Ah, yes. NOW the Republican Party gets "evolution." After Tuesday's history-making loss—in which, it turned out, illiterate, nativist, suspicious, prudish white men aren't the only Americans who enjoy casting ballots—there's talk among blowhards like John Boehner and Sean Hannity that positions on red-meat topics like immigration reform and revenue increases maybe have, you know, "evolved.

The GOP is looking to focus groups and even more polling (good luck with that) for salvation as it confronts its traditional antipathy to everybody: "Asked about the GOP’s demographic problems, Boehner said: 'What Republicans need to learn is: How do we speak to all Americans? You know, not just the people who look like us and act like us, but how do we speak to all Americans?'"

Syria's refugee crisis
has intensified as the country's violent civil war takes another violent turn—in the last day alone, 11,000 people fled over the border, most of them to Turkey. Civilians are losing faith in the country's rebels, who continually prove themselves prone to vengeance, wanton property destruction, and tactical and strategic mistakes.

Amazingly, now that Willard Romney won't be president, Israel has announced that, in fact, Iran isn't enriching weapon-grade uranium as fast as anyone thought—giving Israeli leaders several more months before they scratch their itchy trigger fingers by dumping massive amounts of ordnance all over their rivals.

Mexico is worried that votes to legalize marijuana in Colorado and Washington will make life easier, not harder, for the country's blood-hungry cartels and their massive plantations of pot.

Some of the Navy SEALs who assassinated Osama bin Laden blabbed about classified information to the production team for the latest Medal of Honor game—forcing the Pentagon to dock their pay and send them (apparently very serious) "letters of reprimand."

Occupy Wall Street wants to turn America's debt-criminalization system against itself by buying up personal debt that would otherwise go to collection-agency-mad bundlers and then, for the fuck of it, forgiving it all.

Gas rationing hits New York City today, after days of impossibly long, nasty, and desperate fuel lines in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

Not all the storm news is terrible—unless you happen to be trying to buy a used car. Because so many thousands of vehicles were wrecked by flood waters, your car, even here in Oregon, has likely increased in value by several hundred dollars.

Hillsboro cops shot and wounded a man they said was carrying a knife after showing up at a domestic violence call.

The mail is inexorable! Neither rain nor snow nor corpses on the front steps mistaken for super grisly Halloween mannequins, etc.

"HEH-HEH. WOW. THAT MOTHERFUCKER IS BROKE."