"confirmed that inkling"? What?
Surely the Inklings were already confirmed by the time they joined up.
And one-third of women surveyed had experienced genital discomfort during their last sexual experience, compared to a mere 5 percent of men.
Yes, but what percentage of men were denied the extraordinary heights of pleasure that were cruelly trimmed away by the circumcision knife?
I need to get my hands on this data set. The 1992 NHSLS study (and resulting book) was a great piece of research and I'd love to see what's changed and what else they've managed to ask about in a survey of twice as many people. For example, the NY Times article cited "7 percent of men and of women identified themselves as "other than heterosexual,"", which is a lot more than the NHSLS found - about 3% for men and 1.5% for women.
But what those men lost in extraordinary heights of pleasure, they gained in emotional intimacy with their fathers, knowing and occasionally demonstrating that their penises look samsies.
84% of Americans want to sex Matumbo. Fact.
The al-Qaeda angle is pretty odd. I thought people were aware, after various amused repostings of the wisdom of various Shia clerics* that even fairly fundamentalist Islamic theocrats are down with teh freakeh sex as long as it happens between man and wife.
* yes, I know al-Qaeda aren't Shia ...
The people who want to be told that they're not freaks are the ones who can only get off by rubbing themselves against grandma's dirty gardening boots, not the ones who enjoy a bit of anal now and again.
"grandma's dirty gardening boot" should probably not enter general parlance as a euphemism for the anus.
She left off the "y". That's why you're confused, neb. Grandma's dirty gardening booty.
Now it's way too good a euphemism. Plowing, soil, wrinkles...
I'm having trouble with my uni's proxy & WileyOnline, but if someone wants to DL the issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine dedicated to this survey (and share the merged PDFs), it's here. Also, while poking around (heh) on that journal's site, I came across this:
ORIGINAL RESEARCH-PSYCHOLOGY: Women's Partnered Orgasm Consistency Is Associated with Greater Duration of Penile-Vaginal Intercourse but Not of Foreplay
From the abstract:
Results. In univariate analyses, consistency of partnered orgasm was more associated with penile-vaginal intercourse duration than with foreplay duration (consistency also correlated negatively with age). In multivariate analysis, foreplay ceased to be a significant correlate of partnered orgasm consistency (the exclusion of respondents reporting a penile-vaginal intercourse duration of 1 minute or less did not alter the results).
Oh, dear.
I don't want to be negative, but what an awfully written article. "Al-qaida"? "confirmed that inkling"? I understand it's pitched to a certain audience.
This stands out:
"Younger kids have grown up with the AIDS threat," Schwartz said. " ... Older people don't have the same health attention, in part because no one wants to know about their sexuality at all."
Depending on what you mean by "older people," this is a bit contrary to my experience: AIDS was a bigger scare for those of us who are a bit older, and I had the impression that 20-somethings (is this who's meant by "younger kids"?) don't register it as quite as much of a danger. I imagine I'm wrong on this, but I've still been a little startled at times by the number of 30-ish people who've never had an HIV test, whereas I send myself to the clinic to be tested as a matter of course if I'm in a relationship we'd like to be condom-free.
HEY, KID! YOU'RE NOT USING ENOUGH LUBE!
6: Are you talking about ogged there?
a penile-vaginal intercourse duration of 1 minute or less did not alter the result
If this happens to you regularly, boys? It doesn't happen to every guy and it is a problem.
The Oaks at Eastland Heights, Phase 3!
This housing plan needs an erection.
Anyway, apparently the sweet spot is more than one minute, but less than 4 hours. Women are so picky.
I guess that upper limit comes from the medical establishment.
May indicate a medical problem, Moby. Why not chance it?
If it falls off, a new one grows back, right?
I thought the best thing about that article was the information that there exists a person named "Pepper Schwartz".
22: However, thinking "this is a problem" tends to exacerbate it.
Pepper Schwartz
For a moment I was thinking "worked for Tony Stark, right?"
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One of my ex-students is now a high school teacher, and her facebook status is this quote from one of her students: "but miss, i can be a scholar AND a thug!"
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Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.
