JustMyWords's Comments (1000)

“Perhaps it's a minor detail, but Obama served a partial term because he was elected to a higher office.

Why did Palin serve half a term?”

“Nope - actually it had everything to do with outside pressure in the form of other universities refusing to play BYU. The possibility being locked out of big-money college sports had a great deal to do the sudden revelation from God about the status of black men.”

“It's not being an "apologist for Islamic terrorism" to point out where your logic falls apart.

At this point, while we are beginning to nothing what Hasan's beliefs were, WE DON'T KNOW what Hasan's motivations for the shooting were. The two are different things.

Given what we know of his beliefs, is it likely that this is an act of terrorism? Certainly. But it's not definite.

And that fact that he yelled "Allahu Akbar" does not necessarily mean that he was acting to influence an audience. Is it likely? Again, yes. But the phrase itself isn't telling, especially coming from someone raised as a Muslim - it simply means "God is greatest," and it's a common phrase. A Christian under stress would yell "Oh my God!" or "Oh Jesus!" but that doesn't mean that they're acting out of any religious impulse.”

“I hope like hell she wasn't making sales. She was an editor. You know, one of those people that, among other things, makes sure that the rules of grammar, capitalization and punctuation are applied.”

“The problem is that it's not 'illegal immigrants' that have bankrupted the health care system. It's people that do not have access to affordable health insurance, and are too poor to pay the bills when they finally receive care. Are some of them in the country illegally? Without a doubt. Will they stop needing medical care if we just ignore them? No way. Will tax dollars keep reimbursing public hospitals for their care? Of course.”

“So you get to decide who 'deserves' affordable health care? It must feel good to be so special.”

“I feel fairly certain that while an unwanted pregnancy may affect someone in your family, YOU aren't going to be the one experiencing it.”

“You live in an interesting world. There's no such thing as birth control failure (you perhaps aren't aware that even when used perfectly, there is no 100% effective birth control method, right?), and unwanted pregnancies only result when women are irresponsible - but no mention of the men. And even if the pregnancy is a result of irresponsible behavior, you seem to find it perfectly reasonable for a woman to not only have to deal with it for the rest of her life, but to have to deal with it by bringing an unwanted child into the world, so that the innocent child also has to deal with it for a lifetime. A lifetime of atonement for a 5 minute lapse seems a bit much.”

“So you have no actual experience on the topic, and being male, no chance that it's actually going to effect you personally. OK.”

“Why would you restrict the right to procreate? You DO realize that lesbians can get pregnant, gay men can impregnate women, and all manner of people can have children without getting married at all, right?”

“Perhaps you should have read the whole post, in context.

If Obama were to take unilateral action, simply wipe out DODT with an executive order, the right would unite and make the argument all about him. Doing it now would spill over and probably wipe out what progress has been made towards meaningful health care reform - because it's easy to demagogue and oppose the President.

On the other hand, it's harder to ignore the people that are going to vote either for you or against you in the next election. "I'm going to say NO to the President" may play well and make a politician look tough, "I refuse to do what the voters want," however, doesn't play so well.”

“When did I say that?”

“Obama may be a multi-tasker, but the Congress, apparently not so much. Sure, he could sign an executive order that for all practical purposes would nullify DADT (which remain on the books - better to have it removed entirely). What do you think the reaction of the extreme right would be? But not only that, how many right-leaning moderates and fence-sitters do you think would jump firmly into the far-right camp in reaction?

Politics is sometimes an ugly business. And human nature being what it is, sometimes you can get further faster by slowing down.

Think for a minute. When all the health care reform talk first started, there was a mention of the public option. It's gotten beaten, battered, and shoved around, and administration people even went back and forth about whether it was really necessary. And the public got engaged. People are calling and writing their representatives, people came to public meetings, the media has yammered away about it. And now the public option is no longer about what the President wants - it's about what the constituents are demanding.

It's easy to demagogue and oppose the President. It's harder to ignore the people that cast the ballots if they make themselves vocal enough. After all, piss off the people that are going to vote next time around, and maybe they vote for the other guy. It's not that politicians really want to do what their constituents expect. They just want to get re-elected.”

“Umm, just a small point. Racial discrimination is illegal (mostly, anyway - but don't think it doesn't exist, it's just much better hidden.) Same for gender discrimination. But it is NOT illegal to use racist or sexist language.”

“No, plants do not cause pollution, but you're either seriously deluded or horribly ignorant about farming. The food supply in this country overwhelmingly comes from large factory farms. Crops are treated with large quantities of chemicals which not only can be ingested when the produce is eaten, but also pollute the ground and the water - it's essentially toxic waste with a very long half life. And that's not even taking into consideration the amount of gas consumed by farm equipment, with the corresponding pollution from exhaust and the massive carbon footprint.

Stryker is not the person who needs to be doing additional research.”

“Stryker actually has a valid point. Yes, a drastic reduction in the number of animals would decrease the methane released into the air. But given that the overwhelming majority of food produced in the US comes from large factory farms, it's likely that the farmland freed up would simply be a factory farm producing vegetable products instead of meat products.”

“Your point is valid, but what is more important - recognition for those that have come before, or getting the message out to the widest possible audience?”

“I didn't pull the 'level playing field' phrase out of the thin air. Of course, I suppose it's within the realm of possibility that all of the whining and moaning about the unfairness of it all doesn't indicate that the Republicans want the situation changed.

And it's not entirely out of the realm of possibility that a fat man will come down the chimney in a red suit overnight on December 24th and leave presents for the good boys and girls. I imagine that both possibilities are equally plausible.”

“So, "leveling the playing field" with affirmative action for minorities and women is bad.

But "leveling the playing field" on Twitter with affirmative action for Republicans is good and necessary.

I'm going to go beat my head against the wall until this makes sense.”

“But of course, on the down side is by the time you've had to lie to your doctor repeatedly about your medical history, you can no longer have any confidence that you're receiving appropriate medical care.”

“Most people have no idea what licensing is. They just assume if they buy a CD or an MP3, they can do whatever they want, whenever they want, and however they want with the music.”

“Water boarding? Or the dunk-tank routine designed to train pilots how to escape from a submerged cockpit in the event of a crash? There IS a difference.”

“Um, except normal people don't base decisions about what is right and wrong on tired cliches.

And as to your notion about hate crimes being unconstitutional - I'm assuming, then, that you're also all in favor of doing away with laws against child pornography, right? And you don't think that someone who has sex with a 10 year old should be punished. Because, after all, that's only punishing someone based on who is the victim.”

“Which might be a relevant comment if Clinton had insisted on acting like Cheney.”

“I think JEP is quite an example of the saying, "There is none so blind as those who will not see."”