They want to expand light rail by running a line from downtown Portland to Tualatin, which at the current liar's budget would run to around $1.2 billion. Most in the "SW Corridor" don't want it, but they plan to ram it though anyway. Difficulty:
Federal law requires that a local transportation network have enough funding to operate and be maintained before federal money is used to expand it.
And that's where things get sticky; Tri-Met alone has over $1 billion in unfunded liabilities, and that sum is growing rather than shrinking. That seems to indicate that they don't have sufficient funds to operate and maintain yet another unwanted light rail line.
Obama read that headline and wanted to know what they cut the blow with.
Turns out, though, that all eight Supreme Court Justices told the Army Corps of Engineers (and by extension, the EPA) that no, they don't get to "regulate" puddles on private property and yes, the decisions of these agencies can be challenged in the courts.
Following the Supreme Court’s decision in U.S. Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes, in which justices unanimously determined that wetlands decisions can be challenged by property owners in court, FreedomWorks Director of Legal Affairs Curt Levey commented:
“We applaud the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision today affirming the right of property owners to challenge federal bureaucrats’ assertion of regulatory authority over their land.”
“In particular, the decision is a rebuke of the Army Corps of Engineers and the Environmental Protection Agency, which have run amok by claiming authority under the Clean Water Act over any property that is sometimes wet by classifying it as one of the ‘waters of the United States.’ Even more outrageously, these bureaucrats claim, as they did in this case, that their assertion of regulatory jurisdiction cannot be challenged in court. Today’s decision ends their attempt to escape accountability.”
In case after case that I've read, EPA and/or ACE have attempted to find landowners as much as $37,000 a day for such things as building small, state-permitted stock-ponds on their privately-held lands while claiming that the landowners are not entitled to legal remedy in the judicial system: the bureaucrats' word was final and binding.
The unanimous SCOTUS pretty well puts a stop to that, and it's long overdue.
A pair of 30 year-old (apparently professional students from UW) hiked into the caldera at Crater Lake on Sunday and got stuck down there. They could've taken the trail that leads down to the dock, but nope, they decided to bushwhack it - which is illegal, but hey.
On Monday about 8 a.m., a Jackson County search and rescue helicopter arrived and rescued the hikers. One had head, chest and limb injuries after falling the last 250 feet of the 1,100 foot descent. The other hiker suffered minor hypothermia after spending the night in the cold.
Both got a couple of citations, and the guy who fell was airlifted to a hospital in Bend. They're also probably looking at some serious cash expenditures, what with all the helicopters and everything; one was sent out to find them, then another was sent to get them when conditions improved the next day, and then of course a third flew that guy to the hospital.
WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats feel a massive disconnect with their political parties and helpless about the presidential election.
That's according to a new poll by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which helps explain the rise of outsider candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and suggests challenges ahead for fractured parties that must come together to win this fall.
"It feels like the state of politics is generally broken," said Joe Denother, a 37-year-old Oregon voter who typically favors Republicans.
Who'd ever have guessed? Ferret-head, Granny, or Bernie? How about we just start over?
Back in the day, the phenomenon of so-called "white flight" from cities to suburbs was bemoaned as horrible and racist.
Today, gentrification is bemoaned as horrible and racist. When it comes to the melanin-deficient, everything they do, no matter what, is somehow horrible and racist. They can't win, as CNN demonstrated yet again.
Sunday night's "United Shades of America" on CNN brought host W. Kamau Bell to Portland, where he explored the city's reputation for being "cool," the invasion of hipsters, Portland's overwhelmingly white population and how gentrification has priced out members of Portland's African American community from neighborhoods they once dominated.
In the early 1970s I rented a place in the heart of Portland's Black community, on N.E. Tillamook St., just off N.E. Williams Ave. I was the only white guy for blocks. And let me clue you in on a little secret: there wasn't much going on. The people in the neighborhood were friendly folks, but poor - so the homes weren't exactly well cared for. There was a shotgun shack across the street that was just boarded up and abandoned, as were many of the businesses in the area. Gang activity was nonexistent; no guns, none of that stuff. Still, you couldn't really call it a Black community.
Bell writes on his blog regarding the Sunday episode:
"On this episode, I tried to remind the mostly white hipsters of Portland about the black residents whom their presence had pushed out. And almost to a person they had the same type of reaction when I brought up Portland's (to me) shocking lack of diversity. It was something to the effect of ...
Hipster - 'YAY, PORTLAND!'
Me - 'Where are all the black people?'
Hipster - 'Oh yeah...'
Hipster looks down at their feet until I go away.