11: Women's Partnered Orgasm Consistency Is Associated with Greater Duration of Penile-Vaginal Intercourse but Not of Foreplay ..Oh, dear.
Yeah this guy (from The University of the West of Scotland) seems to have some points of view. Some other titles of his:
- Vaginal orgasm is associated with vaginal (not clitoral) sex education, focusing mental attention on vaginal sensations, intercourse duration, and a preference for a longer penis
- Greater frequency of penile-vaginal intercourse without condoms is associated with better mental health. [emphasis added]
- Satisfaction (sexual, life, relationship, and mental health) is associated directly with penile-vaginal intercourse but inversely with other sexual behavior frequencies.
- Overestimation of heterosexually attributed AIDS deaths is associated with immature psychological defense mechanisms and clitoral masturbation during penile-vaginal intercourse.
- Penile-vaginal intercourse decreases weight gain.
- Condom use for penile-vaginal intercourse is associated with immature psychological defense mechanisms.
- A woman's history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her walk. [not a joke - JPS]
- Slimness is associated with greater intercourse and lesser masturbation frequency.
Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.
Or, as a colleague's student wrote in an essay, "Why aim for the stars when you can aim for the moon?"
Overestimation of heterosexually attributed AIDS deaths is associated with immature psychological defense mechanisms and clitoral masturbation during penile-vaginal intercourse.
Wow.
A woman's history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her walk
Wow.
I thought the best thing about that article was the information that there exists a person named "Pepper Schwartz".
You know that old game where you find your porn star name by taking your first pet's name and your mother's maiden name? I think that's where Pepper Schwartz comes from. (The first time I encountered this I really wanted to write a story with a character named Fluffy Berkowitz, but I couldn't think of a plot.)
He probably didn't listen to enough American Top 40 in the 80s.
We are all of us in the gutter, but some of us are reaching for the curb.
If I have seen further than others it is because I've stood on the necks of guttersnipes.
A woman's history of vaginal orgasm is discernible from her walk
Well, you can tell by the way she does her walk,
She's a man's woman, no time to lick.
....
Ah, ha, ha, ha, Staying' Alive.
It gives you an erection. It wins the election.
I suppose I don't need both the 'g' and the apostrophe. I'm tired and feel like I'm getting sick.
46: it happens to every man sometimes.
The g spot needs apo. Or maybe Labs.
For example, the NY Times article cited "7 percent of men and of women identified themselves as "other than heterosexual,"", which is a lot more than the NHSLS found - about 3% for men and 1.5% for women.
But the difference between 1992 and now is immense. It's hard to think of an area of society where things have changed more rapidly. I would expect huge changes in just people's willingness to *think* such things about themselves, much less say them in a survey context.
I thought people were aware, after various amused repostings of the wisdom of various Shia clerics* that even fairly fundamentalist Islamic theocrats are down with teh freakeh sex as long as it happens between man and wife.
I have the entirely-intutitive sense that these repostings have not been prevalent on US blogs or those with a lot of US readership. This could be 100% wrong, but I am willing to stake at least a cookie on it.
I'm having trouble with my uni's proxy & WileyOnline
I was about to complain about publicly funded research being firewalled by commons-destroying journals, but I see from the NYT article that Congressfolks are too scared to fund this kind of research and so it was not done with public money.
The new study, the first to include participants as young as 14 and as old as 94
I once almost wrote an letter to an alt-weekly because they carried an ad for a study that asked for sexually active people age 12 and up. The idea was that the parents would bring them in. Even grasping that there are 12-year-olds regularly having sex, and that some massively small subset of those instances involve something I would recognize as "consent," I thought it was dead wrong to accept the ad. Couldn't figure out a way to say it, though.
AIDS was a bigger scare for those of us who are a bit older, and I had the impression that 20-somethings (is this who's meant by "younger kids"?) don't register it as quite as much of a danger.
This is absolutely the case IME. AIDS seems like a very remote issue to a lot of straight white middle-class people my age. Troubling, but not something that's likely to affect you personally.
1: Very good. (Better late than never.)
Another yes for 12 via 50. From what I now understand, I've been much safer sexually than I probably needed to be.
