Last night, Barack Obama was as presidential as it gets, delivering a stirring tribute to the victims of this weekend's shootings in Tucson and issuing a call for us to “sharpen our instincts for empathy.” Watch video here. The Atlantic has a great roundup of reaction to Obama's remarks, especially on how it differs from yesterday morning's other big speech, the one with the "blood libel."
The disturbing story of Jared Lee Loughner, the shooter in Saturday's attacks, continues to unfold in documents and interviews. Police reports help show how the troubled 22-year-old slowly disintegrated over the past year.
Before the president's speech, Representative Gabrielle Giffords awoke briefly for visitors, another monumental step in a long road to recovery.
Guess who wasn't at the memorial? Speaker John Boehner, Giffords' new boss. He stayed in DC for a Republican National Committee cocktail party, kicking back drinks with his owners political sponsors.
Back home, a man is suing the U.S. Marshal's Service and the Portland Police Bureau for $1.3 million. He says they beat him up, Tasered him and then loosed a police dog on him, even though he wasn't the fugitive they were looking for, way back in 2008.
In the bench trial for Sandi Day, the TriMet driver last year in Portland's deadliest transit crash, a defense witness said Day was adhering to her training when she made the risky left turn that took her into a group of pedestrians. Prosecutors also took aim at a witness from the day before who said the pedestrians were drunk and not in the crosswalk. Turns out the witness has applied for a job at TriMet, and is dating and related to TriMet employees. Nice.
Remember how it was warm and wet yesterday? Did you like it? Because it's probably gonna be that way again today, and for a good long while.
Oh, and while we're remembering things: Remember the Middle East? It's still fucked. Hillary Clinton was just there, reminding everyone.
Starbucks continues to find new places to sell its coffee. Seems Howard Schultz has figured out that India has a shitload of people who still haven't had the pleasure of basting their tongues in the flavor of burnt.
How good is your insurance? Julian Assange, WikiLeaks bad boy, promises to release secret and nasty documents about Rupert Murdoch and News Corp. "if something happens to me or to WikiLeaks."
And because Sarah Mirk kindly suggested I run this today, open your eyes and weep. This is what a whale threesome looks like (yes, that's a penis; and so's the other one):
