Phaedrusnyc's Comments (233)

“I'm reasonably certain the Constitution doesn't mention the FBI, the Department of Homeland Security, the TVA, or any number of programs the government has started. All the Constitution does is express what CAN'T be done.”

“The reasons people get (and stay) fat are numerous, and only some have to do with their lifestyle choices. I know fat vegetarians and fat meat-eaters. Heavy people who have been going to the gym for years and are still not the "ideal weight." I don't personally know many fat people who wouldn't willingly give up "bad" foods or ANY foods doing so would make them thin without being hungry. Sure, fat people should conquer hunger with "will-power"- too bad hunger is the most primal animal instinct (after sex) of any animal. Animals kill, hoard, and binge to prevent hunger- but when a human listens to the brain that's telling him he's hungry, it's because he "lacks self control." The brain-obese-body connection is still not completely understood. Nor is diet: why do some diets work for some and others work for others? Why are the French and Italians more slender than Americans when they eat all that "bad food" Maher goes on about? Why do some find success (and health) with Atkins and others with the food pyramid? When Maher is bright enough to figure this out for us, I'll be happy to let him dictate policy- but since he doesn't know, he should really give it a rest- especially as he continues to inhale a "natural" psychoactive product that permanently alters neural pathways- you know, like sugar.”

“Maher's show is a thoughtful one, and his willingness to challenge orthodoxy is admirable. However, his views on health and medicine are consistently ill-informed, oversimplified, didactic, self-serving, and hypocritical. I congratulate him for his apparent lack of genetic and environmental predisposal to various physical and mental ailments. However, his constant characterization of overweight people as lazy moral failures who simply lack self-control, (among other issues) demonstrates his unwillingness listen and lack of empathy.

The reason we don't tax "bad foods" is because science rarely agrees on what a “bad food” is. True, high-fructose corn syrup is unnatural and strongly correlates with obesity. Do artificial sweeteners? Who knows? Maher thinks dairy products (ingested for millennia) are "unnatural,” too. Should we be vegetarian? Maybe- our teeth and digestive tracts suggest otherwise. Who decides?

cont.”

“Let's see- one issue was a matter of law and civil rights, the other was a matter of...a show on MTV. And Obama didn't just "comment" on the Gates arrest- he was asked a question about it in a press conference and chose to actually answer it. Any other apples you'd like to compare with oranges?”

“You are so right- things have really gone down hill since government got into the firefighting, law enforcement, and interstate highway businesses.
Of course, that's apples and oranges, right?
...so why is Medicare is vastly cheaper and more efficient than private insurance?”

“He's adorable- and if he's inherited his father's other legendary attribute, he should have no problem with women, men, or whomever he's interested in.”

“We "lost?" 5 states with gay marriage and an additional six or seven that recognize domestic partnerships in less than a decade is "lost?" It ain't over yet..”

“That is so fundamentally nonsensical that it's hard to take you seriously. Explain this to me- by definition, gay people all came from....straight parents. So if it's so easy for parents to "mold" their children's sexuality, why didn't those gay kids turn into happy heterosexuals?”

“I make no such mistake. The fact is that a precedent is still established whereby the thoughts of the perpetrator (the "hate in his motivation") alters the nature of and disposition of his crime- making the crime itself one of thought rather than action. Period. The law has always allowed for flexibility on the part of judges and juries to grant longer or shorter sentences based on mitigating and aggravating factors, and judges and juries are perfectly within their rights to decide on the maximum sentences if they have been moved by the prosecution to believe that the biases of the perpetrator factor heavily into his act. However, codifying a specific distinction between a "hate crime," and a...I don't know, "dislike crime?" changes the nature of our very notion of justice in this country, which I might remind you, is supposed to be "blind" with regard to those who are charged.
Your examples of the specifics of the law are also ones representing strict interpretation- which, when prosecutors are bringing a case, is hardly the way most law is dispensed with. Even you would have to admit that laws like these, despite their intentions, are easily manipulated for political reasons (district attorneys, for example, are elected officials.) It is almost a given that these laws will be (and currently are) applied unequally depending on the prevailing political climate of the day.”

