United States

Authored by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,

Patrick Buchanan is an informative and interesting writer. On foreign policy, especially, he's long been one of the most reasonable voices among high-level American pundits.

When it comes to cultural matters, however, Buchanan has long held to a peculiar and empirically questionable version of American history in which the United States was once a mono-culture in which everyone was once happily united by "a common religion," a "common language," and a "common culture."

Authored by Kevin Muir via The Macro Tourist blog,

It’s one of those periods when everything is conspiring against precious metals. For those of the bullish persuasion, this can be a difficult time. I have resorted to wearing my own self-imposed “cone of precious metal trading” in an attempt to stop me from buying too much, too early.

Via Dilber Creator Scott Adams' blog,

I have some spare time this morning so I thought I would solve the North Korean nuclear threat problem.

The current frame on how all sides are approaching the problem is a win-lose setup. Either North Korea wins – and develops nukes that can reach the mainland USA – or the United States wins, and North Korea abandons its nuclear plans, loses face, loses leverage, and loses security. Our current framing of the situation doesn’t have a path to success. 

With Presidents Trump and Putin having spoken for over two hours on the sidelines of the G-20 meeting in Hamburg, well over the 30 minutes initially scheduled, the US press was going berserk with speculation what the two asre discussing for so long - surely CNN's anonymous sources had already disclosed that Trump was about to announce some tax-efficient handover of the US to Moscow...

... there was a surprise announcement, because as AP reported, the US and Russia did announce a cease-fire agreement in southwest Syria. 

Following their first ever, 2+ hour meeting which was originally supposed to last only 30-40 minutes, the question on everyone's mind was what did the two discuss.

So, in addition to the previously discussed ceasefire agreement in Southwest Syria unexpectedly announced by the two nations, speaking at the beginning of his meeting with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Vladimir Putin said that during his first meeting with US President Donald Trump, the two discussed Syria, Ukraine, counterterrorism, and drumroll, the "fight against cyber crime."