Myanmar: The ruling military government of Myanmar has conceded that Nobel peace laureate Aung San Suu Kyi and her democracy party have won a ruling majority in both houses of parliament. A military statement posted on Facebook said, “The government will respect and follow the people’s choice and decision, and work on transferring power peacefully according to the timetable.”

Despite what appears to be the country’s first truly democratic election in more than 50 years, the military has reserved control of the army, police, and parts of the government. And according to the constitution written by the army specifically to exclude Suu Kyi because she is married to a foreigner and has foreign-born children, she may not serve as prime minister. But the steely Suu Kyi, who has stood up to the men in green all her life, says she’ll be calling the shots.

Permawar: Kurdish forces backed by American aircraft began an offensive today to retake the Iraqi town of Sinjar from Islamic State forces. About 7,500 Peshmerga fighters were closing in on Sinjar from three directions. The Kurds are reported to have taken a section of Highway 47, a strategic ISIS supply line.

Shots Fired: An investigation by the Pasadena, Calif. public radio station KPCC has revealed that in the four years ending Dec. 31, 2014, police officers shot and killed 375 people, a quarter of whom were unarmed. No police officers were charged with a crime in any of the shootings.

Some of the numbers are stunning.

-Of the 279 people shot because they were said to be ignoring police commands, 120 were drunk, on drugs, or mentally impaired.

-Officers shot 154 people fleeing or after the pursuit was over.

-Of the 148 people shot because they reached for their waistband or their hands dropped from sight, 47 were unarmed.

-Cops shot black people at three times the rate of whites and Latinos.

But the numbers also show why officers are nervous. Of the 266 suspects who were armed, two-thirds had a gun and 57 of them fired at the police.

The Usual Suspects: Russian President Vladimir Putin has ordered an investigation into international allegations that his premiere athletes have been pumped up by a systematic doping scheme. He said, “A sporting contest is only interesting when it is honest.” This is the same Vladimir Putin who at age 63 somehow racked up eight goals playing hockey against former NHL stars.

Performance Art: Actor Shia LeBeouf, a performer and performance artist who may be also a little wacky on the side has been sitting in a Manhattan movie theater the past two days watching all of his 27 movies in reverse order. LeBeouf lovers were welcome to join him in the theater as a video feed showed him staring blankly at the screen, wearing a green army parka and white hooded sweatshirt. Spoiler alert; his movie career ends at the beginning.

The Obit Page: Carol Doda, the San Francisco stripper with silicone breasts credited with bringing topless dancing to America, has died of kidney failure at age 78. Doda first went topless at the Condor Club in North beach in 1964. She jiggled until 1985.

Doda’s act was copied all over the country, and the public freeing of her breasts was a turning point in the sexual revolution. The author Tom Wolfe wrote about Doda, describing her 44DD breasts as “living arterial sculpture – viscera spigot – great blown-up aureate morning glories.”

Sticky Issue: To the dismay of gum snappers everywhere, Seattle has rid itself of what’s been described as one of the most disgusting tourist attractions in the world, “the gum wall”. Over the past 20 years or so people have stuck about 2,000 multi-colored pounds of chewed gum to the wall in an alley near the Pike Place Market. It started when people entering a little nightclub parked their gum on the wall.

But like the bridge in Paris where couples attached their “locks of love,” the wall was in danger of collapsing under the weight of masticated sugar, butadiene rubber, and dried saliva. And just think what it was like when workers softened it with steam cleaners.

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