Opinion: Detroit accountant shows that opinions built on ignorance come crashing down

Richard Drumb disapproves of Modern Monetary Theory. He pretty much trots out every moronic anti-MMT trope. 

Drumb compares the federal government to the city of Detroit, but Detroit cannot create money, and the federal government does nothing but create the money it spends.

No one lends money to the federal government. Why would the government need to borrow money, which it creates? The government does not borrow; instead, it generously offers to pay people interest to take money out of circulation.

We have a lot of economic problems, and the federal government is doing a lot of harmful things. But a violating a non-existent budget constraint is not one of those problems.

Radical conservative stupidity

Coronavirus relief will be used by radical progressives to promote Modern Monetary Theory by JD Rucker.

Oh my.

Probably the stupidest economic part of the article is this:

If we start devaluing it intentionally by pumping too much cash into the system, the rest of the world will bail out within weeks. Then, the national debt will lose it’s perceived support mechanism, forcing countries to demand collection before we devalue their investments artificially.

Collection of what? Countries such as China hold government securities. All they entitle those countries to collect are dollars. We can always print more dollars.

A close second, maybe tied for first, is this

There is no way the government can pay for the recent coronavirus relief bill, but it was deemed necessary to prevent an immediate economic collapse. . . . Unfortunately, the outcome of this will be devastating. The costs accrued during the coronavirus crisis will be stretched out over time in the form of massively adding to the national debt.

Rucker talks about preventing an immediate economic collapse and stretching massive costs out over time as if they were Bad Ideas. But what's the alternative? Allowing an immediate economic crash and incurring massive costs right now... or just not paying the costs of having a hundred million people stay at home or millions dying? Do we just let a hundred million people be evicted from their homes and left to starve or force them to work and let the pandemic spread?

I'm not saying that Rucker would prefer allowing millions of peoples to die to save the "value" of the dollar. But if he did, he would be in good conservative company.

Old Time Religion

In his two part article, In The Fed We Trust – Part 1 and In The Fed We Trust (Part 2): What Is Money?, Michael Lebowitz preaches that Old Time Religion with the vigor and enthusiasm of tent-revival Christianity... and all the attention to truth and evidence, logic and reason, the genre is known for.

The capitalist ruling class is running scared! <evil grin>

Modern Greek Monetary Theory

Modern monetary theory – deficit thinking by Brenda P. Wenning: This article is by the stupidest condemnation of MMT I've seen. Well, as of today: just when you think conservatives can't sink any lower, they invent a bigger shovel. It starts off bad,

If you think Greece should serve as an economic model for the United States, you’ll love modern monetary theory (MMT).

(Wenning misses the inside joke: the United States is not like Greece because the US has a sovereign currency, but Greece does not) and just goes downhill from there.

Modern Monetary Stupidity

Greg Curtis gives us burning stupidity in not just one but two parts! Modern Monetary Madness and A Closer Look at the “Panacea”. From the first article:

When I think about MMT — Modern Monetary Theory — I visualize an odious miscreation squatting in its squalid swamp for decades, waiting only for an opportunity to erupt from the scum and devour the world’s economies.

Okay, maybe I should be taking my meds…

Or perhaps your employer should be taking a look at your (lack of) basic journalistic integrity.

From the second:

And MMT’s main tenets most certainly qualify as magical thinking. We can reach that conclusion by coming at it in two ways.

First, let’s set aside the True Believers in MMT, most of whom are advising the Progressive Democratic candidates. After all, they obviously believe their own hype. Instead, let’s look to serious economists who reside on the political left and who would be inclined to favor the Democratic policies if there were any way to pay for them.

If MMT made any sense at all, these economists would certainly be embracing it. But, to a man and woman, they aren’t. In fact, they mostly ridicule MMT.

