MaxRedline

Here In Little Beirut...

They have a thing in gentrified northeast Portland called "Last Thursday", which is supposedly an arts celebration that happens on the last Thursday of each month during the spring and summer months. It's the usual gentrified stuff: wannabe musicians strumming guitars, artists displaying their junk, food and drink vendors out in force. And two days ago, three people were shot by a wannabe gang-banger.

All in all, a great tourist draw.

Amusingly, two of the kids involved in "leading" the "Don't Shoot" "protests" were arrested on charges of interference, harassment, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.

Two activists who have led Portland protests of police violence were arrested last night in the aftermath of a shooting that injured three people at Last Thursday, the monthly Northeast Alberta Street fair.

Oh yeah, a 22 year-old "rapper" and his pal. How perfectly Portland. "Hi, what do you do for a living?" "Oh, I'm a rapper."

"You wrap gifts at Nordstrom?"

Prozac Floyd Strikes Again

The Democratic from Eugene, which like Portland is a thought-free zone, has managed to block a proposal to extend the statute of limitations in rape cases from six years to 20 years.  Never mind that Oregon has the second highest incidence of rape/sexual violence against women in the USA. We don't even track sex offenders, here:

Convicted sex offender Mark D. Beebout moved from California to Oregon, never telling police where he was living as required. Once here, he beat up one woman and killed two others. At one point, he was found sleeping on a park bench at Portland State University.

Twice-convicted child molester Daniel Zetterholm registered in San Diego, then hopped a bus and turned up in Portland with 4,500 images of child pornography and a guide for sex offenders on how to avoid detection.

Predator Jeffrey Cutlip left Oregon three times — once for three years — with police none the wiser. Only when he returned to collect Social Security and later turned himself in did they learn he'd traveled to New Mexico, California and Texas.

All three men easily flouted the nation's mandatory sex offender registration law by moving from state to state without letting authorities know. Once off the radar, they continued to prey on women and children.

They lived or landed in Oregon, a state with one of the worst records in the country at following federal standards intended to thwart roaming sex offenders. It has become a haven for offenders who want to escape much stricter rules in other states.

And people like Floyd are all too happy to help them out. Interestingly, Oregon is nothing if not consistent: we not only have the second-highest rape stats in the country, we also have the second-highest number of registered sex offenders in the nation - and those are just the ones the cops know about.

Of course, what can you expect in a state where strip joints are ubiquitous - and in some venues, live sex acts are performed because Freedom of Expression. And folks like Floyd prefer to perpetuate the situation.

 

McCain Sells Out Apache Tribe

Since early February, some 300 have been camping at a site in Arizona known as Oak Flat.  They're occupying the land because last December, Sen. John McCain slipped a rider into a Defense appropriations bill that, for the first time in American history, effectively sells public lands to a foreign mining corporation.

The campground lies at the core of an ancient Apache holy place, where coming-of-age ceremonies, especially for girls, have been performed for many generations, along with traditional acorn gathering. It belongs to the public, under the multiple-use mandate of the Forest Service, and has had special protections since 1955, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower decreed the area closed to mining — which, like cattle grazing, is otherwise common in national forests — because of its cultural and natural value. President Richard M. Nixon’s Interior Department in 1971 renewed this ban.

The Apache are occupying Oak Flat to protest this action — to them, a sacrilegious and craven sell-off of a place “where Apaches go to pray,” in the words of the San Carlos Apache tribal chairman, Terry Rambler. The site will doubtless be destroyed for any purpose other than mining; Resolution Copper Mining will hollow out a vast chamber that, when it caves in, will leave a two-mile-wide, 1,000-foot-deep pit. The company itself has likened the result of its planned mining at Oak Flat to that of a nearby meteor crater.

This sneaky, last-minute rider insertion was a craven move even by the generally low standards of Congress; McCain simultaneously rewarded his long-time campaign contributors while twisting a dagger into the heart of a First People tribe: the Society for American Archaeology has well-documented evidence of Apache use of the site since "well before recorded history", rendering McCain's cynical action especially heinous.

