THE EVER-POPULAR TWO-LEGGED STOOL

It's just like good news, except for the missing good-news part:

The Iraqi prime minister and president announced a new alliance of moderate Shiites and Kurds in a push to save the crumbing government Thursday, saying a key Sunni bloc refused to join but the door remained open to them....

They actually bother to announce this stuff. They actually proclaim to the world, "Look! We've fixed our problem -- at least the part that wasn't broken! That's progress, isn't it?" Pathetic.

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Oh, and Patrick Cockburn in The Independent ends a story on the horrible bombings in Sinjar Province with what Juan Cole correctly calls a "priceless bit of anti-spin":

The US military has suggested the bombers are operating more ruthlessly in northern Iraq because they can no longer operate in Baghdad because of the success of the American "surge". In reality, the number of car bombings in Baghdad in July was 5 per cent higher than last December and civilian casualties in explosions have increased by about the same percentage.