Domain: statesmanjournal.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to statesmanjournal.com.
Comments · 16
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Re:correlation != causationQuoting this Anonymous Coward's racist post:
There was once this couple that got carjacked by some niggers, and then they were both raped, tortured and murdered.
There was this white supremacist who with his girlfriend murdered his own father and stepmother, a 19-year old kid whom they mistakenly believed to be Jewish, and a Black man. The two were finally stopped and apprehended by a police officer.
http://newportnewstimes.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&story_id=44700&page=86
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/story/news/crime/2014/08/04/white-supremacist-sentenced-carjacking-deaths/13598589/
And this piece of work who murdered one person and wounded five others during a shooting spree that included a carjacking and a home invasion (all of which were perpetrated by him).
http://news.sky.com/story/1447897/white-supremacist-charged-with-gun-rampage
So, yeah, if we can't get these white supremacists under control maybe all right-thinking citizens ought to arm themselves after all. -
Re:Another load of Federal B.S.
Just last week I read about a psycho woman in Oregon who bashed a guy's skull in with an aluminum baseball bat on their first date, when he went out there to finally visit her in person after a 2 year long online relationship. They only gave her a sentence of a few MONTHS in jail for the incident, despite her planning the whole thing and getting another woman to assist her with it - AND saying she got the idea from something she read or saw that said it only takes 7 pounds of pressure to snap someone's neck. Which person are you more concerned will do people physical harm in the future??
If you're going to cite something like this, you really should provide a link to back up your claims.
http://www.statesmanjournal.co...
She didn't "bash his skull in", she hit him and fractured his skull and caused two lacerations. He was treated and released released from hospital. No mention of a sentence of "a few months" in that article, or any other I could find. The woman in question is being held on $100,000 bail, and appears for an arraignment on April 20.
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Re: FBI shits on the constitution.
Wait - no. I found you:
http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20130529/UPDATE/130529028/Man-threatens-blow-up-state-building-over-misspelled-sign?odyssey=mod|breaking|text|Home&nclick_check=1
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Re:Desperation breeds war.NK isn't a theocracy
Well, not in the usual sense of following an invisible man in the sky. However, they do have a strong civic religion based on the manufactured myth of the Dear Leader (who, now being dead, is sort of a 'invisible man in the sky'), so FAIL1.
and doesn't support terrorist organizations.
Considering its endless hysterical posturing toward South Korea which has been ongoing for 50 years, along with various strange little attacks over the past 5 decades, I'd say that North Korea *is* a terrorist organization (albeit a rather pitiful and impotent one), so FAIL2.
Any other half-ass propaganda you'd care to pass along, Mr. Anonymous Coward?
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It could be easier
... if it were simpler. Why is the Federal Tax Code 3.7 million words? If the tax code were simpler, then those servers would have a much easier time of it.Scanning today's news turns up a lot of good examples for how the code could be simplified.
The five dumbest parts of the U.S. tax code
1) Ethanol credits increase the price of food, and give paper manufacturers more money in credits than they make from selling paper.
2) Exemption for inherited stock-gains.
3) Mortgage-interest deduction encourages people to buy as much house as they can afford, and encourages owning over renting to the detriment of other investments.
4) Exemption on employer-provided health insurance encourages employers to give more health insurance instead of wage increases, and discourages health insurers from competing on price.
5) Municipal-bond-interest exclusion gives more benefit to rich bond owners than it does to the municipalities that issue the bonds.Congressman Wyden leads effort to simplify tax code
Taxes: There is a Better Way by U.S. Sen. Judd Gregg
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Re:Being a policeman is only easy in a police stat
When 13-year-olds can be strip-searched in search of Ibuprofen, it doesn't bode well for the right to privacy that I'd expect to have.
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Re:Perspective
or a couple of fancy public restrooms in some Congressman's district for a park any rarely uses.
Earmarks alone consume more science money than we can imagine. Look, the DOD will always be here, its a requirement to maintain our standard of living and be able to scare the pants of petty 3rd world dictators who think neighboring countries are new areas to invade or people of certain ethnic traits need to die.
The real crime in our government is earmarks, essentially buying their seats of power with our tax dollars. I was dumb enough to expect some change when the Democrats moved in on their campaign of Republican corruption but they are far more corrupt that those replaced. Hell they have tried to pass rules to hide earmarks or use fancy talk to hide the fact of what they were. I just wish there were some real viable 3rd parties but for every good idea many have they have too many crackpots to be taken seriously. This doesn't even count the problems the face with the press which is in bed with the Democrats and Republicans.
