Iran has handed over its entire stockpile of enriched uranium. The NYTIMES calls it “one of the biggest achievements in Obama’s foreign policy.”

And I’m sure the article’s author was being completely serious.

I just bought N one of those programmable, multi-option tea-brewing machines for New Year’s. It felt like a good idea at first but now I’m wondering if it might be culturally insensitive. I wouldn’t like it if he got me a borscht-making machine, would I?

I have fallback gifts, too, but this was going to be the centerpiece of the celebration. 

P.S. And no, I couldn’t get him a samovar because a samovar needs actual flames and any suggestion of an electrical samovar freaks out a Russian person really badly.

N and I haven’t been able to get much sleep for 3 nights because we discovered this YouTube channel – and yes, we know we are too old for this shit but we can’t help ourselves – created by a Russian fellow in his sixties who emigrated to Canada in the same year that I did and is publishing videos to help prospective immigrants decide if they should go to Canada.

We are now hopelessly addicted to these videos because the Russian fellow is so positive, happy, kind and tolerant that it is beyond bizarre to hear him speak Russian. We have never seen a Russian-speaker who is not mentally deficient have such a sunny personality without a shade of cynicism or anger. Moreover, we have never seen a Russian-speaking immigrant who is so honestly excited about the new country yet not hateful towards the old country. And the guy is not fake. He actually seems to be sincerely happy and at peace with the world. 

N and I watch this unicorn for hours, imagining what it would be like if all Russians were like this fellow.

It is absolutely disgraceful, pathetic and ridiculous that for every 500 articles and blog posts on the subject of Hillary’s bathroom break and Trump’s schlonging there is maybe one that analyzes what was actually said in the debate.

Everybody dumps on Trump, yet the number of people who gleefully stoop to his level and wallow in schlonged bathroom breaks with him is enormous. They fake outrage at what he is saying but, in reality, they dig what he does because it frees them from the unwelcome obligation to think and analyze.

Trump did not come out of nowhere. We all have created – and are still studiously constructing – the political space that is dominated by bathroom humor and petty bickering over absolutely nothing whatsoever.

Russians selected Angela Merkel their Woman of the Year.

There’s hardly anything worse anybody can say about Merkel.

The runners-up will not be recognizable to non-Russian speakers but they make a very pathetic, offensive company for Merkel.

Gay couples could one day have their own biological children carrying traits from both parents, according to new research. Such a breakthrough could even lead to ‘multiplex parenting’ with groups of more than two, or children created by just one parent.

As long as consumers can buy the toy that hit their fancy, who cares what it will do to actual children? Especially given that these kids will become life-long consumers of anti-depressants and anti-psychotics.

Germans continue on the path of making themselves hated by everybody in Europe. Right now, they are scolding Greece simultaneously for:

A. Letting too many refugees into Europe;

B. Not paying for comfortable conditions of the refugees Greeks do let in.

Taking into account all the ways in which Germany contributed to Greece’s impoverishment, this current round of German Greece – bashing looks disgusting.

As you know, in the conflict between Germany and Greece I was always on the side of Germany and against Greece. But even my obvious pro-German bias can find nothing but simple malice in what Germany is doing right now. This will tear Europe apart because Southern and Eastern Europeans (and eventually the Northern Europeans whom Germany is trying its darndest to annoy right now) will get too fed up with Germany’s tantrums to want to stick around.

The Pope condemned the countries that are making it hard for Cuban refugees to reach the US. If only he were as interested in condemning the Castro regime that is making Cubans want to run away from their country.

At London’s Goldsmiths College, the feminist organization allied itself with a group of woman-hating men in a campaign of terrorizing and threatening a female speaker. 

The feminists explained their support for men’s inalienable right to bully a woman who dares to speak in public as an attempt to create “a safe space.” For male bullies. It worked, and the bullies were allowed to mount a public spectacle of hassling a woman to their heart’s content.

The leader of the Islamic State announced that he’s planning to attack Israel.

The Spanish newspaper where I read this news stated that it’s unclear why al-Bagdadi singled out Israel. Yes, what an inscrutable mystery.