quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: And they still get publicly flogged for driving. Or being out without male chaperoning. And are frequently sold off as children into marriages.
But hooray they can vote in municipal elections now. If their male family members permit it, cause they ain't allowed out on their own. Yippee.
A friend of mine was a consular officer in Saudi for a few years. She had some pretty frankly hilarious (in a black humor sort of way) stories about the decency laws there. She had diplomatic immunity of course, so the local decency gestapo couldn't arrest her, but they were apparently quite willing to approach western women and hit them about the legs and buttocks with long sticks, to show their outrage at the women being out alone, with their hair uncovered, or for speaking to a cashier. There have apparently been a few encounters between these cops and American military women (particularly air force pilots and support crews) that ended with the Americans in question being quietly reassigned to other bases after breaking sticks, and publicly reproaching the police for mistreatment.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: The debates have been terrible for Perry, especially his statement that he would not step back from anything in his book from years ago. edit: Though I think this is largely of function of people just getting to know who Perry actually is.
That's pretty much the long and short of it. Perry's pretty ghastly when you get right down to his career history and his outright indulgence in self-serving graft.
I've pretty much already detailed what's going to happen to perry, and why, and through what machinations of the GOP and republican primaries.
lol... self-serving graft just about sums it up.
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I read, I think in the Economist, that this is an interesting entry point into the discussion about sex ed and the differences between the two sides. Social conservatives teach abstinence not to reduce pregnancies but to reduce teen sex because it's evil and immoral. Reduced pregnancy rates are just a bonus. The people on the other side want to give as much information as possible to reduce teen pregnancy rates, and they'd also like to teach teens, to a degree, about self-confidence and healthy body image so they make better choices, but they're willing to admit that teens will have sex (but without exhorting them to do it). The discussion simply isn't being had on the same playing field.
I'd never heard it framed that way before, so I thought it was interesting. Normally the discussion is over the effectiveness of the varying education types, but Perry swept that issue off the table entirely and simply said that the returns they're getting for the money justify it. That won't play well at all if someone actually engages him on it.
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Questioner's contention: Abstinence-only sex education is demonstrably ineffective. We have a higher teen pregnancy rate than 47 other states.
Perry's Answer: Abstinence works.
I don't even think he's clued in to the nature of the problem here. Does abstinence work as a form of birth control? Yes. In the way that not drinking guarantees no chance of a DUI. Does refusing to teach your youth about birth control techniques other than abstinence from sex have an effect on the teen pregnancy rate, namely that the rate is higher than in places where birth control is an educational subject? Apparently, yes, it does.
What did you expect? He's the governor of Texas. Sorry Texans, you've got a track record that doesn't impress me in the least- and I'm from a state that has elected Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, *AND* the Governator.
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I didn't find anything in the Economist's archives that conforms to what you describe. I did find a link to this WaPo write-up of this study which found in a randomized trial that, over a two year period, middle-school students given abstinence-only sex education were about 30% less likely to become sexually active than their peers who received comprehensive sex ed. I did a quick and dirty search and didn't immediately find studies either replicating or refuting the results.
But, yeah, Perry's response was can't-look-away bad. His instinct to challenge the interviewers' assumption that abstinence-only education had been proven ineffective was right (the logic of "Texas has the 47th worst teen pregnancy rate" and "Texas has abstinence-focused sex ed" ergo "abstinence-focused sex ed is ineffective" has several flaws), but his execution stank to high heaven.
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quote:did find a link to this WaPo write-up of this study which found in a randomized trial that, over a two year period, middle-school students given abstinence-only sex education were about 30% less likely to become sexually active than their peers who received comprehensive sex ed.
Which begs the question, what should be the goal of sex education? Is the goal to discourage kids from becoming sexually active or is it to protect kids from pregnancy, stds and abuse? If its some combination of the above, which is highest priority?
And you have to answer that question before you can start asking whether or not a particular type of sex education is working.
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Sure. I just thought it was an interesting counterpoint to the prevailing assumption, made both by the interviewer in the clip, as well as several other proponents of comprehensive sex ed. And particularly interesting given I went to the Economist archives to find a story with a distinctly different perspective. Although, facilely, I would say not becoming sexually active is a pretty good way to avoid STDs and pregnancy. I think abuse, as an issue, ought to be taught separately from sex ed.
