February 07, 2010

Chicken Curry Tagine w/coconut rice

As I think y'all already know, I love to cook. And I love to use special occasions as an excuse to play around with something new. So today's annual Super Bowl party with the same basic group of friends that get together every year was just such an occasion.

Continue reading "Chicken Curry Tagine w/coconut rice"

Posted by Kevin at 08:49 PM | Permalink | |

February 06, 2010

Aspartame By Any Other Name …

… would still have to have a warning for those suffering from phenylketonuria.

Today in Please Make A Note Of It: A Japanese company which is one of the many worldwide manufacturers of the insanely popular artificial sweetener aspartame have rolled out a new brand name for its product …

AminoSweet.

Posted by The Chinuk at 11:19 AM | Permalink | |

February 05, 2010

The Contracting Local Economy, Part 726

McGrath's Fish House Restaurants has filed Chapter 11. (via)

Posted by The Chinuk at 11:37 AM | Permalink | |

"Official" US Unemployment Rate Falls to 9.7%. Good News?

Oh, you know better than that.

Posted by The Chinuk at 11:31 AM | Permalink | |

There's A Reason Mayor Sam Ain't Sweatin' The Recall Recall

People just aren't that mad anymore. Almost everyone has moved on.

Posted by The Chinuk at 11:27 AM | Permalink | |

February 04, 2010

Crime 'n' Punishment, Mannix Style

As noted by Carla at BlueO, Kevin's at it again, taking advantage of a political opportunity and dressing it up as concern for the peoples.

As far as it goes, though, I like the imagery of the Oregon Anti-Crime Alliance going up against (presumably) the Oregon Crime Alliance, an apparent subdivision of the World Crime League, which Buckaroo Banzai ably fought throughout his long and storied career. Fit for a comic book really.

Mockery aside, though, do people who have spent that last decade or so making our State Prison system a cash-sucking maw by demanding mandatory sentences, removing judge discretion, and jacking up penalties for just about every crime under the sun really deserve the right to complain when the changes they wreak make it necessary to let prisoners go early on the pain on not having enough money to run the rest of the state that serves law-abiding people?

I mean, I know they have the right to cherry-pick their scare-story and melodramatize it.

But do they deserve it?

I tell you what – I liked Mannix better when he was in that detective show in the 70s. Now, that was justice I could get behind!

Posted by The Chinuk at 08:46 PM | Permalink | |

Today in Bad Faith

Welcome to another edition of "Today in Bad Faith", where we examine that strange beast called Religion and see how 21st Century American culture has turned it into a spiritual version of the It's Alive baby.

All Rosary'd up? Good. Here we go.

1. We Know Worship When We See It, and That Looks More Like Sk8ing.

(via) The Oregon Tax Court has decided that The Truck Stop, an indoor skating park in Bend, can't have a tax exemption as a church because … well, because it's a skate park. Check out the PDF of the decision here. If you don't have the time for it, then the nut of it, at least to me, is page 2, where the court recorded that even though they wish to be considered a church for tax purposes, there's not mention one of that anywhere on the website, and as I looked at their current website (http://truckstopskatepark.com/) no mention of religious outreach or ministry, no mention of even a regular youth-group meeting.

Sure, maybe you want to have kids come in and have church in a "cool, non-churchy" environment, but you still have to have some church in there. Call me an old-fashioned, inside-the-box thinker, but that's the way I roll.

Otherwise, bunkie, you're just a business trying to weasel out of paying your taxes, as far as I'm concerned.

2. Another Plastic Shaman Faces The Music

You may recall some months ago when Newage (rhymes with sewage) self-help guru and motivational speaker James Arthur Ray (there are so many of them these days I missed this schmoe coming up) staged a retreat in Sedona, AZ, complete with a "sweat lodge" that made a bunch of people sick and actually self-helped three people off this mortal coil.

Well, James Arthur Ray, spritual warrior and plastic shaman, has recieved his comeuppance. The LA Times (complete with cool mug shot):

Ray was taken into custody at his attorney's office in Prescott, Ariz., a sheriff's spokesman said, and taken to the Yavapai County jail in Camp Verde. Bond has been set at $5 million. He is to appear in court Thursday.

The charges are linked to the last day of Ray's five-day $9,695-a-person "Spiritual Warrior" retreat near Sedona, where he assembled about 50 people in a makeshift, sauna-like sweat lodge for about two hours.

When it was over, three people were dying. Eighteen others suffered burns, dehydration, respiratory arrest or kidney failure.