I am full of love for 42-3.
Call us a nation of Mr. Flintstones
Yabba-Dabba Douchebags?
Heebie's post titles have been remarkably cryptic lately.
It is like she wants the NSA to watch her more.
This one really isn't cryptic, is it?
(We're all bed-rockers.)
I thought it was that we guys were all "Bamm-Bamm, thank you ma'am!" Which hurt my feelings.
(We're all bed-rockers.)
I turned my spade in your mom last night.
I am inclined to say, "she is simply whom I do."
Overestimation of heterosexually attributed AIDS deaths is associated with immature psychological defense mechanisms and clitoral masturbation during penile-vaginal intercourse.
I'm trying to work out how the grant application for this one would have gone. I mean, what conceivable hypothesis was he (and I assume it's a he) supposed to be testing?
The grant application was so hot that it compromised his hypothesis.
36: Immature psychological defenses contribute to overestimation of deaths from AIDS. That's crazier than the one about walking and orgasm.
Also, I thought, "where the fuck is the University of the West of Scotland?", which turns out to be an amalgamation of a couple of small further education colleges, and the former Paisley tech.
65: Yes, seems he was at Paisley at some point. If you look through the corpus of his work has a few obsessions that he weaves together-- bareback penile/vaginal intercourse with "vaginal orgasm" (clitoris bad, vagina good) far superior to any other kind of sex leading to better health and weight loss and other good shit, rates of transmission of HIV via heterosexual intercourse is way overestimated (he wrote a book which got a good review in the WSJ) and "immature psychological defenses" (whatever the fuck he means by that). A few interviews out there--seems to fancy himself a bit of a male Camille Paglia. He has tons of papers, from the bits I looked at he seems to have some Czech datasets that I suspect he cherry picks for support of his hypotheses.
where the fuck is the University of the West of Scotland?
The University of the West of Scotland is where the fuck is.
It's probably because he can't find the clitoris on a sheep.
Didnt a recent study report have a title with something like "Grandma did it just as much as you!"?
Did wot? Find the clitoris on a sheep?
...cherry picks...
Low hanging fruit, those cherries.
Speaking of Saturday morning entertainers, Christine McDonnell has misrepresented her past again. She is not the daughter of Bozo the Clown, merely the daughter of a Bozo understudy who never even attended that special school in Texas for clowns!
Didnt a recent study report have a title with something like "Grandma did it just as much as you!"?
Man I hope she was doing it more than me. Of course my existence pretty much proves she was.
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Sorry about the other post. I was venting on a passing whim and quickly realized I'd spend the thread defending something I don't actually believe, and I don't have the time or inclination to do so.
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74: Nobody should have to defend car rental companies.
Clearly, Heebie has become a spy for a foreign government, and these post titles and posts are an elaborate signaling device. We haven't learned anything, but Pakistani Intelligence is getting the message loud and clear.
Overestimation of heterosexually attributed AIDS blog deaths is associated with immature psychological defense mechanisms and clitoral masturbation during penile-vaginal intercourse.
Great, the blog is dead. Now we'll never know what Heebie meant, or what Standpipe did that day, or who wants to sex Mutombo.
There was this study that discussed how semen changed women's brain chemistry, so maybe that is what this guy was taking about.
81: It's up to us to save it! Apply the zappy thing pads! Clear! ZZZap!
22: Important, and easy to fix in most cases with either lots of masturbation or double-bagging it.
12: I treat a regular STD screen as simple politeness, condoms or no. Being able to say you have a recent test demonstrates responsibility and a concern for your partner's health, IMO. I always go to Planned Parenthood, so it's simple and straightforward. I gather that getting it done through your GP can sometimes be a big pain, as in the case of a friend of mine who had to argue with the doctor that she wanted it and was willing to pay out of pocket despite his insistence that she was at very low risk.
The thread about this over at Pandagon has turned into a fight about faking orgasms. Perhaps that's what's needed to fire things up again. Faking it: Good, bad, ugly?
On the bright side, maybe now I can get some work done.
Faking orgasms while masturbating considered pathetic.