Worse, some of the people running for office are suggesting cuts in NASA! This is all about votes, NASA and weirdly named science groups don't garner votes like a new highway; conveniently named for your local Congressmen; library, swimming pool, or yeah, a glorified outhouse.
I would rather pay for those 6m seats in a F22 than in an outhouse.
Oh, yeah a bit of exaggeration but 200k for an outhouse does happen and its "justified" http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080601/NEWS/806010321/1001
219k for wool research? Happened.
Think the Congress will take action, oh yeah, they told us loud and clear http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/03/13/earmark.vote/ and http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0608/11451.html
Want more ? http://earmarks.omb.gov/by-tracking/summary.html
Sheesh people, they want you to bitch about the war and the military. It allows them to roll right on by under your nose while you have it up in the air in "righteous indignation". Keep buying it. Maybe someone will come along and promise change
.... and you will buy that like we did in 2006 -
Re: Gov. K.[from article linked above]
Kulongoski had expressed public support for the war in a meeting last year with President Bush.
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It gets even better.
When Kulongoski isn't tirelessly defending free software, he tours Iraq to sample their ice cream.
A hero if ever there was one. -
On the JUDICIARY committee?!!?!
Have these people forgotten what committee they sit on? The only thing worse would be an ethics committee doing this.
Man. I miss the good old days when partisan squabbles were settled by duels or a good brawl. This is just sad. The "greatest deliberative body in the world" has shamed itself.
(By the way: if you live in Oregon, there's an initiative being floated to make the state legislature nonpartisan, and thereby avoid this sort of shenannigan. For more info, see this article. If only we could do the same at the federal level!) -
It's official.
Software giant threatens mikerowesoftZDNet.co.uk,UK-8 minutes agoMicrosoft has set its lawyers onto a 17-year-old software writer from Vancouver, called Mike Rowe, because he has registered MikeRoweSoft.com, which the
Microsoft not pleased about mikerowesoft websiteAnanova,UK-3 hours agoA Canadian teenager called Mike Rowe who added the word soft to his name for his website title, has been ordered by Microsoft to hand over the domain.
Microsoft won't go soft on Mike RoweLondon Free Press,Canada-4 hours agoVANCOUVER -- Like any good fledgling businessperson, Mike Rowe knew
Microsoft lawyers threaten Mike Rowe (17)The Register,UK-5 hours agoIn what could easily be mistaken for an Onion story, Microsoft has unleashed the full fury of its lawyers on 17-year-old Canadian high-school student, Mike Rowe
Mike may be Rowe, but 'soft' is troubleSeattle Times,WA-7 hours agoBy The Associated Press. VANCOUVER, BC - Mike Rowe knew he needed a catchy name for his Web-site design company. But the folks
Big bully Gates targets teenTimes of India,India-8 hours agoVANCOUVER: No matter what Shakespeare said on the theme of nomenclature, Microsoft has thought it fit to sue a teenager whose domain name is a lot like the
Microsoft vs MikeRoweSoftIndependent Online,South Africa-10 hours agoVancouver, British Columbia - Mike Rowe thinks it's funny that his catchy name for a website design company sounds a lot like Microsoft.
Microsoft takes on teenNEWS.com.au,Australia-10 hours agoMIKE Rowe thinks it is funny that his catchy name for a Web site design company sounds a lot like Microsoft. "Since my name is Mike
Langford student battles tech giant over use of his domain name: Canada.com,Canada-Jan 17, 2004Mike Rowe, a Langford high school student who does Web site design part-time, is locked in a legal battle with one of the world's biggest companies.
Microsoft vs. Mike Rowe SoftWIS,SC-47 minutes ago(Vancouver, British Columbia-AP) Jan. 19, 2004 - It's Microsoft versus Mike Rowe-soft. Mike Rowe, 17, wanted a catchy name for his Web site design company.
Support CD Babyp2pnet.net,Canada-1 hour agoBecause Mike, who lives in Victoria on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada (and a short drive from p2pnet.net's thriving central base : ) makes a
Microsoft Talk Legal to 17 Year-Old Owner of MikeRoweSoft DomainShortNews.com-2 hours agoMike Rowe, 17, from British Columbia, Canada decided to start up a small web business and called his domain MikeRoweSoft. Smart
Microsoft Corporation vs MikeRoweSoftOfficialSpin-3 hours agoVictoria, British Columbia -- (OfficialSpin) -- 19/01/04 -- A 17 year-old high school student, Mike Rowe, who just so happens to earn a few extra bucks...
