Hundreds of people attended the talk of one of the chief propagandists of Putinism at Yale. I don’t believe talks should be cancelled because the speaker is a known liar and promotes horrible, vicious ideology. But I wonder why people would want to go. There’s nothing new or fresh in this propaganda. Thanks to Facebook, The Nation, and The National Review, we have already heard it many times.

I wish Putinoids came up with fresher talking points, though. This spiel is getting stale.

A focus group arranged over the summer by Fairfax County, Va., found that many college students who plan to vote via absentee ballot don’t send their ballots in because they are not exactly sure where to buy a stamp.

I believe it.

I was completely stalled in my work on the new book. The writing wasn’t happening, ideas were Freshman-style vague, it was all kind of lackluster.

And then I finally found the notebook I’ve been looking for forever. It’s exactly like the only kind of thick notebook we had back in the USSR that was called Shared Notebook. There were many colors but I bought dark brown because we never had anything else in the USSR.

And the moment I opened my new notebook, I had my idea. It’s very crazy but I love it. Yes, it’s crazy idea number four but this time I started writing immediately. I write every second I get. I’ll soon need another notebook in the nostalgic Soviet style.

It’s all about the right notebook.

I check the weather forecast in Germany every day but it’s useless because I can no longer believe it can be under 30°C anywhere. It’s not real to me any more.

God, I hate this disgusting climate. Everybody is sweaty and stinky all the time, and I’m unusually sensitive to smell.

In larger terms, this was all supposedly done to protect Roe, right? That’s the rationale for withholding the letter, for dragging the process out. But what we saw today set the advancement of women decades behind.

If even a daughter of immense privilege, a woman of the highest educational qualifications, a woman who has known nothing but luxury can’t find a way to deal with something very bad that happened a very long time ago without letting it turn her into a shaking, cowering mess decades later, how can you trust women to carry out any tasks of responsibility?

Shitty things happen to human beings all the time. Things that are a lot shittier than this can happen. If women are reduced to a sea of uncontrollable emotions for decades and decades by such things, then it kind of makes sense to keep them away from responsible positions.

Obviously, this is not true. Obviously, women are resilient and very capable of holding their shit together. Every single woman I know closely is carrying a heavier burden than what we heard today and is doing it with strength, authority and courage. I just wish so badly that we saw such women on TV. Because this is what actual women really are.

Her voice at times was high, her manner deferential, even solicitous. And for a moment, it was possible to hear that 15-year-old girl trying to escape a bedroom where two older, bigger boys had terrorized her.

Yes. That’s exactly what I saw. And that’s exactly why it felt fake. This is a highly educated, successful academic. With a buttload of degrees in psychology and experience in public speaking. This cannot possibly be her public speaking persona. Is she a teaching professor? Because it’s not possible to keep control of a classroom with this shrinking violet spiel. You step out in front of an audience, and your public persona switches on. It’s automatic, it’s inescapable even when you are dying inside because something horrific happened to you last month.

It’s definitely puzzling.

Folks, when did we become the party that is horrified by teenagers making flatulence jokes? Isn’t that what the other side is supposed to be? Something’s not right here.

I can’t tear myself away, it’s too good.

“You made jokes about flatulence?!?!?”

“We were 16, sir.”

The prissily horrified expression on the face of a grown man when he says the word “flatulence” is out of this world.

Made me want to go make jokes about flatulence before they are outlawed.

Durbin is such a dick.

“Why would you oppose an FBI investigation if you are innocent?”

Because agreeing to an FBI investigation now is exactly the same as renouncing the nomination. After the election in November, he won’t be nominated no matter what the FBI finds.

A few minutes turned into a watching marathon. Kavanaugh is a good writer. I can’t resist a strong text. It was also fun to see how he had Feinstein on the ropes and sounding apologetic in under two minutes.

If he’s a total liar and is being consciously dishonest, I still admire the hutzpa.

I need to stop watching. I have a mountain of work.