Faking it: Good, bad, ugly?
Depends on the stage of the relationship, no? Early on, for encouragement and training, some theatrics are allowed. But in the long run, you're only hurting yourselves, laydeez.
So is getting yourself so drunk you can't consent to touching yourself.
Stephen A. Meigs is working as a psychology professor in Scotland now?
No more faking orgasms to Hatchet II.
Or if one prefers to discuss politics in a sex thread, this post posits that the left needs its own "Tea Party" to purge the Democratic Establishment
I think the key is to have torch-wielding mobs.
From the link in 90:
Ordinary Americans with leftist values need to launch an insurgency against the Democratic establishment just as the Tea Party has launched one against the Republican establishment.
Just like the Tea Party was conceived, funded, and advertised by ordinary Americans with right-wing values.
Just like the Tea Party was conceived, funded, and advertised by ordinary Americans with right-wing values.
Duped by the Kochs, or have they unleashed a monster they can not control. My money is on the latter. Not many Whigs left after 1860.
...or have they unleashed a monster they can not control.
Laydeez.
I can't really envision a scenario in which the Tea Party isn't controlled by Fox News and its oligarch friends.
I can't really envision a scenario in which the Tea Party isn't controlled by Fox News and its oligarch friends.
You think Bill O'Reilly's mind control ray is that strong? Or what do you mean by control considering there is no central organization?
Faking orgasms while masturbating considered pathetic.
I am actually a little surprised that someone hasnt pulled up an archive thread where Ogged had that statement as a post.
Or what do you mean by control considering there is no central organization?
You know how a flock of geese can all wheel and turn perfectly with no central control? Well, it works the same way with these birdbrains.
You think that's easy? It only looks easy because we practice.
I suspect that the Unfogged reading group would have been more successful if instead of Being and Time they'd chosen this book. I'm unable to find evidence of a family connection between Walter Zeev Laqueur and Thomas Walter Laqueur, but I suppose that shouldn't keep me from proposing that world-historical facts appear the first time as tragedy, the second time as masturbation.
I think Opinionated Goose makes a very good point. What we're seeing with the Tea Party "movement" is the result of decades of practice and refinement of a set of techniques. Consider the John Birch Society. Or even the White Citizens Councils. Totally modern. In the case of the Birchers, there's a central office, with a newspaper or newsletter, plus a publishing arm that puts out the official line in a series of books and pamphlets. On the other hand, the WCC was a modern grassroots organization, united by a fairly well-articulated ideology, partly defined by its opposite, the NAACP, it's bottom-up, but still hierarchical and networked along fairly traditional geographical and class lines.
The Tea Party, by contrast, is fairly post-modern. It's not "leaderless resistance" in the traditional sense, but it functions without either a central committee or the standard pattern of a decentralized membership organization. How does it do that? I think we're still finding out. But clearly the billions of dollars and millions of hours of time on the part of very dedicated cadres has something to do with it. There are clearly synergistic effects between things like the attacks on public education and the promotion of arguments which do not actually contain an argument.
None of this is to say that the Republican Party won't adroitly bumrush the Tea Party, saving the best parts for themselves and discarding the dross.
This is very good on the Tea Party. He has, e.g., my parents dead to rights:
The world is changing all around the Tea Party. The country is becoming more black and more Hispanic by the day. The economy is becoming more and more complex, access to capital for ordinary individuals more and more remote, the ability to live simply and own a business without worrying about Chinese labor or the depreciating dollar vanished more or less for good. They want to pick up their ball and go home, but they can't; thus, the difficulties and the rancor with those of us who are resigned to life on this planet.
I only read the abstract, but will anyway glibly state that it is no accident that an interest in masturbation coincided with the invention of privacy which in turn appeared with private bathrooms.
I vote faking it: yes and predict that only men will weigh in.
104 was supposed to say, "Having a TV network helps, no?"
104: Yeah, but I don't think it's quite that simple. I think FOX is key. But so is Clear Channel. And mega-churches. And email urban legends. And the Supreme Court balance. And the Heritage Foundation. And the post-Watergate decline of mainstream US journalism. And the Drug War.