More to your point, the study reports that, among those who did become sexually active, condom use was not observably affected by the type of sex ed employed. Additionally, a statistically significant decrease in the number of sexual partners was reported in the comprehensive sex ed groups over a control, but not over the abstinence-only sex ed group.
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: I didn't find anything in the Economist's archives that conforms to what you describe. I did find a link to this WaPo write-up of this study which found in a randomized trial that, over a two year period, middle-school students given abstinence-only sex education were about 30% less likely to become sexually active than their peers who received comprehensive sex ed. I did a quick and dirty search and didn't immediately find studies either replicating or refuting the results.
But, yeah, Perry's response was can't-look-away bad. His instinct to challenge the interviewers' assumption that abstinence-only education had been proven ineffective was right (the logic of "Texas has the 47th worst teen pregnancy rate" and "Texas has abstinence-focused sex ed" ergo "abstinence-focused sex ed is ineffective" has several flaws), but his execution stank to high heaven.
You're right, it wasn't on The Economist, but I was LINKED to it by the economist. Here's the Economist article with the link. And here is the article it links to.
That entire interview is available in pieces on YouTube, and there are some interesting bits in it. He repeatedly looks absolutely lost when confronted directly by evidence that contradicts his statements, and when all else fails, he basically just balls up and says "I'm right." On the other hand, he had a couple of pretty good answers in there too. It was a grab bag.
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quote:Originally posted by SenojRetep: I didn't find anything in the Economist's archives that conforms to what you describe. I did find a link to this WaPo write-up of this study which found in a randomized trial that, over a two year period, middle-school students given abstinence-only sex education were about 30% less likely to become sexually active than their peers who received comprehensive sex ed. I did a quick and dirty search and didn't immediately find studies either replicating or refuting the results.
But, yeah, Perry's response was can't-look-away bad. His instinct to challenge the interviewers' assumption that abstinence-only education had been proven ineffective was right (the logic of "Texas has the 47th worst teen pregnancy rate" and "Texas has abstinence-focused sex ed" ergo "abstinence-focused sex ed is ineffective" has several flaws), but his execution stank to high heaven.
Well here's my question in relation to this study, how does this compare with rates of sexual activity as a whole? The kids in this study were like 12 and 13 years old. Are 50% of 13 year olds really having sex? I mean geez, I knew things were different than when I was in high school (all of ten years ago), but that's mind boggling.
That seems awfully high for that age group. And you have to ask if the same results can be repeated when you get into the even higher risk groups in their mid to late teens who are even more likely to be sexually active.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: You're right, it wasn't on The Economist, but I was LINKED to it by the economist. Here's the Economist article with the link. And here is the article it links to.
I was surprised, given your description of the article, that it was sourced to The Economist. I am not at all surprised that such an article would be sourced to The American Prospect. Not commenting on the merits of the article, just the apparent ideological bent.
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One potential pitfall of this study is that they are looking at "self reported" sexual activity so we can't tell whether abstinence only education actually discourages kids from becoming sexually active or only encourages them to report that they are not. (I was going to say "encourages them to lie" but decided that lying could go both ways. That is, some kids say they are sexually active when they are not while others will say they are not, when in fact they are).
I think that's one of the reasons that its important to look at verifiable statistics like teen pregnancies and stds in addition to sexual activity.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Welp! With Christie out. I think it's virtually unavoidable that we will see a Romney / Obama contest in 2012.
edit: Of course this is politics, and crazy things can still happen.
Wow, with the picture WaPo decided to run, I immediately read "Now is not my time," in the voice of Chris Farley's "Matt Foley" motivational speaker character.
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Well, that's entirely your prerogative. Perhaps you ought to have shared it just so that people would know, but I'm sure you had your good reasons.
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Explains the uptick in her posting on Ornery. I didn't even notice the relative silence. Weird.
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Blayne Bradley
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She will be missed, as much as I got pissed off by her I wanted her approval.
