JShankel's Comments (586)

“There's a biological factor.

Men can reproduce into much later age, so men seeking younger women makes sense from a reproductive standpoint.

Women have a much, much larger investment in reproduction (pregnancy, nursing) and older men tend to have more social power and access to resources and are generally more reliable than younger men.

This isn't so much the case today, since we live in a society where women are more independent and men don't gain as much social power merely by reproducing, but we bear this evolutionary heritage like wisdom teeth and the appendix.”

“For the same reason spending a week camping in the Sierras doesn't prepare you to live on the summit of Mt. Everest for two years.

The moon shot was much, much easier than a manned Mars mission. I think a Mars mission is feasible and I certainly would rather spend a half trillion dollars on that than on occupying more countries that didn't attack us.

But the logistics are orders of magnitude more difficult than the Apollo program.

That said, we're in a better place to do a manned Mars mission now than we were to land on the moon when Kennedy announced it.

Personally, I favor a Mars Direct approach (send an unmanned fuel factory/return vehicle, let it operate for two years, then send a manned mission with another factory/return vehicle, they leave both factories behind and take one vehicle back...rep­eat repeat repeat, with additional emergency return vehicles sent as well.)

Mars Direct is low cost, safe (multiply redundant return protocols) and each mission builds on the previous missions.

But first we need to learn to live in space for months and years at a time. I think the moon would make a nice training ground for that.”

“Eternity? Don't you think that's a bit hyperbolic? I'm pretty sure that no one will remember Obama after the heat death of the universe.

As for "Worst President Evar," I'd say he has a lot more damage to do before he catches up with Bush.”

“Everyone should be a political atheist. There are no gods in politics.”

“It's not a question of compassion, it's a question of what's possible. It's been clear to me that the Taliban has had to go since they took power, but the thing is that we can't decide whether we're fighting the Taliban or looking to negotiate with them to cut off al-Qaeda.

If someone can show me a plan that will run the Taliban out of town, institute democracy (or, at least, self-rule), cut off al-Qaeda and either shut down the opium market or repurpose it to legal needs (ie morphine production for medicine), I'll sign on.

As a liberal LEANING person, I accept the Powell doctrine: vital interest, clear plan, reliable assessments, no non-violent options, clear exit strategy, domestic support, international support and a clear understanding of consequences.

But I'd hate for this to become a liberal/co­nservative issue. It's not Obama's war. It's not Bush's war. It's America's war. And we're all in it. Together.

Works?”

“And how will our children's children's children pay for this? I thought we were in a whole bunch of debt and can't afford bridges, schools and disaster relief here at home.”

“Unless they Photoshopped her head onto Carrie Prejean's body, Sarah is the one doing the standing and the fancy pagent posing.

As for what Democrats need to do, they need to wo/man-up and stop soiling their undergarments over every little lightweight media trainwreck the GOP trots out as a "game changer."

Why do you think it is the GOP keeps trying to "change the game?" Here's a hint: it's not because they're winning.”

“So why did Ronald Reagan and William Annenberg do so much to promote William Ayers?

Are they liberals?”

“Bush was elected once and appointed once.”

“What am I, Google all of a sudden?”

“Yes, and also the killing of Dr. Tiller qualifies as terrorism as it was a) motivated by ideology and b) intended to change public policy by means of frightening the populace.

It was an act of Christian terror. Dr. Tiller's murderer is a terrorist. Maybe even an unlawful combatant?

Funny thing about hate crimes, all crimes are not hate crimes. In fact most crimes are not hate crimes. Most are greed or pride crimes.

Plenty of muggers have no particular animus toward their targets. They just prey on the weak for money. Plenty of burglars, similarly, don't hate their victims.

Even in cases of assault, it can often be motivated by fear or by ego without much regard one way or another for the target.”

“And Matthew Shepard's killers were just roughhousing.”

“Why don't we split the difference and call it a hate crime? Oh, that's right, there's no such thing as a hate crime according to conservatives.”

“Would you call Dr. Tiller's murderer a terrorist? Wasn't he a Christofascist extremist?”

“"But to argue that only the former is mysterious is an amazing piece of hubris."

Indeed it would be, if I'd argued any such thing.

The nature of consciousness is one of the deepest mysteries in science, but everything we've studied about it indicates that it emerges from neurobiology.

If you're aware of an published, peer-reviewed work that shows a substantive relationship between consciousness or any other cognitive phenomenon and quantum dynamics, I'd be most interested to review it.”

“Suppose you had a single party that wanted to ensure that it would always have a grip on power.

You could follow the Chinese of Soviet models, which is to create one big unified party that declares itself infallible and all-powerful. That works, for a while, but when things go bad (as they inevitably do) the people only have one group to blame.

