Not sure if it's related, but Russia's investment envoy is visiting Washington.

https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/putins-investment-envoy-dmitriev-may-visit-washington-kremlin-says-2025-04-02/

@LJS9502_basic: Lol, that would make more sense. What with all the entry refusals and deportations, foreign tourism in general is going to be screwed for a bit.

I only ever read The Fellowship of the Ring, and I've never seen or read any Game of Thrones, so Lord of the Rings by default, because I'm stuffy like that.

Sorry, not much use to the thread there.

@uninspiredcup: Am I reading that right? Is this Americans holidaying in Canada from the US?

You're from Portugal? Nice. Had to look that one up. I somehow wasn't paying attention when all that was happening.

Yeah, I don't really feel like rolling over and accepting this just has to be the new normal.

Aw, that's really sweet actually. But I fear a large section of this earth might (cynically) question what kind of guarantee it has that the US would come to its defence when the phrase "by force" keeps failing to be ruled out in relation to territory acquisition ambitions.

I'm so confused by this administration and the stuff it gets away with. In most countries there are strict laws which apply to politically exposed persons - including their families - and the kind of behaviour they can get away with. I guess a lot of it comes down to the obvious risk of money laundering activities and "insider trading", if that's the right word for it.

I had a friend at work who had trouble opening a freaking bank account because she was related to a government official. Meanwhile, the Trumps have meme coins in their names, while Elon Musk, as a random example, has multiple private and public multi-billion dollar companies in operation while he does his thing.

Is there a reason this is all getting ignored? Is everyone in government maybe so neck-deep in these activities that they never get investigated? I understand how hard this kind of thing must be to police but isn't it about time some of these regulations were revised in light of the modern economy and actually applied?

*edit* I'm not saying this is an issue specific to the US either - it's rampant around the globe, but the situation in America is just a really open, brazen example which is hard to ignore.

@uninspiredcup: You know, I might as well stop checking the news, as you literally post every story that comes out about 15 minutes after I've read it.

Fine. Whatever.

It's probably all a bit overrated, space travel.

Think about it... Elon Mush - richest man in the world, owns lots of rockets and whatnot... he's *never* been. Not once. Oh sure, does all the ooh-ing and aah-ing whenever one of his space ships doesn't blow up... even says he says he wants to die out there, but that's because there's not much else to do once you're actually up in space. Floating's a laugh, I'll bet, for the first couple of hours, but how long can the novelty of that last? He's got a swimming pool for god's sake. Maybe even several. He can float whenever he wants. Boring.

And so they just fill it up with crap. Blast all your money out there "for defence purposes", where no one can even check. Send your poor astronauts to live on the ISS for months at a time with no flight home. It's a joke. Not worth it. That's why the other aliens haven't bothered, or we'd see them on the telescopes.

"Oooh, but it's full of marvels, Sancho"... - Yeah? What's the most exciting thing you could hope to see? A ****ing "black hole". Jesus. Doesn't that just sound grand. Close your eyes and try to imagine - a thing so dark you can't even see it. Great.

Clue's in the name: "Space". Nothing up there. Waste of time.