Friday, January 27, 2012

Viva la Education! Educationistas! Target Portland's Three Year Olds with "Social Justice" Instruction

First in a Series
What is social justice? Like the word 'sustainability,' no one seems to know the definition. The term is ping'd like a pinball between people who, when hit with it, robotically nod. No one gives thought to what it means--least of all the left.

And the social justice crowd wants to make sure your Portland Public School student is steeped in it. They call it "Re-thinking" the schools. It's a misnomer, however, because no thinking is required by you or your little bots who sit in the seats in government schools.

But social justice isn't justice at all. Justice allows for equal treatment under law. Social justice strives for equal outcomes.

Witnesses told police that a group of boys and girls got into a dispute with another MAX passenger after one of the boys bumped into the passenger’s baby stroller as they boarded the train. During the argument, the 11-year-old boy lifted his shirt to show the woman a gun in his waistband. When he started to pull the gun, the woman backed away and the boy put the gun back into his waistband, witnesses said.

Want to know more? The Portland Tribune has more here.

Jan Brewer Hands Obama Letter

Besides observing that in general women have more guts than men in standing up for what's right against this President (Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann come to mind), it's sad that Brewer has to appeal to the President to secure the border of the United States of America. Presumably the President already knew it was part of his job. Sadly, the only thing the President and Eric Holder have done is supply guns to the thugs to drug criminals in Mexico. Once again he's working for the wrong side.

Here's the story behind Brewer's letter.

Scott St. Clair: Cuba Libres, not Cuban Liberation, on minds of visiting Washington State Lawyers

After reading the January 2012 issue of the Washington State Bar News with its three pieces extolling the virtues of communist Cuba, I’m ashamed to admit I’m an inactive member of the bar (Washington State Bar Association #7854).

In October of last year over two-dozen Washington state lawyers, including WSBA president Stephen Crossland, took a junket to Cuba ostensibly to engage in lawyer-to-lawyer exchanges. What resulted, however, were three puff pieces in the most recent Bar News that read as if they were written by the Cuban Ministry of Propaganda and Hubris.

For the uninitiated, a Cuba libres is a cocktail made with copious quantities of dark rum, a product for which Cuba is as well known as its cigars and asylum-seeking baseball players.

Apparently a good time was had by all, but no political prisoners or local human rights groups (they’re prohibited by law anyway) were visited by the lawyers so far as I could tell. Instead, Crossland wrote about cigars and Cuba’s sports legacy – they love their baseball. Former WSBA governor Patrick Palace gushed

Occupy Portland Spitting and Scratching Portland Police

From Oregonlive:

As of 8 p.m., Portland Police Lt. Robert King said he was aware of four arrests for accusations such as disorderly conduct or interfering with police. He said one officer was scratched in the face and spit on during the part of the demonstration at Southwest Main Street, between Third and Fourth Avenues. No medical attention was required. Meanwhile, a least two protesters were knocked to the ground at various times.

Language alert (naturally):

How Thick is Your Societal Bubble? I scored 17

From Charles Murray's new book "Coming Apart."

How Thick Is Your Bubble?

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Score » 17 out of 20 (85% )
Result

On a scale from 0 to 20 points, where 20 signifies full engagement with mainstream American culture and 0 signifies deep cultural isolation within the new upper class bubble, you scored at least 17.

Quiz School

Take this quiz & get your score

How Thick Is Your Bubble? » Fun Trivia Maker

bANned by OMSI: Standing Room Only

I'm pretty sure this would have been a class I would have been tempted to cut in college but science doesn't seem so boring anymore, does it? Not since the scandal ridden bunch at the CRA, Penn State and the IPCC were outed by their own emails showing collusion, hiding declines and conspiracy. Intrigue, global conspiracies, international collusion. Sounds like a spy novel.

The thing about drug dealers is that sometimes they are on the right side of the law. Just ask Antoine Jones, a Washington DC nightclub owner and three-time convicted dealer, who was serving a life sentence for drug trafficking.

On Monday the US Supreme Court sided with Jones and his legal team who argued that the police had violated Jones right to personal privacy under the Fourth Amendment.

In what may be the most important 4th Amendment ruling on from the high court in two decades or more, the Supremes ruled that the GPS device placed on his vehicle to track his movements and which served as a key part of the evidence presented against Jones, should have had come pre-packaged with a search warrant. With that decision, the unanimous court ruling sent several clear warnings to police and prosecutors that the next generation of limits on police authority has arrived.

