So, in addition to all the crap otherwise happening in the world, Israel decided to turn it up a notch by turning their bombing attentions to Iran. How much of the why of that is the stated "we can't let Iran have nuclear weapons", and how much is Israeli leadership looking to keep a war footing at home so they don't have to face personal consequences for their actions, I have no way of knowing. Funny thing, though... Iran has some continuing capacity to fight back, and Israel has the gall to complain about some of their targeting choices, which mirror what Israel was just doing to Gaza a little while ago.
Oh well, no worries, regional conflicts, minor powers, and all that, right? Of course not, not when we've got our supposedly America First president in play. See, there was at least one site in Iran that Israel didn't have the tools to destroy properly, but we do, in the form of a "bunker buster" bomb. So, after a degree of waffling (and, doubtless, wanting to distract from his current issues and offset the "TACO" reputation he's built of late), Trump orders a strike on Iran.
Now, for those of you who don't keep up on that whole international relations thing, that would be an act of war. As in, before you go bombing the bejeezus out of a country, you're supposed to declare war first (and yes, we've done plenty of this in the past, which doesn't make it right). The ones who get to declare war around here are the members of Congress, not the President (although, if you want a more nuanced description of that, here's a link). At least, that's what the Constitution says. Of course, I'm sure Congress will get right on that, especially after The Onion put out an editorial declaring how now, more than ever, we need their cowardice.
While I wait with not-bated breath for that, a few words about Civilization VII. Yes, I'm playing that at the same time as I'm playing Book of Hours, and the easy explanation on that is that, mid-week, Book of Hours is easier to put down as bedtime approaches.
Civ VII still has the one-more-turn stickiness of past entries, but the structure has changed more than a little, with the full game getting broken down into "ages", with major events/calamities to close out each age before a partial reset to start the next age. It's a structure that has more than its share of critics, but I happen to like it. After I finish my current game, and maybe one or two at higher difficulty (I'm basically curb-stomping the AI on this run), maybe I'll do a proper write-up on it. For now, it's enough to say I'm liking it more than Civ VI, and I'm liking it more than some of the off-brand alternatives out there right now - for example, I picked up Old World through a Humble Bundle recently, and the reliance on "workers" a la older versions of Civ there, among other dated/limiting mechanics, sent me packing.