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I am sure this has been mentioned by now, but the Republican primary field is depressingly weak.
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quote:Originally posted by Black Fox: I am sure this has been mentioned by now, but the Republican primary field is depressingly weak.
Not as a whole. Romney could get elected if he tried. Huntsman could get elected if he was the candidate. Most of the halfway decent candidates like Mitch daniels were scared away by the stampede to court the far right and the tea party. Romney is still a solid candidate for the nomination, especially with how terrible Perry has been. If Romney gets the nom, I think he probably wins.
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quote:If Romney gets the nom, I think he probably wins.
*nods head*
Baring a catastrophe, or a sudden surge in the economy, I think this election will be Romney's to lose. Which is interesting because when Romney announced his candidacy, and it was a sort of "Who cares?" development, I really felt he had a poor chance of winning either the nomination much less the presidency.
Romney has played it safe, and luckily for him, no credible opponent has arisen and stuck around.
The economy is such a powerful indicator of whether a president will win reelection, and this economy basically spells end-game for the Obama administration.
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Historically he appeared to be the sure thing. The GOP field tends to reward people who put their time in and wait.
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Right but there was a very real risk that the Republican party itself was tearing at the seams, and would implode, thus ensuring Obama gets a free second term.
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quote:Originally posted by The Rabbit: One potential pitfall of this study is that they are looking at "self reported" sexual activity so we can't tell whether abstinence only education actually discourages kids from becoming sexually active or only encourages them to report that they are not. (I was going to say "encourages them to lie" but decided that lying could go both ways. That is, some kids say they are sexually active when they are not while others will say they are not, when in fact they are).
I think that's one of the reasons that its important to look at verifiable statistics like teen pregnancies and stds in addition to sexual activity.
I saw a study that looked at If I asked did this person have sex, then described various acts (anal, oral, vaginal, etc), would you say yes. There is a large amount of variance in what people say yes to. Woman are more likely to answer yes to anal, no to oral than men for example.
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Surely the questioners actually define sex before asking the subjects to respond? That seems like an awfully big variable to let them define for you.
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Blayne Bradley
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I do not believe it likely for Obama to lose, in fact I believe it to be his election to lose. Consensus seems to be that incumbency is a huge benefit to your reelection chances. As ones ability to campaign is huge, Truman brought himself back from sure defeat while Carter ran a weak campaign and lost. And while Obama the president has been dissapointing Obama the Campaigner is a force to be reckoned with.
Especially since he will be free to hammer on the Republicans for their terrible record.
Then there's estimations that Obama will likely have a 1 billion$ war chest of contributions in which to outspend the Republicans 2 to 1; then there's the electorial math which heavily favours him, I can't dig them up right now but he doesn't need very many states to insure a victory.
Then there's the chance that Romney will select a Tea Partier to be his running mate, recreating the "Palin Effect".
posted
It will be interesting to see if Romney can get by without choosing a tea partyer as a running mate (or Sarah Palin in specific). Though maybe he can get by with choosing someone from the movement who has actually been in office over the last three years.
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He'll have to. The real Romney, most people agree, is pretty moderate, and he HAS to be moderate to steal independents from Obama. He'll have to pull a McCain and pull an anchor conservative, and I think there will be a lot of push to either snag Cain or Bachmann...though I wouldn't count out an out of left field snag of Daniels or Christie or even Jeb Bush, something along those lines. Actually, Marc Rubio's name is already being bandied about. Not a great deal of experience, but Romney has a lot of that, and Rubio's conservative bonafides are solid.
I highly doubt it will be Palin, simply because she is undisciplined and a terrible campaigner. I actually think Bachmann will get the boot for that too..though less so. Bachmann, for all her serious, serious flaws, is still a TP darling, and she's evolved into an impressive attack dog. She's actually toned down the crazy a lot from a few years ago. If there's pressure to present some sort of diverse ticket, it'll almost have to be her or Cain, though frankly I think Cain is better as a candidate. Though, honestly, I wonder how many conservative voters would be turned off by voting for the Mormon/Black Guy ticket. Or the Mormon/Crazy Woman ticket. Rubio looks better every day.
