The Oregon Water Resources Department is considering a water transfer application for a water exchange that would effectively allow Nestlé to access water coming out of Mt. Hood National Forest and bottle it. This is another significant step forward in Nestlé's plan to profit off of Oregon's clean drinking water sources in the town of Cascade Locks in the Columbia River Gorge. The Oregon Water Resources Department has the power to stop this transfer and could effectively shut down Nestlé's plan's to bottle Oregon's water. Does Nestle think we’re stupid? Did Jack trade his cow for a handful of magic beans? “It’ll play in Peoria,” as John Erlichmann said during Nixon’s ’68 campaign…
Yesterday the eternally entertaining 9h Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that two sections of an Oregon law that prohibit furnishing children and teens with sexually explicit materials are too broad and violate the First Amendment. In the opinion, the court said that existing laws block age-appropriate books and cover far more material than the hard-core pornography that the state contends the law targets. The state had argued that the law is designed to block only hard-core pornography. There’s an exemption that permits materials where sexual content is "an incidental part of an otherwise nonoffending whole and serves some purpose other than titillation." The state also has said it would not abuse the law to go after booksellers...and then there is the quaint notion that if you don’t like what you’re reading, close the book.
- KBOO