Friday, January 11, 2008
Why I read Drudge
Obesity now a 'lifestyle' choice for Americans, expert says.And then there is this:
As adult obesity balloons in the United States, being overweight has become less of a health hazard and more of a lifestyle choice, the author of a new book argues. "Obesity is a natural extension of an advancing economy. As you become a First World economy and you get all these labor-saving devices and low-cost, easily accessible foods, people are going to eat more and exercise less," health economist Eric Finkelstein told AFP.
With the rising tide of obesity come health problems and an increased burden on the healthcare system and industry.
"But the nasty side-effects of obesity aren't as nasty as they used to be," Finkelstein said.
"When you have a first-rate medical system that can cure the diseases that obesity promotes, you no longer need to worry so much about being obese," he told AFP.
"With our ever-advancing modern medicine there helping to save the day (at least for many people), are government and the media blowing the magnitude of the 'obesity crisis' out of proportion?" his book says.
Twins separated at birth have married each other without realising they were brother and sister, it has been revealed.It's this kind of cutting edge stuff that keeps me coming back, day after day (particularly since the demise of the Weekly World News).
The British couple have now been granted an annulment after a special High Court hearing. Judges ruled the marriage had never validly existed.
Full details of how the brother and sister fell in love and married have been kept secret, along with their identities.
But it has emerged that they were separated soon after birth.
6 Comments:
By 
Buce, at
Fri Jan 11, 01:03:00 PM:
La Rochefoucauld said that our enemies come nearer the truth in the opinions they form of us than we do in our opinion of ourselves.
So I think it is important to come back to sources with which I am out of sympathy, no matter how perverse of captious or juvenile they may seem. That’s why I enjoy Tigerhawk.
[And the supermarket tabs, he he.]
By Kurt, at
Fri Jan 11, 01:06:00 PM:
12 years? Try 10! The affair might have been 12 years ago, but the story broke in January, 1998.
By Charlottesvillain, at
Fri Jan 11, 01:16:00 PM:
Kurt,
Thanks for the fact check. My bad.
By Gordon Smith, at
Sat Jan 12, 07:53:00 AM:
And don't forget about the cool story he ran about Hillary dropping out of the race! And the story about John Kerry's mistress!
Drudge sometimes lies. Just lies. Yet he's somehow indispensible to the right.
What does this say about you?
By 
, at
Sat Jan 12, 10:15:00 AM:
Matt Drudge Roundup:
Matt Drudge is probably the greatest case of "Yeah, but what have you done for us lately?" in history. He broke the Monica story an hour and a half before the next web site 10 years ago and hasn't broken a story since. He's famous for appearing to break stories by spitting out some wild headline and "DEVELOPING...", but 99% of his 'developing' stories are never 'developed'.
Matt, himself, has almost no input to the site these days. The article I read said that Andrew Breitbart posts about 90% of the links. Matt lives in some swank Miami hotel and probably sits around basking by the pool all day long deciding who he should make or break with his 10%.
The biggest joke surrounding Matt is that he's a conservative. If there's an anti-Bush rumor floating around, Matt is sure to print it. He's probably the biggest pusher of the global warming hoax this side of Greenpeace. If the mean average temperature of Blanch, Oklahoma, is a degree above average, ol' Matt is sure to print it.
And if you really pay attention, you realize that, while he and Andrew run their fair share of Hillary-bashing articles to appear balanced, they're usually lightweight attacks with no lasting value.
So you start wondering about these two, do some investigation, and my, oh, my...
"Drudge mentored Breitbart until 2005, when he left to work for The Huffington Post website."
So Matt groomed Andrew, who then went to work for the ultra-liberal HuffPo.
And people claim he's a conservative. Suu-u-u-re, he is.
But what really puts the two of them into the 'Cybergossip' category is their infatuation with liberal females. If Madonna, Susan Sarandon or Cindy Sheehan open their mouths, Matt is right there to highlight them on his site.
Me, I rarely actually read articles on his site, but I glance over them every day just so I'll know what to answer on this week's O' Quiz when asked which Hollywood starlet is currently mad at whom.
(Sorry, Bill -- couldn't resist)
I've also heard he fudges his site stats, using "hits" rather than "unique visitors", which will grossly inflate the stats. He used to have the current stats on the home page but no longer, so maybe he removed them rather than be exposed to the world as the huckster he really is.
On the other hand, as Villy sardonically notes, "It's this kind of cutting edge stuff that keeps me coming back", and he's certainly right about that. If you can dismiss all of the above, the site definitely has a role to play. He prints the articles the MSM deems too lightweight to print, and the articles the bloggers deem too gossipy to print. Quite the clever niche, all in all.
Maybe, instead of "huckster", I should have used the word "genius"?
By , at
Sat Jan 12, 12:09:00 PM:
I don't accord Drudge any more seriousness than I do Fark. It's just an arbitrary collection of links.
