Bad news for Portland

 Everyone knows things are bad in Portland.  

We don’t go into town anymore and neither do our friends.  Portland, a former jewel of a town, is now just a place to get through on the way to the airport, or someplace you absolutely must go.  Homeless camps and filth in every nook and cranny.  Graffiti mars buildings and walls and anything that doesn’t move.  The city is famous for the number of car thefts, street side chop shops, brazen derelicts in the streets and parks, and shootings and violence on the rise.  My son had his catalytic converter stolen while the car was parked in his business’ parking lot in broad daylight.  The cost to replace it was about a third the value of the car.  Now he has a steel plate welded and bolted to the bottom of the car to prevent further thefts.  

People are escaping.  My daughter and her husband left their Portland hospital jobs a few months ago and have settled in Alaska. They were not the first to leave their departments due to a decrease in the quality of life here. Has anyone thought about the decline in the quality of medical care here as skilled personnel continue to leave the state?  

Portlanders may not like what they see, but they vote for the same types of politicians over and over again.  Until the public goes beyond just feeling bad about the way things are and starts getting a brain and backbone and do what it takes to turn things around, the city will only get worse.  Hint: Chaos and indulging in feelings is easy.  Establishing structure and rational thinking is HARD!  

Portland Crime Map

Study: Frustration reaching all-time high among Portland voters

• KPTV. FOX 12 STAFF 
• POSTED ON JAN 31, 2022
 

PORTLAND, Ore. (KPTV) – A recent study among Portland voters has revealed pessimism and frustration is reaching all-time highs.

The study was conducted by consulting group DHM Research and released Monday by the Portland Business Alliance. The study to weigh voter approval, or lack thereof, in the City of Portland is conducted on a yearly basis.

Results released found 88 percent of Portland voters feeling the quality of life is getting worse in the city. This is a significant rise from the 49 percent who reported feeling the same way in 2017.

Additionally, 81 percent of voters feel the City Council is “ineffective when it comes to providing public services.”

Additionally, 81 percent of voters feel the City Council is “ineffective when it comes to providing public services.”

According to the released report, voters participating in the survey also showed an overwhelming support (90 percent) for officers to begin wearing body cameras, while 83 percent support funding to hire and train new police officers.

Other numbers:

• 62 percent of voters feel the city is heading in the wrong direction.

• 66 percent of voters reported a lack of trust in local officials.

• 56 percent of voters support a switch to a unified city government.

• 70 percent of voters in favor of district elections.

"We have been conducting annual voter sentiment in the region for years, and never have we seen such unequivocal alignment in the priorities that our community is asking elected officials to execute,” said President and CEO of the Portland Business Alliance Andrew Hoan.

For an entire breakdown of the report, visit the Portland Business Alliance website.

Education or indoctrination?

 I became a teacher in 1974, unaware that I was entering a system of intentional cultural change that predated my lifetime by decades.  I naively thought I was there to transfer knowledge and get young people to use their minds to think for themselves while respecting their families’ beliefs. I balked when situational ethics, values education, relativism, self-esteem rewards for everyone were introduced.  I never joined the union. 

Beginning in the mid-80s I steered my own children away from agenda-driven teachers and academically weak curriculum.  I joined groups that fought “fuzzy math” and “whole language.”  Long before the concept of learning pods came on the scene, I recruited friends to teach summer classes for small groups that included grammar, art, writing, vocabulary and more.  Summer was the time to fill in the holes of what was supposed to be one of the best public school systems in Oregon. The task would be impossible now because the system has become so rotten.  

If I had school-age children today I would find a private school or home school curriculum that honored my values and used a rigorous curriculum free of pedological fads. At stage, the public school system cannot be saved.  

How long will it be before parents are squeezed out of all options other than public schools?  Will government ban any school or home school curriculum that doesn’t meet its own cultural agenda?

Who owns the children?   

“The Miseducation of America” on Fox Nation is a great 5-part documentary on the history of progressive influence in public education. Use the link below to sign in to watch the series. Free trial available.  

