MaxRedline

Oh My, The Dutch Are Offended. Everybody Panic!

At least it was a Democrat who upset their delicate sensibilities.

WASHINGTON - Dutch lawmakers who visited the Guantanamo Bay military prison this week said they were offended by a testy exchange in Washington with a senior congressional Democrat.

The lawmakers, from the Dutch House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, were invited to visit Guantanamo and Washington by the U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands, Roland Arnall.

Most of the delegation called for the closing of Guantanamo.

“We need to work out an international deal on the future of Guantanamo Bay,” said Hans van Baalen, of the Liberals, who led the delegation.

Right.  The USA should accept and enact whatever other countries decide.  That's what the apparently easily-offended Dutch have to say.  Meanwhile, back in their own dam country, where most drugs are legal:

Protesters have turned out on Amsterdam's central Dam Square, hoping to stop the government from banning magic mushrooms and asking to "save the 'shrooms".

Carrying banners reading "When will they ban bread?" and "Boss of your own brain", more than 100 people, some wearing hats resembling the bright red cap of the popular fly agaric variety, protested to keep hallucinogenic mushrooms legal.

We're supposed to accept the learned advice of a country that legalizes almost anything?  If it's all the same, let's keep "offending" these dorks.  Only one of two things is likely to happen: they'll either sulk, or just go cop a good buzz.

Keepin' Portland Weird

"hi, I'm Bernie, and I'll be your server tonight".

Even as newspapers call for the resignation of PlayBoy Bernie Giusto, the Multnomah County Sheriff, over allegations that he lied about boinking the wife of hizzoner the Governor Neil Goldschmidt (just one of many notches that the hot-blooded PlayBoy has carved into his bedpost), Multnomah County goes a step further - by opening its hiring process to convicted felons.

You can't make this stuff up.  A lying Sheriff, on the one hand, with newspapers hoping to run him out of the county on a rail - and the same county saying "Hey, we'll hire felons".  Hey Neil, come on back - Multnomah County has a cushy job for you in child protective services.

Government "Planning" And BioFool - A Perfect Match

Government "plans" don't generally work; free markets do.  As noted previously, nationalized medicine doesn't work particularly well, and the escalating costs of health care in the USA are largely attributable to government-imposed mandates.  In point of fact, most governmental "planners" end up causing far more harm than good, and at far greater cost in terms of resources and lives.

Among their latest forays into areas in which government has absolutely no business: Biofool.  Portland City Commish Banty Leonard has been pushing hard in this area, as have other clueless officials at regional and state levels.  And while most sane folks recognize that the United Nations is an inept den of corruption, Banty and his ilk love them.  Which makes it all the more curious that they persist in pushing biofool despite the fact that their beloved U.N. has come down strongly against them.  In fact, it doesn't get much stronger than this:

A United Nations expert has condemned the growing use of crops to produce biofuels as a replacement for petrol as a crime against humanity.

Even called for a five-year ban on it, saying that diverting crops to fuel exacerbates the global hunger issue.

And you'd think that in the Microbrew capital of the USA, Commish Banty would be a bit more cognizant of the impact of his demands for increased use of biofool on this important industry.

Barley and wheat prices have skyrocketed as more farmers plant corn to meet increasing demand for ethanol.

That means higher prices for craft beers, and of course, a resultant reduction in demand.  The pressure's bad enough without Banty Leonard adding to the problems faced by these businesses.

Note to Banty:  fix some potholes.

National Health Service

I won't let Daddy die: Girl of six raises £4,000 for life-saving drugs the NHS won't provide

Now, she has raised more than £4,000 to buy the life-saving drugs David Hill needs after he was told they were not available to him on the Health Service.

"To be told there was a drug that could keep him alive, but it wasn't funded by the NHS was just devastating."

Still think Hillary-care's a great idea?  NHS decided that the drug needed to extend a cancer patient's life were simply not an effective use of resources.  The man's six-year-old daughter mounted a poster campaign to raise money to buy the drug.  You couldn't buy a better ad against further government intrusion into things government has no business involving themselves in.

Health care costs in the USA are going through the roof because of government mandates on health-care providers, and the solution to the problem most certainly does not call for increased governmental intrusion.

MADD Doesn't Want To Upset Illegal Aliens

Mothers Against Illegal Aliens received a certified letter Oct. 10 stating that Mothers Against Drunk Driving owns the rights to the name "Mothers Against" and giving her 10 days to stop using it. 

