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Archive for August, 2006

THE SUMMER OF FREE SPEECH

August 24th, 2006 by Niedermeyer

This has truly been our summer of discontent… untill now. The brand-spankety new Summer Of Free Speech/Taters Issue is finally here to be enjoyed in all its PDF glory. It’s 5 megs of free speech lovin’ just for you! For the broadband-less, start checking the boxes around campus early next week. While you browse the issue, see if you can spot the two photoshop errors, and for bonus points, figure out which one is intentional.

As always, please enjoy the Commentator responsibly. 

Go Drinking With Sudsy!

August 21st, 2006 by Niedermeyer

Help contribute to the OC’s Back To The Booze Bar Guide by joining staff and contributers for a weekend tour d’horizon of Eugene’s finest bars. Over two nights, we’ll will savor the sights, sounds, and yes, even the smells of Eugene’s downtown and campus bars. Obviously, the schedule will be subject to some drunken changes, so try to make the first bar of the night. Or just hunt down the wasted kids in Sudsy Tee’s. Your call.
Friday night we will be hitting the downtown bars, starting with Jameson’s at 10pm. The cosmopolitan panache of downtown might suggest a slightly busier schedule, just a warning.
Saturday night we terrorize the campus area, starting with Indigo District at 10pm, working east on 13th.

Research 

Will Someone Please Think of the Unions?

August 21st, 2006 by Ian

I’ve been out of Eugene for most of the summer and, unfortunately, haven’t had much chance to read the ODE’s commentary pages. Most people wouldn’t consider this a bad thing, but last year the tenor of my week was primarily determined by the amount of pleasure I took from reading Ailee Slater’s Monday column. A carnivalesque column could set the tone for the rest of my week– or hell, my month.

Anyway, today’s been particularly long and annoying so I figured I’d at least try and find myself some cheap laughs. No such luck. “Republicans are unified, but around crazy ideas” had potential. After all, how could one say no to such an inventive and surprising headline? But I liked “Rod Adams” better when he was comparing Frohnmayer to Bush and the sale of the Westmoreland apartments to the Iraq War. Good stuff. (Side note: if this comparison holds, does that mean Bean Complex is Israel and Pizanos is Tel Aviv?)

Not the Unions!And speaking of supposed neo-conservatives, the Emerald printed what amounted to a Kulongoski campaign press release as a commentary piece a few weeks ago. I’ll quote a big chunk so you can taste the flavor of the language:

Oregon SEIU Local 503 (Service Employees International Union) Board of Directors voted July 29 to endorse Governor Ted Kulongoski’s re-election. This was followed on July 31 with an endorsement by SEIU Local 49. Locals 503 and 49 represent about 45,000 public and private sector employees in Oregon, including state employees, home care, child care and nursing home workers, as well as janitors and health care workers.

The SEIU locals join in a solid front of organized labor support for Kulongoski, including Oregon AFL-CIO, Oregon Education Association, several trade unions, fire fighters, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.

After the 503 Board meeting, one member leader emphasized that “working families will be better off if Ted Kulongoski is re-elected.” Kate Pingo, a Local 49 member leader explained that the Governor is “committed to standing up for working people and to addressing the crisis in our health care system.” Joe Di Nicola, a corporate tax auditor who serves as President of SEIU 503, said, “Ron Saxton is too extreme for Oregon. If elected, Saxton will dismantle the services Oregonians rely on.”

[…]

The race for Oregon Governor may be close, especially with the candidacy of Independent Ben Westlund. Westlund is more likely to draw votes from estranged Democrats than from the Republican ranks. It’s in the state’s best interest if Westlund would come to his senses and understand that he may be the disaster factor that helps the neo-con Saxton. Mr. Westlund: Will you please drop out of the campaign and endorse Kulongoski?

We know from the past three and some years that Ted Kulongoski will at least listen and consider the appeals of working people, progressives, environmentalists, free- choice voters and civil rights advocates. We can work with our current governor, and he’s proven that he will work with us. That’s what really matters in the art of possible politics

Anyone who’s ever had to read press releases for their job can recognize this prose. Of course, getting endorsed by the AFL-CIO (and to a lesser extent the SEIU) essentially acts as a confirmation that a candidate will have regressive and foolish economic policies. But while I suppose that “working families” of union lobbyists may be better off if Kulongoski is reelected, actual working families will, unfortunately, be losing jobs thanks to contribution whoring on the part of state Democrats. As OregonUnionFacts.com points out, Unions spend nearly eight times more on Democrats than Republicans. This is the inherent nature of politics in Oregon: most Democrats are indebted to unions and most Republicans are indebted to timber interests.

