Author: nick

[ad_1] Of all countries on Earth, the UK should be the easiest one to spell. Fortunate, as the country has a new ed-ju-cay-shun sekrettary, Lucy Powell, who thinks spelling tests are “draconian” attempts to “micro-manage” the minds of children, and that “creativity” in such matters ought to be encouraged instead. If she was ever admitted to hospital needing an operation on her ilium, but came out having half her ileum removed by an illiterate surgeon, she might change her mind.  Amongst the words Powell finds too “obscure” for children to know are “knight,” “explosion,” “adventure,” and “through”—or possibly “threw,” who…

[ad_1] Columbia Gorge shrouded in smoke. Photo: Jeffrey St. Clair. Hōfuku, pointing at the mountains: “Is this not reality?”Chōkei: “It is. But it’s a pity to say so.” On August fifth, Lola and I went for our morning walk. It didn’t feel like morning. It was too hot for morning. It didn’t smell like morning. The winds had shifted overnight. Instead of blowing off the Pacific, they were now coming from the northeast. From central Washington. From Spokane, when Spokane was burning. We were looking at a sky scrimmed with smoke from the fires of Spokane, three hundred and fifty…

[ad_1] Fox World is all a-twitter because a handful of members or fellow travelers of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) are about to be elected to the U.S. Congress and various state legislatures. They’re “godless communists,” according to President Trump, and what with inflation, an insane war, and Trump family grift, we’ll be hearing about commies all election season. Michael “The Other America” Harrington, founder of DSA, was about as threatening as the Mills Brothers. The current DSA candidates seem, at first glance, as off-putting as your typical hectoring grad-school wokester, but I can’t get too worked up over…

[ad_1] There is a law professor in the United States who, until last summer, could have been prosecuted by his own government for giving legal advice. His name is Gabor Rona. He teaches at Cardozo Law School in New York. His crime, in the eyes of the executive branch, was that the advice went to lawyers at the International Criminal Court. For that—for speech, for the transmission of ideas—the government of the United States claimed the power to freeze his assets and prosecute him under a statute meant for hostile foreign powers. In July 2025, a federal judge told the…

[ad_1] In the kind of official occasion now vanishingly rare, on July 9 King Charles and Queen Camilla, leading a large slice of the great and the good in British arts and culture, paid tribute to the playwright Sir Tom Stoppard at a memorial event at the National Theatre in London. Indeed, the death of Stoppard eight months ago (his funeral in Dorset was a small family affair), has been the most resonant cultural news story in Britain in the past several years for reasons both superficial and momentous.  Stoppard was the most glittering figure in Britain’s intellectual and high-cultural…

[ad_1] A third-party bid by the disaffected MAGA podcaster would be difficult – and beneficial to Democrats [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] The Long View of Iran [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] Reprinted with permission from The Jason Jones Show substack. Have you seen the ruling classes’ latest ploy for holding onto power rather than allow the public to hold them accountable through straightforward and honest elections? It’s clear as day to anyone with eyes to see. And the fact that the powerful now operate as much within the “MAGA” brand as in the Democratic establishment shouldn’t blind us. If we let it, then even some of the best of us will soon be taken in – becoming useful idiots for the same ruling classes that the MAGA movement was founded…

[ad_1] “Turn back, O man, forswear thy foolish ways,” begins an old Episcopal hymn, from the time before that church became a Vestals cult. Conservatives know our country is declining at an ever-increasing pace. But many seem not to understand how to reverse that decline: turn back to what worked in the past. Common sense should tell us what worked then can work now.  Elections provide an example. President Donald Trump has made the electoral process an issue, for good reason. Electronic voting, with everything else electronic, is subject to endless manipulation, which, if done right, cannot be detected. Add…

[ad_1] Image by Artur Voznenko. The Makkah Joint Defence Agreement, signed by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Turkiye on August 7, has quickly invited comparisons with an “Islamic NATO.” Initially, that analogy appeared premature. But subsequent statements by senior Pakistani and Turkish officials have made it harder to dismiss altogether. Pakistan’s Defence Minister Khawaja Asif has advocated a NATO-like collective-defence arrangement among Muslim countries. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has gone further, describing the Makkah agreement as technically comparable to NATO’s Article 5 and discussing plans for a ministerial mechanism and permanent secretariat in Saudi Arabia. Riyadh has been more circumspect,…