Does Curtis understand the difference between reaching a conclusion and justifying a preconceived opinion? Apparently not. Neither does Curtis understand a basic tenet of intellectual honesty and journalistic integrity, that one must read and analyze the proponents of a claim, and not "set aside" the proponents and examining only the opponents.

A dead giveaway that Curtis has abandoned any pretense of journalistic integrity is his inclusion of completely bogus "evidence". From the first article:

Alas, into this sensible economic theorizing strode an obscure fellow named Abba Lerner, who said to himself, “Wait a minute! If high government spending during recessions is a good idea, then even higher government spending all the time must be a great idea!”

Never mind that MMT does not rely on Lerner, and we all understand that Curtis is not literally quoting Lerner, but if one actually reads Functional Finance and the Federal Debt — or even just the Wikipedia entry on functional finance (unlike Curtis, I actually, you know, cite my sources) — they would quickly discover that Lerner does not say, imply, or endorse any such thing. Curtis's assertion is not just an uncharitable interpretation; it's a flat-out lie.

Curtis also invokes the preposterous Chicago Booth survey. (There I go again, citing my sources. It's really not that hard.)

Fortunately for us, the University of Chicago surveyed hundreds of mainstream economists, asking whether they agreed with MMT’s main ideas (i.e., “spending doesn’t matter.”) Not a single economist agreed, not one. There is probably not another statement you could present to that group and not find at least one person to agree with it.

The problem, naturally, is that literally no MMT scholar ever has endorsed the idea that "spending doesn't matter"; more precisely, no MMT scholar would agree with the questions from the actual survey: "Countries that borrow in their own currency should not worry about government deficits because they can always create money to finance their debt," and, "Countries that borrow in their own currency can finance as much real government spending as they want by creating money." Both questions are appallingly stupid; attributing the underlying attitudes to MMT scholars is again not just an uncharitable interpretation but completely dishonest.

If I had the resources of the University of Chicago, and if I had completely abandoned any academic or ethical standards (but I repeat myself), I could just as well poll a hundred academic economists, asking if they agree that "Governments should never interfere in a market economy, because markets are always correctly self-regulating." Almost all (even the conservative economists, well, at least the three left who cling to a shred of intellectual honesty) would disagree. Wow! I proved that economists think capitalism is ridiculous!

Curtis is doubly lying here. Krugman, Summers, etc. agree with MMT proponents on the very point Curtis wants to rebut, that the government can and should spend more than it receives in taxes when the private economy is not at full employment. I know: I actually teach Principles of Macro from Krugman's textbook. "Left wing" (ha!) economists disagree with MMT theorists primarily on the effectiveness of monetary policy (central bank management of the banking system) on the real economy: MMT proponents consider monetary policy rather ineffective in aligning output and capacity (except at intentionally causing recessions); mainstream economists consider it more effective. We should, of course, settle this dispute by appealing to the data, not to the opinions of "experts".

Don't get me wrong: I'm not mad at Greg Curtis's shenanigans. I find it encouraging that the only critiques of MMT I can find anywhere — in both the popular and academic literature — have to rely on the most transparent of lies and bullshit.

Rigged stupidity

The New York Times again achieves burning stupidity, publishing the appalling article, The Shallow Cynicism of ‘Everything Is Rigged’ by Greg Weiner.

William K. Black delivers the righteous smackdown.

Leftist fascism

And the New York Times makes it, in good company with the Guardian and the Atlantic: Robespierre's America*

*Originally published in the New York Times

The data* confirm what one hears and experiences anecdotally all the time: In the proverbial land of the free, people live in mortal fear of a moral faux pas. Opinions that were considered reasonable and normal a few years ago** are increasingly delivered in whispers. Professors fear their students.*** Publishers drop books at the slightest whiff of social-media controversy.**** Twitter and other similar platforms have delivered the tools of reputational annihilation***** (without means of petition or redress) into the hands of millions, so that no comment except the most private is entirely safe from the possibility of instantaneous mass denunciation.