“I am a liberal Democrat., anon-Christian, and a non-heterosexual. I am a rigorous thinker, a student of history and politics, and a fan of the Constitution- and, therefore, vigorously opposed to "hate crimes" legislation. I am sure I will be called a troll or worse, but anyone is free to look at various other posts I've made to decide for themselves.
I do not ally myself with bigots of any stripe. That is not why I oppose these laws. I have fought various kinds of bigotry for much of my life and will continue to do so on my behalf and that of others. I oppose these laws because the foundation of law rests upon other law. Law is based on precedent. Prosecuting someone based on the particular characteristics of their victims is a precedent. It does not distinguish between acts- simply between the possible beliefs that led to those acts. And that sort of precedent is a terrible one- one that will bite liberal, progressive, forward thinking people in the ass one of these days. Once we establish the precedent that certain beliefs can be legally worse or better than other beliefs, there is no preventing laws that will persecute us for OUR beliefs.
We should vigorously punish anyone who would infringe upon the life, liberty, or happiness of another- whether it's someone we agree with or someone we abhor. Hate crimes laws are a matter of political expedience- they are not good policy.”

“When Obama says ONE WORD about reining in the international corporations that dictate America's policies, about permanently getting rid of the lobbyists who write our laws for Congress to rubber-stamp, and about establishing an electoral system that allows for more than two shrill points of view, you can get away with saying he's "co-opting what little resonance [Nader's] message once had," but until then, Nader has a place in American politics, whether or not he occasionally makes an ill-considered statement like the one you're pushing. The fact is, Obama is more progressive than the alternative, sure- but he's hardly "progressive." And he's hardly likely to criticize the money that's infected the American political process when his win, in large part, came from turning down federal funding.
You don't like Ralph Nader, the person? Fine- that's certainly your right. But Nader being obnoxious doesn't make what he's fought for any less legitimate.”

“If you have ever actually READ the U.S. Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, than you have just demonstrated a PROFOUND misunderstanding of those two documents, which form the basis of our nation and its philosophy.. The Constitution does not "grant us" our rights, nor does it pretend to do so. It PROTECTS our rights, which our Founding Fathers expressly stated are not granted by the government but by the Creator. They are inalienable. Marriage is a right because the people believe it to be a right and because it has been regarded as such throughout history, whether the Constitution says so or not. Take a civics class.”

“Um, ok. First of all, the direct quotes we're using are just that- direct quotes. Nobody "made up" anything unless you're implying that the pool of reporters is being inaccurate. Secondly, yes, calling ANYTHING "the real" something is saying that the things you're comparing it to are not "real." That includes your insipid Cubs analogy. What's even more obnoxious is the fact that you don't see the difference in purpose between your sports metaphor and what Palin said. When I say, "The Cubs fans are the REAL fans," I am most likely speaking to a bunch of Cubs fans to get them excited about their team. When someone says, "These are the REAL Americans," one is presumably doing the same thing- however, when that person is hoping to preside over THE ENTIRE COUNTRY that sort of statement is disgraceful. When someone wins an election, (s)he doesn't then go on to serve the people who voted for him/her- she is meant to server her ENTIRE CONSTITUENCY. If Sarah Palin becomes my Vice president, I damn well expect her to consider me "real" American.
As for the Russia quote- yeah, Tina Palin said it. AFTER Sarah Palin did. It's not in dispute and you know that.”

“As I don't believe in organized religion myself, you are wasting your anger on me. Just because I don't support religion doesn't mean I can't tell when someone is being falsely condemned for a perfectly legitimate and innocent statement.
And my Jewish mother would be surprised to hear that I was an "alter boy" (though with that spelling, perhaps you mistake me for a tailor?)”

