Let's just start with the awfulness. It's going to be one of those days. Don't believe me? Then here's about a story about a hospital fire in India that's killed more than 90 people so far, half of all the patients in the place. "Witnesses and patients told reporters that the doctors on duty had fled the hospital, leaving patients stuck in their wards at the mercy of the billowing black smoke."

Because we treat our troops just as poorly after we've sent them to die, it's come out that cremated remains from nearly 300 Air Force members currently rest in a Virginia landfill, dumped there secretly and unceremoniously for reasons unknown.

Surprise! Pumping toxic chemicals into the ground in hopes of milking every last bubble of natural gas hiding inside it—a technique called fracking—is very likely polluting groundwater supplies, the EPA finally rules.

A gunman shot and killed a police officer at Virginia Tech University before turning the gun on himself, sending panic and fear through a university where 33 people were killed in a shooting massacre back in 2007.

The English Channel just got wider. (I'm being figurative, dummy.) Britain has vetoed a euro-preserving economic pact signed by the rest of the European Union, basically handing control of the continent over to Germany and sparking talk that the island nation may leave the EU altogether.

Arizona's racist and intrusive immigration law targeting darker-skinned people and maybe also suspected illegal immigrants will be taken up in private today at the U.S. Supreme Court. Somehow, this does not fill me with much hope.

Crankier and crankier about American drones flying over its land, and maybe also about a NATO strike that killed a couple dozen of its (maybe double-dealing) soldiers, Pakistan is beefing up its air defenses.

In a nation of occupations: Just in time for its city permit to expire this month, Occupy Eugene is being written up as a homelessness haven. There's word that, in a familiar refrain about health and safety, Occupy Seattle is at the end of its Portland-like 72-hour eviction notice. However, a deadline for Occupy Boston's promised eviction came and went last night. And, it seems, Occupy Wall Street is up and running with some office space and using refugee lingo like "diaspora."

LIFE ON A RIOT LINE, THIS TIME IN SAN FRANCISCO: "IF THEY DO NOT DO WHAT YOU TELL THEM, STRIKE THEM." THIS IS ALSO WHAT IT'S LIKE WORKING FOR WM. STEVEN HUMPHREY.