50 Days? That's Almost Half a Football Season!

Dear Editor of the Register Guard,

I read in today's paper that James Matthew Dublin received a 50 day jail sentence for purchasing drugs, giving those drugs to a 15-year-old girl, raping a 15 year-old girl, and pledging to make that 15-year-old girl his regular "plaything" when he is in town. This is an outrage.

It appears that the normal sentence for these crimes would be a total of 62 months in jail, but District Attorney JoAnn Miller and Lane County Circuit Judge Doug Mitchell conspired to downgrade this sentence to a mere 50 days because Dublin, now a convicted sex offender, is a "responsible member of society" with a "clean record" who has never previously been caught drugging and sodomizing 15-year-old girls. Oh, and he's a military veteran with a Master's degree. I guess this makes it all right.

The Eugene police seem to think so, as Sgt. Kevin McCormick seems to say that the embarrassment of getting caught is punishment enough for Dublin and serves as a warning to other Johns. I have always been of the belief that grown men who would have sex with 15-year-old girls had long since abandoned their capacity for embarrassment.

The Register Guard itself completed the task of turning this tragedy into farce with the headline "Teen prostitution case ends." A 15-year-old girl was sexually assaulted, but let's definitely make the headline about her and her actions. After all, a great guy made a "huge mistake" and now he will sort of not really have to pay for it.

Unfortunately this story is indicative of a culture that is extremely permissive when it comes to sexual crimes against women, where the police, the courts, and the media all go out of their way to make the male perpetrator out to be the sympathetic figure.

Damn, So Close

Listened to an NPR story this morning on the Catholic Church and health care reform.

Good news: The Catholic Church supports health care reform! Seems like they support a robust public option! The Catholic Church has been in favor of socialized medicine in the United States going back to Harry S. Truman. You know, with Catholic charities and Catholic hospitals, the Church provides around 1/6th of all the medical services in this country! And they would be totally on board with health care reform, but...

Bad news: Even though all the proposed health care bills strongly prohibit any federal funds being used for abortion, there is the remote possibility that one day, theoretically, after seismic shift in political belief on the issue, it's conceivably possible that maybe Congress could change the law, and so, the Catholic Church just cannot bring itself to support any law that might allow for the possibility that poor women might be able to exercise the same legal right that Catholic school girls enjoy every single day.

Let's let asshat Richard Doerflinger of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops sum it up it in the asshatiest way possible:

"We want health care reform very, very much, but we cannot do that over children's dead bodies, to put it most bluntly," he says. "There is a fundamental issue here about whether taking life should be treated the same way as supporting and healing life."

Indeed, as we all learned in catechism, Jesus prefers that thousands of people die today for lack of basic health care than to make it possible for even one fetus to be theoretically aborted maybe in the future.

Assume the Position

This is the funniest thing I have read in a long time. I literally LOLed (LLOL) this morning.

Eugene should support police

The people of Eugene should be grateful to have a dedicated police officer such as Judd Warden. Officer Warden works hard and is committed to upholding the law and keeping citizens safe. Until you have been put into a situation, like law enforcement officers deal with day to day, don’t be so critical of their actions.

Eugene police officers are sent into unknown situations routinely with very limited information. They constantly must be aware and ready for a life or death situation. Until they can prove otherwise, a high risk police scene is considered dangerous until secured. If suspects are not cooperating with police officers, then they face being restrained with what force is necessary until they cooperate.

I know that if I were visiting another country and police officers were speaking with authority in a language I did not understand, I would immediately lie face down on the ground with my arms and legs spread wide until directed otherwise. That usually is a universal signal of surrender or complying with law enforcement.

For that matter, if I were protesting in Kesey square in downtown Eugene and police officers were attempting to arrest me, I would assume the same position.

Don’t scrutinize the Eugene police for their actions, when it’s the actions of the suspects that are out of line.

It’s time Eugene citizens starting showing more support for their police officers instead of being unsupportive.

Mike Montgomery

Noti

Angry Dad

This is the kind of thing that gets me all fired up in the morning.

Exposed!

We're fucked. I suppose that everyone who reads this blog (save for the random crazy) situates themselves on the left of the political spectrum. Whether you call yourself a liberal, progressive, Marxist, Trot, or Obamafascist, I think we should all be very concerned that the right has finally caught on to our Hexagon of Power aka The Leftist Plot to Take Down America from the Inside aka Operation Slowly and Peacefully Try to Make America a Better Place.

Now, I don't claim to the the sharpest candle in the box, and I know that most of my readers know more about our Masters than I do, so I am not at all surprised that, despite my firm lefty beliefs and career in America's labor movement, I have never heard of three of the seven links in the Hexagon of Power. Tides? What the hell is Tides?

