This evening's music features New Orleans r&b piano player, singer and songwrither Huey Piano Smith.

Here are some stories from tonight's post:

Big Bank’s Analyst Worries That Iran Deal Could Depress Weapons Sales

Could a deal to normalize Western relations with Iran and set limits on Iran’s development of nuclear technology lead to a more peaceful and less-weaponized Middle East? ... The prospect of stability has at least one financial analyst concerned about its impact on one of the world’s biggest defense contractors.

The possibility of an Iran nuclear deal depressing weapons sales was raised by Myles Walton, an analyst from Germany’s Deutsche Bank, during a Lockheed earnings call this past January 27th. Walton asked Marillyn Hewson, the chief executive of Lockheed Martin, if an Iran agreement could “impede what you see as progress in foreign military sales.” ... Hewson replied that “that really isn’t coming up,” but stressed that “volatility all around the region” should continue to bring in new business. According to Hewson, “A lot of volatility, a lot of instability, a lot of things that are happening” in both the Middle East and the Asia-Pacific region means both are “growth areas” for Lockheed Martin.

The Deutsche Bank-Lockheed exchange “underscores a longstanding truism of the weapons trade: war — or the threat of war — is good for the arms business,” says William Hartung, director of the Arms & Security Project at the Center for International Policy. Hartung observed that Hewson described the normalization of relations with Iran not as a positive development for the future, but as an “impediment.” “And Hewson’s response,” Hartung adds, “which in essence is ‘don’t worry, there’s plenty of instability to go around,’ shows the perverse incentive structure that is at the heart of the international arms market.”

Ecuadorean Foreign Minister: The United States is the Real Threat in the Americas, Not Venezuela

The Shocking Finding From the DOJ's Ferguson Report That Nobody Has Noticed

In the city of Ferguson, nearly everyone is a wanted criminal.

That may seem like hyperbole, but it is a literal fact. In Ferguson -- a city with a population of 21,000 -- 16,000 people have outstanding arrest warrants, meaning that they are currently actively wanted by the police.

That statistic should be truly shocking. Yet in the wake of the Department of Justice's withering report on the city's policing practices, it has gone almost entirely unmentioned. News reports and analysis have focused on the racism discovered in departmental emails, and the gangsterish financial "shakedown" methods deployed against African Americans. In doing so, they have missed the full picture of Ferguson's operation, which reveals a totalizing police regime beyond any of Kafka's ghastliest nightmares.

It turns out that nearly everyone in the city is wanted for something. Even internal police department communications found the number of arrest warrants to be "staggering". By December of 2014, "over 16,000 people had outstanding arrest warrants that had been issued by the court." The report makes clear that this refers to individual people, rather than cases, so people with many cases are not being counted multiple times. ...

This complete penetration of policing into everyday life establishes a world of unceasing terror and violence. When everyone is a criminal by default, police are handed an extraordinary amount of discretionary power. "Discretion" may sound like an innocuous or even positive policy, but its effect is to make every single person's freedom dependent on the mercy of individual officers. There are no more laws, there are only police. The "rule of law," by which people are supposed to be treated equally according to a consistent set of principles, becomes the "rule of personal whim." ...

Residents are routinely charged with minor administrative infractions. Most of the arrest warrants stem from traffic violations, but nearly every conceivable human behavior is criminalized. An offense can be found anywhere, including citations for "Manner of Walking in Roadway," "High Grass and Weeds," and 14 kinds of parking violation. The dystopian absurdity reaches its apotheosis in the deliciously Orwellian transgression "failure to obey." (Obey what? Simply to obey.) In fact, even if one does obey to the letter, solutions can be found. After Henry Davis was brutally beaten by four Ferguson officers, he found himself charged with "destruction of official property" for bleeding on their uniforms.

Aboriginal 'Lifestyle Choice' to Live in Australia's Outback Will No Longer be Supported

Looming Australian government cut backs mean hundreds of Aboriginal communities will be cut off from services or forced to close down, creating concern and anger among indigenous and non-indigenous people alike.

Meanwhile, the country's senate has called on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to apologize for describing Aboriginal Australians who live in remote communities as having made a "lifestyle choice."

Federal funding for water, electricity, sewage, and other services in indigenous communities across Western Australia will end on July 1, 2015. The state government will have to pick up the tab, but has already said it doesn't have the funds to support the residents in the long term.

Now, 274 communities are being assessed by the state to determine if they are "viable" and state officials have said that at least 150 will need to be permanently cut off, effectively forcing them to close down. ...

Brian Wyatt, chairman of the National Native Title Council, told VICE News that Abbott's position doesn't take into account why Aboriginal people in remote communities live there.

"The cultural DNA of our people is connected to their land, [so] forcing them off it, to assimilate, amounts to cultural genocide," he said.

Aboriginal Australians have been cited as having one of the longest continuous cultural histories on earth and have existed as a distinct cultural group for 50,000-65,000 years.