If it was simply a conspiracy of Murdoch, Limbaugh, the Kochs and Grover Norquist, the thing would be a lot easier to fight.
None of this is to say that the Republican Party won't adroitly bumrush the Tea Party, saving the best parts for themselves and discarding the dross.
I think that the Republican Party agrees with you, but will be shocked when it doesn't quite work the way they planned.
NPH's link is good, too. But again I wouldn't be in such a hurry to write off the Tea Party. It is certainly amusing to point to the disconnect of a Social Security and Medicare recipient complaining about government spending, but they would likewise be fools not to accept Federal largess to which they are currently entitled.
Best guess is that the Boomers will wring every last dollar out of the Feds that they can, then change the rules just before they die. Sucks to be you, millenials.
Well, right, the GOP will try, they might succeed, they might not. I'm not possessed of enough prognostication power to say one way or the other.
And I'm Generation X, myself. We never expected anything.
I think that the Republican Party agrees with you, but will be shocked when it doesn't quite work the way they planned.
I'll just keep saying this as long as it takes: the Tea Party *is* the Republican Party. It's funded by the same people who have always funded the GOP. Its real leaders are almost all former and current GOP officeholders. The vast majority of people who identify as Tea Partiers have voted Republican their entire lives and will continue to do so. It gets its message out and publicizes its events through the GOP media arm known as Fox News. All we're witnessing is a struggle for control of the party between pre-existing wings of it. Not one thing about it is remotely new or novel, except for the middle-aged clowns in Paul Revere suits.
All we're witnessing is a struggle for control of the party between pre-existing wings of it.
I don't think many people here would disagree with this. He's perhaps using left appropriate verbiage, but when TLL says "I think that the Republican Party ... will be shocked when it doesn't quite work the way they planned", what he's really describing is a GOP establishment being shocked by their inability to control (and loss of control to) the fringe elements of their own party. No one really thinks the tea party is some actual third party alternative to the Republicans. I mean, even on the most basic level: is there a "tea party" candidate in any race anywhere that's running as anything other than a Republican?
There are plenty of people writing about it like it's a third-party takeover of the Republican party.
is there a "tea party" candidate in any race anywhere that's running as anything other than a Republican?
Well, there's Ashjian in Nevada Senate race, I guess. But that's really a Judean People's Tea Party vs People's Tea Party of Judea situation.
The TP is the result of Obama's election galvanizing the unorganized populist right, Fox giving them a focus and set of common 'facts' around which to organize their grievances, and the usual crowd of right wing big money boys providing money and people from their think tanks.
There's no organization in some sense, but there's clearly a set of powerful interests trying to shape the priorities.
Apo's 109 is totally and completely right, and deserves to be repeated as much as possible.
OT: For some mysterious reason (Mr. Flinstone?), this post has given me Cypress Hill's "Dr. Greenthumb" as an earworm for the past two days. That song is terrible and super annoying.
Would Guns 'n' Roses' "Mr. Brownstone" help?
"Dr. Feelgood" is also available as an alternate earworm. I recommend the Weird Al version.
You guys aren't really helping.
Interestingly, all three songs are about drug suppliers. I guess those are the people rock stars refer to with an honorific.
Let's not forget "Dr. Robert".
I guess those are the people rock stars refer to with an honorific.
And then there's famed naturopath, Gene Simmons:
They call me Dr. Love
I've got the cure you're thinking of.
Maybe this powerpoint summary of sexual history turned into bullet points is too low for this audience.
Best guess is that the Boomers will wring every last dollar out of the Feds that they can, then change the rules just before they die. Sucks to be you, millenials.
You mean just as the the baby bust (aka gen x) retirees are peaking and the folks born in the mini-boom of the nineties are hitting their peak earning and payroll tax paying years? Remember, the boomers haven't really started to retire yet. They hit 65 from 2011 to 2029. On the other hand we can blame the evil clit stimulating terrorism on them since I gather nobody had heard of it before the sixties, and nobody did anything but misssionary with a legally wedded spouse.
