There is no such thing as useless knowledge. I have endless examples proving that every opportunity to learn something new should be used.

Yesterday, for instance, I spent all day shopping, running errands, going from one place to another. It was extremely hot, my belly was flapping around, and I was exhausted.

When I finally got home, I discovered that a new book had arrived. I wasn’t sure I had energy or time to start a new book then and there.

I got over myself, though, and started the new book. My reward caught up with me on page 46 where I discovered a fact that allowed me to avoid a very embarrassing mistake in an article I was going to submit today. If I had postponed the book by a single day, I would have sent out an article with a mistake.

Given that I only have this career because 14,5 years ago I memorized some completely random words in Spanish in preparation for a placement test I had no chance of passing, I now know for sure that there is no useless knowledge.

CIA’s efforts to get Evo Morales as annoyed as possible seemed very weird in their sheer aimlessness. There was absolutely no chance that Snowden was jet-setting around Europe by Morales’s side, so why was there such a rush to antagonize the Bolivian president? May antagonizing him have been the goal of the CIA?

Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, on Saturday said that he would offer Edward Snowden asylum if asked. He joins the presidents of Venezuela and Nicaragua in that offer.

Morales said that he made the decision as a just protest against his own treatment last week, when his jet was denied overflight rights in France, Spain, Portugal and Italy as he returned from energy discussions in Moscow. He was forced to divert to Vienna, and says the Spanish ambassador to Austria demanded to search his plane. . .

The US intelligence bright idea of telling Western European allies that Snowden was on the Bolivian jet has therefore backfired.

Or did it? Maybe this was the plan all along. The longer Snowden sits in Sheremetievo making news, the more embarrassing the whole thing gets for Obama. Getting Snowden to move from Russia to a small, internationally insignificant and non-threatening Bolivia would make the situation somewhat better for the US President.

I freely confess, however, that my analysis is heavily influenced by my need to see the US’s actions in this case as less stupid than they seem to be. I’d accept pretty much any conspiracy theory rather than believe that this presidency is as impotent and useless as it looks in the Snowden affair.

Remember how we talked about international adoptions? And you didn’t believe me when I said that it is highly suspicious when people don’t adopt children who share their culture and their language and, instead, choose to spend enormous amounts of money to remove kids from their cultural and linguistic environments? More often than not, such adopters prefer to adopt internationally because nobody keeps track of what they do to the adopted children:

WASHINGTON, July 1 (RIA Novosti) – The first of four suspects in a child sex abuse ring that spanned three continents has been sentenced to 40 years in prison in the United States for sexually abusing a young boy who was reportedly purchased from his birth mother in Russia.

Children are people, not goods or possessions. A wealthy person’s need to own one should never matter more than a child’s right not to be bought like a puppy.

Talking about Canada to a Norwegian friend convinces a Canadian that there is no reason to celebrate Canada Day this year.

“Blogs are dead. Or everything’s a blog. I always forget which. Anyway, one super fun thing about doing this is that people always talk to me about it as if it’s some sort of dying passing fad. And maybe it is, but they’ve been talking to me about it like that since, you know, 2004.” Exactly.

Is job recruitment stuck with outdated ways of thinking?

It is very curious to see Liberals who are so incapable of being critical towards Obama that they justify his spying on citizens.

Two vicious freaks murder a child but fetus worshippers have no word of condemnation for them. The killers get off with risible sentences.

Let’s take Austria’s hijacking of the Bolivian President very seriously.

Couldn’t agree more: “Anyone who thinks ubiquitous surveillance does anything at all to keep us safe is a pure damn idiot. All it does is generate massive amounts of useless data, millions of false positives, and diverts attention from real law enforcement and investigations.”

A brilliant post on the brainlessness of fetus-whisperers.

I will never understand why Libby Anne dedicates so much effort to debunking the beliefs of religious fanatics. They should believe whatever the hell they please as long as they keep it to themselves and don’t try to force their convictions on everybody else.

Good news for Montreal: one of the candidates for the position of the mayor of the most beautiful city in the world is completely bonkers.

