I need a better map

So I fell of the face of the Earth again. Got lost. But I'm back.
Where have I been? Well, I've been busy. I've had to fly to Canada. I was there for a couple of weeks, and, except for the work I had to do, enjoyed almost every minute of it. The Canadians, at least in Hamilton, Ontario, are the nicest people you can find. Work sucked, but I got through it. The only problem with Canada is that I had to go through the US customs and Passport Control in Newark which is an experience all on it own. You know how American always laugh and complain about how rude, crude, and simply unpleasant people are at other countries (especially a certain European country?). Well, you can get the entire experience, but in your own language! Just go through Newark Airport as a foreign national.
But, never mind.
Then I had to spend a while catching up with the work I had to do here. Work has a funny way of piling up in an exponential manner rather than a linear one. When you miss a couple of weeks' worth of work, it appears like a month's worth of work when you try and make it up.
What else?
I had my house stuff that I had to do. Still finishing up things. Dealing with the contractor for things that needed fixing. Dealing with the alarm people. Looking into a garden. This is turning out to be a lot of work.
Also, I got put in charge of a giant project which I was lost in a little bit and spent my nights trying to unravel some of the mess that was done by my predecessor. I've had to prepare all our code - code that has had about 50 man-years invested in it - for transporting to Linux. Sounds like fun? It isn't. It left me drained of everything.

And, um....emm....hmmm...

Oh, yeah.
I had to go fight to stupid war!
Some people to the north of us decided that going into a reckless military action against us would go over quietly, as it did for the past six years. They turned out to be wrong, so we had ourselves the Second Lenanese War. I'm not sure what was dumber. The war or the people who ran it. It was ill conceived and ill executed by the highest levels of our military command. Too much politics went into operational decisions. Too much considerations to the lives of the enemy at the expense of the lives of our own soldiers. Too much arrogance and ignorance. I know it doesn't look like it on the News, but there was too much kindness toward a country that enjoyed prosperity over the last six years at our expense. Our will to swallow everything that Hezbollah shoved down our throat ever since we withdrew from South Lebanon allows the country to attract investors from all over the world. Rebuild Beirut, the beach and ski resorts, and sea ports to their former glory. All the while, we were under periodic fire of about three months intervals from Hezbollah. Lebanon has allowed this military force to grow strong in its midst, effectively creating a separate country within its borders. A country with different allegiance and different alliances than the official central government. A country that has objectives that are in direct collision and contradiction with the best interest of the host country and its people.
We've dropped thousand of tones of bombs on Lebanon. We've temporarily created half a million refugees. We've reduces a few villages and a Beirut neighborhood to rubble. And yet, we've been more gentle and careful than anyone can expect from a country at war. We didn't target civilian, although civilian got in the line of fire at time. We didn't carpet-bomb anything. We held our fire at the tiniest uncertainty that non-combatants might be in the area. Only about 1000 Lebanese lost their lives in this war. Over a month of what surely appear to be Hell's Fire, and only a thousand dead. Look at some of the other armed conflicts in the world to get some sense of proportion for this number. A death of any kind is bad, but this is the result of War. I am sorry, and I feel for each and every one of them. Especially the children that have not even the capacity to understand what's going on.

But that's the difference, isn't it? I feel sorry for the children of my enemies, while they specifically target mine with their rockets.

And the world looks on, singles us out, and shakes its head with disappointment. For how much longer will you be the aggressor? it asks. And we will continue to be bewildered by this question, while our northern border is attacked and invaded. While our soldiers are attacked and kidnapped from within our own borders. While our security, safety, and very existence is threatened by neighbors near and far. In Lebanon, Syria, and Iran.
The president of Iran has a two part solution for the Middle East. First understand that Israel is to blame for it all. Then destroy it.

They used to speak of a Moral Compass. Well, the world needs a new one. Its moral is now money and power and short-term quietness that will get the leaders and politicians elected just one more term to office. The world needs a better compass than that.
Hell, it needs an entirely new and better map.