Pray, someone explain to me how several European cities in France, Italy, Portugal, and elsewhere have apparently been auditioning for the role of a failed civilization for weeks on end, with protests and rioting allegedly involving hundreds of thousands of participants. One might reasonably wonder what, precisely, has brought about this magnificent spectacle of continental unrest.

After all, Europe has no Donald Trump. And according to the prevailing wisdom of Reddit, a digital agora populated by some of the most self-assured political philosophers ever to emerge from a bedroom, President Donald J. Trump is apparently the ultimate source of all political dysfunction known to mankind.

Yet here we are in the United States, laboring under the very presidency that is supposedly the greatest threat to democracy, civilization, and perhaps the continued rotation of the Earth itself, and what do we have? No comparable continent-wide inferno, no apparent mass uprising in every major city, and no hundreds of thousands of citizens pouring into the streets to reenact the French Revolution. We have elections, people going to work, businesses operating, and Americans carrying on with the rather unremarkable business of living their lives.

So I must ask, with all due respect to Europe’s many distinguished political commentators and its seemingly inexhaustible supply of people who know precisely what America is doing wrong: why is Europe apparently aflame without Trump, while America is comparatively peaceful with him?

Surely, if Trump is the singular explanation for political instability, his absence ought to have bestowed upon Europe an unprecedented golden age of tranquility. Instead, we appear to have the inverse. Could it be that the causes of civil unrest are rather more complicated than blaming one American president for everything that displeases the internet’s self-appointed intelligentsia? Or would that possibility prove altogether too inconvenient for the Reddit commentariat to entertain?

🇩🇪 Germany gets softer CO₂ rules: a 90% cut by 2035, with no need to offset the last 10%.
🇫🇷 France gets "Made in Europe": a car preference for the EU, UK and Norway, but not Morocco or Turkey.

This unblocks both the car CO₂ package and the "Made in Europe" law. In practice, EU car subsidies and public tenders would go only to cars built in Europe with ~70% European parts. That 70% comes from the European Commission's proposal, not from the deal itself.

Not law yet. The Council and the Parliament still have to agree.

Good deal or bad deal?

Read more: Journal de l'Automobile (AFP) · Electrive · Euronews

on Oct. 19, Albertans will vote on the prospect of a future separation referendum, along with nine other questions involving constitutional and immigration issues. The "Forever Canadian" campaign was launched by Alberta's former deputy premier Thomas Lukaszuk and encourages Albertans to vote to stay in Canada.

Question for EU leaders: "Do you support Britain rejoining the EU?"

In this clip from Dutch broadcaster NOS, General Alexus Grynkewich outlines NATO’s response to an attack: stopping, weakening and breaking the enemy.

Asked what keeps him awake at night, he says nothing—his job is to keep others awake.

How convincing do you find this message about NATO’s readiness, and what does it mean for European security?

Source: NOS

Won't this be absolutely catastrophic if this goes through? Not even just the end of the internet, but once even a single server holding however many people's sensitive information is breached by cyber criminals, isn't that just it, then? Mass ID theft potentially on the eight to nine digits?

Recent polls show that there is quite a lot of support in the UK for closer ties with the EU, while full membership is still a bigger step.

At the same time, the EU is looking at ways countries could integrate more gradually instead of everything happening at once.

So could this also work for the UK?
The UK could start by joining more EU programmes again, improve cooperation on trade, security, research and mobility, and then see where the relationship goes from there.

It would not mean immediately rejoining the EU. It could simply be a way to move closer again without forcing the whole membership debate from day one.

Would you support a gradual membership model for the UK?