TVCTV is looking at tighter finances because of reduced franchise fees and loss of the ACMA studio it rents for $1 a year. Plus, some organizers say YouTube has made cable access redundant. […]
Driver Carrie Ames and her passenger, Jackie Mankins, received minor injuries in the crash that killed Don and Donna Barton, and critically injured their six-year-old grandson. Alcohol is being investigated as a contributing factor in the crash. […]
Portland literacy experts have crafted a plan detailing how every PPS student will have his or her reading skills measured through out elementary and middle school and which programs will be used to help those who are behind. But that plan won't be put in place in most schools until fall 2011 at the earliest. High school juniors have no time to spare. […]
A collaboration between Pacific University's College of Health Professions and nearby Tuality Community Hospital and Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center helps students find jobs and medical facilities find workers. […]
The fire broke out in the Autumn Chase apartments on Northeast 7th Street. When firefighters arrived, they found two units engulfed in flames, some as high as 40 feet. […]
In order to boost state English scores, High School students will now be allowed to use computer spell check on state writing tests.
God forbid any of these students ever has to write something with a pencil and paper, and use cursive to boot. Last time I checked, some college instructors still require essays to be written in class without a computer. Writing coherently and concisely is a most valuable skill, something that will come in handy when you can no longer afford to recharge your laptop battery because they shut down all the power plants to stave off “Climate Change”.
State officials announced today that spell check, which was disabled when students took the test in the past, should now be turned on.
Among the reasons for the change: “the increasing use of computers with spell checkers for communication in the work place, college, postsecondary training, and the military.” The rest HERE…
The “Energy Facility Siting Council’s Advisory Committee on Carbon Dioxide Equivalent Offsets”, or EFSCACCDEO (pronounced Effing-Scam-Eo), convened to address adding greenhouse gases other than carbon dioxide to the Oregon Carbon Dioxide Standard.
Why stop at CO2? Heck, if they can control usage of all inert greenhouse gasses, they can dictate how you live, by making energy too expensive to live your current lifestyle. You know those evil trappings of success like a detatched single family home, an automobile, lawnmower etc. And you better not have a clothes dryer.
After presentations from the Department of Energy, the Climate Trust of Oregon, and the Energy Trust of Oregon, the committee decided to hold off on a decision and to continue discussions until another meeting to be held later this fall. Allowing other gases, such as methane and nitrous oxide, to be included in the standard would allow state-funded groups like the Climate Trust, the Energy Trust, and the Department of Energy to support projects involving these gases, rather than only projects reducing carbon dioxide.
Committee members discussed concerns about unforeseen consequences when one member of the public brought up regulations already coming from other agencies regarding greenhouse gas emissions. Shanna Brownstein of the Climate Trust, who requested that this change be considered, told the committee that the Climate Trust does its best to take into consideration future regulations and legislation.
Todd Wynn of the Cascade Policy Institute points out in Oregon’s Carbon offset scam that an audit of the Climate trust revealed how some of the monies to offset carbon are being spent:
$106,000 of Climate Trust funds went to the Lummi Indian tribe for an annual Canoe Journey and an Indian college fund called the Northwest Indian College Billie Frank Endowment.
The Climate Trust claimed CO2 offsets from paying a lumber company to needlessly plant more trees on already mandated stocked land.
$120,000 of Climate Trust Funds went to start a website intended to motivate people to carpool and thereby reduce emissions. When the website only reached 4% of their goal after 5 years, the rest of the money was spent handing out bicycle helmets and pamphlets about how to get around the city on foot or bicycle.
The Climate Trust, in collaboration with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation, spent $200,000 on CO2 offsets that were already created by preexisting wind farms.
The Climate Trust overpaid for offsets in numerous projects and essentially cheated regulated facilities out of well over $1.2 million dollars and over 890,000 metric tons of offsets equivalent to taking 178,142 cars off the road for a year.
Sounds like they are going to save the planet to me.
And over 56% of the estimated $190,000 cost will be in permit fees.
The company that owns the right of way through the park for the 48 year-old pipeline needs to clear trees for public safety, but paying for the red tape is the most expensive part.
A Houston-based oil company will cut down 313 trees in Forest Park next month to make the area around a gas and diesel fuel pipeline that runs through the park more visible to company inspectors.
Kinder Morgan Energy Partnersis set to begin removing trees on a 1.7-mile stretch Sept. 13 in what is expected to be a monthlong project. Company spokesman Larry Hosler said removing the trees is necessary because the growth has become dense and has made it impossible for officials to do federally mandated inspections from helicopters.
“It’s a move to give us a better ability to inspect our pipeline and to protect the public, the environment,” Hosler said. “I don’t think it’s significant in comparison to the size of the park.”
Michelle Bussard, executive director of the Forest Park Conservancy, a nonprofit group that oversees preservation of the park, said the project isn’t ideal, but the conservancy supports it.
“Kinder Morgan is meeting all of the city’s expectations for proper care and maintenance,” Bussard said. “What would happen if there were not due diligence along this fuel line and something happened? This balances the need of the wildlife with the need of safety and good management.”
The pipe, one of eight that run through the park and are owned by different companies, was built in 1962 and travels from a terminal on Northwest St. Helens Road through the park and on to Eugene. Hosler estimated that Kinder Morgan will spend $190,000 on the project, including $107,000 to the Portland Bureau of Parks & Recreation. for a tree-cutting permit. Astrid Dragoy, the bureau’s city-nature west zone manager, said the money will be used for enhancement projects in Forest Park.
Dragoy said the city worked with Kinder Morgan to make sure the tree stumps will remain and that the project won’t take place when migratory birds are nesting.