Of course, he's a comedian, but he doesn't get it: the black residents were not "pushed out"; developers offered them a lot of money for their run-down homes, and the residents took that money and moved. It's what is known as "the free market". Not once did a developer hold a gun to their heads and demand that they take the money and run.
Sure, once they left, the developers bulldozed the homes and built condos and apartments and such, but the point is that nobody got "pushed out".
Still, scattered throughout Portland are black people like Beverly, who has lived in her house most of her life. But she has seen the block near her house that used to be filled with several local black-owned businesses transformed into one giant Organic Grocery store that is far too expensive for her to buy her groceries there, plus the addition of an eight-story apartment building. And the black neighbors — who used to surround her home, watching out for each other — are now long gone. And those black neighbors have been replaced by new white neighbors. And many of these white neighbors won't even look Beverly in the eye. Damn.
Clearly, the show was racist - and as always, it's the fault of white folks. Damn. Oh, and as for those black-owned businesses? Remember, I lived there; I know what it was really like, and the only black-owned business that seemed to be doing fairly well was the barber shop. There were no black-owned businesses that sold groceries that Beverly could afford to buy; that didn't happen until an Asian guy opened his place. Me, I hoofed it a mile and a half or so to the Safeway at Lloyd Center. That's where I bought my groceries, and for two reasons: they had a broader selection than the Asian guy - and lower prices. But Safeway's owned by white guys. Damn.
A Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Venice, California was vandalized extensively over the course of the Memorial Day weekend. The graffiti has been scrubbed away, but the damage is so extensive that local officials say it will take quite some time to repair. They're soliciting photos of the memorial to assist in restoration efforts.
Looks like they could use some surveillance cameras there, as well.
From North Korea state media. They don't usually get involved in American politics, but as the saying goes, there's a first time for everything.
On the plus side, people like Cher and Jon Stewart have vowed to move to another country if Trump is elected, so one might think there could be some benefits to a Trump presidency. On the other hand, they said the same thing during the runup to the election of George W. Bush, yet they're still here.
I have a couple of short ethernet cables and an HDMI/HDMI that's also maybe 8' long stashed in the garage, so they're probably headed to donation. There's a 25-foot ethernet cable that I used to connect one of my Bride's systems before I went full-bore WiFi; I just noticed that I've still got that cable running around the perimeter of the room, but I'll probably save that just in case.
What I was looking for while rooting through the junk was a 15' HDMI/HDMI that I could ideally fish through the drywall to connect the Chromebook to a large screen for occasional streaming. I don't have one that long that's rated for in-wall, but I will in two days. $10 is what it would run, but I got it for 53 cents due to credit-card points I'd forgot I have. Sweet.
These are needed because Chinese women are, for whatever reason, really crappy drivers and parkers. I know this from personal experience with them.
The latest was a month or so back, when I came out of a grocery store to find a Chinese woman parked - not next to the space my car was in - but in the space. I looked unbelievingly at her, and she just waved her hands in the air.
This was the second time it's happened; both involved Chinese women, perhaps 50 years old, who evidently don't understand what those parallel white lines are for, and don't speak English. The first one, a few years back, ended up being a call for police due to the fact that she'd managed to trash most of the side of my car and knocked off the rear-view mirror. That one took a lot of time because they had to call in an interpreter.
The last one wasn't so bad; there was some minor greasing of the right quarter-panel - irritating because the car's only two years old, but it's not glaringly obvious, so there was no point in getting cops and insurance involved. And to her credit, she was afraid to try to back up and try again. So I backed out, but I had to retract the passenger-side rear-view mirror to make that happen, and it took several minutes to get out of the space. I find it amazing that they give these folks a license to drive in the state.
“The bigger parking spaces are for women drivers whose driving skills are not superb,” Pan Tietong, the service area’s manager, told the newspaper. He said he had encountered female drivers who were unskilled at backing up into spots, and sometimes asked security guards to help them park.
The spots “are especially designed for women drivers,” he said. “It’s a humane measure.”
According to a survey on Weibo, 63.7% of 1,700 respondents called that the provision of women-only parking spots a good idea.
I'm not sure they should be allowed to drive in the first place, but if it's going to be allowed, give them extra space. Auto body shops may disagree.
ASTORIA, Ore. (AP) - A former Clatsop County clerk fired after two errors were discovered on the November 2014 ballot says she feels vindicated after a jury awarded her nearly $440,000 in damages in her lawsuit against the county.
Yeah, nearly half a million bucks can probably make you feel pretty vindicated.
The Daily Astorian reports (http://goo.gl/vOvKs9) that former County Manager Scott Somers called her insubordinate for pursuing a directive from the Secretary of State to issue corrected ballots without consulting him in the decision.
Guess that's why ol' Scott is now a former County Manager. Wonder what he's doing these days....