Microsoft demands teen to give up domain nameSalem Statesman Journal,OR-7 hours agoVANCOUVER, British Columbia - Mike Rowe knew that he needed
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Re:I got an idea ...Bear in mind that we're talking state taxes and not federal. We should see, instead, if Oregon has an employee pension plan.
Come on, as someone who has studied public service areas at great lengths it seems rather apparent that this is a ploy to add more money to the state budget, plain and simple.
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Re:It matters that GWB lied about itBecause GWB and his hawks claimed that they knew Iraq had WMD, and led their nation to war on that ground. It seems clear that was a lie.
Iraq's possesion and use of weapons of mass destruction is an established fact.Although the Iraqis initially used chemical weapons to prevent defeat and to reduce battlefield losses, they later integrated CW attacks into combined-armed operations designed to regain lost territory and to gain the offensive. Iraq's use of CW in the war with Iran can be divided into three distinct phases:
1. 1983 to 1986--used in a defensive role; typically to deflect Iranian human-wave assaults. In 1984 Iraq became the first nation to use a nerve agent on the battlefield when it deployed Tabun-filled aerial bombs during the Iran-Iraq war. Some 5,500 Iranians were killed by the nerve agent between March 1984 and March 1985. Tabun kills within minutes. Some 16,000 Iranians were reported killed by the toxic blister agent mustard gas between August 1983 and February 1986.
2. 1986 to early 1988--iraq adapts use against Iran to disrupt Iranian offensive preparations.
3. early 1988 to conclusion of the war-- Iraq integrated large nerve agent strikes into its overall offensive during the spring and summer of 1988 leading to the ceasefire.
Iran used chemical weapons late in the war, but never as extensively or successfully as Iraq. The success of Iraqi offensive operations in the southern sector in mid-1988 ultimately caused the Iranians to cease hostilities. The use of chemical weapons contributed to the success of these operations.
The first chemical attacks by Saddam Hussein against civilian populations included attacks launched by Iraqi aircraft against 20 small villages in 1987.The real question is, what was the status of Iraq's programs before the Iraqis were liberated? Since Iraq developed binary chemical munitions, and some components of them are dual use and difficult to track down, it may be that we will never find a filled munition. But even the UN inspectors found some empty missile chemical warheads that they shouldn't have had before the war. Since the war the US has found several mobile labs. And there are still massive amounts of weapons material unaccounted for.
when Saddam forced UN weapons inspectors to leave the country in 1998, up to 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agents, including one and half tonnes of VX nerve agent, were still unaccounted for, as was the growth media sufficient for producing 26,000 litres of anthrax spores.
Tens of thousands dead? I dont' think so. Most of the estimates that I've seen are more like 5-10,000. Even if its more, it will still mean the end of Saddam's mass graves.
Another day and another mass grave is unearthed in Iraq. This weekend a team of British forensic scientists has the unenviable task of collating evidence from the latest of Saddam's killing fields to have been positively identified.
So many of these harrowing sites have been uncovered in the two months since Saddam's overthrow that even the experts are starting to lose count of just how many atrocities were committed by the Iraqi dictator's henchmen.
Officials working for Iraq's interim government say that more than 150 such sites have been reported to them, and that about 40 have been positively identified.
According to Human Rights Watch, the bodies of some 300,000 Iraqis could be occupying these mass graves, the victims of the numerous bloody campaigns of persecution and retribution that Saddam Hussain conducted against his own people, whether Shiites or Kurds. -
Re:No conceivable privacy implications...
And Michelin is going to put RFID receivers on every road in America and go completely unnoticed? If your answer is "no, but the government will", then this should be the least of your concerns; they have better ways of going about it than that.
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Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.
I updated my article about the law in Oregon, Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash, to include the GPS law mistake:
Airplanes are safe, but laws often crash.
by Michael Jennings
If you bought a TV in 1970 for $400, you would likely spend another $400 in the next 4 years having it repaired. But then there was a revolution. Famous quality control expert W. Edwards Deming and others helped managers realize the importance of doing things right. Now airplane, computer, television, and drug makers, to give just a few examples, are extremely serious about quality and reliability.
