Shorters

I hate when we have a mild spike in traffic with no links to explain it, because it means she's written something driving people here to visit.

A Strategic Split for Healthcare Reform:

Some guy in a comment thread says the Dems can't do something that might push the public option through, phew. This is Megan's version of being a sports fan, go team health insurance industry!
Then again, she is being paid by them, via various industries propping up the corpse of The Atlantic with those paid, off the record, "talks".

Was There a Second Gunman In Phoenix?:

This whole post is basically Megan continuing the argument with a critical reader behind her would be bet M. covered earlier about whether random people bringing loaded firearms to the immediate vicinity of or into public meetings with elected officials makes it more or less likely for violence to occur. The sad thing is she thinks she's found weak prey for an easy kill.

Thinking Thin:

A reader wrote what Megan was thinking, so she just posted that;

I suspect the only way people will change their behavior is a sudden desire to move up the social ladder. Being thin and attractive gives you a competitive edge, especially if you live in a city with lots of talented people. The moment someone I know suddenly gets ambitious, or makes partner, or needs investors, they start losing weight.

.... so people are obese because they're too lazy to care, and you'll never get most people to care about how they look, because we're not a vain species or culture, so they'll always be fat. It's not genetics or the foods we eat or our sedentary lifestyles or some combo of the three, it's our moral fiber. Fat people are simply lesser humans, so we should pity them and give them more lard, not try to help them be superior people like Megan.
And they can't be like her, then she wouldn't be special.

The Magic of Europe:

Tyler Cowan's hair says that instead of liking that more or less all of west and central Europe spends massively less per capita than we do on health care for inarguably better results, gets 4-6 weeks of paid vacation a year, works fewer hours per work week, and just generally has a higher quality of life, we're bamboozled by the pretty buildings. After all, Americans have a national obsession with architecture.
Megan adds that Toronto, which is not in Europe, has some ugly buildings, she's heard, outside the skyscraper area, unlike, say, the Bronx, or the pure visual poetry of Levittown.
So stop talking about the basic facts of European health care versus ours, it doesn't help Megan push propaganda, so it's bad.

The Business of Me-Too Drugs:

I've never understood the ire against me-too drugs. Consumer choice is usually thought of as a good thing: competition reduces prices somewhat, therapeutic side-benefits may be discovered, and often different drugs work well on different sub-classes of patients. If you don't think the world would be a better place with only one kind of coffee, I fail to see why you think it will be better off with only one kind of anti-depressant.

Susan is absolutely right, Megan is being used on the cheap to produce advertising copy, as is the imprint of The Atlantic. But I suspect Megan knows it, and is fine with it as long as she can buy each new Kindle and keep Peter busy with video games.

Be right back with a slightly longer.