In Canada, a 26-year-old man with diabetes and depression stemming from a botched surgery was euthanized.

Remember how I said yesterday that you can have either socialized medicine or open borders? Here’s proof. Young people with treatable conditions are being put down because there are no resources to treat them.

The people who are protesting ICE in the US seem to have no understanding that if they are successful, Social Security and Medicare will be gone. Canadians are closer than we are to this result, and it would behoove us to observe what is happening and draw conclusions.

In a fully post-national state, there are no meaningful national borders. There are also no welfare protections. And by the way, if you are opposed to Trump’s comments about Greenland, you should be equally opposed to the anti-ICE protests. If the borders of Denmark shouldn’t be fluid, neither should be those of the US. If nationals borders are extremely important and must be respected, then act like it. If not, then also be consistent. Trump is being very consistent in that he doesn’t understand the need for national borders, which is why nobody is getting deported.

Are these ideas extremely complicated? Because I wouldn’t think so, yet there are large numbers of people who sincerely proclaim “hands off Greenland and illegal immigrants”. And large numbers of people who proclaim “yes to national borders but only sometimes.” People who see the contradiction at the heart of this position are very few.

Nothing will ever help me better to understand people. I don’t get them. Their way of thinking is strange.

Next week is the first week of class. This is a crazy time for department chairs. It’s almost as bad as the last week of class. There is a ton of work. There’s one crisis after another.

Suddenly, people hear a rumor that there might be a reallocation of secretaries. The department chairs decide to have a two-hour meeting on Tuesday to discuss our proposal to the administration regarding this.

By absolute accident, I happen to know that the reallocation already happened. Paperwork was signed. Contracts were redrawn. It’s a done deal.

Like the eternal innocent that I am, I tell the other chairs about this. A meeting will be a waste of time, I tell them. Unfortunately, it’s too late. It was all decided while we were off campus for the holidays. We can save ourselves the trouble of taking out time on an unusually busy day. We can concentrate on our many daily tasks instead.

Of course, as anybody with a bit less going on in the naiveté department could predict, exactly zero people agree with me. No, we should still have a meeting, they argue.

But why? For what purpose? The secretaries are gone anyways. Reallocated. Removed.

Because, the other chairs respond, it’s going to be a good experience to come together in solidarity and mutual care even if nothing practical comes out of it.

Everybody looks at me like I’m weird for not understanding this. There’s a collective agreement that coming together in solidarity and mutual care for a 2-hour unnecessary meeting is a great idea. These are people who are perpetually overworked to the point of public crying jags versus the very well-rested me who spends part of each working day reading, snoozing, or doing German exercises in the department lounge.

Definitely, somebody is weird in this situation.

BREAKING NEWS: Treasury Secretary Bessent announcing tonight from Minnesota:

Starting tomorrow, if you’re on public assistance, you can’t wire money out of the country.

Treasury is derailing the gravy train to Somalia. pic.twitter.com/McQjNjdNMd

— David Asman (@DavidAsmanfox) January 9, 2026

How can anybody possibly enforce this? Let’s say I’m trying to wire money. At which stage of the process and in what manner do I prove that I’m not on public assistance?

Another oil tanker from the Russian shadow fleet has been captured by the US. This is great news. It also raises the question of why European countries aren’t doing this.

Canada announces that it will no longer accept new immigration sponsorship applications for parents and grandparents. pic.twitter.com/2GkGMpVs2p

— Harrison Faulkner (@Harry__Faulkner) January 8, 2026

You can either have unlimited importation of the elderly or the pension system and guaranteed healthcare. All I want is that people understand that both things at once are impossible to have. As long as they are aware of this, I completely respect their support for either option.

What I don’t respect is people who think you can have both. I can tolerate opinions extremely well. It’s the pouty childishness of adults that I can’t stand.

What’s the actual plan with this phenomenon where there are tens of thousands of people who literally overwhelm ICE’s capability of continuing their operations? The left has a million person national army of “protestors.”

Somebody game this out for me https://t.co/9UmfC39y3I

— C.Jay Engel 🌲 (@contramordor) January 9, 2026

What sense does it make that people would turn out by the million organically to support policies that impoverish them? Not much. I’ve spent 98% of my time in North America in very leftist circles. I have heard people express sincere and passionate support for all kinds of very extremist policies and ideas. But I’ve never heard anybody passionately go on about the need for more illegal immigrants.

Open borders are crucial for people who drive down labor costs by using immigrant labor. These are rich people. Are they paying for these protests?

I hate it when people attribute every protest to paid agitators. Most protests are sincere. The BLM riots were completely sincere for most participants. But these anti-ICE protests are completely different.

This is why I keep saying that somebody needs to investigate Renee Good’s history of employment. Somebody needs to find out why she moved to Minneapolis. We are wasting our time poring over video clips when there’s a set of huge, pulsating, unanswered questions.

The more such situations there are, the likelier it is that somebody gets hurt. Unless the root of the situation is extirpated, there will be more hurt civilians or police.

One person’s heaven is another’s hell:

Morning nanny has been a game changer for us.

We hired someone who comes over for two hours each morning. They empty the dishwasher, feed the pets, let the dog out, make the kid’s lunch, set up breakfast, and turn on the coffee maker.

$350 a week.

— Joe Pohlen (@joepohlen) January 7, 2026

For my sins, I will be tortured in hell by being forced to experience a morning nanny.

Truly, human variety is extraordinary. To think that there are people who willingly subject themselves to morning nanny and actually seek one out. For money. Unbelievable.

The Dean took away our office manager. I’m supposed to be upset but I’m secretly elated because it’s easier for me to do the paperwork myself than endlessly to witness and manage her complex emotional states. I feel like I’m being let out of jail early.

It’s both annoying and funny to see every leftist in the country mechanically recite the same lines about Renee Good. I’ve never seen people so into repeating identical wording infinity times.

It’s also very bizarre that they invariably refer to her as a citizen. One after another, like windup toys, they chirp “US citizen legal observer.” All of a sudden they are really into the concept of citizenship and legality. Funny people.

🇺🇸 Bro was just trying to pick up his daughter but instead encountered a whole bunch of extreme radical the deranged liberals blocking the road. pic.twitter.com/A3Mm3cgdFl

— Concerned Citizen (@BGatesIsaPyscho) January 8, 2026

I know it’s an old video but I never identified with anybody more than with this guy.

The biggest societal tension is between people who think their boutique grievances make them entitled to spoil everybody’s day and people who just want to get to their kids.