Unfortunately the actual history of the 'baggers is a pwoggiebloggie hopeychange fantasy that mcmanus would mock if it came from us. Back in late '08, Dick Armey of FreedomWorks called a conference for people like that and major donors showed up. TalkingPointsMemo reported at the time. s/Dick\ Armey/George\ Soros/, etc.
122: What exactly constitutes the group "people like that", when the two examples are "Dick Armey" and "George Soros"?
||Die Zeit has a politics trivia quiz which includes questions like 'who sets health insurance premiums - the government, the insurance coops, an appointed committee of health care experts or by how much does Germany intend to lower greenhouse emissions by 2020 vs. 1990. It also has questions like 'you are the head of the government and want to cut the welfare state, when is the best time to do so: in a recession, in a boom, right after the elecction' In other German news, the German president gave a unification day speech saying Islam is now a part of German culture like Christianity and Judaism, the right ain't happy, one leading CSU pol's comment 'we can't go from religious freedom to religious equality'.>|
Not one thing about it is remotely new or novel, except for the middle-aged clowns in Paul Revere suits.
I think they (TPers) are picking up a lot of what were once called "Reagan Democrats", many of whom voted for Obama in either a hopeychangey way or out of pure white guilt.
Natilo's laundry list is helpful also, in that it demonstrates that the culture war is still on. there are many fronts. What I don't yet have a sense of is whether the social conservatives get thrown under the bus in favor of fiscal conservatives. I'm guessing yes.
I thought Reagan Democrats were the ones who saw themselves as a backlash AGAINST white guilt and its related hippie/immigrantphilic affectations.
I think that's right. Hopeychangey only, then. Cancel the side order of white guilt.
120: The editors at Deadspin deserve a nice hard cockpunch for posting that with the faces unblurred.
What I don't yet have a sense of is whether the social conservatives get thrown under the bus in favor of fiscal conservatives.
Eh, it's all basically the Bilderberg Group and the Trilateral Commission in cahoots with the Lizard People anyway.
100: You know, I've read that book - and his other great one, Making Sex - and it just isn't as titillating as you would think.
What I don't yet have a sense of is whether the social conservatives nutbars get thrown under the bus in favor of fiscal conservatives taxes-are-worse-than-Hitler lunatics. I'm guessing yes.
There, that looks better.
129. that's kind of the point, isn't it?
LB, I think Natilo just called you a Republican. Better sharpen the knife.
What I don't yet have a sense of is whether the social conservatives get thrown under the bus in favor of fiscal conservatives.
You mean how the "libertarian" angle to Tea Party rhetoric could conceivably move the country any closer to relaxing drug laws and protecting civil liberties? Fool, please. Though I'd guess part of the "fiscal" conservative vs. social conservative angle is a response to how popular the trend towards decriminalization has been in California. But it's at least as much the case that social conservatism was strongly tied to a certain former president for eight years or so, hence the need for marketing a refreshing new flavor of "fiscal" conservative craziness.
And, really, the ascension of Christine O'Donnell is hardly "under the bus" territory for social conservatives.
I feel a bit like I'm just troll-feeding here.
The post linked in 90 is just ... strange. As soon as I read remarks like this:
What they don't understand is why, when the Democrats completely control the House, Senate and Presidency, they have refused to even start to fight for issues that are matters of pure government fiat, matters that could be settled with a vote and the stroke of a pen.
I know I'm listening to a confused person. It may be true that many people don't understand why they don't have their ponies yet, but they are in turn a tad confused: it's the structure of the Senate, campaign finance laws, economic globalization, and the list goes on. That doesn't excuse everything the Obama administration has done, not by a long shot; but please, learn how our government and electoral system works. Learn what a Senate supermajority is.
Sorry to rant.
In any event. I've been trying to figure out who the Christine O'Donnells and Sarah Palins and Sharron Angles and so on would be in a Democratic Tea Party movement. Drawing a bit of a blank, unless it's Jane Hamsher and Glenn Greenwald.
135: Just for mocking you after you said you had a cold, I now have a huge cold. It is all your fault.
Speaking of, uh, tea-related things, today the barista (not the bassoon-playing one, mind you) convinced me to try rooibos in lieu of an afternoon coffee. It was good, but I'm not sure I'd make the switch permanently. It seems some of the baristas are a bit whirly-eyed about its magical properties.
