Permawar: The Iraq army has lost one of its last military bases in Anbar province west of Baghdad to Islamic State fighters. Nearly all of Anbar has been lost, but the Iraqi army still holds the military base that defends Iraq’s second-largest dam and the provincial capital of Ramadi. Overall though, it’s a grim picture for Iraq.

The Bladerunner: The sentencing hearing for Oscar Pistorius has begun in South Africa where the court has been told Pistorius was “a broken man” after killing his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. The court previously found the amputee runner guilty of culpable homicide rather than murder. The BBC’s Africa correspondent says, “There is a very real chance – backed up by precedent – that Pistorius could be given no jail time at all.”

Nation: Demonstrations and protests continue in St. Louis over the shooting of the unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. They even broke up a rally where the president of the NAACP had just spoken. An angrier crowd of young people is demanding a voice and fast action. Seventeen people were arrested yesterday morning.

The Epidemic: Sen. John McCain yesterday called for an administrative “czar” to handle the Ebola threat in the US, which so far has killed one person. Michael Hiltzik points out in the Los Angeles Times that the czar would normally be the Surgeon General, but there his none because the Republicans blocked the current nominee for saying guns are a healthcare threat. Hiltzik writes, “Sen. McCain’s home state of Arizona, where he says his constituents are ‘not comforted’ about Ebola, boasts the eighth-highest rate of deaths by firearms in the nation, 14.6 per 100,000 residents. Number of Arizona deaths from Ebola, per 100,000: zero.”

Politix: DemocraticSen. Elizabeth Warren in an interview with Salon magazine trashes the Obama record on protecting regular citizens during the great recession. “They protected Wall Street,” Warren told the magazine. “Not families who were losing their homes. Not people who lost their jobs. Not young people who were struggling to get an education.”

Warren says the system is rigged. “It’s the armies of lobbyists and lawyers who are always at the table, who are always there to make sure that in every decision that gets made, their clients’ tender fannies are well protected.”

The Missing Dictator: North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un, king of the Hermit Kingdom, has gone missing, at least to the outside world. Kim has not been seen since Sept. 3. Friday he was missing from the celebration of the 69th anniversary of the founding of the Workers’ Party, a major event that also honors his late father Kim Jong-il and grandfather, Kim Il-sung. Theories abound that Kim is either gravely ill, injured, or has been deposed. He was seen limping earlier this summer. But his absence comes at a time when his lieu tenants are making unusual diplomatic overtures to South Korea.

The Rooney Report’s Asia analyst Mark Litke says, “The one thing we can say for certain is that no one knows for certain what is going on inside North Korea, even those closet to the reclusive dictatorship can find themselves in the dark.”

Grownups Are Stupid: The Richland, Wash. elementary schools are removing all their swing sets because they are considered too dangerous. Well, not necessarily considered too dangerous by the kids and their parents, but by the school system’s insurance company. The administrators buckled, proving once again that sometimes educators can be the stupidest people in school.

-30-