“That’s a really responsible way to do tree removal,” Dragoy said. “They’re not increasing the chance of erosion.”
As a requirement of the permit, Hosler said that all trees that are cut down will remain inside the park to create animal habitats, and 23 will be “snagged” — killed but kept upright — for birds.
“That’s huge,” Bussard said. “We do not have enough snags for our birds to roost.”
But Mary Peveto, a nearby resident who runs in the park, said she and others are worried about the lasting impact.
“I’m concerned when a company is making decisions about cutting down trees when we’re worried about the long-term stewardship of the park,” she said. “Kinder Morgan is a company that has no roots in the community.”
Hosler said the company doesn’t want to cut the trees but must for public and park safety. Little maintenance has been done along the pipeline, but Hosler said he intends to change that.
“I don’t want them (trees) to grow to where I have to do this again; it’s expensive and upsetting,” Hosler said. “I love trees as much as anybody.”
Hosler said the project should not close any trails, but that personnel will be at the park to alert visitors when workers cut trees close to Gasline Trail, Wildwood Trail and Leif Erickson Drive.
Upon finding maintenance lapses, the involved employees were fired, the corrections made and all was duly reported to the FAA. Now, two years later, the FAA is fining the company for doing the right thing.
Just as the EPA is declaring Carbon Dioxide as a dangerous pollutant, the Ninth Circuit Circus court of appeals has decreed that mud is polluting streams in Oregon. Not just any mud of course, but mud from logging roads.
GRANTS PASS, Ore. – A federal appeals court has decided that mud washing off logging roads is pollution and ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to write regulations to reduce the amount that reaches salmon streams.
A conservation group that filed the lawsuit says if the ruling Tuesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals stands, logging roads on federal, state and private lands across the West will eventually have to be upgraded.
The Northwest Environmental Defense Center in Portland sued the Oregon Department of Forestry over sediment washing off two logging roads on the Tillamook State Forest in northwestern Oregon.
This is your future Oregon, keep electing these Yahoos and their cronies and you will have no freedoms left (except the freedom to use drugs on public streets)
I don’t care a rats ass if you sit at home and smoke weed. But if you are a high paid official in the government, paid by me, and your obvious goal is to stop anything that resembles progress in this state in the name of being progressive, and you are caught toking down a joint on a public thoroughfare, then yes I have a problem with you Mr. Foster, and those who approved your appointment; the Governor, the Attorney General and all the other lackeys still in power today. For craps sake, is it any wonder the youth of today are so behind the ball? What a nice influence these arrogant, immature, imbeciles are.
“Carrie Bartoldus at www.NorthCoastOregon.com (NCO) has just put out a blockbuster video on Brent Foster, Oregon Attorney General John Kroger’s hand-picked and now disgraced and resigned “Special Counsel on Environmental Crimes”. In the video, Foster is captured rolling what can only be described as a joint in a downtown area of a probable Portland or Salem street. After he lights up, Foster then passes it around to his companions as they presumably start out on a night of entertainment.
Several persons active in the anti-Bradwood Landing and anti-LNG movement are seen in the video HERE.“
Answer; it won’t. Jackson County sheriff’s deputies shoot, kill armed man at marijuana grow.
There is too much money to be made and the Mexican drug cartels are well equipped to make life dangerous in the United States. Even with the presidents announcement of “1,200 boots on the ground desktops” (they aren’t allowed to actually patrol the border), the drug runners are running full steam ahead. True, the guys guarding the grows are doing jobs that most Americans would not, but becouse of these operations there are areas of national forest and BLM land that are too dangerous for hikers to venture into. “Immigration reform” to progressives means letting the borders remain porous, and letting those who are already here stay. That will not make life in America any safer or prosperous, in fact it will accomplish the opposite. Unfortunately it will probably take something big happening, along the lines of the September 11th attacks, to scare people into reality and seal the borders. I pray we can control our borders without something terrible occurring first.
Update: It seems that the story of a Texas ranch taken over by the Zetas drug gang is NOT A HOAX, but instead a cover-up.
The movement to legalize pot is not going to make crime go away. There are a lot more drug users than just the medicinal card holders out there, and where there is a demand the market will follow. If it were only marijuana it might be tolerable to have the stuff legalized, but many, many, of the users of pot do not limit themselves to grass alone for intoxication and use other more dangerous drugs regularly. The even more widespread availability of weed would only exacerbate that problem.
Oregon State Police detectives are investigating an officer-involved shooting at a marijuana grow in Jackson County that left a man dead.
Jackson County SWAT and marijuana eradication teams were investigating an outdoor marijuana grow on Bureau of Land Management land north of Oregon 234 about 7 a.m. when they spotted a man armed with a shotgun.
Two deputies opened fire and shot the man, said Lt. Gregg Hastings, a state police spokesman. A SWAT medic treated the man at the scene but he died,
The dead man was not immediately identified, pending attempts to notify his next of kin. The deputies names were also withheld.
After the shooting, deputies spotted a second man, but he fled on foot and has not been found.
Investigators have reason to believe that the marijuana grow was operated by a Mexican drug cartel, Hastings said.
Detectives from the State Police Criminal Investigations Division and Jackson County Major Crimes Team are investigating the incident and will pass on their findings to the Jackson County District Attorney’s Office, Hastings said.
Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe. - Frank Zappa Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
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P. J. O'Rourke
, and use cursive to boot. Last time I checked, some college instructors still require essays to be written in class without a computer. Writing coherently and concisely is a most valuable skill, something that will come in handy when you can no longer afford to recharge your laptop battery because they shut down all the power plants to stave off “Climate Change”.