In the hope of forestalling what I believe might be the onset of a cold, allow me to be the first to say: Moby, I'm sorry you hab a cobe.
136: Sorry. And to Stanley as well. Look at it this way: it gives you permission to write ranty comments on blogs.
Learn what a Senate supermajority is
You mean what the Democrats had for nearly two years?
140: If by "nearly two years" you mean "nearly 5 months". And that only in terms of cloture, for passing over a veto, the Democratic Caucus has not had a supermajority of 2/3rds.
140: I'd have to look up the exact timeline, but I believe the Dems actually only had 59 after Ted Kennedy passed away and Scott Brown won in Mass. Then, what, regained 60 once Al Franken finally won? I plead sneezing and watery eyes for not looking up the entirety of this, but I'm pretty sure there wasn't a solid
60 for very long.
And it's not entirely to the point, which is that a simple majority (which the Dems have had in the Senate) should in normal times be sufficient. I'm aware that there are issues having to do with conservative Dem votes. It is still quite a problem to need a full 60 votes when Republican Senators refuse to cross over.
Please, Brown wasn't sworn in until Feb 2010. but that is less than two years, so ya got me. And I wouldn't have thought you needed a 2/3 override with a President of the same party.
Is 143 being intentionally disingenuous? A supermajority is necessary to break the filibuster, not to override vetos.
Also, the Democrats didn't have a meaningful voting supermajority for most of that time, because of Kennedy and Byrd, if I remember.
From wiki:In the United States Senate, rules permit a senator, or a series of senators, to speak for as long as they wish and on any topic they choose, unless "three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn"[26] (usually 60 out of 100 senators) brings debate to a close by invoking cloture under Senate Rule XXII
147: so yes, is the answer? You are being disingenuous?
Yes, I think. Somehow information got confused as to needing a 2/3 majority vs 3/5. Also, I forgot that Sen Franken (D-SNL) was not sworn for so long. That is another story, with fun ACORN voter fraud to boot!
149: you devious little minx, you.
Is the House or the Senate the one that has the designated hitter rule?
149.last: But thank God some young people of character were able to finally stop those villainous miscreants.
138, 139: Thanks. This isn't the worst cold, but I've been thinking myself immune to them since I hadn't gotten one in a couple of years.
But thank God some young people of character were able to finally stop those villainous miscreants.
I would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for you meddling kids and your stupid dog!
149 is awesome. It's no longer amazing to me that the GOP was able to basically transparently sit on their thumbs at keep a duly elected Senator out of office for six months -- six meaningful months -- while not paying any price whatsoever. That's just how things are! Who can say how these things happen? (Whether this is because Al Franken is a comedian who says mean things about Rush Limbaugh and therefore is unserious or because black people vote for Democrats, I'm unsure. Big props to the Democratic inability to foster any sort of media narrative, though.)
Franken wasn't seated until July, at which point Ted Kennedy was too ill to attend the Senate floor and cast votes.
whether the social conservative nutbars get thrown under the bus in favor of fiscal conservative taxes-are-worse-than-Hitler lunatics. I'm guessing yes
What fiscal conservatives? The fiscal conservatives who controlled two (really three) branches of government from '02-'06? The "fiscal conservative" may be a creature found in the wild, but there aren't any with any influence in the GOP, nor have there been for years, nor are there any in the Tea Party today. I have a dozen bridges to sell to anyone who thinks differently and I'm waiting on an offer. I need the money.
156: Yeah, but ... Well, but ....
Okay. I have no money for you.
In defense of the post at 90--which I actually thought was a fairly reasonable bit of putting-oneself-in-the-enemy's-shoes, rather than concern-trolling--the example he's using is Gitmo, with a broader secondary example of the 'war on terror.' The long extended quote he uses cites "gay rights to executive power to war to the environment." I think this catalog is, in fact, a pretty uncontroversial set of policy domains in which the Obama administration has said "fuck you" to the Left.
