IT WASN’T BROKEN.
THEN SOMEBODY FIXED IT.
A patriotic public record of working things, ruined by improvement. Sourced. Cited. Filed for posterity.
★ Latest Cases on File
The Fly War Was Won. Then We Closed the Factory.
The fix: As the parasite receded from memory, the production infrastructure was retired. The Mexican mass-rearing plant — once making 550 million sterile flies a week — closed in 2012 for economic reasons, leaving a single aging Panama facility as the hemisphere’s main defense.
★★★★★ SevereRead the case → Foreign Policy · Arms ControlThe Deal Was Working. We Fixed It Into a War.
The fix: On May 8, 2018, the U.S. withdrew from the agreement — calling it "the worst deal ever" — and imposed a "maximum pressure" sanctions campaign meant to force a broader deal. A replacement was never reached.
★★★★★ CatastrophicRead the case →What Wasn’t Broken
We start with the thing that was working fine — boring, dependable, doing its job.
The "Fix"
Then the improvement: bold, expensive, announced with confidence. Usually unrequested.
The Result
And the receipts — what it cost, what broke, and the citations to prove it.