My dear Gnome, I hope you're aware that quite a few of the powers that be are young themselves -- check out our new Prime Minister! -- and have many hard lessons yet to learn. I disagree that they are savvier than we old gits; they were brought up on a steady diet of Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round the Old Oak Tree and PR photos of toddlers in the arms of soldier parents, always wearing Dad's (or Mum's) beret as they grin for the camera. If I never see that photo again, it will be too soon.

History teaches that every generation has to dree its own weird, and the wheel gets reinvented over and over; same shit, different day. Mr Obama swore with a whole heart to get America out of Afghanistan and to close Gitmo, and we know how that went. In 2006, Mr Harper swore that the Canadians would bring rule of law to Kandahar, but in 2011 we were glad to call it quits in that province after laying 19 kilometers of roadbed. In 2010, we deployed an air wing to the Med to join the NATO bombing mission in Libya in the hope of achieving "regime change" and witnessed the result; then, only four years later, the same gummint sends another air detachment off to bomb Syria. Amnesia, anyone?

Ah, crap. The kitchen floor needs washing, and I need to "changer les idees".