Funny what happens when you don't Blog.

I've been twittering a lot more lately and it has affected my blogging. Reading and commenting 134 characters at a time seems to have taken the edge off any need to vent at greater length.   It has been well over a month since my last one and by golly, given the news to-day,  nothing has really changed.


Syria's still going on, looking better for Assad day-to-day - but that was already happening. The US is still in-country but talking about pulling out, On the other hand the French are there  now, Italians too, 'supporting' the SDF Kurds in the north. They're not talking about leaving.

In similar fashion the Germans have deployed to the Sahara,  along with Canadians. The US and French have 'special forces' fighting with the anti-rebel coalition in Yemen. EVERYBODY (The Brits, the Aussies, the Croats and EUkrainians)  looks like they're 'piling back onto' the Afghan rabbit in the hope that eighth time's lucky and the big win's in the cards.

Trump  is still trying to slough-off charges that he's a dupe of the Kremlin but he's got a meeting with Putin on deck - an opportunity to call the pot black and see if he can't make a deal for the Russians to 'back off' in EUkrainia or ,at least, support Jared's plan for 'peace in Palestine',  in return for a 'free hand' he's already got in Syria.  If it's anything like the 'breakthru' deal with the Norks , it's not worth the airtime expended on it. Pompeo was very recently disappointed in meetings with the Rocket-man peeps - he  shone a positive light on it but he didn't get the concessions he wanted and the Norks called the meetings "regrettable".

Brexit looms closer than ever but, once again, thinking about that has been derailed by another 'Novichok' attack. This one involving what have been called by relatives "a pair of lost souls" and long tome drug users. Why the Russians would want to target them is unknown.Save it to say that apparently THEY have smeared a non-toxic form of the deadly substance in places all around Britain - like parks where somebody could inadvertently become 'affected' by it.. The Russians are now targeting everybody in England not just former spies and traitors. The Euros are saying, unless the Brits get their exit act together,  that hard one they're angling for  is going to hurt more than Trump's tariffs. Lots more.

It could have something to do with bringing Putin down a peg or two after what is looking like one of the best FIFA World Cup venues to have happened in a score of years but the niggling of the Russians  goes on. In Britain and, surprisingly, in the USA.  While the US hasn't ever had a World Cup and barely has a international-calibre team, they aren't shy about grousing that Sochi,  the venue for the finals is the site of 'Russia's shame'. They're saying they 'hope' they don't find out that the Russians have doped their soccer squad  and 'fixed' the Cup. But that might take another couple of defected Russian 'pensioners' -  like the other scandal did. No proof of those charges was ever offered.  Not even the hint of a denial of human rights -  even to idiot Englishmen.  the US is complaining after the Russians leaned on a couple of their anti-government media sources in Russia, fining Radio Free Europe $3 000.

Oh by the way. Russia was knocked-out of Cup competition to-day,  by Croatia. I guess they couldn't fix that  World championship.