1206 am 'Get This' news

11/06/07 Get This

Chris Andreae

1. A Pipeline Runs Through It:  In Coos Bay, commissioners have “tentatively” approved an application to permit construction on a liquefied natural gas terminal on the Bay’s North Spit.  Spit says it all:  The commissioners spat in the face of local residents who work in the tourist industry, fisherman in what’s left of the fishing industry, residents who can look forward to a 36 inch pipe running across their property, the thousands of endangered and mistreated workers in the foreign countries that the tankers are going to come from, and let’s not forget Oregon’s endangered and mistreated flora and fauna.  You can put money on it:  the Jordan Cove facility will be given generous tax deferrals, so the State gets the royal screwing it so richly deserves for allowing these vampires in the door in the first place.
2. A federal judge has ruled that the government acted illegally in 2005 (And every other year between 2000 and 2008…) when it refused endangered species protection for the sage grouse.
3. Edison Carder’s Our Backyard this week features the startling news that the Forest Service is so strapped for cash that they have only one agent for every 300 thousand acres of national park land in the Oregon/Washington region.  So what they did about this is purchase a huge arsenal of weapons from a company called Aardvark Tactical.  I like it!  If you are short-staffed this holiday season, do what the Forest Service did, Buy guns!  At least one man in Nebraska did just that…
4. A woman who was roughed up and jailed by Portland police for asking an officer for his badge number is suing the Department for $100 thousand dollars.
5. A car dealership in Gresham is also being sued for discriminating against a 62 year-old employee.  Age discrimination is one of the toughest forms of workplace malfeasance to prove.  Which proves the guy must not have been as mentally off his game as Gresham Nissan implied he was.  On the other hand, this is Gresham…
6. Crusader Sizemore are going to be picking up the Bill for bad behavior:  The State is fining Bill Sizemore for violating the laws governing  signature gathering.  (Sizemore has other judgments against him that he ahs managed to dodge by putting the greater part of his assets in wife Cindy’s name.  What a man!)
7. The US Department of Agriculture cleared OHSU of mistreating monkeys.  If they treat the monkeys anything like they treat patients, then we know the hospital is guilty no matter what the USDA concluded.  (And anyway, aren’t those guys supposed to be searching through meat looking for mad cows?)
8. Wrong Way/Do Not Enter:  Oregon is toying with a proposal that would make it tougher for undocumented immigrants to get drivers licenses.   (Bad idea:  Picture thousands more people driving around Portland with no idea what the signs mean…)
9. Dirty Santa:  Microsoft had to take down its seasonal ‘Talk to Santa’ website because although most of the children who logged on kept it clean, Santa, on the other hand, wanted to talk about oral sex.  One exchange ended with both Santa and the child calling each other “dirty bastard.”
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11. Grand Mal:  A teenager (19 years old) shot eight shoppers with an SKS assault rifle at a mall in Omaha, Nebraska.  Sometimes the holidays just seem to have that effect on people…(Here’s an idea:  Aspecial holiday season version of the SKS called an SAD model…)
12. The White House that once claimed the US and the world at large was in dire need of a missile shield defense system in Europe because of the threat posed by a nuclear-armed Iran…now says that even without one, we still need the missile defense shield.  (Translation:  US policy-makers are terrified of a newly ascendant Russia and anyway, missiles make them hot…)
13. All Habeas/No Corpus:  The Supreme Court is hearing arguments from the Bush administration and attorneys for the Guantanamo detainees.  Congress – at the demand of the Bush administration  - stripped the detainees of the right of habeas corpus without providing alternatives (Here’s the thing:  The fact that this has landed in the lap of Scotus is symptomatic of America’s terminal illness, Permanent War.  If this were not the case, most the prisoners would be repatriated when hostilities ceased. )
14. Just months after the US Army whisked a German national from Pakistan to Gitmo, his captors figured out that he was not a terrorist.  But the 19 year-old kid is going to spend the rest of his life in DetaneeLand because even if he’s innocent, he’s still an “enemy combatant” and this is Permanent War…
15. The Pentagon is going to put a leash on its army of mercs.
16. The Women, Infants and Children  - WIC – Program is getting an overhaul.  More fruit and veg, less milk and eggs…. all the rest of the food in the country is going to be used to fuel SUV’s.
17. Walking a Mile on Another Man’s Leg:  Veterans are not rushing to embrace the Bush administration’s nominee for the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs.  He is retired Army Lieutenant General James Peake.  Take a look at the man’s bio and put yourself in the veteran’s prosthetic.
18. Fresh from putting the cherry on the Peru Free Trade deal, the administration is setting its sights on Colombia.  (That really will be the week’s piece of cake:  Alvaro Uribe is already sucking Lady Liberty’s teat and Uncle Sam’s snorting up the blow…)
19. There was a huge bombing at a lawyer’s office in Paris.  Same law firm that Sarkozy used to work at…I’m just saying…
20. And in Iraq there were at least four notable bombings yesterday.  Same day that Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived…I’m just saying…
21. Kicked in the Balkans – Again:  Kosovo wants NATO protection, and the Russian Navy is steaming toward the Mediterranean even as we speak…I’m just saying…
22. It is Thai King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s birthday.  Happy Birthday Bhumibol!
23. You Can Take This Job and Snuff It:  There are 127 journalists jailed worldwide – and two of them are being held by the United States – three, if you count Mumia…