Better question: Will Biden get the boot? I doubt it, but if Obama was smart, he'd seriously consider it for a lot of reasons.
1. Biden isn't going to run for president again. He's simply too old, and there are too many young guns in the party. A lot of those young guns have shot themselves in the foot in recent years, so he can't go for Edwards, or Spitzer. But if he wants to establish a new frontrunner for 2016, this is the only chance he gets, otherwise it's a wide open field and a lot of mess. And we know how that goes.
2. Biden is a gaffe machine. As Leo said on the West Wing, "He can't shove a forkful of waffle into his mouth without coughing up the ball." He needs someone who is a stronger presence, a stronger campaigner, and has a lot more disciplined energy.
3. You don't need him anymore. He needed Biden because people didn't think he had enough experience. Frankly, I think they were more right than wrong, but regarding POLITICS, not the day to day stuff that Biden was so good at. Biden is a foreign policy specialist, and Obama is nailing foreign policy for the most part. Attempts to attack him based on national security will fall flat, and for the most part, Romney or whoever isn't even going to go there. They'll stick to domestics.
There's a small crop of younger Democrats out there, but I bet most of them won't get the nod. Obama should go after a middle aged governor. Frankly a lot of people would like to see him snag Hillary. She's a powerhouse campaigner, a lock for the 2016 nomination if she wants it (despite her age). She has stellar credentials now, her favorability ratings are probably the highest they have every been, and lots of Democrats wish she was president and not him. Plus, Democrats and left-leaning independents don't have a problem with a ticket that lacks a white guy. I don't know if she'd actually go for it, she seems to be implying that after this term, she's out of the administration entirely, but I wonder. She's ambitious, but is she really over it?
It's all speculation, I really don't think Obama will drop Biden. But if he was smart, he would really, really think about it. Other VP candidates bring a LOT more to the table than he does.
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Hmmm, interesting. If Obama loses, he may be the first wartime president to not be re-elected (of the ones that have sought re-election). http://ask.yahoo.com/20040130.htmlPosts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Lyr, you think the chances of Hilary on the bottom of Obama's ticket are pretty low? If so, why is that no longer a consideration?
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I think the chances are low because I don't think Obama will even drop Biden, so the odds of him even having to pick a new running mate are really low. Historically it isn't done very often, even less so in modern politics. Bush didn't drop Cheney to prop up a frontrunner, though, you could argue that since Cheney was running the White House anyway, it was Cheney who chose to keep Bush around.
Dropping Biden, I think, would take a level of political acumen and guts that I really question in Obama.
And if he DOES drop Biden, Clinton has already stated she won't run again, and plans to leave government service after her term as SecState. Now, perhaps that's just her being coy, like all potential candidates are. No one ever wants to give a straight answer, but usually they leave the door open in a more meaningful way. Even if we assume that she does want the job, would Obama give it to someone that ambitious and that charged, who might actually outshine him a bit? Possibly. Again, that would take a high level of political acumen and guts. I think he's safer with a nice middle of the road liberal Democratic governor somewhere, and safety is what he'd look for.
Don't get me wrong, I'd actually be pleased as punch if he actually did it and she accepted. I think it's something he couldn't announce until after the GOP field is whittled down to one, because he doesn't want to rock the boat at all, not when they still might serve up a weaker candidate to them. But he'd charge the ticket and give the campaign some major oomph going into the heart of campaign season next year.
I'd also like to see her plan a major role as an envoy to Congress, since Obama has taken such a damaging hands OFF approach to legislating, by and large, and Clintons are legislative pitbulls.
Again, they could just as easily change their minds tomorrow and say that Biden doesn't want to serve again, that he's stepping down for the good of the party and the administration, but I don't think he will. Biden ran for president more than once, he likes being up there, and I don't think he WANTS to leave, nor do I think Obama gives him the boot. Read the editorial linked to on the CNN article I just posted. That's exactly why Biden needs to go. But I just don't see Obama doing it.
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Maybe it's my political naivete, but I don't think it really matters who is VP. Do they even do anything besides wait for the president to kick?
