How well would Oregon fare in the unlikely event something foul like Ebola a seriously virulent flu ever took hold and began spreading itself among us in a serious way? The answer is something akin to “comme-çi, comme-ça.” We’re in the middle of the pack when it comes to our likely ability to stem the advances of a deadly infections disease, a new national report says. AND IT’S MOSTLY BECAUSE WE’RE LOUSY ABOUT VACCINATIONS. AHEM.
Commissioner Dan Saltzman is worried the city’s new committee for vetting social responsible investments might hurt the feelings of some decent and tax-paying Oregon businesses if committee members forget their station and demand accountability. “I think that’s going to be a train wreck,” the commissioner said.
Portland’s job market, by one measure, has returned to pre-recession vigor. Overall job figures have finally more than made up for what was lost during the recession. But here’s the rub: Those new jobs aren’t paying as well as the old jobs, because household Income remains lower than it was before the recession.
The White House is reportedly debating whether to publicly accuse North Korea over the formerly just amusing/infuriating Sony hacks, which hit a zenith of strange yesterday with news that next week’s release of The Interview had been canceled over silly and vague terror threats. (North Korea’s mad, by the way, because of scenes like this one, in which the fantastical murder of its God-King is shown for comic relief.)
But did North Korea actually do it? A handful of outlets, most prominently Wired, say the evidence and intelligence findings suggesting so is remarkably flimsy. Kind of like the intelligence and evidence that had Saddam Hussein making smooches with Osama Bin Laden inside a chemical munitions factory back in 2002.
And anyway, now no one’s talking about Boko Haram. The Nigerian terror group notorious for kidnapping women and girls appears to have done it all again. An attack bearing the group’s fingerprints saw 35 people die—and at least 100 women being led away.
Seems like a good time to remind everyone in the United States that government-sponsored terrorism insurance—a racket that nonetheless served as some kind of succor for businesses—has lapsed because Congress haplessly couldn’t manage to renew it.
Executions in America are down! But a new report says the ones we’ve been left with have been more “grotesque” than ever! Because our executioners keep botching things!
Presidential clemency might be on the way up! Barack Obama has begun undoing one of the most substantial excesses of our long drug war, commuting lengthy sentences for lesser crimes that wouldn’t have been treated so harshly under reforms passed during his administration.
Also. Just so everybody’s clear on this. Here’s what else got tucked into the big federal spending bill, next to the dilution of banking protections: a federal law banning federal raids on medical marijuana in states (like Oregon!) where medical marijuana is legal.
Does libertarian Senator Rand Paul want to run for president in 2016? Maybe? Probably? The Democrat who tried beating fellow Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell this fall has taken to reminding Paul that running for the nation’s highest office might mean he can’t also run to keep the one he’s got.
This whole Cuba thaw, meanwhile… It’s about all the things we heard yesterday when the news broke. But it’s also just as much about finally booting the Kremlin from its one and only redoubt in the western hemisphere. Russia’s economy, in case you hadn’t heard, is already reeling because of plummeting oil prices.
A blind eight-year-old boy in Kansas was accused of misbehaving on his school bus. Fine. Whatever. Kids get up to shenanigans. But here’s the callous and awful way school officials responded: The took away the (blind eight-year-old) boy’s walking cane and made him fumble around with a soft pool noodle instead.
New York’s sitting on a mighty reserve of shale-bound natural gas. No matter. It’s about to be the first state actually rich in potential energy to recognize the harms and perils of fracking and finally and firmly say no.
Maybe NASA should explore Venus before exploring Mars?
“JUST GLIMPSING THE VENUTIANS AWAKENED FEELINGS THEY HAD NEVER KNOWN.”