The Cellar - How a city works...

The Cellar (http://cellar.org/index.php)

- Current Events (http://cellar.org/forumdisplay.php?f=4)

- - How a city works... (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=26945)

Quote:

More than a quarter of all U.S. grain exports and nearly half of U.S. wheat exports move through grain terminals on the Willamette River and Puget Sound.

I guess that puts these grain conglomerates right up there with banks too big to fail. How about the 101 Airborne to make those nasty unions submit to the will of the shippers.

On Nov 22, 2011 Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber announced that the
execution of convicted killer, Gary Haugen, will not go on as scheduled
and no more executions will happen while he is in office.

NY Times
3/15/13

Kitzhaber: state Supreme Court loss won't make him OK execution

Quote:

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Gov. John Kitzhaber said Friday that he won't OK
the execution of death-row inmate Gary Haugen,
even if the Oregon Supreme Court rules that he can't force
the inmate to accept a reprieve.

Haugen, a two-time murderer, wants to be executed,
but the governor has blocked it on moral grounds.
The high court heard arguments in the standoff Thursday
and was expected to issue a ruling by year's end.<snip>

In the 1990s, during his first stint as governor, Kitzhaber twice answered "No"
to the question of whether there was a reason to stop an execution,
decisions he says he has come to regret.
"I do not think the state is better off, safer or more just because we made those decisions," he said.<snip>

He said that governors generally get a call from the warden shortly before executions,
asking whether there is a reason an execution should not take place.
"If they call me, I will say 'Yes, there is a reason this execution should not be carried out.'"
It was unclear what the warden would do next.

"What he did to me was not an act of grace; it's not a gift," Haugen said.
"He used a reprieve to sit back and to nullify my ability to exercise my constitutional rights."
Asked for a response, Kitzhaber said:
"I have no response to Gary Haugen; this isn't really about Gary Haugen.
It's about the larger policy of capital punishment in the state of Oregon. "

Oh yes, policy is more important than an individual person. That's why there are millions in jail for using drugs, it's policy. :rolleyes:

Government stopped Dr Kevorkian. And now stopped death by executions. If I need to kill myself, then the only reliable method is suicide by cop? Why are they subverting my rights?

50 virgins just still waiting for me.

I once had free sex and drugs and rock and roll. But now I must have a drug plan. The pope says I cannot have sex without being married or a priest. Thank god for rock and roll.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tw (Post 857195)

Thank god for rock and roll.

Damn. They now want me to pay for my rock and roll. God has no mercy. No wonder he picked this pope.

How NYC works. 11 years, 440,000 pot busts, 1,000,000 police man hours.

I am highly impressed by the sophisticated statistical method used to generate the 1,000,000 hours... NOT

Quote:

<snip>
We multiplied 2.5 hours by the number of lowest level marijuana possession arrests
(charged under NYS Penal Law 221.10) for each year since 2002
when Mayor Bloomberg took office

... a bunch of statistical wonks !

But I agree with Governor Cuomo, as cited in that same report::

Quote:

We agree with Governor Cuomo who said in his 2013 State of the State address:
"These arrests stigmatize, they criminalize, they create a permanent record.
It's not fair, it's not right, it must end, and it must end now."

On the other hand, Bloomberg's initiative "stop and frisk" initiative
has had other effects more beneficial to the community.

Staten Island live
Ken Paulsen
December 28, 2012

Quote:

The murder rate -- 3.8 homicides per 100,000 population --
has dropped 19 percent compared to 2011,
and 35 percent since Bloomberg took office in 2002,
at a time when many observers felt that outgoing Mayor Rudolph Giuliani
helped push that rate as low as it could be.

It's easy to believe 2.5 hours per bust. First the cops usually work in pairs. Then those dangerous criminals have to be transported, booked, and housed until they can see the judge, all handled by cops.

And that doesn't even include the whippers, beaters, fingernail pullers, and gruel sloppers in the dungeons.

I thought it would be more than 2.5 hours. We toured our jail recently, and they made it sound like booking took a real long time.

IMO, the intended message of that report-cover graph was that officer time was being wasted,
and made it too easy to assume marijuana possession cases were the only purpose.

There are other effects and implications to the "stop and frisk" initiative
... some positive and some negative.

The long term implications for someone found guilty of "possession"
are far out of proportion to the seriousness of their "crime".

At the same time, the"tan skin" profiling found up to now
in the "stop and frisk" has serious implications for civil rights.

That's not what the report says.

Quote:

Members of the New York City Council and the New York State Legislature asked us to determine how many hours New York City police officers have spent making hundreds of thousands of lowest-level marijuana possession arrests. This is necessarily a range from lower to higher because the number of officers involved in a single arrest varies, and the time each
spends varies considerably.

Stop and frisk sometimes turns up pot, but this report is only concerned with the resulting bust, which would not have happened if they just sent the person on there way.

We are not in disagreement here.

One small step at a time...

The Oregonian
Nicole Dungca,
3/22/13

Grant High's transgender students get unisex bathroom option

Quote:

Northeast Portland's Grant High School, addressing an issue schools
increasingly face across the nation, has created six unisex bathrooms
in response to concerns from transgender students uncomfortable with traditional bathrooms.

Officials say four student restrooms and two staff restrooms -- all single-stall --
will be open to all students but create another option for the five to 10 transgender students
at the high school, Portland Public Schools' largest.
The move is a first in the district and relatively uncommon nationwide for K-12 schools,
which typically make staff or other small bathrooms available.

But then there is Arizona...

Quote:

Transgender rights has become a more prevalent concern
in recent years as such situations become more common.
In Colorado, a family is suing a school district for not allowing a transgender
elementary-school student who identifies as a female to use the girls bathroom.
In Arizona, a bill could require people to use only
restrooms designated for the gender on their birth certificates.

Portland Po Po on the job...

"He ducked that one"

"How did the cops miss a sitting duck like that speeding sedan? By the waddling ducks."

"Drakeblocked!" (wait.. that doesn't work either, a drake is the male duck like a cock is a male chicken, but it was likely the hen [what's the female duck called anyway? mama?])