Warren Buffett's Secretary Makes Between $200K-$500K Per Year

Buffett's Impoverished Secretary

This is according to Forbes and spotted by an alert 5th Listener!
Money shot:

Insofar as Buffet (like Mitt Romney) earns income primarily from capital gains, which are taxed at 15 percent (and according to Obama need to be raised for reasons of fairness), we need to determine how much income a taxpayer like Bosanek must earn in order to pay an average tax rate above fifteen percent. This is easy to do.
The IRS publishes detailed tax tables by income level. The latest results are for 2009. They show that taxpayers earning an adjusted gross income between $100,000 and $200,000 pay an average rate of twelve percent. This is below Buffet’s rate; so she must earn more than that. Taxpayers earning adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 to $500,000, pay an average tax rate of nineteen percent. Therefore Buffet must pay Debbie Bosanke a salary above two hundred thousand.

How many people would sign up right now to fill the spot for the unfortunately treated secretary?

Me too.

Banned by OMSI: Meeting Tonight!

SHILO INN AT AIRPORT

The meeting that OMSI didn't want to touch! The presentations by three scientists about "man made global warming" and the flaws in that theory.

I'll see you there! The doors open at 5pm and the presentation starts at 7pm at the Airport Shilo Inn.

Sponsored by the local chapter of the American Meteorological Society.

Paying More to Find Out What's in Portland's Slop Buckets

Now that Portland's social engineers have cut in half the number of times our garbage is picked up, charged us more for it and made us scrape our plates into our government slop bucket, they finally want the answer to these questions:

Was this a good idea? What's in the slop bucket?

And now we get to pay more to find out.

An alert 5th Listener has pointed me to this request for proposal from the City of Portland to do a study on our slop buckets.

You might ask yourself right now: didn't they know what they were doing before they started getting involved in our food scraps? C'mon, dupe! This is the City of Portland for cryin' out loud, where good intentions are all that really matter--never mind the ~~cost to the taxpayers~~ what the idiots want or if it works.

Let's just back the truck up here for a second and discover how we got here.

Joe the Small Business Owner: CRC: Hey, Anybody Listening? Where's the Money Being Spent?

Victoria I read through the report by Tiffany Couch, regarding the Columbia River Crossing project.

I was an accounting /finance major in college. My understanding is this is a very, very serious report. This is from a forensic accountant! The fact that a forensic accountant was called in is serious enough.

Her report is not mean spirited, but is a complete rejection of accounting practices (or lack thereof) of this organization. From the lack of financial statements and the other myriad of infractions, I think this is a serious issue, and involves a lot of money.

A report like this in the private sector, would be a called a qualified opinion, meaning, that is not up to generally accepted accounting standards. In that case, management would immediately begin an investigation of the infractions,

State of the Union Transcript

The Washington Post has posted a full transcript of Obama's SOTU campaign speech here

GOP Rebuttal transcript here

Obama Cronies Big Winners In Blocking Keystone XL Pipeline

Ever since Barack Obama nixed the TransCanada Oil Pipeline from Alberta to the Gulf, many people, unions and Democrats included have been scratching their heads pondering why he would kill off so many potential private sector jobs during these dire economic times.

Yes I know it was all blamed on those evil Republicans, who pushed for a quicker decision after years of dragging it out, but what else is new from the Poseur in Chief? Everything is the fault of the Republicans according to Obama and his fellow Democrat Party leaders.

It seems now, with a new revelation, that some very wealthy people who have supported Obama and spoke on behalf of his policies that continue to bankrupt the country stand to make Billions of dollars off of this decision to kill off the Keystone XL Pipeline project.

A January 22, 2012 Bloomberg article tells us “Buffett’s Burlington Northern Among Winners From Keystone Denial.”

Gregoire "An Angel" in Longview Longshoreman Thuggery

A possible settlement between the #@##!$%$&*&&%$^%$##$@@!^%$ gentlemen of the Longview Longshoremen and the Export Grain Terminal on the banks of the Columbia River may be in the offing. No details of the pact have emerged but reaction seems to be getting in front of reality. For example, take this quote. Please.

"It brought tears to my eyes. Gov. Gregoire must be an angel. That's the only thing I can figure out. Everybody tried, but she got it done," said Darold Dietz, a Port of Longview commissioner and retired longshoreman. [emph added]

Pass the Tums.

