SHORT TAKES ON THE DRIFTING WRECKAGE – AT 11:56 P.M. ET: 

AMERICAN INGENUITY? – "Sheriff’s deputies in Georgia say they foiled a bizarre smuggling scheme in which two jailed inmates used their dead grandmother’s casket to help them smuggle drugs and other contraband back into the jail.  Jailers escorted Henry Ison Rouse, 27, and Nekoase Antwan Vinson, 30, in handcuffs and leg restraints to the Bentley Brothers funeral home Thursday evening to bid farewell to their grandmother.  Emma Mae Faulk of Macon died last Sunday at age 74 and the prisoners were allowed a private viewing.  'One of them stayed in there (with the casket) a good amount of time,' the Rev. Roland Stroud told the Macon Telegraph.  Back at the jail, when guards searched Vinson they found a baggie of marijuana, a packet of tobacco, a lighter and cellphone crammed in a rag tucked in his groin.  Sheriff David Davis believes Vinson and Rouse had acquaintances leave the weed and other items in their grandmother’s casket for them to find."  That's the trouble with open-casket funerals. 

HUMAN RIGHTS NEWS – From Breitbart:  "On August 29, a UN panel on racism urged the United States to 'review' its stand your ground-styled self-defense laws and demanded it put a halt to the excessive use of force by police.  The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) claimed that racial minorities are victims of oppression by authorities and apparently targeted by whites with the self-defense laws.  'Racial and ethnic discrimination remains a serious and persistent problem in all areas of life from de facto school segregation, access to health care and housing,' Algerian Noureddine Amir, CERD committee vice chairman, said in a press conference after the meeting."  Among the worthies on the panel are those shining symbols of human rights, China and Pakistan.  Oh, by the way, the U.S. has a black president and black attorney general.

CAUTION – It seems like good news, but tread cautiously.  From Fox:  "Iraqi security forces, along with Shiite militiamen, broke a nearly two-month siege by Islamic State militants on the northern Shiite Turkmen town of Amirli, Iraqi officials said on Sunday.  Army spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi said the operation started at dawn Sunday and the forces entered the town shortly after midday, The Associated Press reported.  Speaking live on state TV, al-Moussawi said the forces suffered 'some casualties,' but did not give a specific number. He said fighting was 'still ongoing to clear the surrounding villages.'  Breaking the siege was a 'big achievement and an important victory' he said, for all involved: the Iraqi army, elite troops, Kurdish fighters and Shiite militias." We applaud any victory over the Islamic State, but be careful.  The IS has proved exceptionally resourceful.  Was it defeated here, or did it just pull its troops back to meld in with the population until a new military opportunity arises? 

August 31, 2014