Don’t worry folks, the reality distortion field surrounding Hugh Hewitt and other “conservative” Republican apologists is still holding strong:

The long and short of this bad but not horrific night was that majorities must act like majorities. The public cares little for the “traditions” of the Senate or the way the appropriations process used to work. It demands results. Handed a large majority, the GOP frittered it away. The chief fritterer was Senator McCain and his Gang of 14 and Kennedy-McCain immigration bill, supplemented by a last minute throw down that prevented the NSA bill from progressing or the key judicial nominations from receiving a vote. His accomplice in that master stroke was Senator Graham. Together they cost their friend Mike DeWine his seat in the Senate, and all their Republican colleagues their chairmanships. Senator McCain should rethink his presidential run. Amid the ruins of the GOP’s majority there is a clear culprit.

Yes, that’s right, the overwhelming Republican losses are all John McCain’s fault. Did Bush’s blundering in Iraq have anything to do with it? Not at all! Did the House Republican’s unwillingness to discipline people like Cunningham, Ney, DeLay, and Foley have anything to do with it? No way, man! Is it because congressional Republicans have spent money like it’s going extinct? Heck no! It’s all because of McCain, his passionate love of illegal immigrants, and, of course, the international underground Zionist homosexual mainstream media Rice-a-Roni-eating cabal.

But don’t worry, friends. There’s still some good news!

President Bush will not flag in the pursuit of the war, and Senator Santorum is now available for a seat on the SCOTUS should one become available.

That’s Justice Santorum, to you! Of course, some of Hewitt’s commenters aren’t as, uh, optimistic:

Everybody get your Koran and Burqas. America’s end is near. Our government is now securely in the hands of Liberal TRAITORS and our borders will be ransacked. Our nation will be overrun with Mexicans and terrorists financed and trained by Chavez and possibly also Daniel Ortega. What a great time for America to lose the Global War on Terror. The patients are runing the Asylum! God SAVE US! The terrorists will be on CNN and FNC tomorrow celebrating in the streets with DEATH TO AMERICA chants shooting their AK47’s. They will be emboldened by this victory to swell their ranks and step up the slaughter of inocent Americans everywhere ESPECIALLY here in the next 6 months or so after we pull out or troops. It’s over, y’all. Go home, get on your knees, and pray to God for His mercy. Be especially prepared to meet Him soon.

Actually, I’m already covered since I received my complimentary Koran and Burqa in the mail after I voted for Kerry in 2004.

To be serious for a moment: A Democratic majority in the House and (probably) Senate is probably a good thing if you’re libertarian-minded. Not that the Democrats are good on many of the issues– in fact, Pelosi’s views on gun control and social security reform are enough to make anyone interested in limited governance openly weep. But there is a strong potential for healthy gridlock and, no matter what negative things they bring to the table, the Dems will at least provide a check on Executive power that is sorely needed. Additionally, the slim majority in the Senate will depend on moderate Democrats who are more sensible on important issues like the Second Amendment (see: Webb, James).

Take THAT, you Gun Control Fruitcakes.

A nice debunking of Arming America

Senility Takes Another Victim

Molly Ivins is taking Eugene to task for our lack of liberal radio. She quotes Edward Monks, a lawyer in Eugene, who did a report in the Register-Guard last year demonstrating the prevalence of right-wing hosts on radio talk shows. As if we needed a report to tell us that. Monks survey of two Eugene talk stations found that “there are 80 hours per week, more than 4,000 hours per year, programmed for Republican and conservative talk shows, without a single second programmed for a Democratic or liberal perspective.” Obviously, Monks wasn’t listening to NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO.

Ivins attacks Michael Powell for encouraging a concentration of media. Certainly as far as FM radio goes, concentration sucks. Clear Channel doesn’t exactly promote a diversity of sound. But that’s why people are buying XM. Antiquated technologies—or markets— evolve or die.

