Daily Archives: December 18, 2011

Calibrating and Recalibrating Sex Positiveness

Continuing our discussion (see Making sense of our fights on the Internet, Power and Presence on the Internet and Elsewhere, and A Spectrum as a Slippery Slope and OMG Hitler is a Nazi!!!!) …

I was at a local event recently where a group of sex-positive third-wave feminist women had traditionally used a certain amount of overt sexuality to raise some money. They had been doing it for a few years and had gained a certain reputation and a certain following. A friend of mine who knew of their work but did not know them personally joined in during this most recent event and volunteered to work the door, as it were, to help to relieve some of the visitors and participants of a little cash (this was a fundraiser). I was not present for that part of the event but some of the people involved, who had been involved for several years, later said to me that they felt my friend had gone a bit over the top in her performance. I asked for a description of what concerned them, and when I heard it I had to laugh a little. You see, over the years, these women have changed their own act from a more to a less sexy parody version of themselves, toning it down and calibrating, for a number of different reasons. The young woman who joined them this year had calibrated her own approach to their reputation and not to their current approach. She was a blast, as it were, from the past, and that was a little shocking. Continue reading Calibrating and Recalibrating Sex Positiveness

President Newt Gingrich Would Arrest Pro Church-State Separation Judges

This is why I don’t want to hear you belly-aching about Obama and telling us all about how you can’t vote for him because he didn’t do some thing you for some quite possibly invalid reason you thought he would do despite having only two years without a Republican congress and almost no time without a Fillibuster.

Any single one of these stooges running for the republicans, including and maybe especially, New Gingrich, could be the next president of the United States if a) enough liberal stay home and b) enough liberals and progressives vote for a third party or do some other stupid thing, ensuring that Obama is not re-elected.

Gingrich has stated that he would use the Federal Marshall Service to arrest judges who make decisions that he does not agree with. Consider the following interview:

SCHIEFFER: One of the things you say is that if you don’t like what a court has done, that Congress should subpoena the judge and bring him before Congress and hold a Congressional hearing… how would you enforce that? Would you send the Capitol Police down to arrest him?

GINGRICH: Sure. If you had to. Or you’d instruct the Justice Department to send a U.S. Marshal.

From Think Progress.

So, get all passive aggressive at Obama, maybe you get Gingrich.

Reaping the Rewards of Conceal Carry in Minnesota?

In Minnesota, you can carry a gun around, concealed, if you have a permit. Why? Well, I suppose so that if you get mad at someone you can pull your gun out and shoot them.

According to wcco:

The Cook County Sheriff said the man who opened fire Thursday in a courthouse in Grand Marais got the gun from his own vehicle.

Daniel Schlienz was convicted on a sexual assault charge in Cook County Court. After the jury found him guilty of criminal sexual conduct, he left the building then came back into the courthouse and into County Attorney Timothy Scannell’s office with the loaded weapon.

He then shot a witness i his trial, the county attorney, and injured a bailiff. Fortunately, he was an incompitent marksman so no one was killed.

I do not yet know if he had a carry permit, or was using it legally, but certainly despite the best efforts of the NRA it is still not legal to carry a weapon into a courthouse.

This is obviously a matter of mental illness. What gun advocates often do not admit, however, is this: It is exactly the the intersection between lax or permissive gun laws and mental illness that facilitates this kind of event. Stricter gun regulation is needed exactly because of this intersection, not the opposite.