He claimed to have searched out the techniques taught at the retreat in the jungles of the Amazon and in Peru.

You bet. And my Granny's apple basket is an Inca relic from Macchu Picchu. Be it noted that, after the sweat lodge deaths, Ray went right back to work promoting himself and, presumably, dispensing advice about self-actualization to anyone who would pony up the cash.

Even I know the only thing shameless cultural appropriation is supposed to do is make white people look like fools. It's not supposed to kill people.

Well, that's it for another edition of "Today in Bad Faith", our irregular feature designed, apparently, to make you lose all hope. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go pray to whatever gods there be. Maybe I have a skateboard around the garage somewhere.

Posted by The Chinuk at 04:00 AM | Permalink | |

February 03, 2010

Knowing Thy Opponent Bringeth No Surpriseth

The Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll that casts such an ugly light on Republicans seems to be causing no small end of huffing and puffing everywhere (and more ZOMG!!!111!!!-brand fake outrage amongst Republicans) would perhaps be more earthsaking in my own gut if it weren't for the fact that it fairly confirms what I've always suspected about the GOPpers in the aggregate.

Look at it this way, it would take a party in which:

• 39% of those responding think the President should be impeached (despite having broken no law)
• 36% of those responding still think President Obama wasn't born in the United States
• 53% of those responding believe that The Quitter would be more qualified to be President (you can't see Russia from Chicago, I guess)
• 31% of those responding think the President is a racist who hates white people
• and a quarter of whom would be just fine with their State seceding from the Union

to help make sense of eight years of domestic impoverishment of the working class, endless employment of dilletantish fools in positions of authority (many of whom still are there), and the parade of Birfers, Teabaggers, and such who have come ever since.

Indeed the biggest worry to me isn't so much who responded with an opinion but who couldn't be bothered to have one – the not-sure's numbering on the above questions usually in the 20-30 per cent range whom, if combined with the fraction giving the dumb answer, would pretty much overwhelm everyone else.

And this group wants Palin in 2012?

So not-surprised. The only thing you shouldn't be is surprised. Or, if I may quote Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs:

If this poll is accurate (and Research 2000 has a good reputation for accuracy) the Republican base has an absurdly high percentage of wackos of all stripes, from religious fanatics to creationists to secessionists to conspiracy theorists. This is more evidence that the perception of a Republican base dominated by religious right extremists is grounded in solid reality.

From his POV, he should know.

Bad crazy, indeed.

Memo to those concerned, sane Republicans who worry about the party being taken over by teh crayzee: You can stop worrying now.

Posted by The Chinuk at 10:07 PM | Permalink | |

Just Because Your Credit Score Is Poor Doesn't Mean You Suck

Michelle Cole, The Oregonian:

Many Oregon employers would be prohibited from using a job applicant's credit history as part of the pre-employment screening process if a bill being considered by the Legislature becomes law.

The Senate Commerce and Workforce Development Committee held a hearing Wednesday on Senate Bill 1045, which would limit employers' use of credit checks unless the information is relevant to the job.

It's nice to see some sane talk in Salem these days. Maybe it'll delay our arrival at a place where they actually have to build poor houses.

The apparent response from the business lobby is rather predictable. You can fill it in yourself.

There may have been a time … long ago … where a person's credit performance might have shed some light on how they might have made judgment calls or how they might have performed on the job.

Maybe.

But those times have passed. I watched with some horror the things that people talked themselves into to convince themselves that the rather horrid bankruptcy reform was a needed thing. That people in bankruptcies just wouldn't be there if they'd been smarter, not spent beyond their means, weren't obviously trying to get out from under their responsibilities.

I also remember the dudgeon still being so thick that one could cut it with a sharpened credit card even after it was pointed out that it wasn't, in the main, irresponsibility that was creating all those bankruptcies but things that couldn't be controlled or even completely adequately planned for – medical bills that nobody can foresee or know the size of going in, or losing a job in some declining living-wage industry only to find the only jobs available pay barely over minimum-wage. Any sane commentator pointing toward that was either mocked or ignored.

Simply put, checking a credit score or history these days to prove employment worthiness is about as accurate as asking Punxsutawney Phil how the weather's going to be through mid-March. Ain't necessarily so.

And given that most people who have a bad credit history these days are more likely honest folks who have credit cards that were rode hard and put away wet and a house that's on the edge of foreclosure because the money's gone through no fault of their own, the whole idea these days is manifestly unfair.