Also in the news, Armed Prophet linked to a fascinating story today about a bloodless coup in Delaware. Seems a concerned group of libertarians want to create an Ayn Rand style utopia of “no public schools, no health, welfare or social services, no liquor laws, no gun control or land use laws.”

First Delaware… then Jefferson! Get that flag ready for a 51st star.

When a man is tired of Keyshawn Johnson, he is tired of life!

Although he did come through in Tampa Bay’s trouncing of the Eagles.

Bret: Hitchens has a go at the Dems on those grounds, too, although he stops short of envisioning the party itself as an aborted fetus. Personally, I think it’s overstating the case to say that the abortion issue is the sole animating force behind the party. More that many pro-choice people feel permanently uncomfortable with the Republican party on account of its pro-life wing, so there’s a ready-made constituency there for the alternative, whatever it may be. Off the top of my head, I’d say the corresponding issue for the Democrats is gun control.

Bill: actually, I’ve never felt “anti-choice” to be any more euphemistic than “pro-life”, and it’s certainly less hysterical than “misogynistic zealot” or “baby murderer”. Maybe “pro/anti-abortion” would be a better locution. (Also, Noonan’s “young humans” is a bit of question-begging almost as egregious, I suppose, as the way in which I phrased the left/right positions in my earlier comment. Sigh.)

Still, I don’t really get depressed until I read people characterizing the issue as a “war” – being waged against, depending on the pundit, either women or blastocysts.

When Vikki Myers decided to take a tiptoe through her twolips, little did she know that a cop was about to come down on her self-sex session. Myers, 44, was staying at the Red Roof Inn with her children, and showing utmost care for her young, snuck out to the family minivan to show her vag a little TLC. However the coppers saw fit not only rudely interrupt a most patriotic act but also slap her with a $165 fine and a minor weapons charge for failing to have the proper ID card for her 9mm handgun. Vikki says she had just moved to Illinois, where the “crime” occurred, by way of Texas, where driving with a loaded handgun is often encouraged as a safety precaution.
Many are calling Vikki Myers a gross old harlot who should be able to control her sexual urges, but, personally, this writer finds her to be an inspiration. Why should we let society tell us when and where to sex oneself? If we all decided to make it a priority in our lives the result could only be a more relaxed, happy, and focused nation. We could all learn a lesson from Vikki Myers; not only her from commitment to getting off, but also the importance of properly registering all firearms.

If all goes according to plan, makers of Four Loko, Joose, and others will soon be getting a letter from the Federal Trade Commission notifying them that they are in violation of federal law. Following several statewide bans of Four Loko, the Food and Drug Administration is preparing to ban caffeinated alcoholic drinks (or are they alcoholic energy drinks?) nationwide as soon as this week.

The announcement was made by Representative Charles Schumer (D-NY), who has lobbied for the banning of the drinks, and is the result of a one-year investigation into whether caffeine was a safe addition to alcoholic beverages. I could have saved you the time, guys: it isn’t. But when has that stopped anyone before?

On top of the students in Central Washington and New Jersey that we told you about a couple weeks ago, Four Loko is now being tied to the deaths of two Florida teenagers. One of them mixed it with diet pills (probably containing more speed), and the other died of an acute combination of alcoholic poisoning, caffeine psychosis, and a self-inflicted fatal gunshot wound.

“This ruling should be the nail in the coffin of these dangerous and toxic drinks,” Mr. Schumer said. “Parents should be able to rest a little easier.”

So what if Four Loko is dangerous? So are cars, swimming pools and the KFC Double Down. Is the problem here really that there’s a stupidly potent product on the convenience store shelves with bright labels that attract younger drinkers? Or is the problem that young drinkers are stupid with them? If we’re going to point the finger, there’s a lot to go around.

Why aren’t we pointing the finger at the liquor control system for failing in their quest to keep alcohol out of the hands of minors, but succeeds at getting in the way at so many other things?

Why aren’t we mad that no one has ever explained to these kids what generations of recreational drug users have known: don’t mix uppers and downers?

