Good morning, Portland Marathon. And, good afternoon, Occupy Portland. The marathoners are out—running past my current vantage point on Willamette Boulevard—and later downtown the group that's been occupying Chapman Square will join the marathoners with their own march throughout downtown. A few others will set up shop in the park blocks near PSU. Violent overreaction among security guards and police continues to mark the response to protesters in several other cities, meanwhile.

A computer virus has infected the control room for the United States' drone fleet—it's recording every keystroke entered by the fleet's operators, although it's not believed—YET—to actually be sending that information somewhere else.

The American government can kill dangerous-deemed American citizens just as long as it argues it can't easily capture said American citizens. That gem appears in a secret legal memo circulated by the Obama administration.

Iraq isn't acting like the BFF our guns and tanks and cash aid are telling it to be. Baghdad is totally starting to pass notes to Syria, and could be getting ready to sit at Iran's lunch table. WHICH WOULD BE MAJORLY, LIKE, HUMILIATING!

Yemen's president, who came back even after a bomb blast nearly killed him, appears to be getting the message that the people he brutalizes maybe don't want him around after all. He's said this before, of course.

Shitty-pizza impresario Herman Cain is saying shitty things about the Occupy movements, taking advantage of his surging popularity among conservative voters suddenly relieved not to feel racist when they mock Barack Obama.

Still awkward: 1986 Sears catalog model Mitt Romney (look at that Christmas sweater!) is still a Mormon. Everyone will now talk about how much they don't want to talk about it.

I AM SO SURPRISED: Members of Congress, part of that so-called "super" committee tackling the deficit, are having a hard time hammering out a bipartisan agreement that's also substantive and reasonable. Because it's impossible.

Who ratted out elderly Boston gangster Whitey Bulger? None other than a former Miss Iceland who lately had been moonlighting as a yoga coach. She'll now collect a $2 million reward.

The NFL's version of the crypt keeper has died years after becoming a sickly irrelevant skeleton.

A magazine that likes PCs
is citing an unreliable British tabloid's report that Steve Jobs has left behind four more years of plans for Apple products.


AMERICA IS WORTH FIGHTING FOR. 4-EVER, BITCHES!