Just spent 20 minutes arguing with a student who was insisting that I taught him German back in 2010. At the end of the conversation, I found myself in a weird position of saying, “I swear to you that I don’t speak German. No, but I swear. No, I haven’t forgotten teaching German. I promise I never did.”

I have no idea how anybody could have confused me with the 6-foot-3 bearded American who actually taught that course. But I’m urgently making an appointment at the waxing salon.

Wow, finally Obama is waking up and getting into the game:

The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century after the release of an American contractor held in prison for five years, American officials said Wednesday.

In a deal negotiated during 18 months of secret talks hosted largely by Canada and encouraged by Pope Francis, who hosted a final meeting at the Vatican, President Obama and President Raúl Castro of Cuba agreed in a telephone call to put aside decades of hostility to find a new relationship between the United States and the island nation just 90 miles off the American coast.

This is a lot better than handing Cuba over to Putin. This is good news and a big win for the good guys. Of course, the Cuban immigrants will be upset but it isn’t like world politics has to bend to their immigrant trauma.

Here is an ad on Russian TV announcing an up-coming press conference with the president of Russia:

And this is how smart people hype up their presidents.

Here is an article on this and other similar videos.

Thank you, reader Tim, for this great link.

The Russian rouble held steady for years at about 30-33 roubles to a dollar.
Last week, it started plummeting and yesterday we saw it go down to 80 roubles per dollar.

The collapse of the rouble has to do with a single thing: the oil prices have gone down.

Russia has no economy. The whole country is not really a country. It is,  rather, a corporation that sells oil. Everything else exists as long as oil is sold and fetches a decent price. No effort has been made to diversify the country’s economy. This is why Russia is so beholden to the oil price fluctuations.

Oil prices do tend to fluctuate. This isn’t a conspiracy or a result of any “sanctions.” It just happens. For the past 10 years,  as the oil prices held steadily high, analysts in Russia kept warning about the problematic nature of such an economy.

Of course, it makes me happy to stare at the charts where the sad trajectory of the rouble can be admired. But let’s not kid ourselves: this doesn’t really matter. This is a small distracting blip that doesn’t change the big picture.

And if Putin stops being the leader of Russia,  that will also be a tiny, insignificant blip. There are crowds more where he came from.

The reason why I’m rooting for Americans and against Russians in the bid for world domination is simply that American society is vastly superior. I know both,  so I can judge.  The way of life that Americans created is also vastly superior. So is their way of relating to themselves and each other.

Sadly, the truly superior never realize that about themselves. It’s only the barbarians that scream about their superiority. All Americans want to do these days is discuss the ways in which they are not perfect. What they are forgetting is that in the world of mass communications everybody is listening.
“You see?” Russians are exclaiming triumphantly. “They are not perfect. They said so themselves! Now we, on the other hand, represent real perfection.”

“Yes,” Americans say. “They really must be perfect. Why would they say so otherwise?”

When Columbus first came to the Americas, he had no idea what he was seeing. His frame of reference was quite limited, and after throwing around a few possibilities,  he had his answer.

“This is paradise!” he exclaimed. “How come I didn’t know from the start? I have found heaven!”

But it wasn’t paradise. It still isn’t. And Americans will never stop beating themselves up for not living up to Columbus ‘ s fantasy. The need to wake up every day and try to create paradise is a great strength because it leads to incredible achievement and to the most comfortable lifestyle on this planet. It is also a great vulnerability because you are doomed to fail. Every day.

If everybody else needs simply to avoid creating hell to be successful, you put yourself at a disadvantage when you promise to come up with heaven.

America is a place where those who have been rejected by the rest of the world come together and take their revenge on the world by showing what the planet’s outcasts can do. It is no wonder their dream is so grand.

Well, at least this school is brutally honest:

Every YES Prep student, unless exempt from such requirements by the student’s ARD (Admission Review Dismissal) committee,must take and pass at least one Advanced Placement or dual-credit course for high school credit in order to be eligible to receive his/her high school diploma. …

College Acceptance Requirement

A student must be accepted to at least one four-year college or university in order to be eligible for a YES Prep high school diploma.

This school just goes ahead and announces openly that its diploma is worthless unless followed up with a college degree. This is not the school’s fault. It simply responds to reality and should be commended for doing so with a greater honesty than the President of this country managed to muster when he promised high-schoolers white collar jobs by the thousand.

Sometimes people come up with really stupid and offensive products:

Nazi Hanukkah Wrapping Paper: Just this past week, a Northridge, California, Walgreens didn’t think twice before putting Hanukkah wrapping paper on its shelves that happened to display swastikas as a part of its pattern. When one woman complained, Walgreens decided to pull the party wrap from its stores.

There’s more idiocy here including but not limited to the Zara Holocaust shirt, Hitler creamers, and sexy Ebola nurse costumes.

A really great post that once again demonstrates that Facebook is filled with nastiness and stupidity.

Decided to give another chance to The Nation. Opened the fresh issue and discovered that Putin is great, reasonable, wonderful, and unfairly persecuted by evil Americans. Spit on the magazine but didn’t feel any better.

The Nation seems to be going in the same direction as the nation-state. I need to go stare on the chart of the rouble plummeting to make myself feel better.