I know the Working Families Party, of course. They have been much mocked by me. If not on the blog, then certainly in the friendly confines of my chats with friends. This is the party, at least in Oregon, that would like to be a sort of more moderate version of the Democrats. Or as they like to say, they want to focus on "our" issues, not God, gays, and guns (and abortion). Not that the fine people in the Working Families Party don't actually agree with me/us on the Triple G (plus A) issues, it's just that Oregon has a lot of rednecks that might vote for "our issues" if only we just didn't spend so much time standing up for the civil rights of queers, non-Christians, and women. You know?

Don't get me started on SEIU. Nothing is as progressive as dividing the labor movement because you don't want to pay your back dues to the AFL-CIO. The less said the better.

So, there it is. We progressives can no longer hide our hidden-even-from-ourselves Hexagon of Power, as we have been exposed. I guess we have to crawl back under the rocks from whence we came, never to disturb this great nation again. Damn.

h/t NW Wingnut

Let's Not Rush Into Anything

University drafts first sustainable climate plan
By 2050, the University hopes to achieve climate neutrality, net zero emissions

Fair and Balanced

There was an article in the Register Guard about the drive to organize the faculty here at the UO. It was pretty boring. The only excitement came in the UO administration's pledge to be neutral during the campaign. A pledge they immediately undercut:

Asked to comment on the union effort, the UO Provost Jim Bean said the university “supports the rights of faculty and staff” as they decide whether to unionize and will make relevant information available.

“The ultimate decision about whether to unionize is up to each individual faculty and staff member, and the university will remain neutral in that process,” he said. “Accordingly, the university’s goal on this issue will be to merely ensure that accurate and relevant information is available to everyone.“

To be fair, so far the UO hasn't put out anti-union propaganda. When they do, I will expect them to put out pro-union propaganda to remain neutral. I will be disappointed in this expectation.

Oh yeah, the GTFF can't get a mention.

Fell On

Darkest days in Oregon football history.

Darkest days in Washington football history?

Huck the Fuskies

I Blame Dan

Sorry for the lack of posting. I got the H1N1.

I Was Standing, You Were There

In a City/Region story about the wide disparity in fund raising between Peter DeFazio and Sid Leiken for the big 4th District race (DeFazio is out raising him 5 to 1), the R-G casually mentions that Leiken's biggest supporter (other than his mom, one would suspect) is none other than newly-appointed Board of Higher Education member Allyn Ford.

So, Leiken won't be able to go to Washington to be an insignificant member of a minoroity party, but his boy will have the power to mess up higher education here in Oregon. Peachy.

Why, Oh Why, Do We Keep Electing These People?

Our so-called Democratic Governor Ted Kulongoski just appointed Allyn Ford, a Republican, to the Oregon Board of Higher Education. This is great, because if there's one thing the GOP knows, it's how to fix higher education.

For funsies, it also appears that Ford supports repealing the tax increases which are the only thing keeping higher ed from collapsing or raising tutition through the roof.

Oh, and also he runs one the great logging companies here in Oregon.

Grand Slam Ari

Ari Fleisher is exactly right, anyone on the left who questioned that Bush got the most votes in Florida and actually won the 2000 election is just as crazy as anyone on the right who questions whether Obama was born in the United States. The parallels are startling.

Moreover, Ari does the double when he rightfully points out that absolutely nobody ever criticized anyone who questioned the legitimacy of the Bush administration.

Ari is right again when he points out that it was the tactics of the left that divided the nation and frustrated Bush's desire to unite us under his kindly rule.

And has any man ever been more right than Ari when he points out the scientific fact that for every lulu on the right there are 1.8 lulus on the left?

Etouffee a la Dave

Two tablespoons butter, two tablespoons flour. Roux it to it.

While you stir, stir, stir, rough chop three cloves of galique-brand garlic, two medium shallots, and a pound of the zoo-keeny.

When that roux is peanut butter color, or you get tired of stirring and you're all "two bees in a bucket," add in a cup of clam juice and enough white wine to make a thick gravy-type fluid.

Into that delicious concoction throw a can of organic fire-roasted diced tomatoes and chipotle-flavored diced tomatoes. Bubbly, stirry, bubbly, stirry.

Get those veggies in the soup. Salt, pepper, cayenne. Lower the heat.

While that bubbles away get two cups of sushi rice ready. Or whatever rice. I don't care. Use a non-stick pan, that's all I care about. Cook the rice.

Remember when you bought that pound of white fish earlier? Cod, halibut, snapper, tilapia - as long as it's wild-caught in the U.S. of A. Rinse it, dry it on some paper towels. Hit it with some salt, pepper, Old Bay.

