Guerilla Marketing Stops Traffic in Boston...Meantime...Portland Yawned..

Except alert Gentle Listener (to the Victoria Taft Show 5-8pm AM 860 KPAM) Matthew who, along with most folks, thought the little electronic sign spotted a couple of weeks ago was just some Portland Professional Protester giving his opinion on cars here in the Rose City.
Here's Matthew's picture.

Alert Gentle Listener Jack said, hey Victoria, doesn't this Boston sign look alot like Portland's? And I do believe it does. See below.


Turns out both cities were targeted for a guerilla marketing campaign by the Cartoon Network, but unfortunately, they failed to tell the authorities. Doesn't matter in Portland really because they blew it off anyway.
Here's the story.
*UPDATE We find out from a caller to my show that the one finger salute electronic sign is now located at World Cup on NW 19th! A listener at World Cup! Love it!

Measure 37: Democrats Begin the Dismantling

61% of voters approved Measure 37 to restore property rights that were yours when you purchased your property.
Oregon Democrats don't think you're smart enough to have known what you were doing. So, it appears that on the same day the Multnomah County Commission Chair Ted Wheeler announced a proposal to end the stalemate with Dorothy English, the poster child of Measure 37, there's a full court press effort to dismantle Measure 37. Instead of waiting for the 94 year old woman to die, as appeared to be the county's strategy from the beginning, now Wheeler has put together a proposal (some of which is below) to bring this to an end.
Meantime, as RinoWatch reports here, there an orchestrated effort to put Measure 37 on "temporary" ice.

Here's part of the letter from Ted Wheeler to members of the Multnomah County Commission:

Ted Wheeler [Tuesday] submitted a proposed Order to the Board of County Commissioners to allow Dorothy English to create eight lots on her 22 acre property in the northwest corner of Multnomah County.
“I believe it is in the best interests of the people of Multnomah County to resolve this matter without further delay,” said Wheeler. “The proposed order will allow her to use an expedited process to obtain approval for a total of eight lots,” Wheeler continued. Development on the steep wooded property had been restricted for years due to its zoning for forestry uses. In a memo to the Board of County Commissioners, Wheeler advised that basic health and safety requirements including emergency access, provision of water and sanitation and landslide prevention would apply to the new development and that neighbors would receive notice of before development is approved. “I want her to be able to build her houses, but I also want the fire trucks to be able to reach them in an emergency,” Wheeler said. The Dorothy English case is unique, Wheeler noted, because it is the only Measure 37 claim filed before the adoption of a county ordinance that set standards for processing such claims. As such it requires a “unique solution,” Wheeler suggested. In addition to waiving fees and expediting applications, the proposed order would allow Mrs. English to refer any disputes on the development of the property to independent, binding arbitration. The full Board of County Commissioners will vote on the proposed order at their February 15 meeting. # # #

Congratulations! The LA Times Finally Figures Out What We're REALLY Up Against. I think...

Doomsday cult said to be at center of Iraqi battle

Authorities say Iraqi and U.S. forces fought disciples of a renegade Muslim leader intent on killing Shiite pilgrims.

By Louise Roug and Saad Fakhrildeen, Special to The Times
January 30, 2007

Rest of the story here.

Then we have this story. Makes you want to ask, doesn't it, how many of those DISPLACED Iraqis are the BAD GUYS?
Does anyone bother to find out? No, of course, not.

THE CONFLICT IN IRAQ: THE TALE OF AN ARMED CULT; REFUGEE TALLY; VICTIMS OF VIOLENCE

Group reports increase in number of displaced Iraqis

Baghdad's neighborhoods are being reshaped along sectarian lines as victims flee to safer areas.

By Paul Richter, Times Staff Writer
January 30, 2007
story here.

SUBTEXT: The US is the bad guy for going in and clearing and holding the neighborhoods to prevent insurgents from further taking hold.

Why Do US News Media in Iraq Accept Insurgent Video But Won't Embed with US Forces?

Because they're afraid of not seeming "OBJECTIVE." Insert laugh track here.
US news media, CBS News this time, use the same video--which appeared on Al Qaeda website for which the terror group takes credit--and the CBS reporter doesn't bother to mention it. CBS chooses not to air it because it's too bloody. The Al Qaeda cellphone photog uses close ups of executed Iraqi soldiers.
Here's the run down on the battle of Haifa Street in Baghdad from the US perspective...