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Blayne Bradley
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They break ties in the Senate and in todays political climate have a fair degree of influence, only need to look at Cheney. Also election wise they help shore up the ticket and can handle campaigning.
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The VP has almost no official power (although, as we saw with Dick Cheney, they can be granted a large amount of official Presidential power if the President says so) and many are picked based more on electoral calculations than their ability, but there is also a tradition of using them as Congress wranglers, especially when the VP is politically savvy.
President Obama's first term has been marked by a weak and disorganized Democratic Congress and a hostile, obstructive Republican. The Democratic leadership, especially, has proven extremely inept. Because of this power vacuum, President Obama, especially if he wins a second term, could be the de facto leader of the Democratic legislature and could use someone like Hillary Clinton to drive through his legislative agenda.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The Democratic leadership, especially, has proven extremely inept.
What are you thinking of here?
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Blayne Bradley
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It is time to abolish the senate and rule by fear, fear of this battlestation.
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Blayne Bradley
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Consensus over at SA is that we need to reimplement the New Deal policies as the country going down the shitter can be directly traced to Reagan ending them.
Whats a good catchy buzz phrase like "Yes We Can" that could mean New Deal? On dude suggested "Renewed Deal".
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That seems like a serious oversimplification of what happened. Carter's stimulus policies didn't jolt the economy, and the economy certainly improved under Reagan's administration, at least it exited the recession. Whether or not Reagan is responsible for that change, I can't say right now, but the country certainly wasn't in decline starting at that time.
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I, for one, welcome our new Lowtaxian overlords. Until they get the crap kicked out of them by Uwe Boll, anyway.
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quote:Originally posted by MrSquicky: The Democratic leadership, especially, has proven extremely inept.
What are you thinking of here?
I think he's thinking of pretty much every move they've made in the last year. They simply do not know how to negotiate, and they don't know how to form and present a cohesive message. They don't really appear to stand for any specific thing at any given time. GOP has totally controlled the message and the terms.
If Obama chose to give her the "authority" to do so, Clinton could whip them into shape.
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I have no idea why you think Hilary could control the democrats better than Obama. Bill had pretty very similar difficulties with congress when he was President. During his first two years, when he had a democratic congress he couldn't get anything done. Then when the republicans swept the mid-term elections he shifted to the right and despite that the republicans forced a couple of government shutdowns over the budget deficit.
What did Hilary accomplish while she was in the Senate?
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Near as I can tell, Obama hasn't even tried. He's by and large left Congress to handle things on their own, on BOTH sides, unless absolutely forced to take part.
At least she has relationships with people in the Senate, where Obama only was for a couple years and was never really a major factor. She was also far more involved in dealing with Democratic Senate leadership during her time there. They still didn't do a lot of what she wanted in terms of getting a more cohesive message together, but she was a voice for liberal cohesion that the Dems were missing, perhaps short of Ted Kennedy, but he'd slowed down too much in his last years there.
Frankly, I think she's just tougher than Obama.
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn: I think he's thinking of pretty much every move they've made in the last year. They simply do not know how to negotiate, and they don't know how to form and present a cohesive message. They don't really appear to stand for any specific thing at any given time. GOP has totally controlled the message and the terms.
If Obama chose to give her the "authority" to do so, Clinton could whip them into shape.
How should they have negotiated? What could they have done to make negotiations go differently?
As for messaging- there is a democratic president; do you want them articulating a distinct message? Substantively, what do you imagine would change with better messaging? Or are you concerned about electoral prospects in '12?
As for Clinton, I don't see what she changes. Suppose she had been VP the entire time. How do you think things would be different?
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Lyrhawn, I think you overvalue the importance of a cohesive message when there is no possibility of enacting the implications of that message. You would force people like Joe Manchin to take positions that are politically unpopular with their constituency with no upside. I gather that one of Harry Reid's strengths is that he doesn't push his caucus into going on the record with such positions unless it actually matters.
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I'm dubious that any man or woman could get this Congress mobilized. I think only some sort of disaster of incredible magnitude (war, famine, epidemic) occuring could all the grime in the gears get fished out.
In other news, Sarah Palin announced she isn't running. So, Romney / Obama squaring off in 2012.
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