*What data?
**i.e. egregious racism and sexism
***No, we don't.
****Like The Bell Curve? Oh, still in print. Or Jordan Peterson's work? Nah, still in print. The Turner Diaries? Available on Amazon.
*****No, they haven't.

h/t to Eschaton

Thinly veiled stupidity

Oh my! PZ Myers makes the list of burning stupidity with a thinly veiled metaphor about voting. I know, it's not his comic, but he reproduces it approvingly, as if it were profound instead of burningly stupid.

Briefly, the boat is sinking. One passenger, our hero (heroine?), has a life raft. The other passengers make trivial objections ("I don't like the color") and detach the raft as an act of protest. Of course, they all drown, and blame the hero for not offering "a more inspiring raft." The obvious metaphor is that the boat is our Republican-led government, our hero represents the mainstream "centrist" Democratic party, and the inane passengers are progressives.

The first problem is that as bad as our political situation is, a sinking boat is a terrible metaphor. A country is not a boat we can just abandon, at least not en masse.

The second problem is that it's egregiously insulting to trivialize the objections of those of us fail to support the mainstream Democratic party. While I don't object to insults per se, insults do not persuade, they marginalize. An insult says, "I do not care about your opinions; they are not worthy even of rebuttal." The message is that mainstream centrist Democrats such as Myers simply do not care about the objectives of progressives: our political situation is simply too dire to permit dissent. (Of course, it's always too dire, and when our situation isn't so dire, when the boat isn't sinking, it's just utopian foolishness to worry about the life boat, n'est ce pas?) The progressive and radical objections are more like, "The life raft will fit only 10% of the people (including economically privileged people like Myers) and you expect the rest of us to get in the water and push you to safety."

But the big problem, the real problem is just this:

The Democratic party does not want to save us.

A more apt metaphor is good gangster/bad gangster. "Look, my partner is a psycho. If I let him have his way, he'll not only burn down your store, but kill you and your whole family. I think that's horrible, and I don't want him to do that, but if you don't give me the protection money, I have no way to stop him." The Democratic party is the good gangster, the Republic party is the bad gangster, and at the end of the day they're in the bar splitting the take.

A more radical interpretation of the comic, which I cannot believe the author intended, is that the progressives are our hero, and the inane passengers the centrist Democrats. But we can't expect Democrats to have that level of sophistication.

Manufacturing anti-semitism

Well! The Guardian manages to follow The Atlantic in The Stupid, it Burns! series. Never mind UKIP, Richard Spencer, the growing American neo-fascist/neo-Nazi/alt-right movements, etc., ad nauseam. In I still don't believe Corbyn is antisemitic – but his 'irony' comments unquestionably were, what's really important is for Simon Hattenstone to dissect a comment from British Labour Party chairman Jeremy Corbyn from five years ago to make a specious connection between anti-semitism and opposition to the democratically elected government of Israel (which government I do not support, and I would not travel to Israel for love or money... and I presently live in China). Although the stupidity and mendacity seems obvious enough, because this drivel was published in The Guardian, I will explain a bit.

In 2013, defending Palestinian ambassador Manuel Hassassian, Corbyn said that

Zionists who were in the audience . . . clearly have two problems. One is that they don’t want to study history, and secondly, having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, don’t understand English irony either.

Hattenstone sees clear evidence of anti-semitism: by "Zionists", Hattenstone claims Corbyn clearly meant Jews: Corbyn's comment "is unquestionably antisemitic."

Hattenstone's first tries the "swap the minority" argument:

And if there were ever a clear example of somebody conflating Zionist with Jews, this appears to be it. Let’s play the traditional “swap the minority” game. Instead of “Zionists” let’s make it, say, Muslims or African-Caribbeans or Asians or Irish needing lessons in history or irony. Not nice, eh?

This argument is beyond stupid. Any criticism or generalization becomes racist if you replace the object of criticism with a racial group. Murderers are violent => Black people are violent. The point is whether the initial object of criticism is itself a racial group, not that the comment is critical.