You can bet your booty that this wouldn't have even been considered had this been a holy site for anybody other than a bunch of Indians. Hey, they've been conquered for nearly two centuries. Who cares?

Well...me, for one. But I probably just don't get "the big picture". I can, however, smell it.

Most Democratics "Think" That Illegal Aliens Should Be Allowed To Vote

If you needed proof that Democratics are brain-dead, you have it now:

Are voters ready to let illegal immigrants vote? A sizable number, including most Democrats, are.

Don't Follow This Advice

Your stupid salad diet is NOT helping.

There's no hiding it, leather comes from cows — specifically dead cows. And with fewer people eating red meat due to high prices and diet fads, fewer cows are being slaughtered. This is great news for cows, but bad news for tanners, who now have to pay a premium for what leather is available. While luxury leather goods makers couldn't care less, the outfits that supply low-margin apparel — like leather laces — are hurting right now. So, this weekend, go ahead and grill a fat porterhouse, the future of the small tannery is at stake.

Or at steak. Your call. Personally, I'm grilling a prime-grade t-bone  this evening.

Portland Prices Out Homeowners, Renters, And Business

The new fee structure imposed recently by Porkland City Council to fund parks effectively prices people out of the market.

Jane Leo, governmental affairs director for PMAR, said the new methodology will bring the parks fee impact on a 30-year mortgage to more than $28,000 for a 2,000-square-foot home being built outside the central city.

"By the council's action today," she said in the release, "the city has made that dream (of home ownership) impossible for many who desire to live here."

And it's not just would-be homeowners; renters also get the shaft. But it doesn't stop there: "business-friendly" Porkland makes sure that commerce takes a huge hit as well -

Under the changes approved by the council in a 3-2 vote, new businesses will pay for impact on parks based both on the workers who live in Portland and those workers who commute into the city.

I can't recall the last time I visited a city park, but while I don't mind supporting them to some degree, it seems that the least the City Council could do would be to take you out to dinner first.

 

Taxes And Fees

Up there in the Great White North, Canada's government has decided to flush their tampon tax. All I can say is that it's about bloody time.

Closer to home, Portland City Council member Amanda Fritz has decided to chop the tree fee that the City Council decided to impose earlier this year: now, if you cut down a tree on "your property" and fail to plant a city-approved replacement (or set of replacements) they won't charge you $6,000; they'll only charge you $1200.

Storm Disasters In Texas And Oklahoma Prompt Reaction

Anheuser-Busch plant in Cartersville, Georgia has resorted to properly labeling their products.

They're donating the stuff to the Red cross for distribution in the disaster zones.

Oregon Corruption Runs Deep

The hits just keep on coming:

The prosecutor’s office now threatening to bring criminal charges in the leak of former Gov. John Kitzhaber’s emails has an ethical conflict of interest in the case. 

It turns out that a nephew of Kitzhaber’s is a senior prosecutor in the Marion County District Attorney's office—the same office that this month threatened the leaker of the Kitzhaber emails, Michael Rodgers, with thousands of counts of official misconduct. 

Rodgers is the state official who prevented Kitzhaber's office from deleting the emails from state servers.

If you can't trust anyone in state government - which is riddled with corruption - the only option for an honest person is to take what they know to the media. Ethics? We don't need no steekin' ethics here in a state controlled by Democratics.

Fire Up The Grill

3 Tablespoons salted butter, softened, cut into chunks
1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 Tablespoons orange juice 
1/2 Tablespoon minced orange zest
1/2 Tablespoon minced ginger
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 green onions, very thinly sliced

1/2 pound fresh wild-caught Alaskan salmon

You don't have to do it on the grill, a 375-degree oven works too.

Throw the butter and other stuff into a food processor and mix it all up. Cook the salmon 10-13 minutes until slightly translucent. Top with the butter stuff while the fish rests.

If you're grilling, you might want to make a pan out of aluminum foil because it transfers heat more effectively. That might add a couple of minutes to cook time, as opposed to the oven format.