The quality revolution has not yet come to the legal profession. Laws are still allowed to be sloppy. Often imperfect results are simply ignored.
The DMV laws are an example. The auto insurance law in Oregon is based on "belief" and is structured in such a way that you can lose your driver's license because of a clerical error. It doesn't seem to bother the law makers that "belief" cannot be reliably known, and the insurance companies sometimes make mistakes. Amazed? Skeptical? Have a look at Oregon law ORS 806.245 (b).
The laws define driving as a "privilege" in spite of the fact that driving is a necessary freedom for a large percentage of us. Calling driving a "privilege" supports a system in which insurance companies make more profit.
Oregon law ORS 25.750 suspends a person's driver's license for being behind in child support payments. But there are obvious problems with this. Not having a driver's license is likely to make someone, usually a man, less able to pay.
The child support law supports a common fraud: A woman convinces a man she is serious about having a relationship, when in fact she has no serious intent. Even though there is an understanding that they will not have a child, the woman deliberately becomes pregnant. The woman disconnects from the relationship, but gets paid by the man for her personal project of having a baby. The child support also supports the woman, who can quit her full-time job and get an easier part-time job to supplement the money from the man.
Your telephone always works. Electricity is always delivered. The reliability comes from investigating and correcting any problem. In contrast, there is little desire to clean up faulty laws. Lawyers don't want to disturb a system that pays them $100 to $350 an hour. Often laws are allowed to be so confusing that citizens can't understand them.
Part of the reason that laws lack quality control is that there are people who want to use the power of government to make money. If you lose your driver's license in Oregon for a reason not related to safety, once you get your license back you will have to pay about $3,000 extra to some auto insurance company, even though the risk is not greater. It is easy to construct a more perfect auto insurance law, but that would reduce the unearned profit of the insurance companies.
This scheme of using the laws to make unearned profit is used in other areas, also. In Oregon, if a car is towed because of being in a wrong parking place, the cost of the tow to the car owner is far greater the true cost. The extra money goes to the towing company.
Part of the problem of making laws is that lawmakers often don't realize that lawmaking is difficult. The author of this article has, at different times in his life, repaired the automatic flight control systems of aircraft, worked in a Physics research laboratory, and written complex computer programs. None of this is as difficult as making good laws. However, people with no experience recognize that they should not repair aircraft. In contrast, the only requirement to be elected a lawmaker is popularity, and that is considered sufficient preparation.
Why don't judges demand quality control in laws? One reason is that the legislature tells them they can't look before they decide. Oregon law ORS 183.400 (4) limits the power of the Judiciary: A DMV agency rule, for example, can only be examined to see if it (a) violates constitutional provisions, or (b) exceeds the statutory authority of the agency; or (c) Was adopted without compliance with applicable rule-making procedures.
That means that, if the DMV says that black is white, judges must pretend they don't notice. Why? Well, (a) there is nothing in the constitution that prevents someone from saying something that is obviously crazy. (b) As long as the rule is about cars or driving, it is within the authority of the DMV. (c) And, since the DMV mostly makes it own procedures, it is unlikely a rule won't be in compliance.
If you studied American government in high school, you learned that the U.S. Constitution establishes separation of powers. The executive, legislative, and judicial branches are not allowed to interfere with each other. In Oregon, there are numerous ways this sensible law is not observed.
For example, the DMV is an agency of the executive branch, but it is allowed to make rules that bind the citizen as surely as any law. The only way an agency rule differs from a law is that it is not called a law.
The DMV has its own judges called ALJs, Administrative Law Judges, who decide whether those rules have been observed. So, the DMV has departments that perform functions of all three branches of government.
The ultimate method of assuring there won't be close scrutiny of the application of law is used in Oregon: The Legislative branch doesn't give the Judicial branch enough money to operate. More than 40 people have told the author that the Courts are under-funded and under-staffed. Starving the judiciary is the surest means of preventing good judicial action.
Do you want to experience for yourself how laws are made in Oregon? The Oregon Department of Transportation is developing a system to charge by the mile for driving in Oregon, and you can participate at the February 14, 2003 meeting. ODOT plans to install GPS radio receivers in every car to track where each car goes.
