Elsewhere

The Levant
So Erdogan is supporting our Kurdish allies in Iraq, where he's not wanted, while killing them in Syria, where he is wanted?  With friends like that...

Yemen
The role the US is playing in Yemen is not quite the same as the role Russia is playing in Syria, but the parallels are too close to ignore.

Venezuela
Thanks to the drop in oil prices and the incompetence of the Maduro government, the class war in Venezuela is heating up; but the US blew its leverage back while Chavez was alive.

Nigeria
Nobody is sure exactly why Boko Haram released 20 of the kidnapped Chibok schoolgirls.  Meanwhile, President Mohammedu Buhari is having marital problems.

The Philippines
Rodrigo Duterte is a prime example of what you get when you elect an insane populist president.  One wonders if Xi Jinping will manage him any better than Obama can.  Not likely.

Religion and Ethics

I like to watch the Religion and Ethics Newsweekly on PBS.  In the real world, though, there seems to be far too much of the former and a paucity of the latter.  If there ever might be a better time for mass conversions to atheism, I can't imagine when it might be.

For starters, Pakistan is a sinkhole, all on its own.  With honor killings, prosecutions for blasphemy, persecution of the Ahmadi sect, and more, its efforts to get control over extremists in North Waziristan don't count for much.

It seems likely that the perverts who captured and killed the three Israeli boys actually were not members of Hamas, but that didn't stop the Israelis from conducting a pogrom against anybody associated with Hamas on the West Bank, primarily to prevent a Fatah-Hamas reconciliation.  Bibi needs an enemy to stay in power.  On the other hand, the killers of that Muslim boy certainly were religious fanatics.  That (in addition to the pogrom and the need to improve their reputation for political purposes) inspired Hamas to launch their rather inept rocket attacks on Israel.

Boko Haram is yet another crazy Islamic cult, making an unstable part of the world even less stable.  Then again, in the Central African Republic, the Christians may be more bloodthirsty than the Islamists.  Moving up to Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone, the crazy animists are attacking medical relief workers trying to address the the Ebola epidemic.  Well, their shamans can't be too much less effective than Doctors Without Borders as far as cures go, but MSF probably stands a better chance of containing the outbreak.

The Eastern Orthodox Church is solidly behind Putin.  Buddhists (yes, Buddhists) are killing Muslims in Cambodia.  Let's not even mention (okay, I'll mention it) relationships between India and Pakistan.  Back here in the USofA, the "Family Values" crew seem to be losing on gay marriage, but the 2011 post-census redistricting has offered them definite advantages, not least in states like North Carolina and Virginia.

What the hell.  I'm old, and pretty soon I'll be dead, and Jesus won't be there to welcome me home.

Annus horribilis: part two (children's edition)

More Gaza

Four little boys went out to play;
Along came a bomber and blew them away.

The news that inspired that couplet was in the Times this morning.  By the time I got home this afternoon, and despite a six-hour cease fire, three more Palestinian children were dead.  Well, when the announced ground invasion begins, one would hope that Israeli troops, from ground level, will better be able to differentiate people who are four feet tall from people who are significantly taller.

The Nigerian Girls

Boko Haram grabbed a whole lot of Nigerian girls from a school up in north-eastern Nigeria.  Rumor has it that most of them have "escaped," but it's hard to say because Nigerian president Goodluck Jonathan is not especially "transparent."

Granted, Boko Haram is a lot crazier than most other crazy Islamist groups.  People who get too addicted to their religions always are especially dangerous.

Migrant Kids

I am outraged that people across the United States are protesting having migrant children from Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador taking refuge in their communities.  Parents don't send their kids on enormous journeys, with pretty scetchy adults in charge, unless the conditions at home are immanently lethal.  I welcome those children to my neighborhood.  Probably, I could squeeze three or four into my miniscule home for a while.  The dog would love it.

If Obama expedites the extradition of those children to their home countries, my low esteem for him will drop even lower.  As usual, I'm pissed off.