In view of the fact that there are many "Mothers Against" groups (such as Mothers Against Guns), it seems somewhat disingenuous for MADD to suddenly claim that they somehow "own the rights" to the term, as they've filed no such notices to other "Mothers Against" groups.  It almost makes you wonder if the fact that the former head of La Raza is now on MADD's National Advisory Board might, in some small way, have anything to do with their approach to MAIA.

Meanwhile, in St. Louis, a man who recently crashed his SUV in a Clayton restaurant patio was indicted late Thursday on charges of violating immigration law, Federal Prosecutor Catherine Hanaway said today.  Sergio Lopez-Luna, 23, a Mexican citizen, was charged with using a false Social Security and representing that he was a U.S. citizen to gain employment, Hanaway said in a press conference.

Probably just another one of those "cultural differences".

All "Wide-Stance", All The Time

Oh crap, Larry!  Just go away, will ya?  When the ACLU is rushing to your defense, you probably aren't an actual Republican.  You might just be a closet Democrat.  Let's face it, your whole family is Democrat - except little Mary.  She done learnt how ta read.

Hey, Larry - did you ever get around to taking that "Wide Load" sign off your house?

You still think of watching professional wrestling as foreplay?

And if you think that the mountain men in the movie, "Deliverance", were simply "misunderstood", you're definitely not a Republican!

Edwards Campaign Tries To Pull A Student Reporter's Television Story

C.A. "Charlie" Tuggle, an associate professor at the school and news director of a student-produced news program, said the Edwards campaign contacted the reporter, second-year master's degree student Carla Babb, asking that a video of her report be removed from an Internet posting. When that failed, the campaign demanded in three calls to Tuggle that the TV story be killed from the student show, he said.

Man, it just doesn't look like Edwards is ready for prime-time.  Oh, and in case you want to see it before he somehow manages to yank the report...

The Usual Suspects Are At It Again

Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club filed suit in federal court to halt construction of the border fence, and a judge ruled that the federal government did not fully study the environmental impact of the fence.  So the environmeddlists won.  Sort of.  What they forgot to take into account was the fact that Congress gave Chertoff the power to waive environmental and other laws to build border barriers when it passed the REAL ID Act in 2005.

The result:  Chertoff used the power to restart construction.

"We are trying to respect the substance of the environmental process and we are using the waiver authority where it looks like people are simply trying to stop or slow us down by throwing up procedural obstacles" and using litigation, Chertoff told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

Illegal roads affect natural water flow, trash and human waste accumulate and wildfires are caused by border crossers' campfires. Recently the Bureau of Land Management has restricted public recreation in the Arizona conservation area because of smuggling activity, car thefts and assaults there, Chertoff said.

Border security 1

Obstructionists 0

Excellent!

Thanks, Jacoby!

Everybody gets a free taco from Taco Bell between 2 and 5 p.m. on Tuesday, October 30.  Hope they stocked up on hot sauce.

Ridin' The Magic Bus

A few distinguished elected officials from Clark County are riding down south to the little burg of Eugene to learn all about Bus Rapid Transit.  Seems like they could have saved themselves the trip (not to mention reduce their ever-important "carbon footprint") by just staying home.

In January, Lane Transit District, the Eugene-Springfield area's transit agency, opened its bus rapid transit line, the Emerald Express, or EmX for short. It's an express bus operating at times on its own lane, with fewer stops and a greater passenger capacity than regular buses. It takes 15 minutes to make the four-mile trip between Springfield and downtown Eugene.

Okay, what else do they need to know?  It takes 15 minutes to go four miles, so it moves right along at  about the pace of a brisk walk.  Now, we know that Mayor Royce is gung-ho about light rail, so he's riding the bus just so he can say he's been there, done that.  What's this all about?  Why, the Columbia River Crossing, of course:

Should we build a new bridge across the river to replace the aged I-5 spans?  Or to supplement those spans?  In any case, whatever they build is going to have to carry more than just cars and trucks and buses.  Nope, those days are long gone, pal.  This puppy's going to have as many bells and whistles as they can manage to tag into the thing.  It's either going to have a couple of lanes devoted to rail, or it's going to have a couple devoted to buses.  Oh, and don't forget pedestrian lanes and bike paths!  Yessir, we know that tons of folks will be walking and pedaling across the spankin' new bridge in the rains and the winds that blow out of the Gorge about three-fourths of the year, so we'd better spend a lot of resources to accommodate that demand.

Bus lanes make a certain amount of sense: if ridership isn't up to snuff, then buses can be diverted to other roads to make them more cost-effective.  Heck, the bus lanes could conceivably be opened to regular traffic (gasp!) during off-peak hours.  As that approach would make sense, however, it's a sure bet that Royce and the gang will go for rail instead.