National Debt Limit Raised To 9 Trillion Dollars

What's the opposite of cowbell? I wish I had a soundbite of Sting moaning as he enjoys his fourth hour of Tantric sex. That is the anti-cowbell, I'm thinking.

The Senate voted Thursday to allow the national debt to swell to nearly $9 trillion, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes.

The bill passed by a 52-48 vote. The increase to $9 trillion represents about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The bill now goes to President Bush for his signature.

The measure allows the government to pay for the war in Iraq and finance Medicare and other big federal programs without raising taxes. It passed hours before the House was expected to approve another $91 billion to fund the war in Iraq and provide more aid to hurricane victims.

The partisan vote also came as the Senate continued debate on a $2.8 trillion budget blueprint for the upcoming fiscal year that would produce a $359 billion deficit for the fiscal year beginning Oct. 1.

The debt limit will increase by $781 billion. It's the fourth such move _ increasing the debt limit by a total of $3 trillion _ since Bush took office five years ago.

The vote came a day after Treasury Secretary John Snow warned lawmakers that action was "critical to provide certainty to financial markets that the integrity of the obligations of the United States will not be compromised."

On Thursday, Treasury postponed next week's auction of three-month and six-month bills pending Senate action, though the move was likely to be quickly reversed given the Senate's vote.

The present limit on the debt is $8.2 trillion. With the budget deficit expected to approach $400 billion for both this year and next, another increase in the debt limit will almost certainly be required next year.

Well! Bush has raised the debt ceiling by 50% in his five years in office, from $6 trillion to $9 trillion. It's hard to put lipstick on that particular pig.

So I'll just talk about Sting's 9-hour Tantric sex sessions.

First of all, I kind of doubt this is "sex" as most people would envision sex. I have an image of candles and insense and he and Trudy just holding hands and rocking back and forth as their dirty parts make incidental contact with each other.

That's not sex. That's just two idiots chanting and ringing spirit-chimes with their puds out.

Second of all -- who the eff has time for nine hours of sex? Eating is an enjoyable thing, but I can't see myself doing "Tantric noshing" for six hours on a sandwich. You make the sandwich, you admire the sandwich for a moment, you spill some chips and pickles on the side, you eat the stupid thing. You take care of business in ten, fifteen minutes tops, and then you go back to important stuff in your life, like watching television.

How do you schedule these marathon non-humping "sex" sessions, anyway? How do you clear things with your agent, family, and friends for that kind of time? "Please hold all calls for the next nine hours; I will be unavailable, as I will be covered in exotic oils and ungents as I lightly rub my joint on my wife's thigh for better part of the day."

The only thing I want to do for nine hours straight is sleep.

Sting is the only frigging guy I know who can turn sex into a big, stupid, dorkwad timewaster. People who watch all three Lord of the Rings movies back to back to interminable back laugh at Sting.

Steve_in_HB once noted that some people were sooo into sports -- always watching, always looking up stats, in seven or eight fantasy leagues, always heavily betting games they didn't even care about -- they turn what would be thought of as a normal and manful hobby into pure dorkeriffic geekery. "Sports geeks," he called them. Sullying sports by turning it into a joke on par with collecting old Steve Austin action figures.

Sting is a sex geek. He's taken the most non-geeky pastime known to man and turned into an extended GURPs session with fewer dice-rolls and less clutter of graph-paper, and with genitals in place of miniatures, used to establish "marching order" when a "wandering monster" such as a "gelatinous boob" strikes.

I don't know. Personally, I think of sex the same way I think of brushing my teeth. It's a somewhat-distasteful but socially-required bother that shouldn't be attempted more than once or twice a month and which should be finished up in two minutes or less. And of course you should always gargle thoroughly afterwards.

posted by Ace at 12:19 PM

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