The Russian TV is now spreading stories about Germany supporting Ukraine in exchange for organs ripped out of the still living Ukrainian soldiers.

In the meanwhile, the stupid cow Merkel is ecstatically wiping Putin’s anal cavity with her tongue and the idiot French are peeing themselves with delight over Russian neo-Nazism. Putin can insult them any way he wishes, yet they still lick his boots like pathetic little puppies. Putin openly says that you rip organs out of living human beings, and you continue defending him?

Freaks.

London comes up with cute painted bookbenches. Not that anything is likely to save this formerly beautiful city but still it’s nice somebody’s trying.

“People, and especially men, hate being alone with their thoughts so much that they’d rather be in pain. In a study published in Science  Thursday on the ability of people to let their minds “wander” — that is, for them to sit and do nothing but think — researchers found that about a quarter of women and two-thirds of men chose electric shocks over their own company.” This is a great test for psychological test. Try just sitting and staring into space for 15 minutes. If that becomes intolerable, it’s time to start taking care of your mental health. And it isn’t surprising that more men have serious mental health problems. They are socialized not to take care of their health and just soldier on in spite of the pain.

“I assume many of the guys in New Hampshire were influenced by Ayn Rand. Weirdly, while Rand appeared to appreciate building and creating (e.g., The Fountainhead), she didn’t appear to appreciate civilization or notice that creativity and building have no value or purpose outside of civilization.” Maybe it would make sense to read Rand before babbling aimlessly. There wasn’t a greater lover of civilization than Rand.

Have you heard of the rolling coal fetish? It’s totally bizarre.

Fat is not the opposite of athletic.

A judge ridicules the idiot proponents of a ban on gay marriage.

“Putin is an expert at stringing the Europeans along, and it looks like they are content to let him.” Very true.

“I never liked the term progressive. I never liked that people thought they would avoid being demonized if they ran from the word liberal.” I don’t like the word “Liberal” not because I fear that some unidentified forces will ‘demonize” me but because I’m not entirely comfortable with the word “liberty” unless it is specified what it is that we are aiming to free ourselves from. At least, the word ‘progressive’ has a very clear meaning.

“But the Hobby Lobby decision now puts government in the position of deciding what’s a “true” religion, and what are “reasonable” religious beliefs. If Hobby Lobby, for example, refused to hire African-American people because the Bible says they are Satan’s people, or are destined to be slaves (both can be inferred from the text), the Court would not have allowed this. That is, the government’s laws would be applied based on the CONTENT of the religious belief.” And this is reason #965 why the Hobby Lobby decision sucks dick.

Corporate Gay Pride. This is kind of disturbing.

A fascinating long post on how budget airlines try to save money.

Anarchism is based on a joke. Color me unsurprised.

A great analysis of Douthat’s suggestions on how to fight campus rape.

In Spanish. The leading Spanish newspaper decides to offer a platform for the neo-Nazi Limonov to spout his disgusting anti-Ukrainian garbage. Spain, what’s up with you? You are not France, you can’t afford to flirt with fascism once again. Haven’t you had enough?

“ASU Police beat the crap out of a black professor for walking in the street around construction, throwing her against a police car so hard that they damaged the car. Then they charge her with felony assault.”

Empire State Pride. Beautiful!

“A layman writing under the pseudonym of “Steve Goddard” accused the US government of fabricating temperature data. Sadly it quickly went viral. Fortunately in this case some conservatives are criticizing their own when they make outlandish statements, something rarely seen in US political debates — where truth is purely tribal.” This is a great point, about the truth being very tribal in our politics.

“Russia has ended its claim to a right to protect Russians in the Ukraine.  Putin has supported the cease-fire.” Even Putin stopped  claiming that there were any Russians in Ukraine in need of protection back in March. Not a single Russian persecuted or discriminated against in Ukraine has surfaced. (Although persecuted and discriminated Russians surface in Russia every day.) Yet the Putin-loving idiot Ian Welsh persist in the face of complete lack of evidence. But hey, when did facts stop this weirdo from spouting idiotically?

“There is a strange irony, of course, in the fact that the two regions that are the most Tea Party-centric are also the regions that rely the most on government support.” Exactly. read the entire post, folks, it’s very good.