Wouldn't it be smarter to create two factions, representing slightly different sets of entrenched interests? Then each faction appeals to the public by invoking the fear of the other, especially over issues that are not sensitive to entrenched interests.

Like, say, one faction thinks we should subsidize crackers for schoolchildren. The other side says that's unAmerican and what we should do instead is give people tax credits so they can feed crackers to their children at home.

We fight and fight over this, drawing blood in the streets until election day when JOYOUS HALLELULIAH! one side or the other prevails.

But either way, the cracker business does well.

I'm not saying this is happening anywhere. I'm just saying imagine what that would look like from the inside.”

“No, this is cutting off your nose because you have nose cancer.”

“I agree. We should put all our support behind the leader of the Democratic party, Olympia Snowe.”

“Funny, you know, those of us progressives who chose not to support Joe Lieberman in to be vice president were called every kind of name in the book. We were traitors. We were naive. Didn't we understand that the Democratic party had all our best interests at heart and yadda yadda yadda.

The Democratic party has been throwing progressive politics under the bus for YEARS. Gay rights is just the latest.

Or did we become signatory to the Kyoto protocols when I wasn't watching? Or did a strong caucus of Democrats vote against Bush's trillion dollar war in favor of spending that money on ACTUALLY defending America (as in protecting the health of her citizens?) And AFDC, would you say that the Clinton Administration strengthened or weakened that program?

And when our economy started to collapse, did congress and the president rush to put a moratorium on home foreclosures? Were our cities, our suburbs, our rural communities, our homes, our neighborhoods and our families deemed "too big to fail?"

Or instead did we give hundreds of billions of dollars to the same crooks who got us into this mess to begin with?

So to those who say they're done with the DNC and will only support individual candidates based on their ACTUAL record, I say, in the words of Jon McClane: "Welcome to the party, pal!"”

“Hey, gotta cut costs somehow. That's 50% right there!”

“Not suggesting that. Just saying that I'd rather go into court against an opponent whose arguments are offensive and ridiculous than one whose arguments are reasonable and persuasive.”

“Yes, the DOJ's arguments are offensive and ridiculous. But on the other hand, consider how much worse it might be if they came up with reasonable, persuasive arguments?”

“"is it really that hard to sign an executive order which puts a moratorium on discharging gay soldiers?"

Actually, there's some legal controversy over this. DADT is not an executive policy, it's a congressional law, so there would have to be a framework within the law that allows the executive branch to suspend its enforcement.

There is no such framework with DADT, so some have suggested that Obama could use a stop-loss provision to supersede congress' authority. Problem is that would affect all soldiers.

After eight years of the Bush administration invoking the "unitary executive" to ignore the law, my feeling is that this one has to be handled by the book. Congress must repeal.

Now, as a matter of JAG priorities, if they wanted to put DADT investigations at the bottom of the pile after oh, say, every rape and murder case that comes up, I think that would be fine.”

“Spot on. What's really hurtful and offensive here is that basic rights have to be addressed using the political process.

But right or wrong, good or bad, that's the reality. It's one thing to proclaim that rights shouldn't be voted on, but until we can get the supreme courts of the states and the SCOTUS to agree, evidently they can be.

On the other hand, the upside is that WHEN we prevail on these issues, we'll have more than rights granted by a judge or a friendly legislature. We'll have political power. Not just for gay rights, but for equality in general. We may just get a seat at the table.

The more we have to fight, the stronger we will become. And while marriage equality is a BIG issue for me, building a progressive caucus that can say, for example, that the next time we go to war with a country it'll be because they attacked us first would be, you know, nice.”

“Myself, I wouldn't frame it as a boycott so much as conditional support.

The pace of change has been frustrating (beyond words) and the legal defense of DOMA was just about unconscionable (not that they defended it...that'­s their job...but the arguments they chose.)

On the other hand, giving significant political leverage back to the Rethuglicans would end up taking us three steps back instead of one step forward.

But for the Democrats to move equality anywhere near the front burner, they have to feel the threat of no support.

So, maybe we should bargain with the chips we have. Signing the hate crimes bill is worth a little support. A little. Repeal of DADT gets you a little more. Repeal of DOMA gets you more. Federal recognition of both marriages AND civil unions that come out of the states gets you yet more.

It's a shame, yes, that this issue has to be lobbied. It would be nice if we had political leaders who would support equality as a moral imperative and not need to be bribed or threatened to do what they know is right.

But that's not reality. That's the bad news. The good news is that we have the most equality-friendly government (despite their shortcomings) that we've ever had certainly in my lifetime. That's an opportunity we have to take advantage of.”