Next, Hattenstone tries to make the case that Zionist necessarily means Jewish. He quotes Shami Chakrabarti:

Crucially, I have heard testimony and heard for myself first hand, the way in which the word ‘Zionist’ has been used personally, abusively, or as a euphemism for ‘Jew’, even in relation to some people with no stated position or even a critical position on the historic formation or development of modern Israel. This has clearly happened so often over a number of years as to raise some alarm bells in Jewish communities.

This argument is just warmed-over third-hand Fox News "Some people say" bullshit. Just because some people use Zionist as a euphemism for Jew doesn't mean that Corbyn used it in that sense. Hell, I consider Republican and conservative as euphemisms for racist, but that doesn't mean that everyone who uses the former term means the latter.

Notably, Hattenstone does not link to the source (pdf) of the quotation, but to a summary article in which it does not appear. He apparently ignores such passages from the summary as Chakrabarti’s report "doesn’t deserve to be 'weaponised' in one direction or another." Chakrabarti "doesn’t offer an unambiguous definition of antisemitism and its relationship to anti-Zionism." Oh, and Chakrabarti calls for :a moratorium on trawls through the past statements of Labour party members." I suspect Hattenstone himself might not have the strongest grasp on the concept of irony.

Hattenstone continues:

Meanwhile, Labour’s new code of conduct states that the use of the word Zionism “euphemistically or as part of any personal abuse” may “provide evidence of antisemitic intent”. On both fronts, if Corbyn said the same thing today he would be in breach of his own party’s guidance.

But this would be true only if Corbyn actually did use the word Zionism "euphemistically or as part of any personal abuse," which Hattenstone has not, you know, actually established.

Finally, Hattenstone argues that criticism is indeed criticism. Corbyn said that

these British Zionists don’t study history, and they don’t understand irony . . . In other words, they are uneducated, they have failed to integrate or assimilate, they are outsiders, they don’t belong, they need to be taught a lesson. Sorry, Jeremy, this is the language of supremacism.

Hattenstone's extrapolation is complete nonsense. I cannot speak to British culture, but there are a metric assload of fully integrated and assimilated Americans who don't study history and don't understand irony. Most of them are in fact uneducated (although a lot of supposedly educated people don't study history or understand irony), but criticizing someone for being stupid is not saying they're "outsiders", except, perhaps, in that they are outside the group of intelligent people capable of basic critical thinking.

I'm not sure it's the hill I personally want to die on, or that the Western Left should die on, but the Israel-Palestinian conflict is one of the sharpest and most binary examples of social justice: The Israeli government and its supporters, Israeli citizens and non-citizens, are in the wrong, are acting grievously against social justice. It's impossible, I think, to be an honest SJW and not at least give lip service to the condemnation of the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians.

I am hesitant to contradict Hanlon's Razor, even with all the charity I can muster, I can't explain Hattenstone's nonsense just with stupidity. This looks more like a malicious hatchet job: any challenge to the absolute authoritarian rule of the capitalist class must be smeared by any means possible. Hattenstone is lying, he knows he's lying, and he's lying on purpose, to discredit Corbyn and the Labour party. And The Guardian is complicit in this malicious purpose. One person might be just that stupid; it's too much of a stretch to believe that not just Hattenstone but also all the editors who published this crap are all that stupid.

The exceptional heroism of Jordan Peterson

The Atlantic makes the annals of The Stupid! It Burns!, a notable accomplishment. Usually such publications have people like editors and fact checkers to filter out the more egregious stupidity. In "Why the Left Is So Afraid of Jordan Peterson," Caitlin Flanagan praises Jordan Peterson's heroism in saying what the Big Bad Left Does Not Want You to Hear.