Why aren’t we angry at the parents who can’t pull their own heads out of the vodka tonic long enough to teach their kids that just because something is legal doesn’t mean we can’t do really, really stupid things with it?

Maybe it’s easier to shake our fist at the government for not protecting us from these products than it is accept that we knowingly engage in risky behavior with full knowledge that it is. It also means that we have to hold ourselves personally accountable the stupid stuff we do. Drink too much? That’s your right, and it’s also nobodies fault but your own. It means that just because we’re allowed to do something doesn’t mean it’s a good idea, even if we end up doing it anyway.

And that’s why banning it isn’t going to solve the problem. Just taking away the product isn’t going to change the fact that a new generation of drinkers has learned that mixing speed with their booze is a whole lot of fun (until you end up in the hospital). It’s a Pandora’s box scenario. Before it was Four Loko, it was homemade legal speedballs like vodka and Red Bull and Irish coffee. We Americans are nothing if not resourceful, and we’ll find a new, better way to get ourselves puking blacked-out drunk.

That said, let’s make one thing clear: Four Loko is disgusting. It has all the flavor of codeine cough syrup with the stomach-churning effects of a shot of ipecac, and it turns people into especially irritating drunks. But banning it isn’t getting to the root of the problem; it’s a token political maneuver for politicians who want to appeal to their constituents and don’t want to deal directly with complex causes deeply rooted in our society. If Congress really wants to make some headway and look at these, I wish they’d go ahead and do it already so that we don’t have to keep defending this vile stuff.

In an attempt to help the Oregon Student Public Interest Research Group regain its funding from the ASUO in the coming school year, Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy insulted both UO students’ intelligence and what brittle shards remain of the UO student government’s institutional integrity last week at the OSPIRG kickoff meeting.

OSPIRG faces a battle to regain funding this year and, undoubtedly, sees Piercy’s support as a big gun in that battle. OSPIRG is a political advocacy organization that, in theory, pushes issues selected by students in circles of governmental power.

For years, with one interruption, it was funded through the ASUO, until in 2009 the student government voted to stop funding it, owing to doubts about the way in which it used its money. OSPIRG is not the only organization in the state named “OSPIRG”: It shares that title, offices and most of its staff with the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group, a lobbying group with a much larger budget. The Oregon State PIRG can lobby; the law prevents the Oregon Student PIRG, or any organization that accepts public money, such as the ASUO’s, from doing so. In theory, Oregon Student PIRG is controlled by students; Oregon State PIRG answers to its donors.

The fear, then, for those who fought and revoked the Oregon Student PIRG’s funding, was that people who didn’t answer to students were controlling the allocation of more than $100,000 of their money, and that they were using it, indirectly, to pay for things it couldn’t legally pay for. This charge was never proven outright, but the Oregon Student PIRG could never coherently answer it either.

Which brings us to the present day, and Piercy’s appearance, which was risible. The ASUO works imperfectly, but it exists for two important reasons. First, it allows UO students some control, albeit limited, over their academic destiny, their most powerful outlet for influencing how their education is administered. The UO administration has, quite frankly, spent the last decade mercilessly rat-fucking everyone who depends on this university, then lying through its teeth about it, often to the effect, if not necessarily for the purpose, of filling the coffers of those in power, so having some sort of weapon, however imperfect and tragically dormant, for students to change that is important.

Second, college is an insulator from the issues that affect much of the enfranchised populace. Most UO students have the privilege of not having to work to support themselves. What real stake can they have in the wider political issues that play out, even on a local political scale? If the ASUO botches a funding decision, students can see themselves suffering for it, even if it only deprives them of a football ticket or a ride home from a party. Students get the opportunity to make these decisions for themselves. It’s a dry run for being involved in the democratic process, a lesson the UO, intentionally or not, doles out in the cruel and arbitrary nature of government.

When a prominent politician, one who is reasonably popular among UO students, comes in to the equation, and tries to influence a funding decision to be made by UO students concerning their own money, it’s an insult, and a threat to the autonomy of that decision. Kitty Piercy has no stake in the allocation of UO resources, beyond, to put the most idealistic spin possible on things, her stake in the outcomes OSPIRG purports to seek in wider government.

