Iraq’s already teetering on the edge of sectarian civil war. That’s not likely to be helped, now that a leading and revered Shiite cleric raised a call for people to fight against Sunni extremists who’ve been winning battles and taking over Iraqi cities with worrying ease. Not everyone’s so fearful of the shockingly violent ISIS […]
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Iraq is falling apart. “Al-Qaida-inspired” insurgents calling themselves the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria are conquering city after city in the country’s relatively sympathetic Sunni north, rolling with stunning speed toward a clash in Shiite-dominated Baghdad. Iraq’s splintering along sectarian and ethnic lines took another turn this morning after Kurdish fighters seized an oil-producing […]
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GOOD MORNING, BLOGTOWN! All the songs on you requested, you’re dancing like you’re naked. Oh, it’s almost like we’re sexing (oh yeah). LET’S GO TO PRESS. In case you somehow missed it, yesterday a shooter entered Reynolds High School in Troutdale with a rifle, and shot and killed 14-year-old freshman Emilio Hoffman. Teacher Todd Rispler […]
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The details are still hazy, but here’s another tragedy for politicians/pundits to cynically latch onto before November and 2016’s presidential election. Five American special forces soldiers and an Afghani ally were killed yesterday in a bungled airstrike. The troops had been battling Taliban fighters when a “coalition aircraft” fired on them. It’s a rarity in […]
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GOOD MORNING, BLOGTOWN! You’re too much for one man, but not enough for two. Dadgummit, who is he and what is he to you? LET’S GO TO PRESS. On Sunday in Las Vegas, two police officers and another are dead in a shooting that’s suspected to have White Supremacy ties. One of the assailants shot […]
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Fun perks of being a high-ranking Portland police official: You can flash your gun, enraged, at another motorist while off-duty, be accused of inappropriately touching female colleagues while on-duty, and not only will the police chief refuse to follow a recommendation to fire you, you won’t even be demoted. An arbitrator has ruled now-Lieutenant Todd […]
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Pepper-spray, not another gun, was sufficiently mighty to stop America’s most recent mass shooting by a stalking gunman. But beyond that, so much looked familiar: A young white man with a gun and a knife, an educational institution for a setting (Seattle Pacific University, in this case), the swift implementation of well-orchestrated disaster plans, devastated […]
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“With our souls, with our blood, we sacrifice for you, Bashar!” Syria’s civil war is over—or at least it should be!—after a resounding electoral victory by the country’s no-longer-embattled president. Bashar al-Assad won a walloping 90 percent of the vote, easily securing another seven-year term. It was so easy, in fact, they didn’t even bother […]
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Say what you want about the Taliban, but its taste in pickup trucks is unimpeachable. Turns out the group was shooting video of the moment fighters handed off longtime prisoner of war Bowe Bergdahl to American special forces. There are hand shakes. One guy waves as a blinking, confused looking Bergdahl is ushered onto a […]
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Remember in early April, when the Portland Police Bureau announced it would recommend a serious felony charge for a Portland State University student who’d allegedly swerved her Jetta into a cyclist (who was (forcefully) complaining she’d cut him off while texting?) The cops overstated their case. The driver won’t be charged. Transgender? On Medicare? Good […]
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Good morning, measles! The dolts afraid of vaccinating their children against terrible and pernicious diseases once feared and rued as tragic reapers of souls are helping bring about a revival of terrible and pernicious diseases once feared and rued as tragic reapers of souls. Measles cases are at a 20-year high, just a few years […]
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Edward Snowden, the exile who leaked the National Security Agency’s domestic espionage secrets, some 1.7 million documents, explained himself a bit more in an interview with NBC last night. “Sometimes to do the right thing,” he said, “you have to break a law.” He also said he’d like to leave Russia, where he’s found asylum, […]