Flanagan heaps abuse on "identity politics" and "political correctness". She doesn't really tell us what they really mean beyond a few ambiguous anecdotes, but that's all right, because we all know they're evil. We can forgive that she doesn't tell us much about what Peterson actually says, because if you're standing up to "identity politics" and "political correctness", you must be a hero, nest ce pas?, but Flanagan cuts right to the quick in her closing paragraph:

Perhaps, then, the most dangerous piece of “common sense” in Peterson’s new book comes at the very beginning, when he imparts the essential piece of wisdom for anyone interested in fighting a powerful, existing order. “Stand up straight,” begins Rule No. 1, “with your shoulders back.”

Argh! As a long-time Marxist, I'm dismayed that she's found us out! Central to Marxist thought is the idea that ordinary people should slouch. Take out the slouching, and the whole leftist project collapses. We might as well just all go home now, buy factories, and exploit the working class.

Socialized healthcare ate my baby!

April Joy cranks the stupid up to 11 in By a thousand cuts. Ordinary Times hasn't published anything interesting in months, and then they publish this drivel. I'm done with them: even the "best" conservatives just can't escape the stupid.

For the occasional conservative who might stumble here and has has difficulty seeing obvious stupidity, let me explain.

I'm sorry Ms. Joy lost her child. I wouldn't wish that on anyone, however despicable they might be. And I'm sorry for Alfie Evans and his parents. But Joy turns this tragedy into a condemnation of... socialized medicine? Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick! What does socialized medicine have to do with it?

Alfie is going to die. But he's not going to die because the British have allowed "government to control who lives and dies outside of the criminal justice system." Alfie is not going to die because anyone has "[c]ed[ed] control of the well-being of one’s children to the government." Alfie is not going to die because a "faceless bureaucracy [has] unfettered access to your most intimate information, with which they can then do anything, including decide whether you live or die." Alfie is going to die because he has an incurable disease. He is going to die in Britain instead of Italy because even according to the obviously biased source Joy cites, a court of law — not any bureaucracy — has decided it is in the child's best interests to stay in Britain.

There is no connection whatsoever between Alfie and his parents' tragedy and Britain's health care system. Joy does not even allege that Alfie has received substandard care, or is being allowed to die because of resource constraints. His special snowflake parents don't get to do whatever they want with their dying boy, so socialism is bad?

This is beyond wrong. It's burningly stupid. And it's despicable. Shame on Joy for writing it, and shame on Ordinary Times for publishing it. I thought they had standards.

The triumph of the maternalists

The Triumph of the Maternalists

Jumpin' Jebus on a Pogo Stick! This article is so bad, I don't know where to begin. Sadly, I have no time for deep analysis. Some quick thoughts:

The author (sensibly) notes that "feminine" and "masculine" values have nothing to do with vaginas and penises, but then keeps the gendered labeling throughout the article.

Just because one labels a value as an "Enlightenment value" doesn't make it one. The Enlightenment value of freedom of speech, for example, is subtle and nuanced. It does not mean that anyone can say anything anywhere.

Even if a value really is an "Enlightenment value" doesn't mean it's a value we must necessarily keep. The Enlightenment thinkers made a lot of good arguments, but they are not prophets, and early 21st century society is very different from late 18th.

The author makes many definitive statements about controversial positions, without even attempting an argument. For example:

Few people have the stomach to defend Western cultural and political ideals, even in the face of violent, nihilistic outbursts like the 9/11 attacks. Instead, key sections of the elite have embraced emotionalism, difference, authenticity and sustainability.

What the fuck?! What does this even mean?
Has the author even heard of the Department of Homeland Security, the NSA, Guantanamo Bay, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, etc. ad nauseam?

Universities are not newspapers or common carriers. Most are government institutions, and they do not exist to provide a platform for the airing of every possible point of view. Academia exists primarily as a privilege granting institution, providing an entree into the professional-managerial middle class. They are secondarily an institution for evidence- and argument-based expression. I really don't see it as horrible oppression that I have an obligation to bend over backwards to act as a professional on my campus. If you want to say whatever you like, with the minimum of constraint, you are free to say it outside academia, just as you are free to say it without spray painting it on my house.