At one point in her address to the rally, the Emerald reported, “She said that when she tries to deal with a national issue in the city’s budget, there is opposition all along the way, drawing the comparison between a tax-funded city budget and the student incidental fee.

‘”What they do at the federal level comes to live here in our homes, in our lives … Sorry, but I actually breathe this air,’ Piercy said.”

Fair enough. We hear you all the way, Kitty. But if the air you breathe is that important to you, you have your own municipal budget. OSPIRG is an organization tailor-made to accept government funding, and it would be perfectly legal to fund it through the city. Why don’t you cut off a slice of the City of Eugene’s budget for OSPIRG, rather than trying to bully and guilt-trip UO students into using their own meager fees to pay for your clean air? See how popular it is when you try to throw $100,000 of Eugene taxpayers’ money at a political advocacy organization.

If you’re not willing to do that, go fill some fucking potholes and get out of our business.

The following is an arranged cross-posting of trash talk between the Oregon Commentator and the Arizona Desert Lamp in preparation for Saturday’s football game vs. Arizona. Don’t like what’s being said? Feel free to trash talk back, and look for our rebuttal posting on the Desert Lamp website, www.desertlamp.com later today. Go Ducks!

At some point between reading the Wikipedia article on “Pete DeFazio” and the UODPS Security Report, I realized that Oregon is absolutely useless and boring and a waste of anyone’s time. The state is known for “mail-in voting” and Portland, which makes Idaho’s “We got dem potatoes!” marketing campaign sound almost appealing.

But the deal was already set. A submission was due! Cry “Havoc!,” and let slip the hounds of gin.

1.PIRG-loving schmucks

Oh, I can already hear the Commentariat whining in protest – “We’ve fought them for years! We exposed them for what they really were! We gave you all of the background material so that you could stop them in Arizona!” Whatever. Somebody had to give them a sense of legitimacy when they were still babes suckling on Nader’s sagging teat, and that somebody is the state of Oregon.

Speaking of taking shit from the worst entities on the face of the earth. . .

2.You gave the world Joey Harrington

As a Lions fan and Detroit-area native, there’s a lot to hate, generally. But Joey Harrington is definitely up on the list.

Look at this fucking love connection and its fucking love child

3.Sartorial “Shma-shmortion”

“Fashion is a form of ugliness so intolerable that we have to alter it every six months.”

~University of Oregon Athletic Director Mike Bellotti Oscar Wilde

Stupid people on the internet say, “OMG rly originall making fun of Oregon’s jerseyz.” And of course, being the Internet, this comment is supposed to be sarcastic, and is made in Mom’s basement while wearing battery-acid-colored pajamas.

But look: this is not a matter of originality, or trying to be cute. This is a serious issue that needs addressing. If Congress is having a commission on the BCS , it sure as shit needs to have a commission on this Ralph Lauren fever dream. Where is the FCC when you need them? (Protip: Finding strangers in the Alps .)

4.Duck-Tape

“So, dude, for Halloween, I duct-taped fucking wings on my shirt sleeves!”
“Uh, why’d you do that?”
“My mom made me. She thought I might get hit by a car at night.”

This is the college football equivalent of this shirt:

Minus, of course, the whole “bad-ass” aspect. In other news, Nike is in the process of designing a duck-beak shaped mouth guard.

5.Back-Brain Stimulants

Something about these uniforms reminded me of this quote:

In the control room the Technician mixes a bicarbonate of soda and belches into his hand: “God damned tenor’s a brown artist!” he mutters sourly. “Mike! rumph,” the shout ends in a belch. “Cut that swish fart off the air and give him his purple slip. He’s through as of right now . . . Put in that sex-changed Liz athlete . . . She’s a full-time tenor at least . . . Costume? How in the fuck should I know? I’m no dress designer swish department from the costume department! What’s that ? The entire costume department occluded as a security risk? What am I, an octopus?

