Opinions, art, debate
What can I say? It’s embarrassing. I’m deeply embarrassed on behalf of my country.
None of this humiliation was even necessary. The Europeans could have handled it and they were eager to handle it. Instead, Putin gets to mock Trump, and Witkoff has to offer bumbling excuses that betray impotence, befuddlement, and subservience.
But at least this administration is ready to go to war for Israel. Let’s take a W where we can.
We no longer teach the literature or culture of Quebec (which used to be very popular with students), and the flag of Quebec has been removed from public space.
I rescued it and it now lives in my office:
I destroyed every Russian flag in the building by snipping them into tiny ribbons with manicure scissors. That was enjoyable.
The first Trump presidency was a complete failure domestically but extremely successful in foreign policy.
The second Trump presidency is very successful domestically and a complete failure in foreign policy.
Yesterday, we had a meeting in support of the Physics program. The department Chair started off well by saying that a university without physics is a glorified community college.
Unfortunately, then he immediately proceeded to spoil the mood of solidarity and support by saying that there are many other departments that are less profitable than his and that should be eliminated first. The audience that consisted of Chairs of other departments experienced an immediate cooling of supportive feelings for physics.
“I have a list of the departments that I think should be eliminated right here,” the physicist ranted. “I can read it out if you want!”
Everybody sat there, feeling embarrassed and very lacking in solidarity.
On the positive side, the student newspaper came out with an excellent article covering the preceding meeting (yes, too many meetings, for sure) regarding the evisceration of physics. The last sentence of the article is now repeated by everybody on campus. We now greet each other with it.
The administration asked us not to talk about this to anybody outside the university, which is why I’m doing the exact opposite.
P.S. Since the publication of this post, the linked article was censored and the last sentence which was “Fuck the Chancellor” was removed.
I talked a woman out of an abortion once. I never met her. She was a blog reader. And I actually convinced her to have the baby. She sent me pictures. It’s a little girl.
I cried like a beluga the whole time I was corresponding with her. She had an appointment for the abortion. Everybody she knew was pressuring her to abort.
I’m really proud of this.
Honestly, getting very tired of the ceaseless prattle about the Middle East.
As for the actual Russian war, if this readout is correct, Trump conceded everything that Russia wants and got absolutely nothing in return. This is Trump’s first-term kind of ineptitude. Why it’s not possible to let Europeans deal with it and concentrate on domestic affairs has not been explained. The kind of a “deal” where the US facilitates that there’s no damage done to the Russian oil industry is no deal at all.
This is sad ineptitude and lack of seriousness.
This is verbatim the argument that Putin made 20 years ago. We have seen where this mentality led. You want the same crap in Australia? Why?
My mother is preparing for a very serious oncological surgery today. I called her, and she’s very chirpy.
“They just weighed me,” she said excitedly, “and I lost 8 kgs. And I didn’t even have to do anything!”
Women are such women. It’s really cute and gives me hope that if she can still care about losing weight, the surgery will be fine.
If you speak Russian, do yourself a solid and go read the replies under this tweet featuring a “social ad” in Russian subway:
I wept with laughter, and now my face is swollen and I’m hiccuping. People give the wittiest, most entertaining explanations of what the picture means.
This is completely apolitical and simply very funny.
I knew in early January of 2020 that COVID was leaked from a lab and wrote it on this blog. It is not my responsibility or my job to know. But I knew. So I have no compassion for people who pretend to be shocked by the realization that the official COVID narrative stank of lying.
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