“Yes, it is a beautiful thing. And I'm not being dismissive of anyone's ethnicity (or "ignorant.") I'm simply saying that there IS such a thing as a "Latin" restaurant just as there is such a thing as a "Pan-Asian" restaurant. Restaurants all over have foods from more than one country and can't accurately be referred to as "Mexican," :"Brazillian," etc. I don't think calling a restaurant "Latin" is inherently racist. I do agree that Dannydel's response was obnoxious. I also think Left-turn-ahead and dct are reacting in a knee-jerk manner that does little to further the cause of multiculturalism.”

“My answer is, "Yes." There are ways out of it, but the sky is truly falling. The "ways out of it" would really require a Democratic Party (or better, yet, a viable third party) that truly seeks political reform in the sense of much more strictly regulating lobbyists (if not doing away with them entirely) and sincerely moving to a progressive platform that includes regulation, taxation of corporations, and a more progressive tax structure for regular people. They would require a re-fanged FCC and efforts to de-consolidate the media so that people could actually be exposed to facts that might hurt the corporate parents that manage to own the "news" while at the same time owning the companies the "news" reports on. And it would require an educated public that doesn't easily fall for expressions like "socialism," "class warfare," and "redistribution of wealth" when it comes to policies which help the middle and working classes.
If you see what I'm getting at, it's that those three goals are going to be very hard to reach. That said, I'm not sure that "the sky is falling" is the correct analogy, as it's not going to be nearly that dramatic or precipitous. More like, "the sky is slowly melting..."”

“Thanks for the advice..I'm up-to-date on Flash and am also having trouble with Firefox, so maybe it's just my Internet connection. I'll consider trying Opera, too (though the thought of having THREE browsers makes me all kinds of quaesy. ;) )”

“Happy to- from a Palin fundraiser in North Carolina on the 16th, as recorded by a pool of reporters and published in the Washington Post:
"We believe that the best of America is not all in Washington, D.C. We believe- we believe that the best of America is in these small towns that we get to visit, and in these wonderful little pockets of what I call the real America, being here with all of you hard working very patriotic, um, very, um, pro-America areas of this great nation."

Palin calls small towns "real America" and "Pro-America." If the definition of "real America" is small towns, than that which is NOT a small town (ie, New York City) is not part of "Real America." QED.”

“Does anyone know what plugins I need in my browser to see imbedded video on HuffPo? I have no problem on YouTube or other sites (have Flash installed) but here, I never see anything but white space- not even a border. What am I missing? (I have tried both Firefox and IE).”

“I divide my time between LA and NYC where I go to the gym. Among the people I see at the gym in both NYC and LA are numerous movie stars who can surely afford their own gyms if they want to but go to public ones, anyway. Perhaps they like people and aren't so afraid of the lower classes that they feel the need to barricade themselves. Who knows? It seems like Sam is a pretty social guy.
As for him "being too busy to go to the gym, " you seem to be unaware of the concept of "middle management." It seems to me that people with that many enterprises tend to have people under them running the day to day stuff. I'm pretty sure, based on my own work for big companies, that the people at the top take vacations, go out to the movies, and yes, go to the gym just as much as anyone else. Sam would have to be, as you say, "he stupidest and least sucessful business owner ever," if he doesn't yet know the concept of "delegation of authority."”

“If "men" like you are so put off by women who aren't "girly," I don't really give a damn whether MSNBC caters to them or not, frankly.”

“That might have something to do with the fact that, A. Her show has only been on a few weeks, and B. MSNBC is not available in as many homes as FNC.
I might also point out that most reality TV gets better ratings than "Masterpiece Theater," but you probably think that that indicates that people who watch "BIg Brother" are smarter.”

“Not just homophobic! You forgot sexist! And apparently from the 18th Century, to boot!”

“Okay, here's an education- in New York, we have restaurants that don't limit themselves to one particular country's cuisine. It's called "fusion." There are Latin restaurants and Asian restaurants in addition to the Mexican, Brazillian, Chinese, and Japanese.
Not EVERYTHING is racism, you know.”

“Don't mention that- the anti-intellectual "base" of America will accuse her of being an "elitist" because she wanted to get an ejumacation....”