Kathy over at "On the Third Hand" has this nice roundup of Iraqi blogger reactions to the surprise handover yesterday. Includes a nice (albeit written in somewhat mangled "arablish") account of how the Arab media in particular seems to have been caught flat-footed by the schedule shift.

Big media is also spinning this positively, which is a big surprise to me. And, truth be told, I have a much more emotional reaction to it than I would otherwise have thought. Oh, no tears or anything (I save those for Toy Story movies), but a definite feeling of relief. That it sucked the air out of Farenheit's hype baloon with a big ol' bang was just a nice cherry on top.

It's your country now folks, use it well.