“Every successful system accumulates parasites.” That statement, quoted in Kevin Kelly’s Out of Control, was proposed as a law of nature by evolutionary biologist Thomas Ray back in the 1980s.
This is how we know that America is a very successful system indeed. But every system has a limit to how heavy a parasite load it can carry, and I think we’ve reached ours.
WASHINGTON—King Charles III arrives in Washington on Monday to publicly celebrate 250 years since a nascent U.S. republic ousted his forebears, and privately ensure that a fraying trans-Atlantic relationship can cope with another two-plus years of President Trump.
The four day visit—billed as Charles’s most high-wire diplomatic act since coming to the throne—will include a speech to Congress, the first time a British monarch has spoken there since 1991, a private audience with Trump and state dinner in Washington, as well as trips to New York and Virginia.
Falkland islanders should go back to England, Argentina’s vice-president said after Buenos Aires renewed its claim to the British overseas territory.
Argentina’s claim to what it calls the Malvinas was boosted when Donald Trump threatened to review the official US position on the islands after the UK did not join his war on Iran.
Javier Milei, Argentina’s president and a close ally of Mr Trump, said last week that the “the Malvinas were, are and will always be Argentine”.
We sometimes forget that the bad economic policy choices of U.S. politicians often pale in comparison to those of their counterparts in other countries. The result is that, despite the government’s best efforts, Americans are growing more prosperous at a faster rate than their peers elsewhere. The divergence is happening so rapidly, the U.K.’s Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) recently pointed out, that Britons (among others) lose track of how quickly they’re falling behind Americans’ wealth and living standards. A return to free-market principles could help to once again even the score.
You have to wonder what the Elbow people were voting for.
What counts as “foreign interference?”
In January, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said in an interview that “Alberta has a wealth of natural resources, but they won’t let them build a pipeline to the Pacific,” in this case, “they” being the federal government.
Referring to Alberta, he went on to say, “I think we should let them come down into the US, and Alberta is a natural partner for the US. They have great resources. The Albertans are very independent people.”
TEXAS – A landmark U.S. fentanyl-trafficking prosecution that investigators say reaches from Texas and Mexico into China’s chemical supply chains has taken a new turn, with defense lawyers for accused broker Minsu “Fernando” Fang asking a federal judge to authorize the deposition of a witness in Shenzhen, China, whom they claim can provide exculpatory evidence.
OTTAWA — Jason Stanley moved from the United States to Canada last September, leaving behind a high-profile position at Yale to take a job at the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto.
The fascism researcher said he made the move for one reason: academic freedom.
“That’s the only reason. Nobody’s coming to Canada for higher wages because you’re not getting higher wages. You’re getting lower retirement, lower salaries, sometimes more teaching. So it’s academic freedom,” Stanley said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
The war in Iran has revealed plenty about America’s ability to inflict damage on its enemies, Tehran’s capacity to resist pressure and Washington’s broader tendency to get itself stuck in the Middle East – a region several US presidents planned to extricate from. The conflict has been paused since 7 April due to a ceasefire that Trump extended earlier in the week. But it is nonetheless revealing a gradual systemic shift in the so-called international order that has been bubbling beneath the surface for years.
The movable object is none other than the transatlantic alliance which, through Nato, has bound the United States and most of Europe into a single security construct. That perennial institution, which security elites on both sides of the Atlantic have for decades held up as the pinnacle of what an alliance should be, is beginning to lose its lustre. This is thanks to the weight of diverging geopolitical priorities, divisions within Europe itself and President Trump’s propensity to treat European states as the equivalent of a lazy 25 year old who refuses to leave the house and get a job.
Said Jama Ahmed might not be walking the plank, but the Somali pirate definitely needs to be shipped out of our country.
Ahmed, in fact, has a history with the U.S. military and federal immigration enforcement, as the Navy caught him committing piracy in the Gulf of Aden back in 2012, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) later caught him here in 2024 after he illegally entered our country. It appears authorities removed him, but he returned to try to enter America from the north instead of the south. Apparently, piracy wasn’t the lucrative profession he thought it would be, so he decided to sneak into our country and rob American taxpayers instead.
More than two dozen members and associates of the Mexican mafia were arrested during an early morning crackdown in southern California, federal authorities said on Thursday.
The FBI and other federal and local agencies executed search and arrest warrants at locations mostly in Orange county, south of Los Angeles, according to the US attorney’s office.
A total of 43 people have been indicted on charges including murder, kidnapping, extortion, running an illegal gambling operation and drug trafficking, prosecutors said.
The Indian government has denounced a social media post shared by Donald Trump that described India as a “hellhole”, calling the comments inappropriate and “in poor taste”.
On Wednesday, Trump posted a four-page transcription of remarks made by the conservative podcast host Michael Savage that denounced the US constitutional right to citizenship of everyone born in the country.
Without evidence, the post accused Indian immigrants in the tech industry of not hiring white native-born Americans and inaccurately alleged that Indian immigrants lacked English proficiency.
“A baby here becomes an instant citizen, and then they bring the entire family in from China or India or some other hellhole on the planet,” the post said. Trump also posted a video of Savage delivering the comments.
Sovereignty of the Falkland Islands “rests with the UK”, Downing Street has said, following a report the US could review its position on Britain’s claim to the territory.
An internal Pentagon email reported by Reuters suggested the US was considering options to punish Nato allies it believed failed to support its war on Iran.
The options discussed also included seeking Spain’s suspension from Nato over its opposition to war.
Asked about the report, a No 10 spokesman said: “The Falkland Islands have hugely voted overwhelmingly in favour of remaining a UK overseas territory, and we’ve always stood behind the islanders’ right to self-determination and the fact that sovereignty rests with the UK.”
I mean, if anyone’s in a big rush to get out of the States because of the BAD ORANGE MAN, but finds themselves in a straitened circumstance. You know, the kind where you can’t exactly afford the spread in the Cotswolds that Ellen and Portia bought, nor that ticket to Costa Rica so you can hide on cheap jungle hideaway time, like Tarzan or Jane, but with air-conditioning and a flush toilet.
Last year, on the 13th anniversary of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, an unconstitutional program he had conjured into existence by executive fiat, Barack Obama was singing its praises.
“DACA was an example of how we can be a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws,” Obama said. “And it’s an example worth remembering today, when families with similar backgrounds who just want to live, work, and support their communities, are being demonized and treated as enemies.”
And it’s all a lie.
I am 100% for sure going to hell for enjoying this New York Times article as much as I am. There but for the grace of God go I, I remind myself. But then, I would never have put myself in that position, devoting my professional life to making six figures off the taxpayer to work on “nice-to-haves” rather than creating actual, useful products that must survive in the marketplace.
Anyhoo, the article that is bringing me so much guilty pleasure is entitled “A Year After U.S.A.I.D.’s Death, Fired Workers Find Few Jobs and Much Loss.” The subtitle tells the tale: “People have plowed through savings, cashed out retirement funds and moved in with relatives. Former U.S.A.I.D. workers estimate that less than half have found full-time work.” Why, it’s almost as if no one would hire them to ply their trade, so they must force taxpayers to subsidize it.