I also think that executive power / war issues deserve extra attention, because this really was a source of outrage, not merely opposition, for a lot of Democrats. And Obama's policies have not merely disappointed, nor even merely continued and extended the Bush enormities--they've also, due to the nature of the partisan system, completely destroyed the anti-war and anti-executive power movements as even slightly meaningful political forces.
158: I had the impression the blogger in 90 is female, but: Yes, true. Nonetheless, framing Obama's failings in those respects as a "fuck you" to the left just feels a bit, I don't know, narcissistic? The problem isn't that Obama has hurt our feelings. It's that he's failed in certain significant policy areas. I don't take it personally, frankly. That's not to say that everything is hunky-dory, not at all. I just don't find that specific narrative, that Obama has dissed the Left, has ignored us, and now we're really mad about it, particularly constructive. Better to address the policy decisions on their own merits, or lack thereof.
158, 159 - I'm not sure I'd put "the environment" in that list; the EPA is still moving forward on regulating CO2 as a pollutant, even if the Senate is going to try to stop them.
159:
a- I seem to recall, years ago, having reason to think Shannon Love was male, but hey, maybe not, IBTP.
b- Ok, sure, I agree with that. Comity!
Really, the problem is elections. We need to beyond this silly obsession with electing representatives. It's time to kick it old school: selection by lot. (And citizen juries for unconstitutionality! And lots of political trials!)
160: I was thinking about, uh, that case, not long ago ... where the DOJ declined to appeal something? Or appealed on the side of Not the Environmentalists? Or something? I swear, I read something about it on the internet.
Oooh, totally on topic!
"I am now going to stop mining my sex life for confessional oversharing essays. Right after this one, I mean."
The Democrats never had a 60% supermajority. This whole issue is idiotic.
Correction, they had a 60% supermajority on several occasions prior to 1980. Anyway, is there a chance that people who aren't owned by corporations will have a 60% supermajority? No. 50%, maybe.
158
... And Obama's policies have not merely disappointed, nor even merely continued and extended the Bush enormities--they've also, due to the nature of the partisan system, completely destroyed the anti-war and anti-executive power movements as even slightly meaningful political forces.
I would say they have revealed the insincerity of most of the anti-war movement, it seems they were only opposed to Republican wars.
I also think that executive power / war issues deserve extra attention, because this really was a source of outrage, not merely opposition, for a lot of Democrats. And Obama's policies have not merely disappointed, nor even merely continued and extended the Bush enormities--they've also, due to the nature of the partisan system, completely destroyed the anti-war and anti-executive power movements as even slightly meaningful political forces.
Just thought that bore repeating. Especially the bolded parts.
155
Franken wasn't seated until July, at which point Ted Kennedy was too ill to attend the Senate floor and cast votes.
Kennedy of course could and should have avoided this problem by resigning his seat (effective with the election of a successor).
166: I know you're trolling, but there's no definition of "anti-war movement" for which I can make your statement true. I can think of some elected Democrats and citizens who were less-gung-ho war movement members, but every single solitary person I know in the antiwar movement is passionately against the Obama administration's excesses. Because guess what, they're unconstitutional no matter who does them.
In happier news, can anyone tell me if it is the done thing to write a tasteful thank-you to a federal judge? If you were not a party to the case and are just an admirer of his (or his clerks') cogent argument and well-wrought prose?
I sort of subscribe to a version of 166, although I'd substitute "dumb" for "Republican" (all things Republican are dumb, but the converse isn't true). IMO the national security state and massive American military power will always be with us, and aren't all terrible, and the main thing to do is to make sure they aren't controlled by morons who do things like invade Iraq for no reason. In any event anyone who thought Obama would somehow dismantle the national security state had a pretty ill-informed views about how Democrats actually govern.
By "all terrible" I just mean there are benefits as well as costs.
169 -- it's pretty weird and unusual, but that doesn't mean the judge and clerks wouldn't appreciate it.
170
I sort of subscribe to a version of 166, although I'd substitute "dumb" for "Republican" (all things Republican are dumb, but the converse isn't true). ...
Obama's war in Afghanistan doesn't look very smart to me.
I agree, though I was on the fence for a bit.