You like Hawaii, right? Sure beats this chilly, frosty mess, no? Go now. Before North Korea drops some nukes on it. Because the Pentagon is pretty sure they can.

Dozens of hostages are still missing this morning—and many, reportedly, are dead—after Algerian special forces stormed a gas field where Islamist militants had been holding captives from at least 10 different countries, including the United States.

Cycling antihero Lance Armstrong remorselessly admitted his doping to Oprah Winfrey in a Very Special Episode of Winfrey's now-dead show, prompting everyone to remember—and assemble clips showing!—the cancer survivor's years of unrepentant lies and desperate bullshit.

Barack Obama's second-term performance still enjoys the blessing of most (of the) Americans (asked to take this particular survey), but his 51 percent approval rating still puts him on a par with George W. Bush and way below someone like Bill Clinton.

And cue the brown-shirt jokes! In a first for campaign politics, the president's nimble and well-oiled re-election apparatus will stay together, transforming itself (and its powerful and rich cache of voter data) into a nonprofit designed to help push the president's agenda.

The debt ceiling spat means we can reuse old, cut-and-paste fiscal cliff headlines warning of economic doom and gloom and partisanship and frustration and brinkmanship and the marginalized John Boehner.

Acid was thrown right in the face of the fellow who runs Moscow's Bolshoi Ballet, maybe leaving him blind. Because everyone's a critic? (Ugh. Don't worry. I'm booing myself.)

We live in fucked up times when a large chain movie theater in a Western suburb becomes a national lightning rod for grief and anger and recriminations over civilized gun control.

We live in wonderful times when scientists can comb all over the landscape of the planet next to ours and find evidence of a formerly lush, coursing river that would rival our own Amazon if Mars hadn't grown dead and cold.

Some fighter jets from Portland got called last night to accompany a Seattle-bound passenger plane that might have held a hijacker. That maybe was a hoax. The guy in question reportedly just slept the whole time and didn't act weird. So he wasn't arrested.

KATU, Portland's own torches-and-pitchforks news channel, is a little too gleefully patting itself on the back for hounding a homeless four-time-convicted rapist so much he's moving back to Seattle. The deal is, though, he gets to come back the next time the Timbers lose to Sounders.

OH! OH! OH! OH! LOOK AT THOSE LOW RATES!