Quiet-ish morning, news-wise, Portland. Which is as it should be. Go outside right now. BUT FIRST!
Cringe as you read, again, about the meth user who disemboweled a man while stealing his bike. He'll be in prison for a good long while.
No use in letting go of that cringe just yet! You've still got to read about the Golden Corral employee whose four fingers, lost to a meat grinder, had been cast aside with the spoiled pork by the time firefighters arrived.
And what the hell, keep a solid half of that cringe going while you read about the overreaction of guns rights advocates who are going to try to recall three legislators for their support of a sensible gun control law.
Okay, you've earned a cringe rest. Check out this interesting piece in the O about Sen. Jeff Merkley's evolving role in the Senate's Democratic minority. He's well-positioned—and still deeply unsettled by his potential undoing at the hands of the Koch machine.
If you had $30 million, what would you do with it? I'd probably make my bedroom into a planetarium. The Portland City Council is talking about roads and affordable housing, so I ask you: Who's more qualified to lead?
Hey look! The august Guardian took a deep dive into Portland's handwringing over the $500 million propane export terminal the Port of Portland wants to plop down near Kelley Point Park. Read it, then read our story about how one of the biggest potential projects in the city's history (that would be the aforementioned terminal) almost slid by without an opportunity for that headline-grabbing handwringing.
Untold tons of earth-plundering metal arrived in Seattle yesterday—a brief stopover en route to an oil-finding spree Shell's got planned for the arctic. And who was there to give that metal hell? Ten kayaks with a cool sign.
Want to know more about how that suicidal Germanwings pilot should never, ever have been trusted in a commercial airliner's cockpit? The NYT's got you covered.
ISIS might be launching suicide attacks in Afghanistan these days. That's bad news, and an unsettling expansion of the group's stratagems.
I dasn't take any more of your time. Go and enjoy this. Don't let the guy wearing an unpleasantly short utilikilt in this coffee shop have all the fun.
Yes. YES.