Unless the idea of a permanently-poor underclass in America is your idea of what America should look like.

And if you still, after all this, think people on the skids deserved their fate … well, you just keep whistling past the graveyard, kids, and hope that your economic dice don't come up snake-eyes on the next throw.

Posted by The Chinuk at 06:43 PM | Permalink | |

February 02, 2010

Upside/Downside: Rush Limbaugh Dancing At The Miss America Pageant

Welcome to another edition of Upside/Downside, where we take a critical look at something that happened in the zeitgeist somehwere and look on both sides to evaluate the yin and the yang in everything.

In this video (which you view at your own risk) we see The Talented Mr Limbaugh, rather unfortunately, taking up the invitation of the lady onstage to dance to a Lady Gaga song.

Downside: Rush Limbaugh dancing. An amazing display of maladroitism that actually surpasses that time when he mocked Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's Disease. As Randi Rhodes quipped, "It's like a Def Jam comic's impersonation of a white man dancing".

Upside: It's on TLC (that'll teach 'em). Nobody actually watches it anymore – out of a population of over 300 million Americans, only 4.5 million could be bothered, as this glowing article details. But it was penned by ROBIN LEACH! (yes, that ROBIN LEACH), so consider the source.

This has been another edition of Upside/Downside. CHAMPAIGN WISHES AND CAVIAR DREAMS, EVERYONE!!!!

Posted by The Chinuk at 03:16 PM | Permalink | |

Breaking News: Faith-Healing Beagley Parents Guilty

Followers of Christ church members Jeff and Marci Beagley guilty of criminally negligent homicide.

It's not a "Measure 11" (mandatory sentencing guidelines) crime, so the judge has some latitude. Probation is not outside the realm of possibility, apparently.

Posted by The Chinuk at 03:05 PM | Permalink | |

One More Bit of Measures 66 and 67 In The Media …

This from Too Much, the weekly summary of who's winning the class war (probably not you), a useful weekly e-publication to read if you're masochistic enough to really want to have an idea of how far behind the hyper-rich you are and how hard they're willing to work to keep you there (people like me, in other words), a good read on exactly what Measure 66 and 67 represents, why it's necessary, and what good it will do (emphasis mine):

Back in 1930, voters in Oregon approved a state income tax. They haven't voted, statewide, for a tax increase ever since. Until last week. Oregon voters on Tuesday gave healthy majorities to two initiatives that will hike taxes on the state's corporations and wealthy. Affluent Oregon couples will see their tax rate on income over $250,000 rise by 1.8 percent. Oregon millionaires, even with the increase, will still be paying state and local taxes at a lower overall rate than the poorest fifth of Oregon households. But the children in those households will now be attending public schools spared the cutbacks that would have been inevitable without last week's tax-the-rich triumph. Notes Karen Kraut, an organizer with the Boston-based United for a Fair Economy: "The remaining 49 states would be wise to follow in Oregon's footsteps." State governments are currently projecting a $102 billion budget shortfall for the upcoming fiscal year . . .

Remember, if you fret about people agitating class war, you need to understand that it already happened, and you're on the losing side.

Passing 66 and 67 was the right thing to do.

Posted by The Chinuk at 02:04 PM | Permalink | |

Sarah Wants Rahm Out. Good Call, Miss Late-To-The-Party

A significant number of us in the Democratic wing of the Democratic party have been calling for Rahm's head for a while now. Now The Quitter's got the memo that Rahm Emanuel is … well, a rude bastard … is trying to get on our bandwagon.

It's developed that, when considering those liberal groups who've said they plan to run issue ads against Democratic candidates who are against single-payer, he described them as "F***ing retarded".

That's our Rahm: Mr. F***ing Warmth.

That also was vouchsafed last August.

But that didn't stop The Talented Ms. Palin from taking a break from buying up her own book to chime in on it now.

Now, it's well known that Sarah Palin has a developmentally disabled family member, but my view on the situation is best expressed by the HuffPo's Sam Stein, who wrote:

Palin presumably seized on this one because of her own experience with the issue -- her youngest child, of course, suffers from Down syndrome. But it's hard to ignore the fact that making hay out of "controversies" like these is her political trademark, regardless of whether there is a personal tie to the matter.

That's going rogue for you.

