The suddenly invisible Governor John Kitzhaber sure had a horrible day yesterday. An agonizingly public yoyo bounce over his resignation in the face of steadily building corruption allegations—he's not quitting, for now—led to an agonizingly public loss of faith among state leaders and fellow Democrats. It's also leading to uncomfortable national scrutiny. And none of it was helped by reports—since fattened with nuance and assurances that the records would have been reviewed, not destroyed—that the governor's office had asked to purge thousands of the governor's private emails from state servers.
About that coming cab boom in Portland... Among the 240-plus taxis approved by city regulators this week, only one new vehicle is expected to be in service by this weekend. When people in Portland tend to want cabs.
It's a false relativism, sure. If proven, corruption is corruption. But New Jersey's governor, Chris Christie, is facing accusations far more serious than Kitzhaber's. He's also soldiering on and contemplating a presidential run despite his increasing unpopularity among voters in his home state.
Turns out Vladimir Putin was hoping to wait several more days before announcing a cease-fire in Ukraine. That way, pro-Russian rebels would have had more time to seize key transit routes before the front lines calcified.
“We don’t wantanother Ferguson here in Pasco."
The war in Afghanistan is supposed to be winding down. And it will be. Maybe as soon as US Special Forces finish a wave of too-easy attacks on targets conveniently mined from an Al-Qaida leader's seized laptop.
The horrific shooting of three Muslim students in North Carolina this week will also be investigated by the FBI—which has the power to pursue the federal equivalent of hate crime charges.
Your digital photo albums and document archives< real photo albums and document archives.
There's a "what if" in all of this. Namely, "what if the pace of climate change is slowed by sudden and effective policy changes?" But that's a ridiculous "what if." So it seems safe to mark our calendars for the decades-long mega-drought heading for the Great Plains in as soon as 35 years.
Politicians in states forced to accept marriage equality are working up new ways to express their LGBT bigotry: making it easier to get away with regular discrimination, targeting transgender people's bathroom choices, and crafting religious exemptions when it comes to providing wedding services. They thought about trying that in Oregon, too. It didn't work.
Anti-vax types in the United States are spreading their gospel—AKA "measles"—internationally. Americans are now linked to a pair of cases in Berlin.
More proof dogs are superior to cats! A dog missing its cancer-stricken human wandered 20 blocks from home and into the lobby of the hospital where her owner had spent days recuperating after surgery.
Any one us. At any time. RIP David Carr.
I FEAR MY PENDING IRRELEVANCY. AND YOURS, TOO.