The entire Russian team was banned from participating in the Paralympics because of doping. 
Even Russian invalids are fake.

Every time I come to Montréal, I cram in more sociability than I get in the whole year of being away. It’s a commuter lifestyle times 100: work all year and then get all the partying, shopping and eating out done in one week.

The story of Sasha Obama working at a takeout is distasteful and vomit-inducing. I guess Michelle must definitely be planning to run for office if such a vulgar show had to be staged.

Bleh. 

Zizek decided to write about the real meaning of the toilet wars, and, as usual, did brilliantly. 

People are desperate to join the fluid elites and invent increasingly outlandish ways of signaling their readiness to be fluid. But the only real point of fluidity is to sweep away all opposition to the free movement of capital.

The really funny thing is how people keep thinking they are being hugely subversive and progressive when all they are doing is advancing the goals of fluid capital. 

Another terror attack happened in Belgium. Two female police officers were attacked by a machete-wielding creep. Thankfully, the officers survived. 

There was also a knife attack in London a few days ago. The wife of an American college professor was killed. 

Nobody even seems to react to these attacks any longer. They are not shocking enough after Bataclan and Nice. The victims tend to be women, which is another reason nobody pays attention.

Welfare was the basic contract between the nation-state and its citizens. Welfare includes public education, public medical care, public libraries, unemployment benefits, things like food stamps and disability assistance  etc. 

Guaranteed basic income is a feature of post-nation state. This form of state no longer has any interest in providing welfare for its people. Instead, it hides those who are not managing to find a place in the fluid world from view. The best way to hide them and forget about them is to substitute welfare with GBI. They won’t starve and will be removed from public view. As for everything else, the state no longer cares. 

There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we will see a collapse of welfare and the rise in GBI.

Welfare and guaranteed basic income are not the same. 

Welfare integrates people back into society by offering assistance in a difficult moment. 

GBI dispenses with the concept of temporary hardship and the need to reintegrate everybody into productive life and marginalizes people we are too lazy or indifferent to integrate. 

If there were a guaranteed basic income, Trump would be guaranteed a win.

The baptism ceremony was a lot of fun. The poor godparents worked their tails off while the parents snooze in the corner. The best part of the process was when the priest snipped off a strand of Klara’s hair and burned it on a candle. The candle is to be used at her wedding. “Twenty years from now,” the priest said. Given how old N and I are, we didn’t say no to this plan.

The hardworking godparents are in the photo:

The church is somber and there are no seats. Which is just as well because sitting makes spiritual betterment hard. 

I made sure I look like a regular baba. My face is much rounder, by the way. Selfies always make it weirdly elongated.