"Bringing firearms to Target creates an environment that is at odds with the family-friendly shopping and work experience we strive to create." Yes, yes... after months of dithering, Target finally told off, if corporately and gently, the open-carry enthusiasts who'd made the dressed-up discount chain their stage.

Hurricane Arthur does as its pleases. (For now, it's making a run at the coast of North Carolina.) But deep in it's heart, it's just, it's just a boy. Living its life one day at a time, it's showing itself a really good time—and laughing about the way they want it to be.

Even when people are sane and want their children immunized, the surging cost of vaccines over the past two decades (thank greedy drug companies) has sometimes kept people from taking advantage of them. Healthcare reform has since shifted that burden onto insurers—but reimbursements are sometimes so spotty or low that some doctors no longer even offer in-office immunization.

"Zero hour" is the moment when the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) rouses its sleeper cells in Baghdad and finally mounts its attack on the Iraqi capital. The government is desperately trying to crack down on likely insurgents before that unrest dawns.

Iraq's long-suffering Kurds, largely left alone by ISIS so far, are seizing on an opportunity amid all the unrest. Their leader is pushing a referendum seeking full-on independence.

Israel's been rounding up the troops and gathering them all around Gaza. It's also launched several airstrikes. Palestinian militants, meanwhile, have begun firing rockets over the border. That puts both on a dispiritingly familiar war footing. The posturing comes after a dead Palestinian teen was found burned in the woods outside Jerusalem—not long after three kidnapped Israeli teens were found dead.

JOBS! SOOOOO MANY JOBS! Never mind the millions who've given up looking for work or haven't worked in months and don't rate being counted anymore... the United States gained 288,000 jobs in June, way ahead of expectations, lowering the national employment rate to 6.1 percent.

India's new prime minister, an avowed Hindu nationalist, is starting his reign with a smaller cultural change: Government ministers and bureaucrats have been ordered to clean up their desks at once. And the prime minister, Narendra Modi, has been personally roaming the office warrens to administer dreaded white-glove tests.

You stupid, stupid kids.

If you're too poor to buy your medical pot in Berkeley, California, a new law says the pot shops have to give it to you for free. (It's actually a little more complicated than that... but none of the people immediately planning to move will actually care.)

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Dirk reported last night that the Morrison Bridge's cracked and buckling polymer decking cannot be sufficiently repaired. It must be replaced. At great expense. Probably with money that had been earmarked for the Burnside Bridge. And the new decking might look, ironically, like the metal decking the polymer replaced.

IN THE OLDEN TIMES, HIT SINGERS COULD BE DOUGHY AND REGULAR. NOT THAT I'M SAD. I CAN'T SING ANYWAY.