Rees Lloyd: A Spirited GOP "Lincoln Day Dinner" In Columbia County

Energy and enthusiasm marked The Columbia County Republican Central Committee’s “2012 Lincoln Day Dinner,” on Saturday, January 21.

            It featured speeches by Rob Cornilles, GOP candidate for the 1^st Congressional District seat vacated by dysfunctional Democrat David Wu; Knute Buehler, the Bend physician and former Rhodes Scholar who is running for Oregon Secretary of State; Anthony Miltich, a Scappoose police offer who is running for Columbia County Sheriff; and Robert Speirs, GCCRCC Chairman who concluded the event with a speech entitled “Let’s Rescue Freedom.”

            The Lincoln Day Dinner drew a spirited capacity crowd to the St. Helen’s Elks Club. At the event’s end, Speirs had high praise for Keith Forsythe, chairman of the event committee; David Pereira, who served as master of ceremonies; as well as for the speakers.

            “ We are very pleased that we had such a large crowd, but retained our friendly, small town atmosphere of good people joining together for a good cause—rescuing freedom, and restoring our country to its founding values,” Speirs said.

No Grocery Bag?

From Portlandia

You can get a plastic bag in Vancouver, while they still remain legal over here.

Longview Longshore Settlement With EGT

No official announcement of the terms of the settlement but Governor Chris Gregoire announced a settlement between the Longview Longshoremen and the Export Grain Terminal (EGT);

"While the parties are still working to finalize certain conditions over the next several days, we are optimistic we can resolve the dispute and get on with the business of operating the facility,'' EGT CEO Larry Clarke said in a statement.

See previous posts on this issue here. More later.

Dr. Eric Fruits: Portland Priorities; Bikes & Street Cars Over Potholes

Read Eric's post HERE.

The Zero Says Abortion is "Health[y] for our Society"

Today Oregon's newspaper of record (here) editorialized in favor of abortion. And the sun came up today. It's no surprise that The Zero would editorialize in favor of abortion but it's the 'why' and a key observation that are so baffling--and tragic.

The newspaper swallows whole the notion that, on this 30th anniversary of abortion on demand, "Big Abortion" wants to reduce its the number of babies being killed. You'll forgive me the urge to laugh.

Here's the plan:

...an innovative and positive campaign aimed, in part, at preventing abortion. We're speaking of the "One Key Question" initiative crafted by the Oregon Foundation for Reproductive Health, a nonprofit associated with NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon.

If they do, then it's time to talk about prenatal care and having a healthy baby. If they don't, then there's an opening to talk about birth control.

Ladies, NARAL wants to be in on your private consultation with a doctor.

That's like having Big Tobacco in on every office consultation providing guidance on your smoking habits under the guise of reducing the amount of smokers.

Lord, please forgive the Oregonian editorial writers their gullibility.

But it gets worse than that:

Today in Oregon, desperate women can terminate a pregnancy safely and legally, and the availability of abortion bolsters not only their own family's security but also the health of our society.

Did you catch that? The newspaper of record has pronounced that abortions have made our society more healthy.

That's a a little like saying gang members do society a favor by cleansing the gene pool. Ok, I admit to actually saying that on occasion. But would you make that same statement about grandma wanting to take a spate of pills to end her life? Will her death make society "healthier?"

Where are all those do-gooders who want to save the lives of murderers on Oregon's death row in support of the Governor's unconstitutional moratorium? I thought they believed keeping alive the psychopaths who murdered multiple people was more healthy for society.

Sure is confusing.

I believe cheer-leading the killing of innocent children is unhealthy for society. I believe the desensitization that results from our cavalier treatment of life is unhealthy for society.

Silly me.

Scott St. Clair: Put a sock in efforts to tell the rest of us to put a sock in it

During each election cycle, predictable bad pennies show up. Like stuck records, stupid ideas are repeated ad infinitum, ad nauseum. In today’s Olympian is a letter to the editor complaining about the length and cost of political campaigns. Letter writer Gordon Personius repeats the bad-penny stupid idea that the answer is a 90-day limitation on campaigns, which would be exclusively publicly funded.

How many ways to you want to gut the hell out of the First Amendment to do this? No American, left or right, should ever be forced to subsidize offensive political speech, which is the essence of public funding of campaigns.