Posted by The Chinuk at 05:59 AM | Permalink | |

The Savage Wiener Is Moving To KPAM

This just in: Oregon Media Insiders is reporting that Michael "The Savage Wiener" Savage is going from KXL to KPAM:

Michael Savage is making a run for the border, immigrating from KXL (750) to KPAM (860), where he will air from 3 to 7 pm.

Savage objected to being bumped to 7 pm by KXL's new afternoon newscast, says Brian Jennings, KXL's program director

.

Savage objecting to some fact-laden program pushing him aside. Now, that's irony.

From what I'm reading, general buzz seems to be that Victoria Taft is either going to be pushed off entirely or moved to an even later shift, like 7 pm to 10 pm. Either way, she's likely to lose her listener. For KPAM, this is a necessary thing, since the new KXL sibling AM station KMCD "Serfdom 970" has skived off with Sean Hannity and Mark Levin.

In related news, everyone you know was quoted as saying "Who the hell is Victoria Taft?"

Other buzz has it that KXL might be looking at adding ex-Jammin' 95 morning host PK, who has occaisionally subbed for Teh Lars, as talent to fill The Savage Hole.

Thus we are treated to the amusing spectacle of two well-known local radio stations shuffling talent about with the result that they are both competing to be the most unlistenable.

Right now, though, I'm thinking KPAM ahead in that race to the bottom.

Posted by The Chinuk at 03:53 AM | Permalink | |

February 01, 2010

Now We Can't Put A Man On The Moon OR Make Coffee That Will Let You Sleep

America cedes the Moon and outer space to pretty much everybody else.

Tell Martin Landau and Barbara Bain to stand down; we won't need them after all.

(To those who don't get the title reference, this was from a decaf coffee commercial back in the late 60s)

Posted by The Chinuk at 02:51 PM | Permalink | |

January 31, 2010

Multnomah County Pivotal in 66/67 Win? This Time, Not So Much

As the punditry analyze the highly-explicable success of Measures 66 and 67 to death, a truly curious and happy inversion of the conventional wisdom has emerged.

It's been long said (and rued by between 32-34 Oregon counties, depending on the election involved) that, in warm-blue Oregon, liberal Multnomah County proclivities dominate a state that would otherwise be dependably rurally conservative.

Not so much with this round, though. As David Sarasohn at The Oregonian tells us,

Measure 66, in fact, was leading by 5,000 votes before the counting ever reached the Multnomah County line. (Multnomah then tossed in its margin, just more than 100,000.) Measure 67 barely trailed, by 11,500, outside the state's most populous county. It hardly ever works like that. Liberal measures, and Democratic politicians, historically have tended to get beaten up in the rest of the state and then limp into Multnomah hoping for a powerful boost to edge ahead.

Measure 66 didn't neeed Multnomah county to pass, and Measure 67 didn't need much help. That Tea Party mentality might be broad but it doesn't go very deep; even rural Oregonians might be getting weary of the state going to the cupboard and finding it bare (actually, there has been so much budget-cutting over the past 20-odd years, the cupboard was hacked off the wall some time back, leaving only one of those plank-and-cinder-block things college students have in their dorm rooms).

As far as the passage of these measures go, time will tell whether or not it's a sea-change, but in this state, bear noting.

Of course, a good point raised by David in his typical witty style is one I've dealt with ever since we got vote-by-mail:

What's the fun of an election night if you don't have to wait for the late returns from Multnomah?

True, as they say, that.

Posted by The Chinuk at 06:59 PM | Permalink | |

January 30, 2010

Republicans In Public: "Shut up!" "No, YOU Shut Up!"

From BlueO, courtesy Paulie Brading, who reads Adam Nag so we don't have to, we learn that Tea Party Partisans (such as our own Smilin' Bob Tiernan) are not only unendearing nags to Democrats and liberals, but also to their own party:

[T]he intensity of the divisions was put on display as Mr. Bopp and Bob Tiernan, the Republican chairman from Oregon, quarreled before reporters over whether the watered-down compromise had any real force.

Mr. Bopp insisted that it did, and Mr. Tiernan insisted that it did not, repeating himself and interrupting Mr. Bopp until Mr. Bopp turned to him and said, “Shut up!”

Oh, airing dirty laundry in public. Bad mojo. So much for the legendary Republican united public face. The national Republican party seems to be a caselot of small regional reactionary parties, none of which who like each other very much, and all of them yelling "I'm in charge here!"

Oh, third parties out there who are looking to play in the big leagues? Here's your opening!

