The knowledge of certain principles makes knowing certain facts unnecessary. For instance, if you know that it’s generally cold in Montreal in January, you won’t need to conduct research on whether to bring summer sandals on a trip there. You also know that Canada is a country with a developed economy, so even of you fail bring something important, you’ll easily buy it there.

Once you know about the nation-state, why it’s needed, what its trajectory has been, and what the alternative looks like, you can easily answer whether renaming the Gulf of Mexico into the Gulf of America is a good idea and even why the idea appeared at this point in history. All you need to understand such situations and decide your approach to them is to figure out how you feel about the nation-state. Once that is done, you have your answer about a whole lot of things already provided. You won’t have to decide on a case-by-case basis about this, the defunding of the police, the open borders, the 1619 project, and so on. You’ll have a principle to guide your judgment. Most importantly, you won’t have to base your approach on political partisanship.

There’s a raging alcoholism problem in Spain. In Madrid today, we saw a manifestation of a group of very drunk oldsters waving the flags of the Spanish Republic and screeching slogans in defense of corrupt South American Communists, Putin, and Palestinians. Anybody who comes out with the flag of the Second Republic is a clínical moron but these people were also tragically drunk.

Then we got into a cab and were too naive to realize that the driver was off his face drunk. When we left the cab, he abandoned his vehicle in the middle of the road and followed us. That was when we discovered that he’d pissed his pants and had been driving in that state.

In Galicia, we saw an exhibit of the painter Castelao, and at first we thought his paintings were very exaggerated.

Then we realized, no, they aren’t. People do drink themselves into this state.

We must be very sheltered because all this shocked us a lot.

If there’s a really pleasant and helpful bellboy at a Spanish hotel, should we give him a tip? My sister is suggesting I’m a poor excuse for a specialist on Spain for not knowing, so please help.

While the English version of the Budapest Memorandum uses the term “assurance” with regards to Ukrainian territorial integrity and security, the Ukrainian and Russian versions of the signed document use the term “guarantee.”

I actually only read the text in English and have spent years not understanding why in Ukraine the word guarantee constantly crops up in the discussion of the issue. It’s got to the point where I’d beg people to please stop saying “guarantee.” I sincerely had no idea it was in the Ukrainian translation, and it’s the bastard translator’s fault 45 million people sincerely thought there was a security guarantee.

Fuck that idiot translator. And fuck Bill Clinton who got us all into this mess.

And this is our sumptuous dinner at the castle:

After years of trips to Spain, I still haven’t figured out how to get fed around here. We’ve gone to great lengths to find food today, and failed abjectly.

It’s curious that shutting down the economy during COVID wasn’t supposed to hurt the economy. But calling cartels with a magic word can hurt the economy. 

Liberals just can’t move on from their belief that words remake reality. They are stuck on it, unable to notice that there’s actual reality and that it’s completely resistant to words.

Trump is already in the White House, and they still aren’t figuring things out. Their sincere confusion – “but we said he’s a Nazi! Why didn’t it make any difference? We said many times that Bidenomics worked and that Kamala had the perfect campaign. Why did nobody care?” – is painful to watch.

We are staying here on our way from Galicia:

I’m sorely saddened by Galicia, my friends. It offers a striking contrast with the Basque Country, Valencia, the parts of Portugal that are right across the border, and even the frequently upsetting Castilla León. It rains a lot in Galicia, which means that everything is covered in mold and smells like mold. But it also means fertile soils and lush greenery. The inhabitants, however, seem to have given up on maintaining the buildings, the streets, and the establishments in a passable state. Everything is blackened, falling apart, crumbling down, and looking sad and unloved.

This isn’t a failure of municipal or local authorities. The markings on the roads look extremely bright and fresh. The government is doing its job. It’s the people that have stopped trying. The number of extremely drunk people at noon on a Wednesday offers an explanation. We drew by a little town called Xinzo de Limia that has 1/3 of the population in my town back home. There’s nowhere to eat in Xinzo de Limia until 1 pm but there are more open and full bars in two little streets than we have in my entire home town.

There’s nothing like this wholesale devastation even in the most rural areas of the Spanish Basque Country. The French Basque Country is an absolute fairytale with its bright, freshly painted houses and clean, pretty front yards.

The people in Galicia are nice but helpless. The coffee is vastly inferior to everywhere else in Spain, let alone in Portugal. I’m not very knowledgeable about Galicia in particular but now I’m curious as to what is causing such a marked contrast with the rest of the country.

People are so out of it, it’s unbelievable.

Yes, he does care. Fetterman has developed a very recognizable brand with this outfit. He’s being consistent with his brand identity. Spectators might have missed him if it weren’t for the outfit. Instead of dissolving himself in the crowd as yet another no-name guy in a suit, Fetterman made himself the focus of attention by staying on brand.

This sweet, childish naiveté is actually quite upsetting to observe in adult people. I screenshotted one of a lineup of comments making the same clueless point.

Oh, you people are too smart for a riddle to stay mysterious for long. Yes, it rains a lot in Pontevedra, and those were umbrella locks:

Here’s a prize for the winners. A language school announcement:

I’m not sure why the “native teachers” didn’t explain that the expression sounds weird in their native English.

We saw these at the entrance to the local museum. Can you guess what they are?