Blue on Blue: Following a Kurdish vote for independence a month ago, Iraqi forces are assaulting the city of Kirkuk and its surrounding oil fields. Reports vary as to how much fighting there is. Both the Iraqis and the Kurds are allies armed and trained by the US.

The Hacker Kingdom: Never mind their missile and nuclear bomb development, the North Koreans have an army of 6,000 computer hackers bent on stealing money and sewing cyber chaos, according to a story in The NY Times.

  North Korean hackers were behind a huge ransomware attack last May that failed to generate much cash. In one incident, they came close to stealing $1 billion from the Bangladesh Central Bank, but a single-letter typographical error in the order raised suspicion.

Fighting back is difficult. The North Koreans don’t have much of a computer system to attack, and a military attack would be overkill.

Secretary of State Rx Tillerson said yesterday on CNN that despite President Trump’s fiery threats, “diplomatic efforts will continue until the first bomb drops.”

These guys are scary even when they’re trying to be comforting.

Permawar: A horrific double bombing in the Somalian capital of Mogadishu over the weekend killed at least 300 people and wounded 300 more. Rescue teams were digging bodies and the injured from the rubble. Several buildings were gutted and the devastation stretches for hundreds of feet from the point of the explosions.

No one has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Somalia has been fighting an Islamist insurgency since 2007.

Lawman: Although he’s an opponent of same-sex marriage, and as a senator voted against stronger legal protections for transgender people, Attorney General Jeff Sessions has sent a hate crimes lawyer to Iowa to prosecute a man accused of murdering 16-year-old Kedarie Johnson last year. Johnson had identified himself variously as gay and both male and female. He sometimes used the name “Kandicee.”

This move comes as somewhat of a surprise from Sessions, but a Justice Department spokesman said, “This is just one example of the attorney general’s commitment to enforcing the laws enacted by Congress and to protecting the civil rights of all individuals.”

Wildfire: Forty people are now confirmed dead in the Northern California wildfires and scores are still reported missing. Firefighters are going through the ruins of hundreds of houses looking for bodies.

Gridiron News: Former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has filed a grievance against the NFL teams, claiming they have colluded to keep him unemployed. Kaepernick is the player who started the national anthem protests.

Kaepernick took the 49ers to two NFC championship games and one Super Bowl. He exercised his option to leave the 49ers last year and no one has picked him up.

Here’s a test: Green Bay’s Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone against the Vikings yesterday. Let’s see if anyone from Green Bay picks up the phone to call Kaepernick.

The Obit Page: Richard Wilbur, who was named America’s second poet laureate in 1987, has died at 96. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1957.

In the sometimes back stabbing world of literature, Wilbur was sometimes criticized for being “too mild” a poet.

A few lines from his poem,  “A Baroque Wall-Fountain in the Villa Sciarra”:

“That land of tolerable flowers, that state 

As near and far as grass 

Where eyes become the sunlight, and the hand 

Is worthy of water: the dreamt land 

Toward which all hungers leap, all pleasures pass.”

Hooray for Hollywood: Movie producer Woody Allen, who married his wife’s adopted daughter and is accused of molesting another, said he’s “sad” for Harvey Weinstein, whose career has been buried under an avalanche of sexual abuse allegations.

Saturday Night Live’s Michael Che noted that Weinstein said, “We all make mistakes.”

“You assaulted dozens of women,” Che said. That’s not a mistake, that’s a full season of ‘Law and Order.’ ”

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