Posted by The Chinuk at 08:26 PM | Permalink | |

January 29, 2010

Richard Daley, Disingenuous Carpetbagger

With the passage of Measures 66 and 67, the Sane Clown Posse at the ORGOP is sounding the death knell of Oregon business, but this time the opportunists are really coming out of some unexpected places.

Seems that, if you're a put-upon Oregon business suffering under some of the one of the nation's lightest tax burdens, Chicago's Mayor Richard Daley wants to be your white knight.

Come to Chicago – that toddlin' town.

A little thing this opportunist carpetbagger would rather you not know is, even with the hike in taxes Measure 67 will impose upon you, you'll pretty much be moving to Chicago - that taxin' town.

Carla Axtman spells it out for you in the specific:

The low tax rate? Not likely. Chicago has the highest sales tax of all major US cities. It's at 10% now and goes down to 9.75% in July of this year.

The State of Illinois also has a Retailers' Occupation Tax, Use Tax, Service Occupation Tax and the Service Use Tax

The eye-glazing details are available in her article at BlueO.

That's not all though. The Tax Foundation's Business Tax Climate Index, an aggregate which ranks state 'tax-friendliness' from 1 to 50 (where 1 is the lowest-taxed state), in 2009 had Oregon as one of the 10 best states to do business an be taxed in - number nine in fact, whereas Illinois was #23.

Well, Measure 67 will raise business taxes in Oregon – slightly. In the 2010 Tax Foundation report, Oregon's moved up from #9 – to #14.

Ouch? Maybe? Well, then go ahead and follow the Pied Piper of Chicago east.

Because this year, Illinois has also changed their rank – from #23, to #30.

Looking for lower taxes by moving to Illinois?

Good luck with that. You're still better off in Oregon.

In other news, ORGOP Chairman Smilin' Bob Tiernan said something, but nobody cared.

If you want to see the Tax Foundations's Business Tax Climate background reports, 2009's PDF is here, and 2010's PDF is here. The Tax Foundation (the same people who figure out when Tax Freedom Day is each year) is at http://www.taxfoundation.org/.

Posted by The Chinuk at 06:20 PM | Permalink | |

Jon Lim Four Govrenur

Perennial long-shot GOP candidate (and Oregon Lt. Governor in an alternate reality) John Lim (or is it Lymm?) really needs to get his PR people to fact-check and spell-check his press releases.

Willy Week's Nigel Jaquiss shows us what passes for a PR for the Lim campaign, a press release so full of EPIC FAIL that it belongs in some PR FAIL museum.

In an effort to add subtlelty to the jest, the link to Mapes's article near the end of the piece is malformed and broken, but there's one up above that should work here, and if it don't, here it is: http://blog.oregonlive.com/mapesonpolitics/2010/01/is_it_john_lim_or_john_lymm.html.

Good luck.

Posted by The Chinuk at 05:34 PM | Permalink | |

How They Make A News Report

Here, from Charlie Brooker of NewsWipe, from the BBC-4, is the only news report you'll ever need to see.

CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, you can close up shop and go home now; you're work is done. KPTV-12, your secret's out. FOX, since you don't "do" news and your viewers won't, as we elite like to say "get" it, you can proceed on as usual.

Now all you have to do is watch this every so often between American Idol viewings, and you're all set.

Posted by The Chinuk at 04:05 PM | Permalink | |

Short, Bashful Post-Howard Zinn Confession

I've never actually read A People's History of the United States.

This is an omission that will be rectified soon, I promise.

Posted by The Chinuk at 03:34 PM | Permalink | |

This Will Interest You If You Email The City Of Portland

A small item but it seemed worth sharing: According to Commish Randy, the City of Portland has a new domain address which will make the email address of any city employee you try to contact at least a little easier to remember: portlandoregon.gov.

The new email address would read city.employee@portlandoregon.gov, which is an improvment over city.employee@ci.portland.or.us.

So, there ya go. Make a note of it.

Posted by The Chinuk at 03:11 PM | Permalink | |

Welcome To Cesar E Chavez Blvd

The signs went up along NE and SE 39th Avenue between SE Hawthorne Blvd and NE Sandy Blvd today, with signs to go up along the rest of the boulevard (from the north end to the south end) over the next few months.

At 1 pm there was a public unveiling of the sign in front of the Central Christian Church at SE Cesar E Chavez Blvd and Stephens Street, and Mayor Sam Adams as well as those for and against the street renaming were said to have attended.

Here's the KGW Report:

Posted by The Chinuk at 02:52 PM | Permalink | |