CBO data

Helpful Tips for Shapeshifting Aliens by The Thing

Stuff I learned the hard way

1. Know how to fly your spaceship and have a plan for emergencies.

2. When you crash land on an unknown world, do not immediately go outside without protective gear.

3. Keep a low profile. Try to avoid smashing through walls or blocks of ice and uttering unearthly howls.

4. If possible, try to restart your ship before going on a rampage.

5. When attacking your prey, resist the urge to flail your tentacles randomly. While tentacle-waving is fun and good exercise, it leaves you vulnerable to sudden flamethrower attack.

6. Although everyone enjoys admiring destruction they've caused, it's best to destroy any evidence that you were ever there before moving on.

7. Don't assimilate intelligent life unless it's in a large group. Remember, the smaller the group, the more likely you are to be found.

8. If you're hiding in a small group of intelligent creatures, and one or more of them see you or your offspring, move on. They're not going to forget about you, even if you wait a couple of hours.

Follow these 8 rules, and you'll be on your way to galactic conquest in no time.

Worse Than Faith-Healing

Faith-healing is bad on many levels. Not only is it a waste of money but it often ends up killing

people who might have lived if they had gone to hospital instead of a church. Fortunately, faith-healing is a fringe movement and that mitigates the harm it causes.

There is another set of false beliefs that is far more destructive and widespread. I call it Faith-based Economics.

Like faith-healers, the followers of Faith-based Economics don't care about evidence or results and don't take kindly to criticism of their beliefs. They just know that the minimum wage helps the poor, that the govt can stimulate the economy, and that the rich should be taxed more. What facts support these conclusions?

I'm sure there others annoyed by the stubborn ignorance of these people, so I've put together a few stumper questions for them. Enjoy:

1) If the minimum wage is good, why not make it $100/hr?

2) Is there any evidence beside the CBO report (which is based on a mathematical model, not data) that the stimulus worked?

3) If WW2 ended the Great Depression, why did the economy only begin to recover after the war when govt spending was cut?