Oy Vey

So, kathy g weighs in on my recent post about her fight with Megan.

First of all, to blogger NutellaonToast who characterized the exchange between Megan McArdle and me as a "catfight": cut out the dumbass sexist bullshit right now, please. It's insulting, dehumanizing, and very, very cheap. And it reveals your anti-McArdle crusade in the worse possible light, because it really does make you look like a gender-obsessed freak who's flipping out at the idea of an outspoken woman who publicly advocates opinions very different from your own. You'd be far more credible if you spare us the sleazy sexism and argue your case against McArdle strictly on the merits. Trust me, fella, it's not that hard.

My first impulse was to open both barrels at kathy but she doesn't really deserve it. I assumed the women bashing vein of that thread was over the top enough to make it clearly sarcastic. We here at FMM may hate women, but we're not misogynists. I thought it was funny. If it wasn't it just means that I'm not very funny.

There are an awful lot of modifiers here about what was, at worst, a failed attempt at snark. I'll grant "dumbass," "bullshit," and "cheap" as that's pretty much all we're capable of here at FMM, but "dehumanizing," "sexist," and "insulting," is taking things a bit far. I made a joke that was sarcastically sexist, and kathy throws a fit. Who, exactly, is the "gender obsessed freak" here? The idea that I'm attacking women for having a different opinion is absurd. I'm pointing out that Megan doesn't know shit about economics. There are no opinions involved. Even if there were, since I'm clearly taking kathy's side I can hardly be accused of insulting her for having a different "opinion."

With regards to credibility; I can't speak for other posters but I'm not really looking to be credible. Any blogger who deems themselves credible is a self important jackass along the lines of a graphic novelists. It's blogging, people. It doesn't matter.

Spare us the righteous indignation and learn to take a joke. Trust me lassie, it's not that hard.

In her second paragraph, I'm gonna have to pull a Megan and point out that kathy completely failed to grasp my point. She says:

Secondly, contrary to what NutellaonToast says, neither I nor Megan McArdle are economists

I don't know how this is contrary to what I think considering I make a direct joke about how neither kathy nor Megan are trained economists:

What did one untrained economist say to the other? "You can't say that. You're not a trained economist"

But, whatever, kathy was clearly blinded by rage at this awful awful posts which points out how right she was. I forgive her. In fact, I'll be so magnanimous as to clue her into my Jewish and Quaker ancestry. She now has permission to call me a kyke and make as many quaker oats and Nixon jabs as she wants. You're welcome, Kat.

brad adds:

Let's everybody relax a little. Nutella has a point insofar as we're not meant to be taken seriously here, Kathy has a point in that there are legitimate reasons for some people to not find some jokes funny. Both of you are upset because your sensibilities have been offended, but there's no real reason to get into a back and forth on this, or foreseeable gain from doing so. I don't want this blog to turn into a front for internecine warfare. That'd make us all war criminals.

Nutella concedes:
brad is right.