Hi. That didn't work out so well. Ferguson's police chief was fresh from a weeks-late apology over the August shooting death of Michael Brown when he got the bright idea that he'd put on his civvies and join protesters later that night for a stroll through the town. Instead, he ended up marching with riot cops—in what became one of the most tense confrontations in Ferguson in some time.

In North Korea, when you have the gout, but also the power to have your enemies murdered and/or shamed, you get to call it something else: "discomfort."

After Eric Holder announced his resignation as attorney general, some reckoning's begun over his notably long tenure: Yes, he zealously advanced the cause of civil rights in America. No, he didn't do much at all in the name of protecting those same Americans' civil liberties.

Britain's prime minister, in the midst of trying to sell his war-weary nation on the notion of bombing the Islamic State, has mentioned a campaign that might last for "years" and spread from Iraq, which Britain helped the United States occupy for much of the last decade, into Syria. If Britain does, in fact, add its ordnance to Syria, which is still in the midst of a civil war, they'll likely be just as bedeviled by the tangle of alliances and hazy politics as the United States has increasingly been.

Oh, and that masked fellow who's starred in the Islamic State's alleged execution videos? The FBI is pretty sure it knows who he is.

Jerusalem's become unsettled in the wake of Israel's Gaza bombardment—as unsettled as anyone can remember in years—amid the rising specter of an uprising, AKA a third intifida, among its Palestinian citizens.

Air traffic in Chicago, one of America's busiest hubs with two major airports, has been shut down for the second time this year because of a fire in a suburban radar facility.

Hotel workers in Los Angeles, owing to the might of collective action and the political dividends that power pays, have been granted, in a city council vote, a minimum wage of $15.37. More please.

Someone's finally sued Arizona over the way cops are told to enforce a 2010 law targeting immigrants—a Mexican woman who said she was pulled over for a cracked windshield and then taken, in handcuffs, to a border patrol facility 13 miles away where she was held for five days. She'd already applied for a visa, as a domestic violence survivor, and was still waiting to hear back from immigration authorities when she was arrested.

General Motors, let's not forget, has presided over an appalling number of deaths, thanks to its slow response to reports of a serious ignition defect. That death toll is still growing.

Alcoholics, "functional" or not, unsurprisingly consume most of the alcohol sold in the United States.

BUT LET'S REMEMBER: PROHIBITION IS THE PROBLEM. (ACCORDING TO A WEED-FRIENDLY POLITICAL CANDIDATE IN COLORADO WHO RAPS RATHER AWKWARDLY.)