Staunch Quebec independentiste Michel Brûlé announced Thursday his long-shot candidacy for the November election. . . He has written extensively in the past about English, which he says is not a nice language. For example, he points to the capitalized first-person singular in English – “I” – as a sign of individualism.

This brave linguist doesn’t stop here and ventures into other fields of knowledge, such as history and cultural studies:

In a recent piece for Le Devoir – titled For or Against Anglo-American Cultural Imperialism? – he bemoans the omnipresence of English culture and says the language of Paul McCartney is also the language of the genocide of aboriginal peoples and the Acadian deportations.

And he appears less than enamoured with Americans. He told Metro newspaper in 2009 that not all Americans are dumb, obese, imbecilic, uncultured ignoramuses – only about 80 per cent of them.

“If I say Americans are a bunch of big, obese, imbecilic, ignorant, uncultured dummies, it’s the truth,” he told the newspaper. “Of course it’s sure bet that out of 303 million Americans, there are maybe 50 million who aren’t like that. But, collectively, they’re still a bunch of uncultured imbeciles.”

Of course, this clown stands no chance of winning (for now), but I have heard these opinions voiced by inhabitants of Montreal. It was especially funny to hear such anti-American rants from a guy who made his living by serving drinks to American tourists in the touristy neighborhood of the Crescent Street.

Between Canada Day and 4th of July, I read several posts by American bloggers that said something along the lines of “Oh, Canada, you are so enlightened, I wish we were you.” I love Canada and I especially love Montreal but let’s remember that idiots abound everywhere and there is no need to entertain an idealized and unrealistic vision of Canada. Doing so is as silly as what Michel Brûlé does.

Time has come, I believe, to look past the parochial resentments of the previous decades and see Canada, the US and Mexico as part of one beautiful continent.

For the first time in forever, the Canadian dollar has been consistently cheaper than the US dollar for over a week. There is nothing bad happening in the Canadian economy, so this means the US economy is improving.

About time!

Does anybody know why testing strips and testing needles for blood sugar monitors are prescription only? What will people do if they get an unlimited supply, eat them? Prick their fingers all day long? The latter can be done with a regular needle anyway.

As a new and temporary (I hope) diabetic, I can say that learning to manage this thing is a full-time occupation. It is a mystery how my grandfather managed his Type 2 diabetes for 60 years without medication and in the Soviet Union where there wasn’t much choice as to what food was available.

I’m now getting into that stage of the pregnancy where I invent pretexts to drag myself to the office. Formal clothes, briefcase,  agenda, and makeup get rid of pregnancy-related symptoms a lot better than all of the doctor’s suggestions to stay in bed and take pills. The funny thing is that I never showed my face on campus in summer before getting pregnant and now I’m here all the time.

I love Spain and hope its scientists do finally catch up with the rest of the world, but for now this doesn’t seem to be happening:

Scientists at la Universidad Carlos II of Madrid have put a new spin on Google’s product, creating augmented reality glasses designed specifically for professors.

Dubbed “intelligent glasses,” this product is designed to assist professors who are teaching large lecture classes.

By wearing the glasses, educators will be able to see how well their students understand the concept being discussed. Students select a symbol for how well they understand the topic through their cell phones, and by wearing the glasses, professors can see the symbols students chose above them.

Using this function, educators can also see which individuals know the answer to their question and which do not. In large groups, they can even see a diagram with the aggregate of their students’ answers.

A moderately competent educator always knows exactly who in the room is snoozing, who is confused, who is bored, and who follows the material with interest. Of course, this  doesn’t work in classes with 800 students but such classes have nothing whatsoever to do with education anyways, so who cares?

This is what happens when you expel the Jews: 500 years later your sciences are still in the toilet.

Today is the 15th anniversary of the day I emigrated from Ukraine to North America. Fifteen years sound like a lot but when I think of how much was learned, done, seen and achieved (notice the modest passive voice) in these years, it isn’t really all that much.

On the day when people in this country celebrate Independence Day, I celebrate immigrants and the courage of people who take their lives into their own hands. I think this is a very fitting thing to do.