Here's the Pentagon angle:

Here's some of what CBS was given by their reporter (they didn't run it because it was too bloody but they put it on their website)...which was partnered with a Haifa Street 'resident' conveniently covered by the same material used by the insurgents to keep their identities secret. Of course the CBS reporter didn't say where she got the tape. Of course she didn't say it was shot by Al Qaeda and appeared on an Al Qaeda website. That might make her and-- them-- look...bad.
Here's where you can find the al Qaeda video.

Michelle Malkin has more here. Newsbusters has more here. No, the news media doesn't have anything more---until they get it hand delivered from Al Qaeda.

They Think You're Smart Enough to Vote for Them but...

Not smart enough to...
Decide whether taxpayers should pay for their campaigns

Decide whether they should meet every year

Decide whether they should have salary increases

Decide whether our votes should count in the traditional electoral college

Decide whether the government should pay a fair price for taking the use of your own property away.

Decide on initiatives and petitions to the government.

Got anymore to add to the list?

Surprise Meeting of Portland City Committee on the So Called "Clean Elections" Sham

Erik Sten and Gary Blackmer's "clean elections" law purported to get rid of the corrupting influence of big time corporations and individuals in favor of the corrupting influence of small time operators. And congratulations: YOU PAID FOR IT!
But hey...the local Zero bought in.
Thanks to the blog by Jack Bogdanski we find out that the Portland City Council Committee plans to have an emergency, quickie, quick-before-anyone-finds-out-meeting about this travesty of "legislation" Monday afternoon at 5:30pm.
Gee, hope you can make it. Oh wait, they didn't want you to come...just like they didn't want input by voters on this measure REQUIRED by the City Charter because they knew you wouldn't go for a tax increase. Get the deets here.

Measure 37 Gutting to Begin in Closed Meetings

See, the Democrats think you were smart enough to vote for them but brain damaged when you voted in favor of Measure 37. Measure 37 is a measure overwhelmingly passed by Oregon voters to give back land owners the rights they possessed when they purchased their property, but whose *CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS* were violated when the state, county, city governments put new rules on their property to prevent its use.
In the following video you see that the D's running the land use committee--who have been charged with gutting M 37--will not allow any "minority reports." Those would be proffered by the R's which are now the minority. The R's have done this on occasion when they were in charge but not on policy committees such as this--especially when going against the will of the people.

Big 'ups' to NW Republican and Orbusmax for the link.

FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF IRONIES

Just to call attention to an obvious, but otherwise overlooked point:
The D's say the Iraqis, their security forces, their government, their army should do more to secure their own defense.
THANK YOU, UNITED STATES MARINES, SOLDIERS, AIRMEN, SAILORS--on those ships in the Gulf RIGHT now!-- GEORGE BUSH AND DONALD RUMSFELD FOR THE SECURITY FORCES THE DEMOCRATS CRITICIZE, FOR THE GOVERNMENT THE DEMOCRATS CRITICIZE, FOR THE ARMY THE DEMOCRATS CRITICIZE
AND FOR RIDDING THE WORLD OF ANOTHER DESPOT.
ARE THEY LISTENING TO THEMSELVES?
More pictures here.

GORDON SMITH?

WILL YOU VOTE FOR HIM AGAIN? Here's my previous message to Senator Smith. I want you to read it too.

GET IN TOUCH WITH GORDON VIA EMAIL HERE.
CALL HIM HERE.


Senators can filibuster this resolution which only serves to weaken our position in the world.

It states that the military part of this strategy should focus on:

1. maintaining the territorial integrity of Iraq,

2. denying international terrorists a safe haven,

3. conducting counterterrorism operations,

4. promoting regional stability, and

5. training and equipping Iraqi forces to take full responsibility for their own security;

Further it states that United States military operations should, as much as possible, be confined to these goals, and charges the Iraqi military with the primary mission of combating sectarian violence;

Sound familiar? This resolution, framed to be a dis' on the President, calls for what the President is already doing for the most part.

