As Assad's forces slowly recapture Idlib province, the millions of Syrians that fled there fear being murdered by them.

Assad and Russia have systematically bombarded medical facilities there.

It appears that Turkey tried to reinforce Khan Sheikhoun a week ago, and was stopped by air attacks.

The situation is complicated by the fact that the rebel forces in Idlib, which have Turkey's support, are the Islamist militants that used to control most of Syria and used to confiscate the arms and supplies that the US provided to non-Islamist militants.

The bully said he wanted to buy Greenland from Denmark. When Denmark refused to sell, he cancelled a coming trip there, as punishment to Denmark.

I suppose Danes feel relieved rather than punished.

This is not the first time the US demanded to buy another country's territory. In 1845 the US asked to buy a part of Mexico. When Mexico refused, the US Army fought its way to Mexico City and occupied it until Mexico's government agreed to the sale. Henry David Thoreau famously went to jail rather than pay tax for that war of aggression.

The treaty promised that Mexicans in the transferred territory could keep speaking Spanish.

A message of hope: Australians could yet succeed in stopping their government from wiping out Tuvalu and then Australia.

If peaceful means do not succeed in preventing the murder of billions, violent means will be justified. Given that Australia's present course of action will predictably kill tens of millions of people (that would be Australia's share of the billions), destroying Australia's fossil fuel facilities should be legally justified under the principle of necessity (to prevent a worse crime).

Since the operation of Australia's fossil fuel facilities and shipping will contribute to making many lands uninhabitable, including Tuvalu, they are in effect weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps Tuvalu should declare war on Australia and send commandos to destroy those facilities and sink the coal ships.

A review of anarchism.

A hundred years ago, there were anarchist societies on Earth, places where there was no state, no government. But that did not in all cases mean that everyone was equal. In some peoples in Melanesia, the men who were most politically adroit gained a kind of political power by drawing other men into client relationships with them. Those who had many clients were called "big men", and sometimes they would lead their clients to fight the clients of other big men.

The fighting continued until European colonial states made them stop. "Big men" continued to exist, but they were limited to peaceful means in their competition for power.

I feel an attraction to anarchy, but I do not endorse anarchism because there are many jobs we need the state to do.

Microsoft recorded users of Xboxes and had human workers listen to the recordings.

Morally I see no difference between having human workers listen and having speech-recognition systems listen. Both intrude on privacy.