OK, who wants to hear a really short joke?

Here goes: Saudi Arabia will head a U.N. Human Rights Council panel.

It would be immensely funny if it weren’t true.

Remember how I told you about the typically American incapacity to admit the basic humanity of anybody who is not American? Here is an example:

As this NYT story illustrates, the White House is going to great lengths to make it look as if Putin is desperate to meet with Obama.

According to this mentality, whenever anything in the world happens, it has got to be the result of Americans’ actions.

In reality, though, the White House doesn’t make anything look like or whatever. Putin is really desperate for this meeting. Every single independent commentator in Russia or specializing in the subject of Russia has been pointing this out for months. For Putin, this meeting is an enormous win over the “weak and dumb” Americans and especially over the “[nasty racist words] Obama.” This has been all over the Russian media and it’s not the result of White House’s make-believe strategies.

It’s getting so that we will soon hear that “the White House is going to great lengths to make it look like it’s September.”

I’m hearing that I’m not supposed to rejoice because Boehner is retiring since he’ll be substituted by somebody even worse. But can anybody honestly say it will not be a relief to be spared having to see his weepy mug again?

All of these so-called Liberals who are peeing themselves with delight over the Pope’s visit demonstrate how easily they sell out the interests and the dignity of women. The Pope is militant and very aggressive in his anti-woman agenda but that does not worry his Dem fans.

Women’s rights always take the back seat to absolutely everything else.

A really brilliant Russian scholar says, “Oh, of course, Putin will get a great reception at the UN General Assembly. About 150 out of the 200 participating nations have no idea what Ukraine even is or where it is located but they are deeply convinced that the US is evil. They don’t often say it directly but everybody they perceive as being against the US is guaranteed their support. Putin’s success is not about Putin. It’s about the popularity of anti-American rhetoric.

Putin will not be contented, though. The opinion of these 150 representatives is of no value to him. He needs to be loved by the US.”

Checking the time on one’s smartphone is falling out of style. Just like people are moving away from digital books and back to the real thing, they are also going back to real wrist watches.

Here is my new watch that came in a set with the bracelets:

I remember to put the watch on every day but now the goal is to remember to look at it when I need to know the time. After years of reaching for the phone to see the time, it will take time to learn to consult the watch once again.

Somebody asked me the other day why I consider Elizabeth Warren a populist. Here is an example of her pronouncements that make me cringe:

Here we are, the richest country on earth — we have so much going for us, and yet we have a federal government that works great for millionaires, it works great for billionaires, it works great for giant corporations. It works great for anybody who can hire an army of lobbyists, an army of lawyers, give lots of campaign money. For the rest of America, it’s just not working.

This is garbage, people. This is overwrought, self-pitying garbage that I detest. Everything works great for me and for every single person I know. And it’s obvious that things are working beautifully for Elizabeth Warren, as well.

There is a lot of really bad shit in this country. Poverty, horrible, hopeless slums, segregation. And all this has got to be addressed. But it won’t be addressed by the self-pitying “us against the billionaires” melodrama because things are a lot more complicated than that.

I was driving through East St Louis a while ago and I saw this woman on the porch of a dilapidated house. East St Louis is a slum, in case you didn’t know. The chances of a person there becoming a victim of violent crime is one in 28, more than ten times higher than in the rest of the state. I don’t know what needs to happen for me to find the cynicism and the shamelessness to say that I know anything about the hardship faced by that woman on the porch. She and I are not in the same boat just because neither of us is a billionaire.

I don’t believe for a second that Warren is speaking to the people in East St Louis or Gary, Indiana  (another horrible slum that I’ll never forget.) She is speaking to spoiled middle-class folks who love the “99% vs 1%” slogan because it makes them feel less guilty about the existence of the slums. When they say, “We are all dispossessed compared to the millionaires on Wall Street,” they conveniently erase the uncomfortable fact that some of us are a lot more dispossessed than others.

This is the nature of populism today. It’s all about allowing people to wallow in self-pity and, in return for a chance to feel like victims, they love you. And I hate this shit.

I’m very very worried that during the upcoming meeting with Putin, Obama will hand over to him Ukraine in exchange for a promise to help combat ISIS in Syria.

Obviously, Putin will not keep that promise but it’s not like there are ever any consequences for him when he does that.

I’m afraid that, once again, Putin will dupe the simpleton Americans. Believe me, Putin is not that smart. It’s a real shame to keep losing to such a dumb fellow.

I sometimes feel ready to lose all faith in humanity. People are actually trying to pay Carson for his anti-Muslim statements:

For Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson, months of robocalls, campaign speeches, and merchandise sales paled in comparison to the campaign donations he received after a series of anti-Muslim remarks. Carson, who drew widespread criticism after declaring on Sunday that the United States should not elect a Muslim president, is now raking in the cash from donors who share his anti-Islam sympathies.

With the number of Muslims in the US population staying somewhere under 2%, chances are most of these people have not even met any Muslims. So they are parting with their own money, money they could spend on having a good time or buying something for their kids, to pay Carson to say something stupid about a subject they are unfamiliar with.