MaxRedline

YES! We're #10!

Clean, Green, Sustainable Portland is ranked in the number 10 slot on Forbes' list of the most toxic cities in America.  Go by streetcar!

Pelosi: Buy What We Tell You, Or Go To Jail

According to the ranking member of the House Ways and Means Committee, either you buy a $15,000 health insurance policy or you face 5 years in jail and criminal fines of up to $250,000.

In a letter to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Republican Dave Camp noted:

“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]

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“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]

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“Criminal penalties

Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses.  Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

Your Tax Dollars At Work

A University of Illinois perfesser has received a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation in order to pursue a cure for cancer means of altering the sexes of papaya plants.  No, this isn't a put-on; your money is really going to fund this critically important endeavor.  Apparently, the recession hasn't significantly impacted the halls of academia (or is that macademia?).  Either way, it's nuts.

U. of I. plant biology professor Ray Ming secured a $3.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to change the papayas' sex to grow only plants that produce hermaphrodite offspring.

More On Massacre

Bloomberg, as is typical for American media, offers an extensive article headlined Fort Hood Shooting Spurs Re-Examination of Stress on Soldiers. 

In the aftermath of Major Nidal Malik Hasanallegedly shooting fellow soldiers at Fort Hood Army Baseon Nov. 5, officials said they are redoubling efforts to study the impact of multiple redeployments and battlefield experiences.

Allegedly?

The impact of redeployments and battlefield experiences?

That Muslim shrink did not "allegedly" do anything; he was taken down while in the process of committing mayhem.  Moreover, he'd never laid eyes on a battlefield.

If you want actual news, you have to go elsewhere.  Nobody in the American media has made the connection between this dirtball and the 9/11 hijackers, but it's being reported in foreign media.

Hasan, the sole suspect in the massacre of 13 fellow US soldiers in Texas, attended the controversial Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, in 2001 at the same time as two of the September 11 terrorists.

Oh, but as BO says, we shouldn't leap to any conclusions.

Right.

Speaking of BO, he hasn't found time in his schedule to visit any of the wounded - he's reportedly relaxing at Camp David.  However, the President reviled by the Left as "Chimpy" has taken the time to visit, as has the former First Lady.

BO and MO have class, though.  Too bad all of it's low.

It's A Legal Matter, Baby

"Climate Change" (code for Man-Made Global Warming) has been recognized for what we've known all along: a religious belief.  The landmark ruling comes from the U.K., but has global implications. 

His employers contended that climate change was a scientific, not a religious or philosophical belief, and thus not legally protected. Mr. Nicholson, however, insisted that climate change was a philosophical belief as “philosophy deals with matters that are not capable of scientific proof.”

The court sided with Nicholson, effectively conferring upon the "Climate Change" philosophy the status of a religious belief.

Nicholson successfully argued that Climate Change is one of those matters that are not capable of scientific proof, although that argument is patently false.  We know irrefutably that climate change occurs; where we differ from the Religion involves their belief that humans cause it, and that humans can stop it.

AlGore and his acolytes, with their "20-foot rise" in sea level and other dire "predictions" differ in no significant respect from a sweaty evangelist preaching hellfire and brimstone in a tent on the prairie.

The Turning Of The Worms

In recent weeks, BO and his administration conducted a war of sorts against Fox News, primarily because they didn't play the game.   It'll be interesting to see how they handle the media from here out, as when even NBC runs a headline decrying Obama's "Frightening Insensitivity" in regard to his response to the Texas massacre, the bloom is definitely off the rose.  NBC and assorted other media outlets, after all, did the heavy lifting required to propel him into the White House.  They've been, if not his willing accomplices, then certainly his allies.  Now that some, other than Fox, have dared to criticize, what form will his reaction take?

Passive Post-Traumatic Stress

What could possibly have motivated an army shrink to go on a rampage like that?  Post-traumatic stress, perhaps?  Nope - the 39-year-old Doctor has never served in a war zone; his job consisted of "counselling" soldiers who (unlike him) actually had served in war, and who returned with stress-related disorders.  According to news accounts, the shrink was about to be deployed and dreaded the thought of experiencing the horrors of war first-hand.  He had, after all, experienced the horrors of war through accounts gleaned from the stories returning soldiers had confided to him.

