Posts by Danielle
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But the rest of us should also be free to ridicule them for it.
Of course. Ridicule is what I live for! But 'you ruined this important discussion with your dumbass pop culture' is a turn in the conversation I dig somewhat less.
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I kinda sorta agree with robbery (!!!) on the 'Sgt Pepper was the first concept album' thing. I think Beatlemaniacs (I'm one, obviously) are often a bit ahistorical on this point. Frank Sinatra was doing concept albums in the 50s - Sings for Only the Lonely, for example.
Then again, it's certainly true that FM stations in the 70s were playing entire 12 inch sides pretty regularly. Do we blame stuff like Yes' Tales from Topographic Oceans for the long-player's true ascendance instead?
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You know what? Fuck BSG*: if I want to watch 'Rock of Love II' and talk about Daisy the stripper's desperation for Bret Michaels as a political allegory for the financial crisis, that's my call. And whoever doesn't like it: up their nose with a rubber hose.
*I actually have no opinion on BSG one way or the other, as I haven't seen it yet. But it's on my ever-lengthening list.
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"it's a bit of a bugger to have to borrow that much, but you guys are sweet compared to some other countries, so rock on with your bad selves" (I paraphrase).
I think I'd be much more likely to read IMF reports if they were always couched in such language.
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I personally don't, and that has helped me.
Again: just because you lost 20 pounds one time, that doesn't solve obesity or health problems for everyone.
Some problems do have simple solutions for everyone who is willing to take them, and everyone else is fucked and that's all there is to it.
I thought I was out, but this 'one-solution-fits-all' assertion is egregiously fucking wrong. Example: about one in ten women have polycystic ovarian syndrome, which causes a lot of weird hormonal shit to go down in their bodies. Some of them are undiagnosed. The majority of women with PCOS are obese - about 60% of them. The obesity is actually a complication of the condition, not a cause, and it also means that those women are not biologically *capable* of losing weight at the same rate as other people without that condition. They could be eating less and exercising more and jack shit is happening. (There are studies, but obviously all those fat women are just duplicitous liars, so I won't bother referencing them.) Oh, and PCOS puts you at a higher risk for type two diabetes, because it fucks up your insulin. Which is another condition which makes it rather difficult to lose weight.
I don't even know why I bothered posting this. I suppose perhaps if someone is reading, and thinks that maybe, out of every twenty women they see on the street, one of the fat ones is not, perhaps, stuffing her face with chips 24/7, I'll be feeling slightly better about this whole thread.
(Of course, it would be nice if that person thought 'hey, the size of her body is none of my fucking business', too. But I suppose that's too much to hope for.)
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Did anyone else get the Austin Powers accent that time?
I'm getting more of a Mr T vibe from Ben in this thread. 'I don't have no time for scientific jibber-jabber! I pity the fool who can't lose weight!' Heh.
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Ben, I have no problem with you personally - I just think your argument is wrong seven ways from Sunday. But let me just sum up, so I can be clear. Basically, your position is:
1. You don't know or care what the academic literature says about environment, heredity, processed foods, low-calorie diets, weight control, type two diabetes, exercise, PCOS, or any other conditions.
2. From this position of neither knowing nor caring, you somehow also know how to fix the entire obesity problem in one fell swoop.
3. All fat people you know are in denial, ignorant and duplicitous about food and exercise.
4. But you love them, you really love them. Just like Sally Field.I mean.... OK. I seriously have nothing else. <shrug>
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Cretinously obvious.
Yeah, most people can control their own body weight within a 10-20 pound range. That's certainly true. When it comes to obesity and things like type two diabetes or PCOS, however, you're just pulling your 'cretinously obvious' information completely out of your ass. You want references?
I'm not judging fat people.
Uh-huh. They're just lying to themselves and others about food, and you know allllll about their lives. But you're not judging.
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Of course, although climate change deniers often make appeals to healthy scepticism and wanting to question the received wisdom of science too.
Dude! I am not a denier about Teh Fat! I just question the current batch of shitty 'solutions'.
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Sacha. Thank christ. I was beginning to feel slightly batty. (Not unusual.)
This isn't meant to be insulting, but either you are conversant with the relevant fields and your opinion is informed, or you are ignorant of the field and your opinion is not relevant.
Dyan, I think you might be Mr Spock. ;)
Here's the thing. That particular study example is cited in quite a lot of feminist medical history (even some written by MDs, whom I presume are 'conversant enough with the relevant fields' for you) as an example of sexist bias in medical research. Now, perhaps they are all, uniformly, using a terrible example, but I didn't make it up out of thin air. (In fact, it was part of the background research for my thesis, which was about the contraceptive pill. You might recall that the introduction of the contraceptive pill from 1960 or so was fraught with difficulties for many women because synthetic progesterone and estrogen had been *insufficiently tested on women* - the drug was rushed onto the market. That's how you get fun things like a higher risk of thrombosis, because the dosages were too strong. Etc.)
So let's get meta: the damn study about the estrogen is actually a long, tortured way from my larger point, which is that thing about the Objectivity Vacuum and how it doesn't magically exist, and that research may reflect inherent bias on the researchers' part, and so therefore we should be questioning and analytical about things like that.
Now, Dyan, you don't think sexist (or other cultural) bias exists in medical research, so you believe in the Objectivity Vacuum. I just happen to disagree with you, and my clinical ignorance is... how do I put this... 'not relevant' to that point.
Also, I know I'm not stupid. Cheers though.