http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com Technopopulist contrarianism. (Technocontrarianist populism?) Wed, 11 Feb 2009 02:36:55 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It's hard to escape the conclusion that the middle class is not very popular right now with many of the leading minds in academia. The merit aid that allows these plebes to have any hope of attending a top school is constantly under attack. Unpaid internships, inaccessible to ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2009/02/10/who-wants-to-be-a-40k-ionaire/ Between this Telegraph article and this one from today's NYT, I think I have a fairly good grasp on how slutty golddigging bimbos are coping with the recession. But I still want to see some reporting on how the downturn is affecting selfish castrating yuppie career women and ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2009/01/28/nyt-stays-classy-as-they-like-to-say/ The only false note in Donnie Darko comes when Donnie gives a sanctimonious little lecture to a bullied kid, interrupting a sanctimonious big lecture by Patrick Swayze, whose take on the situation is that the bully has too much fear and not enough love.  "Maybe… you should lift some weights, ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2009/01/27/with-hazing-at-least-you-get-to-be-a-senior-eventually/ "Deaths following economic woes" are all over the news lately.  If the deaths are of a woman or child killed by a domestic batterer, that is — even if the "despondent" killer was fired rather than laid off from his job. Deaths caused by murderers who kill strangers, or sometimes by ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2009/01/27/at-least-its-better-than-crime-of-passion/ Another call for just letting the elderly die gracefully without all that unseemly, distasteful medical intervention runs in today's Times.  "You end up with situations where a 90-year-old with organ failure is brought to an emergency room and the doctors go, 'Let’s tune her up.' Or if the patient starts ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2009/01/20/ill-stick-with-the-american-way-of-death-thanks/ Ever wonder why those insurance-lobby "Harry and Louise" ads worked so well to derail Hillary's health plan? This question on Ask Metafilter pretty much explains it all. The poster blithely inquires which plan would be best for him and his possibly soon-to-be-pregnant wife, assuming the following: I can ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2009/01/03/harry-and-malaise/ Two of our greatest dietary contrarians, Seth "Shangri-la Diet" Roberts and Gary "What If It's All Been a Big Fat Lie" Taubes, have an in-depth conversation of the type you don't see much of in the mainstream media. Funniest moment: Roberts, a psychology professor whose idiosyncratic self-experimentation led him ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2009/01/01/eat-food-as-much-as-you-want-interspersed-with-flavorless-oil-or-fructose-water/ The thread on nut allergies over at (again) the Times' Well blog is an instructive example of an attitude toward disease that's unfortunately gaining traction. Many conservatives want to believe that society is basically fair, that there's no sexism or racism, that equal opportunity exists for everyone. On both sides ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2008/12/16/are-nut-ban-detractors-promoting-smugness/ Today on the Times' "Well" blog: new research indicates that running with a sharp implement may raise the risk of stabbing injuries. I was going to start a post like that a while ago, but I was waiting for the perfect moment. Maybe blogger Tara Parker-Pope would discover a study ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2008/12/15/to-hell-with-the-public-im-here-to-blog-for-the-people/ I decided I missed blogging a couple weeks ago when I found a list of things I'd written that I meant to blog. It contained only two items: Bill Ayers Inside Higher Ed's tendentious nonsense I'm not sure what IHE did to merit that last one, but it must have ... http://www.thisblogisoverrated.com/2008/12/11/stuff-and-nonsense/