Russians have signed an agreement with Cuba, forgiving 90% of Cuba’s debt. This is only right since the Russians were the ones who initially got poor clueless Cubans into this entire sad mess.

Ukrainian troops are on the offensive and have beaten the bandits out of the city of Slovyansk.

The bandits are getting upset with Putin for not helping them enough. I wonder if they can be persuaded to go back to Russia to whoop Putin’s ass for his betrayal.

The Pride parade in Kiev had to be canceled. Civilization comes slowly and painfully.

In Russia, a new law had been passed guaranteeing a jail sentence of up to 5 years to any blogger who writes that the Crimea should be returned to Ukraine. But that’s nothing compared to the law making it very hard for those who are not athletic to acquire higher education.

After shashlik, we went out to look at the fireworks. For the past 10 months minus 1 day, I feared that I’d never feel happy and at peace again. But today I finally did. This is just for now, of course. Tomorrow, my struggle to stay afloat will continue.

For now, though, I’m at peace. May you also get a chance to lay down your burden, even if it is just for a short while.

After a long and protracted struggle with a charcoal grill that is meant to make anything but shashlik, we finally fulfilled the dream I’ve nurtured for over 16 years and made our shashlik:

Shashlik is served only with raw fresh vegetables. Plus I marinated some red onions in two kinds of balsamic vinegar.

Here is a closer view of shashlik:

Finally, we were the ones to stink up the neighborhood with our grill. But we are just upholding local traditions.

And I will also have to complete the heroic feat of making shashlik.

One of the most embarrassing arguments people make in favor of the legalization of marihuana is, “But what is the difference between pot and alcohol or prescription drugs?” People who make this argument always adopt a triumphant look and seem completely unaware that everybody else in the room is curling their toes in vicarious shame.

The difference between pot and alcohol is precisely the illegality of the former. A negative father complex makes flirting with illegality crucial to the experience of a pot lover. If pot gets legalized, this person will add other anti-social or illegal activities to his or her repertoire.

If, as we discussed earlier, our mother complex answers for our sense of comfort and security in the world, our father complex is responsible for how well we feel as members of society. People with a negative father complex find it hard to make money or construct a career, they constantly have problems in the workplace, laws bother them, figures of authority disturb them. Scratch a Libertarian and you will find a person with a really bad father complex.

Pot-taking is evidence of a father complex that is negative but not to a huge degree (depending, of course, how strongly one feels about the need to take it).

Legalization of pot is a non-issue because the number of addicts or criminal acts will not experience a significant change.

People are bizarre to the point of being scary.

A man called a recruitment agency to accuse it of immorality because the agency had helped his fiancée find a job. At that job, the fiancée met somebody else and broke up with the man. So now the man is calling everybody and insisting that the company that hired the ex-fiancée is immoral. And the recruitment agency should stop working for the company to avoid condoning immorality.

Oh, the annoying sounds of a lawnmower mowing somebody else’s lawn. . .

Oh, the sweet, gratifying sounds of a lawnmower mowing your own lawn. . .

Of course, this is the last time I’m hearing these sounds on my lawn because N gave me a long, impassioned speech on the horrible environmental consequences of all lawnmowers that use gasoline and bought a mechanical one he will operate manually. It’s not easy to live with somebody who is so much more environmentally conscious than I am. I have no idea where he gets it from. This is not natural for people from our culture, and he doesn’t watch television or read the press.

And by the way, can anybody guess which question about 80% of people ask me when I tell them I finally moved to the new house?

The nation-state is a modern invention, of course. However, it has developed in the direction of taking us back to the Medieval era, says scholar Ricard Zapata Barrero*.

Modernity has liberated us, to an enormous extent, from having our lives defined and circumscribed by the circumstances of our birth. For today’s immigrant, however, birthright becomes more important than anything else. Being (or not) born in a certain place defines whether you have rights or get a possibility to develop a public or social identity. It’s all about birth. And in some places (like Quebec), it’s all about your parents’ birth. Citizens will be deprived of rights because their parents chanced to be born someplace else. 

* Zapata Barrero, Ricard. “Bases para interpretar la multiculturalidad en España.” Inmigración: un desafío para España. Coord. Rafael del Águila. Madrid: Pablo Iglesias, 2005. 193-246.