OK, not really. I just got this from flipping to a random page in Naked Lunch . Works though, doesn’t it?

This is what happens to the Notre Dame helmets after Charlie Weis is done with them.

6.Make your own offense-to-all-that-is-decent-in-this-world!

This is a good idea, if potentially dangerous.

Seriously: what the fuck is wrong with your state? Washington has the purple-gold Huskies, and the scarlet-gray Cougars. Kinda butch-femme, but whatever. Meanwhile, fucking Oregon has to go out and have the Chernobyl-yellow-green Ducks play the construction-worker-orange Beavers. Shit like this is why health care is so expensive in this country.

The one thing that hasn’t been said, though, is the fact that UO has only adopted the all-white get-up (white unis, white helmets) on games before Labor Day. Which means that they actually care about shit like this.

Oh, you sad, sad shards of existence.

7.You bastards legitimized Boise State

Everything you needed to know about politics, you learned playing backyard football. And everybody knows that there’s that kinda obnoxious kid, who’s kinda big and probably pretty good. But the kid’s a real fuck – it doesn’t matter why, he’s probably Mormon or something – and nobody wants to hang out with him.

So one day you’re playing football and he says, “Hey, you mind if I play?” You don’t say, “Gosh, gee, sure thing Jimbo! Line up on the left side.” You say, “Fuck you, asshole, we’ve got even teams.” If he plays, and he’s good, you’ll never be able to get rid of him. Ever.

Boise State is that kid of the college football world. They wanted to play with the big kids, and the rest of the country said, “Fuck you, you’re from Idaho.” But not Oregon – nooooooo. So goddamn special. They just had to give the blue-fielded coxswains of the football universe a chance to prove themselves against a “real” team, and they did it – twice.

They were already yesterday’s news – after all the hooplah about beating Oklahoma, they lost to TCU in the fucking Poinsetta Bowl . But like that asshole Brendan Fraser, you just had to bring this national nightmare back from the crypt. (No, it’s not quite as shitty as the Mummy . But it’s close.)

And plus, Jesus Fucking Christ:

This is worse than what Keith Jackson sees in his ketamine binges. (You thought he just ‘retired’? Please.)

8.And you know keeping water fowl, for uh, domestic, you know, within the stadium. . .

Look at these two fucking love-birds

Arizona might have taken away our mascot’s guns , but at least they didn’t cut his balls off and turn him into a Chinese knockoff of a second-rate cartoon:

The nickname for Oregon’s first sports teams was “Webfoots,” coined by longtime Oregonian sports editor L. H. Gregory. The name originated from a group of fishermen from the coast of Massachusetts whose descendants settled in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. When the University of Oregon was founded in 1876, Webfoots was the natural choice for the school’s nickname, because of Oregon’s reputation for wet weather.

Sports reporters later changed the nickname to “Ducks,” and by the 1930s, a small white duck named “Puddles” began to appear to sports events. Beginning in 1940, cartoon drawings of Puddles in student publications began to resemble Donald Duck, and by 1947, Walt Disney was aware of the issue. Capitalizing on his friendship with a Disney cartoonist, Oregon athletic director Leo Harris met Disney and reached an informal handshake agreement that granted the University of Oregon permission to use Donald as its sports mascot.

When Disney lawyers later questioned the agreement in the 1970s, the University produced a photo showing Harris and Disney wearing matching jackets with an Oregon Donald logo. Relying on the photo as evidence of Disney’s wishes, in 1973, both parties signed a formal agreement granting the University the right to use Donald’s likeness as a symbol for (and restricted to) Oregon sports.

‘Webfoots’? ‘Puddles’? Fucking adorable. Too adorable, apparently, for the psilocybin-addled Nike “scientists,” who had to bring in “Mandrake”:

As the story goes, the idea behind the new mascot, which Bartko and other athletics officials call “Mandrake,” spawned from a spring basketball game. When Oregon was in Sacramento, Calif., playing Montana in the NCAA Tournament, athletic officials noticed advantages of having an agile mascot.