The Senators in charge of the National Republican Senatorial Committee are:
Senator Mitch McConnell 202 224 2541
Senator Ensign 202 224 2644

Hugh Hewitt suggests you to tell these Senators above that you won't give the NRSC any money if they give $ to the Senators who have signed the Warner resolution.

OPEN THREAD SOTU

Tuesdays with Hillary

Your thoughts on this quote by Dick Cheney's daughter, who is herself in government:

"Sen. Hillary Clinton declared this weekend, " I'm in to win." Anyone who has watched her remarkable trajectory can have no doubt that she'll do whatever it takes to win the presidency. I wish she felt the same way about the war." -- Liz Cheney

Hillary's "In" and the Democrats Talk About Leadership in Iraq

St. Hillary

Here's what D operative Rahm Emmanuel says about the Democrat plan for Iraq recently in the Washington Post.

"And here's what Emanuel doesn't want to do: fall into the political trap of chasing overambitious or potentially unpopular measures. Ask about universal health care, and he shakes his head. Four smart presidents -- Truman, Johnson, Nixon and Clinton -- tried and failed. That one can wait. Reform of Social Security and other entitlements? Too big, too woolly, too risky. If the president wants to propose big changes to entitlements, he can lead the charge.

"The secret for the Democrats, says Emanuel, is to remain the party of reform and change. The country is angry, and it will only get more so as the problems in Iraq deepen. Don't look to Emanuel's Democrats for solutions on Iraq. It's Bush's war, and as it splinters the structure of GOP power, the Democrats are waiting to pick up the pieces."

Tony Blankley observes:

This is vulture politics. It is so far from respectable that it brings to mind the admired liberal twice Democratic candidate for president against Eisenhower, Governor Adlai Stevenson's, definition of patriotism:

"What do we mean by patriotism in the context of our times? I venture to suggest that what we mean is a sense of national responsibility ... a patriotism which is not short, frenzied outbursts of emotion, but the tranquil and steady dedication of a lifetime."

But Rahm Emanuel's Democratic Party is so bereft of a sense of national responsibility that he apparently feels comfortable brazenly telling the Washington Post that his plans for his Democratic Party is to not even try to stop things from getting worse in Iraq -- so they can pick up the political pieces afterward. Mr. Emanuel is a "smart" politician. He thinks the more dire America's place in the world is in 2008, the more likely the voters are to vote Democratic. The more of our troops are left in more pieces the better for Rahm Emanuel's Democrats.

Maybe he is right -- electorally. In pre-revolutionary Russia, Vladimir Lenin wrote a famous pamphlet in which he referred favorably to Nikolai Chernyshevsky's appallingly cynical phrase: "The worse, the better" -- the political view that the worse the social conditions for the poor, the more willing they would be to support a revolution."

Let me be careful, I am not accusing Mr. Emanuel of being a Leninist (that would at least require convictions -- albeit perverted convictions). Emanuel has merely bought in to the cynical view that party interests are more important than national interests.

Oregon Legislators Entertain Home Tax, Sales Tax, Well WATER tax

Get the latest here at Oregon Catalyst.

Richard Miniter on "Suitcase Nukes" on fhe Victoria Taft Show 5-8pm

Views of a War

Hoover Institute Fellow and ecnomist, Thomas Sowell says Iraq is in a way like Vietnam, we're winning the war over there but it's the media war in the US that we're losing. Weekly Standard contributing editor and American Enterprise Institute Fellow, David Gelernter, offers some suggestions for the President in his upcoming State of the Union speech. Then Dinesh D'Souza offers up ideas for why the President's message about the successes in Iraq and Afghanistan aren't getting through to the left. Read and discuss.

Sowell:
Only after Congress cut off financial support for South Vietnam, while the North Vietnamese continued to get support from the Communist bloc, did South Vietnam fall. Since then, even the Communist conquerors have admitted that they did not win on the battlefield, but in the American media and in the American political arena, surrounded by an atmosphere created by a defeatist media. The Maliki government is politically dependent on one of the very Baghdad militias that needs to be disarmed. We can pressure and warn Maliki all we want, but his real choice will be whether he can survive — either politically or personally — without militia support. Our choice may become whether we are prepared to sacrifice more American lives in order to prop up the Maliki government or whether we are prepared to sacrifice the Maliki government in order to restore law and order in Iraq. That government is a product of our “nation-building” under the banner of a “democracy” for which Iraq may not have been ready.


