Libertarians Created RonPaulCoin, and Oregon Let Mothers Take Their Placentas Home

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New Year's Day is a period of rebirth, where everyone magically casts aside the terrible habits they developed over the past 365 days. Perhaps this means joining a gym, trying to get that career of yours off the ground, or simply using protection every time you drunkenly stumble onto someone's genitals in the back of a bar. Although realistically whatever resolution you choose will be forgotten by the first of February, you should still definitely tell all your Facebook friends about your resolution with some life-affirming like-bait.

Yeah, all this emotional resonance reserved for the annual calendar flip-over was bullshit, but you know what wasn’t bullshit? The fact that on January 1 new laws came into effect—most importantly, the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. And what's happened so far? On the bright side, an Iraq War vet made the first purchase, but unfortunately, price gaugers have also already become the market's norm, and David Brooks took advantage of Paul Krugman having a day off to write something silly about pot—in other words, super predictable nonsense. Miraculously, all of Colorado didn't fall asleep with a half-open bag of potato chips. Way to keep it together, potheads!

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Another new law that's now officially on the books? In Oregon, mothers are now allowed to take placentas home with them from the hospital. Before the law went into effect, the rules about doggie bag placentas differed depending on the hospital. But now no matter where the delivery takes place, a new mother can take the fleshy pile of junk and bury it next to a tree to cast a protection spell for her child, mix it with kale and chia seeds in a smoothie she'll jokingly call “Baby's Bathwater,” frame it because why the fuck not, or make atrocious art with twigs and grass to signify how we're all part of nature or some shit. In any case, life's about to get a whole lot weirder in Oregon.

Screenshot of the RonPaulCoin logo.

This week, the libertarian gold standard crazies have decreed that, unlike the ongoing tragedy of the American dollar, Bitcoin is the best representation of what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they developed currency. This of course means someone had to go and develop their own version of Bitcoin and call it RonPaulCoin. The big difference between Bitcoin and RonPaulCoin? The number of bitcoins will peak at 21 million in 2140 while the new RonPaulCoin will only have a peak distribution of 2.1 million, making it extremely rare and thus much more valuable. At least, that's the plan. When was the last time a libertarian's plan actually worked? In any case, check out the “In Ron We Trust” logo on the coinage!

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On New Year's Day, 105,491 people attended a game between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Detroit Red Wings at Michigan Stadium, possibly breaking the previous three-year-old record. The abacus-wielders at Guinness World Records have yet to confirm the record, but if it turns out the attendance is short of the record, it'll be broken next year. Or the year after. And then that one will broken too, and on and on, as this weird new trend of going to giant football stadiums to watch hockey—a sport, mind you, where the size of the object being fought after is literally the size of a hockey puck—continues to get people excited for half a minute before they turn over to a rerun of Seinfeld, pass out, and drift off to constant nightmares of a fat mailman trying to eat them.

@RickPaulas