Signs of hope and devastation linger in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. But the misery for thousands of people awaiting help and a return to normality could get much worse with the advent of much colder weather.

The man behind the newly competent FEMA found out his vaunted "Waffle House" matrix for determining a community's resiliency doesn't exactly work north of the Mason-Dixon line.

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GOP veep nominee Paul Ryan has been conspicuously quiet during Willard Romney's "I'm a Moderate No Really I Was Just Lying to Conservatives This Spring" swing-state, homestretch barnstorming run. But if Willard wins? Expect an activist vice president along the lines of Dick Cheney.

Florida's Republican elite doesn't like it when minorities or poor people avail themselves of democracy—cutting early voting by nearly a third. So the state's Democrats are suing in federal court for more time to drop ballots not on Election Day, but when it's actually convenient for actual humans with jobs and families.

Things are better in Oregon, but then we have inane controversies like what to do about mail-in ballots returned without postage. The post office is delivering them, even though some elections officers—like in Multnomah County—say their policy is to ignore them. Which is bullcrap. Suck it up and count 'em all!

Israel has drawn up a detailed simulation—with the American presidential election starting the clock—for a strike on Iran's nuclear facilities that, officials claim, magically won't plunge either the Middle East or rest of the world into a wider war.

Vladimir Putin is an unstoppable leviathan of machismo and brute sex appeal.

While the city and feds look to reform the police bureau over cops' unconstitutional treatment of folks with mental illness, a man accused of attacking someone at a mental health facility in Northeast, and then a few other people, was Tasered and hit with batons by cops who fought to arrest him. The man was treated for his injuries at a hospital, along with two officers injured in the struggle.

In case you missed yesterday's post, high school kids carrying wooden signs (not shields) didn't want to go the way cops wanted them to go during a 1,000-strong, unpermitted anti-debt, anti-austerity march near Lloyd Center and were indiscriminately pepper-sprayed by bike cops. Little kids were nearby, and at least one senior citizen was hit, too.

The police bureau announced it was all in the name of "safety," because protesters wanted to walk down a busy street. Although, because the officers would have closed that street anyway, there would have been few injuries, if any. Certainly nothing close to 20 people or who wound up injured, instead, directly at the hands of police officers. Police also said the banners were weapons—mostly because they learned, in past marches, that the signs really do make it easier for protesters to push through police lines.