Gelernter on what the President should say in his SOTU:
"We must fight this war the best and smartest way we can. But realism is a two-way street. So now let me tell you why I am optimistic and why I know we will win; and then let me show you the big picture.
"If the fight to topple the tyrant had dragged on for years, I might be pessimistic today. If Saddam had launched poison gas at our troops and killed thousands, that would have been a disaster. If the tyrant's foul sons had escaped to rally loyalist opposition, that would have been a serious blow. If Saddam himself had escaped to haunt the world like an evil spirit--if the eminent murderer Abu Musab al Zarqawi were still alive and free--then I might be pessimistic. If the Iraqi people had failed their two largest tests, that would have been terrible--but the election worked beautifully; the trial of Saddam Hussein was managed well under difficult circumstances. If (on the other hand) an outburst of violence had marred or derailed the election, if the trial or execution of Saddam had led to the large-scale violence so many people predicted, I might be pessimistic today.
"But I am not. Many important things have gone wrong. Those that have gone right are even more important.
...Of course some people argue that the war itself was a mistake; that all we can hope for today is to minimize our losses and get out fast. You know their reasons. Let me give you mine for believing that we were right to go into Iraq, righter than we ever knew.
"If we hadn't, Saddam would still be writing checks to subsidize Palestinian terror against Israel; Israel would still be shadowed by Iraqi Scuds. But maybe those are not our concerns. Breakthroughs in Lebanon and Libya would never have happened; probably we would never have traced a worldwide black market in nuclear know-how to Abdul Qadeer Khan in Pakistan. Those are American concerns. Today we might face two Irans, not one--two America-hating tyrant regimes with their weapons programs heated to max-boil. Those are American concerns. Above all, how many 9/11s did we avert by showing that we would hit back and hit hard, and stand and fight for as long as it takes? Terrorists understand bullets, not baloney. U.N. resolutions don't impress them. Did we encourage 9/11 by standing down and backing off during much of the 1990s? We'll never know for sure. But a great nation must act on its best judgment, not hang back and dither, when its safety and the world's are at stake.
"Now let me show you the big picture in Iraq. This war against terror and tyrants is a war over nothing less than life and death--a war between the champions of life and the party of death. Let me explain.
"First, there is no basic difference between a tyrant like Saddam and a terrorist like bin Laden or Zarqawi. Terrorists are would-be tyrants who hope to rule the world and destroy every trace of freedom. A tyrant is a terrorist in office. Tyrants rule by terror, and maintain their own stable of in-house terrorists called the secret police.
"But our enemies believe in death and say so plainly. Almost 30 years ago, Shiite fanatics gathered in Tehran to scream hatred at this nation; they weren't content with 'down with America,' they screamed 'death to America' and meant it. The secular tyrant Saddam Hussein tortured and slaughtered his enemies and their little children. His terrorist friends believe in the same doctrine, 'murder thy enemy.' The random killing of men, women, and children inspires their supporters to dance in the streets. Fanatic Muslim clerics preach murder in their holy places. And on 9/11, al Qaeda accomplished what even Hitler never did: the mass murder of American civilians.

"These proud champions of death kill innocent people all over the world, and their own people at home; they have even discovered new reasons to kill themselves. Suicide murderers are in a rush to reach heaven, which they picture as a discount whorehouse. If that's not sufficiently depraved, behold the ghoulish spectacle of a mother celebrating the death of her own (terrorist) child--a brand new hero by dint of the misery he has inflicted on other mothers and other children. Theirs is the party of death indeed.

"We understand our mission. The champions of life must defeat the champions of death. We must and we will."

