By Nathan Barton

Good morning.

Around the world, we see that fighting continues everywhere: Mesopotamia and Syria continue to be roiled by the Caliphate, and the US and its allies continuing to bomb and do more harm to the ordinary people and property than to the evil “Islamic State.”  In various parts of Africa, fighting continues either between various Muslim groups (as in Libya) or between Muslims and other religious groups or governments in places like Nigeria.  Afghanistan and Pakistan continue to bleed.  But the big problem is still Ukraine and Russia.

Since 05 September, as low-key fighting continued, we’ve heard little from Ukraine. This is not necessarily good news: things, nasty things, are still going on. A consolidation of a frozen conflict in eastern Ukraine does not mean a reduction of the very dangerous military tensions between Russia and the West.  Too many people will die this winter, even if the fighting does not reach the levels of earlier in the year.

Russia is facing other problems, also. As oil prices continue to drop, it appears that Saudi Arabia is fine with it, hoping to push other competing countries out of the market and slow development of the resources in North America.  Russia is one of the nations supposedly targeted by the Saudis, and there are claims that the tactic could deep-six the Russian economy.  The vice-president of Russia’s state-owned oil behemoth Rosneft has accused Saudi Arabia of manipulating the oil price for political reasons. Mikhail Leontyev was quoted in Russian media. Other OPEC countries are desperate for sales and revenue.

Back to Stateside and the Fifty States:

First, more anti-cop news: our nation’s police forces are their own worst enemies, sadly.  Apparently when it comes to traffic stops, at least some cops are publicly stating that if you fail to answer ANY of their questions, you are demonstrating that you admit your guilt about whatever you are accused by them of doing.  But some cops, like one in Buckeye, Arizona, have gone straight to threatening to kill the people he stops: politely, but a threat is a threat.  Meanwhile, in Missouri, nastiness continues from the weekend. Police don’t seem to care whether they are coming down hard on protesters or on the press, or on people just watching. What is next?

The Ebola “crisis:” As more Ebola victims show up, and as government officials open their mouths more and more, it is no surprise that people are panicking AND taking advantage of the panic to con and scare people.  Consider Scottsdale, Arizona, where vandals marked a Scottsdale neighborhood as ‘Ebola Quarantine Zone’.  Sounds silly, but what the CDC and federal agencies are doing is pretty silly. “With worries over the Ebola outbreak continuing to grow by the day, health care workers across the country are taking extra precautions to ensure the virus doesn’t spread. But, some people still don’t seem to be taking the threat seriously and are making a joke of it.”  Meanwhile, in Germany, a U.N. worker has died of Ebola. He had been infected in Liberia and died despite “intensive medical procedures,” according to a German hospital.  The effects spread, more and more quickly it seems.

Fox Sports showed outgoing Navajo President Ben Shelly and his wife — both wearing Redskins hats — sitting next to Redskins owner Snyder for the Redskins vs. Cardinals game in Arizona on Sunday, while outside of the stadium in Glendale, demonstrators who take issue with the name stood with signs lambasting the team’s name.  Of course, Shelly is condemned as some kind of “Tonto,” because he does not support the Tranzis opposition to the sports team name.

83 percent of the Fifty State’s schools report more lunches dumped by kids while nearby stores and home kitchens are “raided” for the very junk food that the First Consort and deputy head of the Nanny State is trying to keep them from eating.  The current federal school meal mandates are “overly rigid and unrealistic,” says the National School Boards Association (being incredibly hypocritical, of course.  I suppose that the Crash of 2009 needs to get much worse and food harder to come by before they learn to eat what they are told to eat…

William Grigg over at LRC has a great short column on scams and the state, and it reminded me of this website shared by a correspondent, which tells us how horribly so many states are treating their children by not providing all these “emergency plans” for children.  It is not whether people who care for children, or whether families have plans for after disasters, especially if they have disabled children: it is about whether the STATE does these things or MANDATES these things:  scams indeed.  People, those of us with children KNOW that we are responsible for caring for them, and that is regardless of whether they are handicapped or not, and whether it is an emergency or not.  We don’t need to have the state TELL us or ORDER us to provide for this – and if we don’t do it because it is the right thing to do, we are NOT going to do it just because the State mandates it.