Who rules Syria is not worth one more death or refugee. Sadly, Syria may be beyond repair. The crazies we created are now running large parts of Iraq and Syria. Russia mutters about going into Iraq.

Vlad Putin keeps his game tightly under control. I’m not so sure about the Obama White House and its confused advisors. Better make a deal with Assad, a natural US ally, and end this crazy war before Sen. John McCain and his Republican crusader pals really do start World War III.

Trying to turn garbage into gold costs a lot more than expected. We need to ask ourselves: What is the goal here?

The police were already there as the rest of the clubs arrived that morning. “They're circling like buzzards on a dead deer,” one biker told me. “I look at the people I was riding with, and I said, ‘This don't look right.’ ” Afterward, said the Cossacks' John Wilson, “a Waco spokesman was touting the quick 40-second response time of the police, when that was obviously false. They were here.”

The bikers believe this provides a clue to the Waco P.D.'s ongoing silence: The cops know their response was overzealous, possibly unlawful, and now they're covering it up. Some bikers believe there's an even more sinister explanation: that a firefight of some kind was supposed to happen—that it was all part of a plan by the Waco P.D. to provoke bitter rivals into a public brawl that could be violently crushed and then used as a basis for sweeping RICO indictments.

It’s worth noting that although locating and detaining three young men suspected of property crimes was beyond the competence of the Arena PD, the department was a model of efficiency in tracking down and arresting a harmless fellow who had posted an offensive note on their Facebook page. In that contrast we see a splendid example of the institutional vanity of government law enforcement – and a good and sufficient illustration of why we would be much better off without it.