Then part of the Q & A with NRO with Dinesh D'Souza:
But if America loses the Iraq war we are less likely to lose it over there in Baghdad and more likely to lose it over here in the corridors of Congress. Michael Moore’s radical ideology — the insurgents are the Minutemen, they are the freedom fighters, and they will prevail! — has now come to center stage, where it is guiding the actions of the Democratic leadership. Look how the so-called centrist Democrats are caving in one by one to the Left. A huge enemy at home has emerged that seems determined to stop Bush’s war on terror, not because they like Bin Laden or Saddam, but because they hate and fear Bush more. It is Bush and his conservative allies, not Bin Laden and his radical allies, who threaten the Left’s most cherished values. And now suddenly the Democrats, as a group, find it in their interest to inflict a horrendous foreign-policy defeat on Bush and thus ensure that they walk into the White House in 2008.
My point is entirely secular: Why did the guys who did it, do it? Surely five years after 9/11, it’s reasonable to ask this question. And both the Right and the Left have been operating under illusions. The radical Muslims are against modernity and science and democracy. The radical Muslims are upset because of colonialism and the Crusades. It’s all nonsense. That’s not what the leading thinkers of radical Islam say. And Bin Laden’s own views are quite different. In his Letter to America, issued shortly after 9/11, he said that America is the fount of global atheism and it is imposing its morally depraved values on the world. So Muslims must rise up in defensive jihad against America because their religion and their values are under attack. This aspect of Bin Laden’s critique has been totally ignored, and it’s one that resonates with a lot of traditional Muslims and traditional people around the world. …I don’t think “America” is to blame. Muslims in Indonesia and Egypt and Pakistan don’t see “America,” they see the face of American popular culture that is projected by our television and movies and music. They see the dimension of America that in their view corrupts the innocence of children, and undermines the family, and promotes homosexuality as a normal way of life. In fact, this is the America of the cultural Left. What the Left considers “liberating,” much of the world considers a scandalous assault on modesty and decency.

The Existence of Suitcase Nukes

As the day wears on I'll post my links on this but, boy, have I been getting lots of email and calls about this since bringing it up after seeing 24.

Blue Bloods in Charge: Free Speech First Casualty

What's the reflexive response by the left to market forces? Curb or stop them. To allow winners and losers is bad. The losers will feel badly if we don't force equal outcomes, right?
This thinking is apparent in the latest attempt by the left to stop political speech on radio. Dennis Kucinich a darling of the left---especially in Portland---has proposed bringing back the antique document with the Orwellian title, "The FAIRNESS Doctrine."


Sounds, er, fair, doesn't it?
It would require all news and radio broadcasts to feature the two sides of every issue. That sounds reasonable, right? Sound innocuous enough until you get to their obvious aims.The reason for this is to get at opinion talk radio for its emphatic and successful agitation for political causes and candidates. It was after the Fairness Doctrine was abolished that the marketplace began to fulfill the desire for information on right side of the political spectrum. The left doesn't like that and they want to stop it. This has been their aim for quite some time.
Even after Air America was created as a device to get around their own creation, Mc Cain Feingold, their aim is to get rid of conservative talk radio. Obviously AAR has not been successful nationally--but then success for AAR wasn't never meant to be measured on a profit and loss statement or in arbitron, but rather an election box score.
In Oregon a live sex act on stage passes for political speech, but actual political speech leading up to an election, or through a political action committee, or on a blog, or on talk radio should be curbed according to the left. That's what measure 47--passed by the voters in the last election--was all about.
I received an email today from an Oregon man who is asking the Secretary of State's office to investigate Our Oregon, a political action committee created by the left to effect political change while apparently skirting current election laws. Says the man in his letter making this request,

In essence, "Our Oregon, Inc." is a scheme to evade Oregon laws on the reporting of political campaign contributions. If a non-profit corporation can be created and operated to accept contributions from undisclosed sources and then use that money to support or oppose Oregon ballot measures and/or candidates for public office in Oregon, without ever disclosing the sources or amounts of the money, then Oregon's campaign reporting requirements are a dead letter. All one needs to do is form a non-profit corporation and ignore all of the political contribution reporting requirements--­which is what "Our Oregon, Inc." has done.

I trust you will enforce the law against "Our Oregon, Inc." even though it was created and directed by the chiefs of the two largest labor unions in the state (OEA and AFL-CIO), which are the major benefactors of your political party (Democratic Party of Oregon).