Too busy to find the TSIB graphic, but this post still gets the tag.

The Stupid! It Burns! (Larry the Cable Guy edition)

Larry the Barefoot Bum Calls Me Stupid. Sort of. [Link Fixed] Sort of? I really, actually, completely call him — well, his post, but close enough — really, actually, completely stupid. Kinda what the whole series is about.

In his retort, he says,

I didn’t care then, but recently came upon [this TSIB post] and thought, the nerve of this Larry the Cable Guy character. I don’t suppose he’s calling me stupid. [Yes, I was. -LTBB] That would be original. Instead he goes for the atheist standby of calling all Christians stupid. . . . It’s all any atheist has: “Show me God” and calling you stupid. I don’t know who Larry the Cucumber is or why he goes by the hideous name “Barefoot Bum.” Is he daring any Christian to wash his horrendous hooves? I don’t get it. Larry the Laughing Thalidomide Baby would be a better moniker than “Barefoot Bum.” . . . “There is no God. And I hate Him!” is the atheist creed. It’s really a case of the lady dost protesting too much, methinks.

Amazingly enough, it gets funnier. Read the rest.

The Stupid! It Burns! (atheistic fraud edition)

Magicians Penn & Teller are atheistic frauds

As Cornelius Van til often said, “Unbelievers can count, but they cannot account for counting.” . . . But if every day is an atheist holiday, then every day is a day without God and a moral law to go along with it. There’s no one beyond me who will judge, so why should I care if I’m ripping people off in the name of ‘supernaturalism.’ Penn might find it wrong, but there is nothing in his worldview that says it’s wrong. . . .

As believers in evolution, they must believe that matter appeared out of nothing and life came from non-life. Penn & Teller would never claim that they could make a single molecule appear out of thin air, but they must believe that the birds, the bees, the trees, and you and me came into existence and evolved from nothing into a superheated, ultimately sterile chemical soup.

The Stupid! It Burns! (yo mama edition)

In "
God Haters Part Deus, The New Pantheon," Alexander McNabb unleashes a torrent of abuse and insult on the hapless New Atheists:

My first writing on the subject of “New Atheism” and its vulgar, stupid adherents provoked a sort of predictable outrage you’d expect from a people un-accustomed [sic] to intellectual criticism. Most of the responses displayed the typical poor reading comprehension, lack of philosophy, and general absence of critical thinking skills I’ve come to expect from Vulgar Atheists.

Read on to find quite a lot of rather eloquent abuse; as for philosophy, and critical thinking skills, not so much.

The Stupid! It Burns! (personal relationship edition)

Atheists Want You to Have a Personal Relationship with “Reality”

Atheists are always trying to be clever but rarely are. Their new advertising campaign carries this line:

“Atheism: A Personal Relationship with Reality.”

What’s real in a materialistic, evolutionary, and amoral worldview? These atheists are begging the question. That is, they are assuming what they first must prove. They are assuming there is no God, that God is not real. Their idea of reality is godless.

They are also assuming that there is an entity called “personal.” The world’s most powerful computer is not a person. An atom is not a person. Two atoms do not make a person. A group of atoms is not a person. So do trillions of atoms make a person? What is it about all these additional atoms that makes matter a person?

The article goes downhill from there.

The Stupid! It Burns! (mythical edition)

In 10 Myths About Atheists?, Tom Hoopes rebuts Amanda Marcotte's "10 Myths Many Religious People Hold About Atheists." Boldface indicates Marcotte's myths, which Hoopes quotes; regular typeface indicates Hoopes' rebuttals. All of Hoopes rebuttals are stupid, but I'll quote only those that are burningly stupid. All other emphasis and links are original.

"Myth" 2: "Atheists are just angry with God. . . .