GPS stands for Global Positioning System. The system uses satellite radio transmissions to show pilots or hikers their position, for example. The GPS would calculate how many miles you drove in Oregon, and you would pay when you bought gasoline. See the December 31, 2002 Associated Press article at StatesmanJournal.com: Oregon drivers may pay more: http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=54
1 84Also see the Oregon government's own web site: Road User Fee Task Force, http://www.odot.state.or.us/ruftf/documents.html.
) Lawmaking is made to look very official and respectable. But underneath, it often isn't. One of the Oregon government's web pages says that ODOT's work is based partly on the "results of research of consultants from Oregon State University and Portland State University". However, it takes someone who has a minimal understanding of GPS about 10 seconds to realize that the system they are considering won't work. The GPS system depends on receiving the GPS radio signals. Anyone who covered the GPS antenna with aluminum foil would show that they had driven zero miles in Oregon, and therefore would pay no tax.
Aside from the fact that it won't work, there are so many other problems with this idea that they cannot all be listed here. For example, a system that charges by the mile will make the road taxes for SUVs the same as the cost for fuel-efficient vehicles. At present, owners of SUVs pay more because they pay a tax on gasoline. Another problem is that tracking where each vehicle goes means that there will be no privacy.
See the DMV laws for yourself:
ORS 806.245 (b): http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/806.html
ORS 25.750: http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/025.html
ORS 183.400 (4): http://www.leg.state.or.us/ors/183.html
January 2, 2003, 9:56 AM, #1 (file lics001h.htm)
Michael Jennings
Futurepower
P.O. Box 14491
Portland, OR 97293-0491
503-233-7820E-Mail: MJennings AT myrealbox DOT com
(Take out the spaces, change AT to @, and change DOT to a period to e-mail the author. The coded e-mail address helps discourage misuse of the address by computer robots that harvest email addresses for sale to those who send unwanted e-mail.)
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We know who you are. Where you went.
Who needs real time? Just give me a list of where you went the past year. Close to retirement? I see here that you were at the Mustang Ranch when you should have been 70 miles away for the past three months. Haven't I seen you at that political rally of my opponent? Let me check the gps records just to make sure it wasn't you. Don't want to mistake you for someone else. Can't have that.
Anyone remember how fbi files were found in political hands a half dozen years ago?
Applying for a job at the post office? Anyone reading slashdot know that they ask you if you've ever (not just in the last few years, but EVER) received a seat belt ticket (which btw is a non-moving violation), and if you say yes, they don't hire you, and if you say no and it is a lie they can fire you at any time in your career?
Let's add gps data to your application for a government position. It is already happening at the post office with seat belt tickets and perfectly legal.
Used your rental vehicle out of state? Well, the rental agency saves on the road tax, but they will be charging you a 500% premium in per mile charges according to the contract.
Applying for a job? A government job? Any job? Let's check your gps driving record. It's illegal to use gps for speeding you say? We're not charging you with a crime or traffic infraction. We simply need to know that we can trust you with several tons of metal insured by the government/our company. Especially after that last driver/school bus driver/highway bus driver/truck driver that killed so many school kids that was in the news, he could have been prevented from being hired and all those school kids would be alive today. You know that this job requires that you drive one of our vans while (see bottom of link, note info on seatbelt use in accident) in the field, don't you? We have to check if you drive at or near the speed limit, or even over, before we consider you for that promotion.
Did you kill a church van loaded with worshippers due to drunk driving? I can't have access to the gps data in real time to prove you were at this bar, the only 5'0" blond guy to be there that night who drank 18 shots of tequila? Time to change the law. Technology is already in place.
What's that? You're a child molester? And we need the gps info to prosecute you or a child molester will walk? Time to change the law.
Neo-liberals can't stand the patriot (as well as conservatives). But give a pinko a chance to
raise taxes
sock it to car owners
get mod points with the greens
stick someone else with a tax because they have a tendency in the urban areas of that and many states to use mass transit
stick it to everyone but those that can't afford cars, keeping up with their tireless class warfare mantra
So the pinko wackos, who never met a tax they didn't like, get another tax, and privacy dies a little further.
And yes, I do turn off my cell phone while driving and keep the electronic toll tag in a lead lined bag between tolls, paying cash when the tracking is too obvious.
Already know of cases of law enforcement using the tags to "unofficially" catch motorists. Try proving it in court. Especially traffic court.
otoh, with the patriot act, they don't need government gps. They can just demand these records, similar to the demands for your library book rentals, your online surfing at your isp and library, your shopping habits, your lottery habits, etc.