First, in a personal bit of news, there are all these damned Johnnie Walker ads all over the Internet today, and ever since reading Kafka on the Shore, I associate Johnnie Walker with horrific cat torture. So that's the frame of mind I'm in as I write this—cat torture.

If you've struggled to follow along with—or just haven't been super interested in—daily revelations about National Security Agency trespasses, you could do worse than reading this lengthy summation by the New York Times. Edward Snowden—the spring from whence this stuff leaks—snubbed the Times when he dumped documents in the hands of reporters. The paper had to get them from the Guardian. Interesting and important.

A disaffected 23-year-old began shooting Transportation Security Administration employees at an LAX terminal Friday morning. He killed one screener and wounded another before being critically wounded himself.

Shockingly, the suspect is something of a loner with a history of being bullied.

Worrying Climate Change Report That Will Be Largely Ignored Of The Day: Rising temperatures will imperil our food supplies, according to a UN panel.

Everything about this story makes me think New York's the most depressing place in the world.

Speaking of New York, should the state's small community of Greece be forced to stop allowing chaplains to pray at outset of town meetings? The US Supreme Court might decide.

A politically imprisoned member of Russian punk group Pussy Riot is now missing, her family says.

I agree with you that politics in the United States is the worst, but at least we haven't devolved into the Grecian drive-by model.

Welcome to the most depressing time of year, everybody. People always want to act like it's this beneficent miracle that we get an extra hour when switching back to standard time. I'm over that by Monday, but it's dark at 4 pm for the next six months. How is this a fair trade? I say Daylight Savings Time year-round. Who's with me?!

Dark days, I tell you.

Screen_shot_2013-11-02_at_10.23.22_AM.png

But, hey! I've got my health and several fraying scraps of youth. I'm gonna attack this day.