I don’t know if we religious folks consider atheists mad at God. I think that atheists just don’t want to let God be God. If God is God, and we are not, then we won’t understand him any better than my 4-year-old understands me; in fact we will understand him far less. Atheists want God to be small enough to fit into their heads. But that would be no God at all.

"Myth" 3: "Atheists are aggressive and rude." . . .

Now, we can grant her that not all religious believers are polite . . . But I’ll take the hit for that small number of religious countries, and apologize for them, just to be magnanimous. And she can take the killings perpetrated by atheist regimes in the 20th century, which produced a mountain of body-bags that dwarfs millennia of religious killings.

"Myth" 4: "Atheism is a white dude thing." . . .

I will flat-out agree with her here. The Chinese atheists who slaughtered whole families and drove the Church underground were not “white dudes.” Nor were the Mexican atheists who shot priests and hung little boys. Atheists have a proud multicultural tradition indeed!

"Myth" 5: "Atheism is just a faith like any other." . . .

We have a world that is ordered, beautiful and features life-forms much more complicated than a cable TV. It doesn’t take faith for me to posit a creator; it is just a logical deduction from the evidence. But atheists say it was created by an unusually robust landslide. "And, um, lightning. And maybe a geyser spurting at just the right moment. And, like, a tornado type thingy," they quickly add. . . .

"Myth 7: "Atheist lives are bleak and lack meaning." . . .

But no one claims that atheists don’t party hard enough.

What we claim is that, while they party, they are soulless growths reacting to random stimuli on a cold piece of rock hurtling through the darkness of empty space, trying desperately to distract their attention from the abyss of emptiness that will annihilate them a moment later when they die. . . .

"Myth" 10: "Atheists are out to destroy Christmas." . . .

In other words, "War on Christmas? Don’t be silly! We just want Christmas to have no legal rights in our nation’s ubiquitous public institutions! Or at Target either, while we’re at it." . . .

In other words: "Destroy Christmas? Don’t be silly! We just want to desecrate it, profane it and make it an entirely arbitrary expression of personal tastes!"

The Great Libertarian Crusade to Save Western Civilization

Allen Small, tireless crusader for Truth, Justice, and The American Canadian Way, reveals the latest shocking news presaging the Downfall of Civilization As We Know It. Make sure you're sitting down, and set your drink down before reading farther, because you may momentarily lose control of your voluntary muscles.

Yes, it's true. Stock up your shelters, oil your guns, and gather your children, because according to Small, Canada will soon be abandoning the penny. It's a complicated concept, so be sure to read Small's post, as he shows not one but two graphics illustrating the subtle mathematics of rounding charges to the nearest nickel.

The dangers to Our Sacred Way of Life are manifest and dire. This may be your final warning before the Communists take over and destroy our Precious Liberties forever.

The Stupid! It Burns! (knee-jerk edition)

Apparently, Cassie Gray is burningly stupid. In a comment added today to a post I wrote more than four years ago, this complete idiot writes (and I reproduce her comment in full, unedited):

Americans have a knee jerk reaction to the word "Communism" because they know history. Over 150 MILLION people murdered at the hands of communist regimes in the 20th Century. Enslavement of 1/3 the population worldwide. Communism cannot work because it views humankind as parts in a machine and makes life decisions for its people based on budgetary costs. Ironic that a system that claims to care so much about people care less than than the people themselves. If its so brilliant, then explain why the last 100 years have shown people trying to escape it? It is stunning to me that any of you would even attempt to legitimize the brutality of such a system. What do you think that says about your character when you defend government sanctioned mass murder? You all are either masochists, sadists, or the epitome of ignorance! Just goes to show that most of the institutionalized so-called professors in America and Europe should be on trial for treason.

The Stupid! It Burns! (feminist edition)

The 9 Ugliest Feminists In America That's it. Just the title. The actual article is just as stupid as you think.

(via Chris Clarke at Pharyngula)