I just got my US passport! It only took a little over two weeks. The people in line at the post office kept complaining about the complexity of the process but that’s because they never tried getting a passport in Canada where you study the photo with a magnifying glass to make sure there isn’t a trace of a smile on your face. For those of us whose faces are not naturally grim, it’s very hard to contort our visages into a look that will satisfy the Canadian passport officials.

“Nah, it still looks like you are smiling in this photo,” they keep telling you.

My penultimate Canadian passport sported a photo where I puckered my lips to the point of looking like an angry aardvark. In comparison, the US passport application process was a breeze.

I’m still not feeling American and I won’t until I cross some borders with this passport and finally vote.

But officials said there has been no concrete intelligence pointing to Mr. Putin ordering his own intelligence units to wade into the election to push for a certain outcome, beyond a broad chaos campaign to undermine faith in American democracy.

Chaos is the certain outcome that Putin wants. And he already achieved it. The next goal is even more chaos.

And as a small addendum to the previous post, it’s the end of August, and I have no idea who is running for office in my area and what they are about. I’m a registered Democrat and since I’m OCD, I check if I’m still registered once a week. But there are no flyers, no canvassers, no yard signage, nothing. Maybe it’s too early. Let’s hope there is still time to do something to educate voters.

I finally found time to read an article about the Cohen debacle. I didn’t understand any of it. Except for the example about marijuana. That was a good one. The rest is absolutely mystifying. I don’t believe that any of the people who voted for Trump will understand it. This will be, to them, what Hillary’s emails are to us.

Besides, Bill Clinton was impeached for something similar but a lot worse. The boat of righteous indignation over this sort of thing sailed a long time ago.

One could say, screw Trump voters. And ok, I get it. But screw them for which wonderful, important purpose? President Mike Pence? What is this all in aid of? I have lost the plot of any of this brouhaha a long time ago.

I want to share with you, folks, the most stupid article I have read in a while. It’s so stupid, it’s like a work of art. The article is on neoliberalism, the subject we all know I like. But God, is it ever stupid. It’s a triumph of stupidity of uncommon proportions.

This is what happens when, instead of reading the truly interesting and abundant scholarly treatments of the subject, people try to invent the wheel.