Good luck with that. Two of the state's biggest union lobbyists are now on Governor Kulongoski's staff and the daughter of another union apparachik is one of his 'communications' staff. They've consolidated their power and are busy backfilling their influence.
Remember the lesson: the left's first reaction is never to expand actual political speech: It's to curb or stop it.
They can't compete in the free marketplace of ideas so they want to curb the other side's ability to convey their ideas. Equal outcome is their reflexive response--except in an election they win then they make their own rules to fully consolidate themselves in power.
I'm sure there are many more examples. Bring 'em on.

SNOWDAY VERSION OF DEAR GENTLE LISTENER

Dear Victoria,
Coming from out of state, it makes ZERO sense to me why ODOT would avoid putting salt on the road on a day like today. They'll close the freeways, schools, and cancel bus routes (screw those people stuck downtown), make you put chains on, and dump sand and gravel on the road until the ice is polished to a mirror-fine finish, but they won't do what would actually solve the problem! What is the deal?
Thanks!
Nate

Dear Gentle Listener Nate,
Every year an east coaster asks this question of the hour. I'll try to be as gentle as I can. Welcome to politically-correct hell. It's allllllll about the watersheds and salmon.This salt could hurt the rivers. Yes, I know every year our sewage overflow causes havoc with the fish...as well as the humans, but, really, the salmon are supreme here. Some people worship God, Portland worships the almighty salmon. I've got a call into the city to double check my answer, but I'll bet you two LA Weightloss bars that I'm right.
Love,
Your Humble Talk Host Victoria
Follow Up: No calls from the city yet.
Dear Victoria,

I wish the people who do not know how to drive in this stuff would just stay home and stop throwing cars at other people. Tain't nice! I've seen more triple digit dumb today than at the last DNC convention. And I thought that if the delegates from the DNC were one digit dumber you'd have to water them twice a week.

Speaking of criminal stupid, how about the Portland School Board? Perfect examples of the causal effect of a "Public Education". Wait until a bunch of kids are already at school to close it down. If dumb was dollars they'd be rich.

Keep smiling,

John
Dear Gentle Listener John,
I sat bolt upright when another school district announced after 8am that they were closing down. After the high schoolers had already arrived?
I've done the calculations on this dumb to dollars ratio and believe I've come up with the value of these various decisions by school officials: $2,000,000,000.00.
Thank you for writing,
Your Humble Talk Host Victoria

Does The City Hate Cars THIS Much?

Photo by MT a listener to the Victoria Taft Show 5-8pm AM 860 KPAM The Talk Station.
Just what is Portland trying to say to drivers, taxpayers?

Open Thread Sunday

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY!



Seahawks, Chargers, Pelosi, War: it's not so much about the troops as the tactics changes; why don't the D's engage in that discussion? Good guys (that's us) are upset that bad guys are hunting them down with the aid of Google Earth.
24: it's jumped the shark.
It's all up for grabs today.

House Republicans yesterday declared "something fishy" about the major tuna company in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's San Francisco district being exempted from the minimum-wage increase that Democrats approved this week.

Saddam Leaves Cat Behind

Sam Adams Quotable on The Victoria Taft Show 5-8pm Weekdays on AM 860 KPAM

After inviting the City Councilor to the studios in Clackamas County Sam responded, "Well, then I guess I'll have to get my shots and my passport."

I think he was kidding.

Ten Dumbest Things Politicians Did in 2006

By popular demand I've been asked to post The Victoria Taft Show list:

Top Ten Dumbest Things Politicians Did in Oregon in 2006

The Portland City Council voting to make you pay for their campaigns…and making you wait years before YOU can vote on it! In the first campaign using the system…one of the candidates walked off with all the money. Gee who saw that coming? Oh, wait...

Allowed the professional protester portlanders to drive out a legitimate, venerable business from the city they’d operated in for 111 years. Now the Schumachers are leaving. The city has made its choice…when push comes to shove…the protesters win…and the legitimate businesses lose. Every. Time.

The Portland City Council votes to continue the city funding of the Tram…a project that started out with an $12-15 million dollar price tag…has grown to more than $60 million dollars. The city gives away a half a billion dollars in subsidies, giveaways, and debt service---but never adds any of this stuff to the price tag.