(Incidentally, the Union Facts site has a new television ad that’s airing which promotes the site. I suppose the ad will be effective, but personally I think it would’ve been infinitely more interesting if they’d gotten, say, Mary Kay LeTourneau to have a cameo as the teacher’s union boss.)

Anyway, enough rambling. The point of this was to get a damn post up since apparantly noone with the OC in Eugene has Internet anymore. Continue all conspiracy theory, intern, and horse porn website talk below….

GENOCIDE ON UO CAMPUS!

August 14th, 2006 by Niedermeyer

The Weekly does it again! The hardest hitting news outlet in town takes us inside the secret War On Nutria that is currently being perpetrated on the UO campus. According to a news brief in the 8/10 issue, UO employees are trapping and killing these cute ‘n cuddly giant rats who have been munching veggies at the campus urban farm. Although nutria are a non-native, invasive species, Kerry Barwell who was the brave whistleblower in this story, says that these animals’ “only crime is eating, so the university made the decision to kill them.” As the conscience of campus journalism, The Commentator would like to be the first to call for President Frohnmayer’s resignation, and deportation to The Hague for immediate war crimes prosecution.

Gelman: Vote Within Your Race

August 12th, 2006 by Ian

Yesterday, Newsweek’s Rabbi Marc Gelman tackled the issue of the Sen-CT race between Joe Lieberman, Ned Lamont, and some Republican who’s getting less support than Katherine Harris. This is one of the more disturbingly bigoted articles I’ve read in the last few weeks, so I’ll go through the whole thing after the jump.
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Democrats: Worthless party or most worthless party ever?

August 12th, 2006 by Andy

The minimum wage argument has widespread acceptance across the economics profession as a completely ineffective tool to fight poverty. Liberal pundits, activists, and even college editors deny academia’s conclusion in order to advance a decidedly Marxist agenda – yet the Democratic Party seems to have abandoned their base:

The Senate late Thursday rejected, 56-42, a bill fusing the cut in estate taxes with a $2.10 increase over three years in the $5.15 minimum wage. The bill also would have revived a host of expired tax cuts, including a business research and development credit and deductions for state sales taxes, college tuition and teachers’ classroom supplies.

Did you read that last line? Political DIE-NO-MITE! Voting against deductions for college tuition also? Gee maybe we could get the USSA on this…

It’s clear that the Democrats agenda is to advance the tyrannical reaches of the state at the expense of their main supporters: college students and poorer citizens. This is not unlike the Republican Party too – but at least the “Bushies” have gotten some bills passed. I’m not positive how one goes about voting Democratic these days when they have been so spineless about their own agenda – would anyone notice if they stopped showing up?

Eco-Assholes

August 3rd, 2006 by Tyler

The latest issue of Rolling Stone features a long , fascinating story about the eco-radical movement, which the story implies is based in Oregon. For those of us who have spent far too much time in Lane County — and thus, far too much time reading the Eugene Weekly — we have grown accustomed to news articles aggrandizing these pitiful fools.

Too bad the article is only a fragment. I may actually buy this magazine, which is anathema to everything a blogger holds dear.

(hat tip: Hit and Run — obviously)

Colbert on Wikipedia (and Oregon)

August 3rd, 2006 by Ian

Yeah, this is about a year old in Internet time, but for those who haven’t seen it, there was a pretty funny segment on the Colbert Report a few nights ago:

Meth Producers: The New Pedophiles

August 1st, 2006 by Tyler

I’m on a bit of a Slate fix as of late, so here’s Jack Schafer’s latest grumbling about the so-called meth epidemic. It’s about “methamphetamine offender registries”, which are springing up like, well, meth offenders in trailer parks.

As of now, Oregon does not have a meth offender registry, but give it time. Thanks to all the breathless coverage of meth use in our fine state, I’d say it may be on the next legislative agenda (not that the current non-online registry is any less intrusive).