The shrink's experience, then, was entirely second-hand - and even had he been deployed, he wouldn't have been slated for actual front-line duty.  If he was suffering from post-traumatic stress, then, it was by virtue of his continued exposure to front-line soldiers in the course of his "counselling" sessions.  It seems a bit of a stretch to consider this as the underlying cause of his grisly rampage, although I must admit to bias in this regard: when I was in college, I wasted a portion of time in pursuit of a psych major.  My interactions with professors and fellow students ultimately resulted in the conclusion that the reason people gravitate to the field is largely due to their own imbalance, which caused me to drop that pursuit like a hot potato and move instead to the harder science of biology.

In other words, people who pursue psych majors tend to be nuts.

This guy had a doctorate.  That tells me that he's really twisted.

There are, however, plenty of twisted shrinks running around who don't load up and start blowing people away.  Even the combination of being twisted and exposed to second-hand stress doesn't really explain it.  Ah, but recent reports, some of which emanate from survivors of the attack, add a key element:  the shrink was also an adherent to the Religion of Peace™.  And according to survivors, he was yelling "Allahu Akbar" as he began firing away.

I realize that Political Correctness dictates tolerance and non-judgementalism.  But I've never subscribed to that religion, either.  The facts seem rather clear: in virtually every such event that occurs anywhere on the planet today, one commonality exists:  Islam.

Democratics Nix Census Citizenship Query

Is there any point to conducting a census of U.S. citizens if citizenship is assumed, rather than affirmed, for all respondents?  Democratics believe so, and to that end have blocked an attempt by Republican Senators to ascertain citizenship status of respondents.  Among its many purposes, census population totals are used to figure the number of congressional representatives for each state.  Apparently, the question of whether or not elements of the population are legally able to vote is irrelevant to Democratics.

In related news, Portland police have busted a guy whom they say has been positively tied through DNA to sexual assaults of two women who were leaving Portland bars -- one in June 2009 and another in June 2008 -- and consider him a suspect in three other attacks against women in Northwest Portland this summer.

Multnomah County Senior Deputy District Attorney Don Rees said additional charges may follow. Juarez-Paulin's bail has been set at $500,000, and he faces an immigration hold. He told police he worked at a restaurant in Beaverton, and lived with his brother in that city.

So we know that our pal Juan is here illegally, just doing the jobs that Americans won't do.  Rape is just a sideline, and it's really not even rape - merely a "cultural misunderstanding".  Any bets as to the status of his brother?  Democratics don't care.

BO's Ears Must Be Ringing

With thousands of folks shouting "Kill The Bill" (and no, they weren't talking about former President Clinton) - the area must have been pretty loud.  Of course, this isn't about BO: he can't propose legislation; he can only sign it.  And sign he will, if the opportunity arises.  Never mind that Pelosi's grand health care plancontains many gross discrepancies and may even be unconstitutional - that little scrap of paper is just a minor annoyance to really smart people.  Buried in the bill is the hallmark of socialized medicine: the waiting list.

H.R. 3962, the Democrats’ health insurance reform bill, to be voted on this week by Congress, contains a provision to establish waiting lists as a mechanism to control costs.

Such waiting lists have long been a characteristic – and a bane – of socialized medicine.



Indeed, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled them illegal in June 2005.

"Access to a waiting list is not access to health care," wrote Canada’s Supreme Court Chief Justice Beverly McLachlin at the time.

Oh, piffle!  What do Canadians know about government-run health care anyway?  So sniffs Nancy, as she lashes out any any who dare to oppose her wishes.  But a growing number of Dem Representatives are entertaining some serious second thoughts, in light of the recent elections. 

Election Day losses in Virginia and New Jersey have congressional Democrats focused like never before on jobs---their own.

While the White House and party leaders are urging calm, Democratic incumbents from red states and Republican-leaning districts are anything but; Tuesday's statehouse defeats have left them acutely aware that their votes on health care reform and other major Obama initiatives could be career-enders in 2010 or beyond.

Who Would Ever Have Thought?

Certainly not government.  When the "planners" decided that a commuter rail line between Beaverton and Wilsonville was worth the diversion investment of transport dollars to "improve" the existing Portland & Western Railroad tracks and associated "upgrades", it never occurred to them that the rules for heavy rail differ greatly from the usual streetcar-ry things.  For one thing, on railroads, it's required that the horn be sounded four times at each public crossing.

Between the regular trains and the TriMet "commuter trains" folks in the city of Tualatin are treated to 1,280 weekday horn blasts, and they aren't liking it much.  This was an unanticipated issue, as is usually the case when government tries to run something.  TriMet, therefore, is trying to get a waiver so that their wildly unpopular commuter trains can be quieter.  The idea seems to be to just let them kind of sneak through towns.

This place was founded upon the concept of limited government.  Apparently, there's no such thing.