When the rice is ready, put it in a bowl. Put some sort of cover on top of the bowl. I use a plate, you don't have to. Wipe out the pan, heat it back up, drizzle in some oil. Give the fish a couple of minutes on both sides until it's good.

Plate, rice, etouffee, fish. Pour yourself a glass of that wine you were using earlier. Pour one for your significant other. Eat. Tell each other how much you love each other.

"Greater Good?!" - Whatevs

You all know how much I love receiving Oregon Senator Jeff Kruse's newsletters. I haven't blogged on them in awhile because they have been sort of blah compared to the tea party/town hallers, but the once I received today was a gem of vacuity, so I thought I'd share a couple of choice lines.

Not only does government usually cost more and operate less efficiently, but we should always keep in mind the more government is involved the less freedom we have.

That second clause is particularly true, which is why I've always said "The U.S. out of the U.S."

I will admit, while I am a lover of the Kruse-man, I am a relative newcomer, so I can't be certain, but given his touching devotion to right-wing orthodox, I can't imagine he did too much balking at the notion of the unitary Executive advanced during the Bush years. Oh, who am I kidding? I doubt Kruse has ever heard the phrase "unitary Executive." He probably knows that when it comes to trillion dollar wars and all their attendant spying and torturing, it is probably best to trust a small cabal of people to make and implement decisions in secret. When it comes to health care, however, it is troubling to see the Legislative branch ceding power (it does not have) to the Executive.

The parallels between health care reform in Oregon and on the national level are striking in two different ways...What I find even more troubling is the seeming willingness in both cases for the Legislative Branch of government to cede authority granted them by the Constitution to the Executive Branch. One should keep in mind that nowhere in either the US or the Oregon Constitution is the authority to regulate health care granted to either Congress or the Oregon Legislature; however these bodies have been invested with the authority to set laws and review regulations. With the creation of the Oregon Health Authority and whatever President Obama chooses to call his organization we see a clear transfer of legislative responsibility to the Executive Branch, and this will come with very little oversight.

Jeff watches Fox, so a statement like this seems obvious to him:

The public sentiment for President Obama’s “public option” has been very negative.

A poll like this would obviously be fake, even if it says Obama is doing a bad job.

Fortunately, Jeff acknowledges that the health care system is broken. You know what broke it, don't you? (No, not that.) Medicare and Medicaid. You see, Medicare and Medicaid don't pay doctors and hospitals enough, which forces them to not make as much money is governmental interference with the natural market which always leads to a broken system. Also, the Governor of Texas, who is totally not a far-right wacko, thinks health care reform would be a bad idea and since Texas has the wisdom to exploit all of its natural resources (unlike a certain state in the upper Northwest corner of the United States that is not Washington), you know he knows what he's talking about.

All of this was wind up, of course. The real concern - the only concern! - is what might happen to our Constitutional rights.

Both the Oregon plan and the Obama plan will require the government to collect a lot more information about you than they already have. They will need to have all of your personal healthcare information, your personal financial information, and the information of your employer, physician, and hospital. This clearly violates the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Amendments to the Constitution, but we are told it is for the “greater good”, whatever that means. I personally think the government already has more information about me than they need and I don’t want to give them access to any more.

Now, if you're my friend, then you have your Constitution memorized and you immediately know that these so-called health insurance reform proposals would jeopardize your right to be protected from having your property seized without compensation (5th), to be protected from search and seizure without probable cause (4th), and/or your right to not have government troops quartered in your home (3rd). That's right, if Obamacare passes, soldiers will be sleeping in your bed - without your consent!

And lastly, just because no discussion of health care would be complete without it, here is your completely nonsensical rant about people who are not you, a medical person, or a really convincing commercial telling you what you should do health care-wise:

Make no mistake, hospital admissions, payments to physicians, the allocation of medical devises, and what types of procedures are covered for which groups of people will be strictly controlled.How comfortable are you in having these choices made for you by non-medical people without your input?I think we should all be outraged.

I am outraged, indeed. I prefer to keep all my medical transactions between me, my doctor, my nurse, the receptionist at the doctor's office, my employer-chosen health care company, my health care company's IT people, and my employer's HR department. And the notion that someone other than myself would decide how much my doctor gets paid without my consent keeps me up at night. I like to pay my doctor in freshly-laid eggs, which, I believe, is the same policy my health insurance company has.

Now that Jeff (and I!) have thoroughly demolished Obamacare, let us leave you with this maxim, which you can hold onto when the leftists in the Senate ram their lefty health-care proposals down your throat:

Our greatness as a country is not because we are smarter or taller or better looking than the other people of the world.

May it always be true!