The Portland City Council voting 5-0 to pull the troops immediately out of Iraq…using alllllllllll the debunked democratic talking points in so doing; including but not limited to: the president lied…we’re killing only innocents…and we have no stake in Iraq.

The Corvallis City Council approving a cell phone tax. Then the voters cold cocked them back to reality and the cell phone tax was no more.

The Multnomah County Commissioners found money for everything. Except opening the Wapato Jail. Meantime…the county sheriff’s department let out a convicted and sentenced child molester thinking he was the usual get-out-of-jail-early-clients.

The Portland City Council proposing paying poor people to stay or move to Portland.Because of the urban growth boundary, limiting the land on which housing can be built, prices in Portland have jumped, pricing out many poor folks. So because their own planning policies having backfired, we're now resorting to importing poor people just to say we have some. Apparently.

After the James Chassey died in police custody, the blame the cops first Portland City Mayor Tom Potter, made plans to spend city money on a day care shelter for the homeless. People who minister to the homeless told the mayor: Chronic homeless won't use it, mentally ill for whom it ostensibly was planned won't use it because it's too big, so that leaves druggies. Have fun at crazy care.

Portland City Commissioner Dan Saltzman proposes to use $750K of taxpayer money to build a nightclub for recovering drug addicts. Really.

Governor Kulongoski proposes four new taxes with a 20% increase in state funding.

James Kim: the Saga Continues

Who's at fault for the death of James Kim?
In the piece Kim's father wrote for the Washington Post over the weekend, which I mentioned on the show Monday, he blamed the media for getting in the way and the keystone cop way in which the searchers did their jobs. He says it would have been nice for the BLM to have closed its roads to make sure the newbies don't take them. Fine.

Now, in Salon.com, here's a piece suggesting that while things can always be improved, in the end it was James Kim's inability to deal with the wild that doomed him; not the searchers.

Taxpayer Academy Awards Show Tonight on The Victoria Taft Show or in Person at the Sheraton Airport Hotel

Listen from 5-8pm on the Victoria Taft Show. Stream it here.




Get the details here!
Sorry for the delayed notice...the blog's been down.

Would You Buy One of These?

This is the same company that brought you the Trial Saddam Action Figure:


The Ayman Zawahiri Action Figure:

The Khalid Sheik Mohammed "Action" Figure (waterboard not included):


Also this news today:
Libya has announced that, in memory of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, it will erect a statue of him standing on the gallows. Iraqi officials have arrested two guards who taunted Saddam as he was being hanged.

QUAGMIRE ALERT: Cut and Run...from DC, Compton, New Orleans...

See the story (using AP numbers of all things) here.

...get a little help here?

President Bush asks for help from the democrats in the Congress to get some things done such as saving the world. Apparently the d's are considering withholding money for the war etc (ala Vietnam---see, self fulfilling prophecy! Where's that last helicopter when you need it?).

Democrats and others in the military community say sending more troops only increases the Iraqis' dependence on U.S. forces and allows them to delay making the painful political compromises needed to end the violence. Democrats are calling on Bush to end America's open-ended commitment in Iraq and some want to see Congress put restrictions on funding any large increases in U.S. troops there.

But already the d's have proclaimed that if they're going to get anything done they won't let any alternative bills be presented. Isn't this the same complaint they had about the R's at some point?

But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories.

The President opines in today's WSJ that we can't cut and run:

But we can help Iraq defeat the extremists inside and outside of Iraq--and we can help provide the necessary breathing space for this young government to meet its responsibilities. If democracy fails and the extremists prevail in Iraq, America's enemies will be stronger, more lethal, and emboldened by our defeat. Leaders in both parties understand the stakes in this struggle. We now have the opportunity to build a bipartisan consensus to fight and win the war.

Question for a Wednesday

If we left the Islamofascists alone would there be peace?

Obama in 2008 race: Name ID Could be a Problem:

They don't call CNN the 'Clinton News Network' for nothing:

2007 IS HERE.

Your predictions and wishes for 2007 go here.

I wish for us to quell the Iraq insurgency.
I wish for good health.

Back on the air on Tuesday. Can't wait. What's the biggest issue on your mind since I've been gone?