Creeps. Apparently, “Mandrake” looked like this.

Nightmare Duck will haunt your local Chinese restaurants

I was hoping that it’d look more like this.

9.They’re gonna kill that poor woman!

Look, I appreciate a good rivalry like any beer-blooded American. But I also understand that there is a certain line in those rivalries. Where that line is depends on what sort of hard liquor is on hand, but no matter what, “kidnapping of women” is on the other side of the line. Apparently, no such line exists in the state of Oregon:

Maybe the most ingenious stunt of all took place in 1957 when four Oregon student athletes, all members of Theta Xi fraternity, decided one night (when they were all bored out of their minds) that wouldn’t it be clever if they could show up at Oregon State’s Homecoming game with Washington State and actually kidnap their Homecoming court.

Which is exactly what they did. Posing as reporters from the Seattle Post Intelligencer, allegedly sent to Corvallis on assignment to do a story on OSC’s game with a Washington school, the three ladies of the court accompanied the “reporters” for a short car ride to Avery Park south of town to shoot photos. Almost right away, the car began heading north toward Salem.

For the next 12 hours the group stayed tucked away at the home of the parents of one of the kidnappers, enjoying a large meal and delighting at how much national publicity the whole story was beginning to generate, including reports that the entire Oregon State football team was out looking for the court. Because Homecoming Queen Pearl Friel was native Hawaiian, it was also rumored that football players from the University of Hawaii were threatening to travel to Oregon to deal with the situation.

This, mind you, is from the Oregon State write-up – topped only by this OSU Alumni summary:

However, the prank of all pranks took place just before OSU’s Homecoming game with Washington State in 1957. Posing as journalists from the Seattle Post Intelligencer, four UO athletes “kidnapped” Oregon State’s Homecoming court members and took them to Salem, where the home of one of the “nappers” was used to entertain the three coeds (the parents of the student had dinner waiting) for over 12 hours.

Because it happened in the ’50s, kidnapping is OK? Actual quote from one of the kidnappers: “We phoned our president’s office and were told that the prank was OK, provided we didn’t break any laws and if nothing ‘physical’ happened.”

You fucking people. Stay the hell away from our women.

10.Your bullshit trail killed Kenny

You bastards!

It’s been awhile since I’ve regularly checked Blue Oregon. Once Obama moved into the Oval Office, got rid of some dusty old bust of Winston Churchill, and made himself comfortable, the wind kind of left their sails. The zeal for victory that had seemingly been the trademark of all Democrats before January 20th faded and what replaced it was so much sore-winner chest-pounding and a sudden disdain for that “highest form of patriotism” which they’d long championed through those long, dark years of incipient fascism between 2000 and 2008.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’ll confess: until a few days ago, I’d never heard of Dr. George Tiller. I’m basically pro-choice, but the abortion issue is just not one that I follow particularly closely. While I’ve heard of (and very much dislike) some of the more notorious anti-abortion groups like “Operation Rescue”, my general sense is that most people on the pro-life side of the debate are fundamentally good people who simply have different values (on this question, at least), than I do.

But my intent is not for this post to muse over whether abortion is right or wrong — so please keep your comments on that issue to yourself; no one here cares what you think about it, so I’ll just delete those that try to turn the comments section into an abortion screaming match.

What I want to talk about instead is identity politics, the flawed notion of collective responsibility, and attempts to shape the narrative by seizing on events like the murder of George Tiller and using them for political gain.

Read the rest of this entry »

From a Washington Post opinion piece and probably one of the best articles I’ve read on drug legalization:

Here is a glimpse of what lies ahead if we fail to end our second attempt to control the personal habits of private citizens. Listen to Enrique Gomez Hurtado, a former high court judge from Colombia who still has shrapnel in his leg from a bomb sent to kill him by the infamous drug lord Pablo Escobar.

