuana legalization advocates seeking a "preliminary and permanent injunction" against NSA surveillance. Their claims about the surveillance violating their speech and privacy rights echoed another suit filed last month in a New York federal court by the ACLU challenging the programs' constitutionality. Similarly, a suit first filed in California five years ago was resurrected last week after a judge ruled that revelations about bulk surveillance published by the Guardian and the Washington Post and confirmed by the government prevent the Justice Department from quashing the suit as a state secret. The Electronic Privacy Information Center petitioned the supreme court last week to "vacate an unlawful order" by the secretive Fisa court for mass phone records from Americans. Those cases still face the considerable challenges of fighting and defeating what are sure to be vigorous Justice Department challenges to their viability. Thus far, the courts have most often ruled for the government in NSA surveillance suits. Unlike in the past, however, the NSA documents published by the Guardian and the Post revealed for the first time that telecoms and Internet Service Providers were directly providing NSA with bulk customer information, allowing those customers – including the ACLU, a Verizon customer – standing to sue. But even if all those cases fail, there's another legal avenue to contest the surveillance, albeit a difficult one: lawsuits against the companies themselves. That's what the conservative group Judicial Watch is attempting. The organization filed a class-action suit last month against the internet companies named as participating in the NSA's Prism program, including Microsoft, AOL, Facebook, Google and Apple. Cases like that have long frightened the NSA. The NSA and its allies in Congress have gone to great lengths to legally shield the private-sector telephone and internet companies it works with. A 2008 law that broadened the scope of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, known as the Fisa Amendments Act, retroactively immunized any participating telecom firm from legal liability. According to an internal NSA history of the program, several firms specifically requested NSA compel them to comply through Fisa court orders, fearing an eventual court case. Underscoring how delicately the NSA treats the sanctity of its private-sector partners, the NSA would only refer to them even in a classified internal document as "Company A" and similar pseudonyms. That sensitivity exists because the telecommunications firms largely own and operate the infrastructure used to make phone calls, send emails and conduct web searches, unlike in authoritarian countries like China, North Korea and the former East Germany. Without the companies' participation, the NSA could still perform so-called "upstream" collection, such as accessing data as it transmits, for instance, across fiberoptic cables before the companies process them. "But they can't get a complete copy of everything without going to the companies," Binney said. Lawsuits against the companies place tensions, both legal and financial, on their partnership with NSA. Even the threat of spending money in court to quash customer lawsuits carries the potential for the companies to reassess the scope of their longstanding relationships with the surveillance agency. The lawsuits are a more direct challenge to the NSA than the convoluted and uncertain legislative or political processes. While several senators and members of Congress are talking about revising the Patriot Act to restrict bulk telephone records collection, support in Congress for the NSA runs deep, and it is difficult to forecast what reforms, if any, might pass. Similarly, the secret Fisa Court bristles at accusations that it's a rubber stamp, but it approves almost all surveillance requests. That leaves citizens upset with the surveillance to pursue their rights as customers of the companies participating with the NSA. "If you want to raise costs to the companies participating with NSA, you raise the time and effort they spend defending themselves from allegations that their participation in NSA surveillance programs is unlawful," said Amie Stepanovich, a lawyer with the Electronic Privacy Information Center. "But the downfall of suing the companies are the companies' inevitable filings that they were just complying with the law." Yet the obstacles to suing the companies are significant. The 2008 law explicitly says: "No cause of action shall lie in any court against any electronic communication service provider for providing any information, facilities, or assistance." Alex Abdo, a lawyer with the ACLU working on the civil liberties group's challenge to the NSA, said the immunization provisions are not necessarily insurmountable for suing the companies. "You could still sue Verizon and ask them to stop, even if you're not asking for damages," Abdo said. "I don't think the immunity provision applies to that." Even as the scope of the companies' liability is set to be litigated, some of the NSA's partners are attempting to limit their customers' discontent. On Tuesday, Microsoft publicly asked Attorney General Eric Holder to lift the veil of secrecy over its cooperation with NSA so it can "publish the volume of national security requests we have received." That followed a Monday ruling by the Fisa court for the Justice Department to release information showing Yahoo at times resisted cooperation even when compelled by the court. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/17/nsa-court-challenges-tech-firms