Monday, August 24, 2009

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.

4 comments:

bulbul said...

Re: Thinking Thin. I loved that email, you don't see such high-octane bullshit much anymore and we ought to be thankful to Our Lady of teh Permanently Unsatisfied Appetite for providing it to us. And btw, don't you just love it how 'Susan' implies that being thin = sexual appeal?
But the best part is the (currently) last comment:
Americans eat Chinese one night, Italian the next, Tex-Mex the next, and so on. Always something new to pique the appetite.
Yes, that's the difference, Americans eat EVERY DAY whereas us Euros quickly get sick of our shit and just stop eating.
I know there are Chinese and some other ethnic restaurants everywhere in Europe but there are far fewer of them in Europe and the natives rarely go to them.
511 restaurants in relatively ethnicall homogenous Bratislava, of which 96 pizzerias (they count as ethnic here), 25 Asian (including Indian, Arabic and Persian), about 20-30 Hungarian/Austrian/German ones. And the friggin' Jasmine garden was full again, so there goes my lunch.
A Frenchman or an Italian feels that life is impoverished if he/she is not enjoying a love affair.
Envious much?
a patriotic American who has lived many years in continental Europe
Translation: a redneck who never learned the language and hung out with other rednecks all the time. I know people like that.

M. Bouffant said...

I know the type. In Paris 40 yrs. ago you could go to the American School (a chunk of American suburbia dropped into the Paris suburbs) receive allegedly better health care at the American Hospital & even worship at the "American" Church.

What an empire.

clever pseudonym said...

I'm just in love with Megan's correspondant, Susan.

"As someone who works in the entertainment industry in Los Angeles--land of the perfect body--I totally agree that government pressure will do nothing to make people lose weight."

Jesus, a pole dancer at an airport strip club near LAX is in the "entertainment industry." As are people who make animal balloons at weddings, fetch coffee for douchebag movie producers, and make photo copies of scripts for small-rent theaters on the filthy end of Santa Monica Boulevard. Any time someone makes a claim to be a part of something as vague as the "entertainment industry," it's the first sign that they're a wannabe without a clue. No, LA is not the land of the perfect body. There are plenty of overweight people here, in and outside of the entertainment industry.

Then there are her claims that the only motive people have for not becoming a lardass is ambition and the desire to be attractive. What a load of crap. Nobody exercizes or eats right to be healthy, energetic, feel good about themselves, accomplish things for reasons other than making money, or to have a positive mental state of mind. Nope, if it ain't gonna make me rich or get me to the top and be pretty while I'm doing it, I've got no incentive.

Christ, Megan's readers are dumber than she is, as bubul has further evidenced from the comments. I also have to wonder, why do so many Americans feel the need to preface any story about living overseas by describing themselves as "patriotic"? I lived abroad for years and never felt like I was betraying my country of birth. If anything, I was attempting to enrich myself in the hopes of being a small part of improving it upon my return.

Anonymous said...

and it's not like megan...herself...is by any means thin. she is like more than 30 lbs heavier than me and i eat chocolate all day and never engage in calorie consuming pole dancing activities. magic thing called genetics she's never heard of.