In 1993, his country was a free-fire zone not unlike Mexico today, and Gomez issued this chilling — and prescient — warning to an international drug policy conference in Baltimore:

“The income of the drug barons is greater than the American defense budget. With this financial power they can suborn the institutions of the state, and if the state resists … they can purchase the firepower to outgun it. We are threatened with a return to the Dark Ages.”

Speaking of Baltimore, here’s David Simon, creator of The Wire, in a recent interview with Bill Moyers:

I would decriminalize drugs in a heartbeat. I would put all the interdiction money, all the incarceration money, all the enforcement money, all of the pretrial, all the prep, all of that cash, I would hurl it, as fast as I could, into drug treatment and job training and jobs programs. I would rather turn these neighborhoods [ghettos] inward with jobs programs. Even if it was the equivalent of the urban CCC, if it was New Deal-type logic, it would be doing less damage than creating a war syndrome, where we’re basically treating our underclass. The drug war’s war on the underclass now. That’s all it is. It has no other meaning.

I tend to disagree with the some of Simon’s argument, which is fairly anti-capitalist (you should watch the whole video), but it just goes to show the breadth of drug legalization support.

For several years, as the the Somali state has spiraled down into deeper and deeper chaos, piracy in Somali and international waters around the failed nation has threatened to close off vital shipping lanes through the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea. Piracy has only gotten worse in the last couple years as the political situation in Somalia has deteriorated even further.

This last year alone, there were over 40 successful hijackings and over 15 ships are currently being held for ransom, with over 250 crew members held hostage. The first mistake that the civilized world is not taking more forceful action against these pirates. It doesn’t help that the ships’ crews are lying down and waiting for the ships’ owners to pay up the ransom. The fact that these ransoms are being paid is encouraging piracy, because these impoverished young Somali men know they can get a (relatively) easy payout from this. Read the rest of this entry »

Proponents of legalizing pot have begun collecting signatures to place an initiative on the 2010 ballot that would decriminalize marijuana in Oregon. Sounds groovy, right? Well …

The Oregon Liquor Control Commission would manage the program, which would license approved individuals to cultivate the product for sale.

Oy vey! If you thought the OLCC’s alcohol regulations were asinine, just wait until they have control of weed. Even if passed, I wonder how effective the program would be when citizens are given the choice between trying to navigate all of the OLCC’s sure-to-be maddening regulations or just going to a black market dealer.

A similar initiative might end up on California’s ballot this November.

The Ol’ Dirty has a story in today about two University students being Tased and arrested for disorderly conduct on Friday.

The police report says that Ian George Van Ornum was standing in the middle of the street on Willamette and Broadway protesting the use of pesticides on highways, and was approached by police because he was disrupting the traffic.

Van Ornum then resisted arrest and was Tased twice. University student Anthony Farley tried to prevent the arrest and was Tased and subdued.

The circumstances for the Tasing aren’t made very clear in the report, and the use of a Taser does not seem necessary. Unfortunately, there is no objective information on the incident, since the accounts given by spectators present were friends of Van Ornum. If anything, though, this is a testament to the effectiveness of Tasers in assisting police officers in arrests. Read the rest of this entry »

 

As CJ earlier noted, the state of Oregon’s GOP is not good, to say the least. A new project is trying to form a league of “new blood and new leaders” to move the Oregon Republican Party into a position with respectable political clout.

 

The Conservative Majority Project is headed by Robert Kremer and Jared McKinney. Kremer is a native Oregonian, the founder and president of the Oregon Education Coalition and host of a radio show, “Kremer & Abrams.” The fact that he was a major player in killing the CIM/CAM education reform, a.k.a. the biggest waste of tax dollars EVER, is reason enough to like the guy.

 

McKinney is a younger guy and Native Alaskan who has worked on several political campaigns nationwide. He seems to be a true grassroots activist with a fond eye for the ideals of the Founding Fathers and the original intent of the Constitution.

 

Kremer also runs a blog that focuses on politics in the Portland area. The heading of it reads: Read the rest of this entry »