Ta-Nehisi Coates is a victim of his own journalistic talent. His articles are meticulously researched, never rushed, always supported by mountains of evidence, and deeply insightful.

In the age of snappy soundbites, though, these skills are not that valued. People skim the headers and write responses to the articles based on what they assume the journalist must be saying. And then Coates has to beg people at least to read what he wrote before opining on it.

It’s not that surprising that careless, stupid journalists proliferate since the readers can’t deal with more nuanced, complex writing.

“People who are willing to admit they are more narcissistic than others probably actually are more narcissistic,” said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and a professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University.

“People who are narcissists are almost proud of the fact. You can ask them directly because they don’t see narcissism as a negative quality – they believe they are superior to other people and are fine with saying that publicly.”

This is completely, totally and utterly wrong. Narcissists believe that they are victims of everybody else’s egotism. They see themselves as selfless, altruistic, quiet little victims who are unfairly persecuted by everybody else. Do you know somebody who keeps complaining that other people are too selfish? Somebody who keeps asking, “Why does everybody hate me so much?” or “What have I ever done to people to be treated this way?” Somebody who always feel under-appreciated? That’s your narcissist right there.

Here is a question I have: what is the Liberal philosophy of foreign policy in this country? What is its organizing principle?

The Conservative philosophy of foreign policy exists and everybody knows what it is. Its organizing principle is that the US should strive to be the world’s policeman / arbiter / “a force of good in the world.” Leaving aside the issue of whether this is a good philosophy and whether we agree with it, I want to point out that it exists and everybody is familiar with it, not only here but pretty much everywhere in the world.

Now my question is: what is the alternative? I’ve been trying to find out what the organizing principle behind the Liberal approach to foreign policy is for years but it’s a lot more elusive. Liberal commentators are very open as to what they don’t want to see happening in terms of US foreign policy. They are, however, very reticent concerning what they do want.

Sometimes I think that the ideal foreign policy for Liberals is that of a complete Buchanan-style withdrawal coupled with a stream of payments to poorer countries. This would be akin to paying the world to leave us alone so that we can engage in contented navel-gazing without being disturbed by pesky outsiders.

At other times, it seems like there is not even such a limited philosophy in place, and the Liberal response to every situation that arises is strictly situational and based on “let’s see what the other side is advocating and do the exact opposite.”

Does anybody have an answer?

Shimon Peres gave a talk in Ukraine and encouraged Ukrainians never to go on vacation because vacations are a waste of time and he’s never taken one in his 90+ years of life.

I only have one response when I hear this sort of thing: poor fellow, what a horrible, empty personal life he must have had. Never to have met a person with whom he’d want to spend 6 weeks in bed actively not working. Never to have known the kind of love that makes one want to spend the day, the week, the month looking at the beloved person, walking and talking with her. Never to have been wanted by anybody for three whole days of uninterrupted togetherness.

Yes, I know he had a wife. That must have been a beaut of a relationship if he had to hide from it at work every day of his life.

In case there are people who still haven’t seen the clowns from Spain who got naked to help Palestinians, here they are:

I’m not calling them clowns to be offensive. That’s simply their profession, they work as clowns.

It is not clear how this is supposed to help Palestinians. Palestinians seem to be unclear on that, as well. But things are still quite bad in Spain economically, especially for performers, and the clowns are trying to make themselves known in ways that are often quite weird.

It seemed like it was time for some light-hearted, cheerful news on the blog, and this seemed to work for that purpose.

I just watched Hillary’s first live TV interview in this campaign. She was confident, direct, friendly, and brimming with optimism. And why wouldn’t she if the winner of yesterday’s Republican debate owes her success to imitating Hillary herself passably well?

What was especially great is that Hillary made use of the best argument that the Democrats have and that Obama never managed to drive home forcefully enough: Republicans are incredibly inept on the economy. (Everybody who wants to argue with me on this should read this morning’s post on stupid people and stop being a dick.)

Good interview, great prospects.

The Republican candidates are getting a lot of flak for not managing to name any important American women last night.

I was going to laugh at the poor hapless fellows and the lady who stood out with her great Hillary impression, but then I realized: I would have the same problem they did if asked these questions.

I can spend all day naming the British, Spanish, Ukrainian, French, and even Russian women who achieved greatness but aside from Susan B. Anthony and Rosa Parks, I can’t name any American female greats. Is this my (and the candidates’) ignorance, or do these great women really not exist?

P. S. Please don’t name women whose achievement consists of marrying some important man. I find that sort of thing to be deeply offensive.

So Elton John got a phone call from Putin. Of course, he immediately started simpering and whimpering, “Oh, thank you so much for calling, oh, I love Russia so much.” After the call ended, he made sure everybody found out about this great honor.

And, obviously, it immediately became known that Putin never made that call. A couple of tricksters played a joke on Sir John, that’s all.

But before you laugh at the gullibility of Elton John, get this: an article in The New York Times says that sources in the White House confirm that Obama is in favor of accepting Putin’s help that will consist in keeping Assad in power in perpetuity. This means that Obama is ready to bury any hope for the end of the war in Syria because he chooses to believe Putin’s overtures of friendship.

Elton John is an easily excitable artist. What’s Obama’s excuse?

So. The state of Illinois still charges all of us (state university employees) a considerable amount of money for our health insurance. Yet it has now told us that our health costs will not be covered by said insurance. We are told to pay for our healthcare costs “in cash.”

The last time I saw a doctor was Monday. The bill for that visit was $1078. Does anybody have this kind of cash just lying around?

The state takes our money that is supposed to go towards healthcare and uses it to cover other needs. Like, for instance, the enormous salaries to Governor Rauner’s humongous cast of bureaucrats and lackeys.

People, use your brains. Try to use your brains, people. You buy into these ridiculous lies about Republicans wanting “a small government” and being “pro-life”. Then you elect scam artists like Rauner who immediately order to take sick kids off ventilators and steal medical insurance from patients in order to pay for a hugely expanded bureaucratic staff that will make them and their useless relatives feel important.

First, they vote for this deadbeat and then they whine that the state is impoverished. Congenitally stupid losers, that’s who they are.

Yes, it’s obvious that nobody in their right mind would fail to see this is a clock. Every clock in my house looks exactly like this. Silly scare-mongerers who can’t recognize a clock when they see one!

Of course, the kid is not to blame for anything. But it’s also understandable that people look at this and remember that Columbine was planned to be primarily a bombing attack. And framing this as “Texan idiots freak out about a clock” is a bit unfair.