Great News From Maliki and Missouri: Friday, August 15th, the Best News Day This Week

After some 90-odd municipalities across the U.S.
protested about the killing of Michael Brown and
the heavy-handed attempts at crowd control in
Ferguson, MO, calm was achieved there Thursday
overnight. --Good news, as authorities dialed
back their ugly spectacle of  tanks with military
weapons drawn, choosing instead to walk with
the protesters, wearing regular uniforms without
guns displayed. --Oh, and a promise to release the
name of the officer who shot young Mr. Brown,
18.  One only prays this technique becomes a
nation-wide precedent, looking like the "serve
and protect" mission motto affixed to police cars.

Overseas, Iraqi President Maliki, FINALLY
bowing to his people's will after great bloodshed,
has resigned. --Fantastic! Now if they themselves
can conceive of consensus building, bringing Shiites
and Sunnis closer together via deeds, demonstrations
of  respect, they will actually form their own nation,
never truly having been one before. (-Like several
other Middle Eastern "states", Iraq's map was crafted
by outsiders, Western imperialists, not by its people
inside.)

Also FINALLY: Help from elsewhere enters the
Kurds' potential genocide, stemming the situation in
Northern Iraq. --Great! But this should have been
accomplished by Bush I in 1988-1991, when we
were over there anyway, saving Yemen. In 1988,
Saddam Husein was killing Kurds (children included)
with chemical weapons...so where were we? Back home,
preening about how we won a limited, ~90 day war, etc.
Shock and awe indeed. Or was it firecrackers and flares?

And if Putin can be believed, that white truck convoy
heading west into the Ukraine MAY really contain food
and other relief aid, rather than being a Trojan Horse
maneuver to bring weapons to Russian separatists.
We'll see...if the contents are arms, how stupid can
the Russians BE, irrespective of  any reaction to
such silly propaganda? We will know, so--credibility,
anyone? It matters a great deal, tangibly and otherwise.

Today the Sun is shining in Chicagoland, the air is warm
yet not stifling, and some of the news has truly been good.
Let's have more of that!