City Commissioner Steve Novick has made perfectly clear he's willing to lose his job over the fight to win the Portland Bureau of Transportation a new funding stream. He may get his chance. The Portland Tribune reports a Portland man angry about Novick's (and Mayor Charlie Hales') proposed street fee has filed a recall petition. Is it a serious effort? Even if it is, will 35,000 people sign? Too early to say.

While we're on the subject, if you still haven't tired of sitting in a drab public building for hours on end listening to street fee talks, there are two more meetings coming up! You won't be able to testify, but you can grow by degrees mutely scarlet enough that you convey your point.

Strikingly similar after all: LeBron James and The Pretenders.

Wanna throw a lucrative bash on the Columbia River's Government Island? But afraid you'd need a pesky permit? Rest easy.

Nearly a week into these newly murderous tensions between Israelis and Palestinians, Israel appears to have bombed its first mosque. Oh, and a center that helps the developmentally disabled.

Palestinian militants keep trying to return that horror, and Iron Dome keeps stymying them. This is a one-sided affair.

Same-sex marriage is great. Now let's all figure out how to treat transgender people with the respect and understanding they deserve. Newberg's George Fox University is one of thousands of places we might begin.

Two bits of great news: Tracy Morgan is feeling well enough, after a horrific automobile accident last month, to file a lawsuit! So he's suing Walmart!

You rely on the CDC not to bungle the sensitive processes we all assume accompany handling anthrax and other terrifying pathogens. They bungle them nonetheless.

Summer! Summer! Summer! The Max hates this weather more than you. Trust me. (Also: Don't hate this weather. Glory in it.)