The Miseducation of America 

Weird weather

The sun is out but temperature is chilly here in Lake Oswego.  It’s not weird -it’s winter.  40+ years ago we were told the Earth was going to get colder.  “Global Cooling” started the fearball rolling along with “Peak Oil” and the “Population Bomb”.  Malthus would be impressed with humans’ ability to scare themselves silly.  

A recent iteration of global warming (tossed in the dustbin years ago) is GLOBAL WEIRDING.  As if “Climate Change” didn’t cover whatever nature threw at us, new terms have to be invented to keep us on our toes.  Why not use scientific terminology to describe a meteorological process —perhaps “)et stream wiggle-wobble.”  Gets my attention, but doesn’t paralyze me with fear.

From the Urban Dictionary:

Climate Chaos

The newest hip term for "Climate Change" which relpaced "Global Warming" which, actually, are both being slowly replaced with "Global Wierding" after the earth stopped warming and began a cooling trend that started in 1999.

In this latest edition of "Global Warming/Climate Change/Global Weirding", Climate Chaos will bring wars throughout the world due to migration from famine, water shortages, declining crop yields, floods, rain, snow, sleet, heat waves, earthquakes, tornadoes, waterfalls, softball-sized-hail, hurricanes, droughts, etc..

If we don't stop driving our SUV's and cut carbon emissions we will be destined for World War III because of all the mass migrations that will ensue from the upcoming climate chaos.

Below is a scientific definition of Global Weirding - with graphics and a clear explanation of how the jet stream functions.  

Climate Change is Leading to Global "Weirding," Not Just Global Warming

By Ferdinand Furer Nationwide

PUBLISHED 8:00 AM PT Feb. 28, 2021

Spectrum News, February 28, 202

According to the National Weather Service, some sort of winter weather alert was in effect for 8 days, 23 hours, and 23 minutes. In addition, the Associated Press reported that 80 people died as a result of the arctic outbreak.

The term that grabbed my interest was "global weirding." Climate change is not only about global warming and warm weather events. Global warming can lead to cold weather events, too. In fact, it can lead to all sorts of weird or unsusual weather.

To see how, lets look to the jet stream. The jet stream is a river of air that circles the globe. It also carries storms from west to east around the globe. The polar jet stream separates the frigid polar air from the more temperate mid-latitude air.

Climate Change is Leading to Global "Weirding," Not Just Global Warming

Warming

By Ferdinand Furer Nationwide

PUBLISHED 8:00 AM PT Feb. 28, 2021

Somebody’s getting paid for this drivel

 It’s surprising to me that this is coming from the IT Department of the University of Washington.  Public tax dollars and tuition paid for someone to create this garbage.  And they will keep their job as long as they keep coming up with ways normal people can be distinguished from the elites. 

The people who reject words like grandfather, brown bag, master, cake walk, and a slew of non-offensive words will think they are superior to the rest of us, but they just look like gullible idiots to me.  

Inclusive Language Guide

A reference for software and other information technology content

This guide was created with the input of dozens of people, from leadership to service owners and service managers in UW-IT, and was guided by an advisory committee made up of people representing units across the UW and from UW Medicine and UW-IT’s DEI Community of Practice.

As a major educational institution, it’s imperative that we remain committed to diversity, equity and inclusion, and one place to start is how we communicate to those who visit our websites. This guide shows our commitment to ensuring our organization, and our websites, continually show respect for everyone.

How this guide can be used

The majority of words listed in this document are those commonly found in IT. The guide was created as a reference to audit the language used in websites, web pages, wikis, online documentation, software and system applications, and documentation about these applications.

This guide is intended to complement other high-quality references for inclusive language, such as UW Marketing & Communications’ Equitable Language Guide.

The list of problematic words and appropriate replacements below is a valuable addition to the resources already available.

Want to play “Privilege Bingo”?

 Neither do I.  I was introduced to this kind of exercise a couple of years ago ar a Master Gardeners training session.  Unlike past years, the day was not spent on horticulture topics, but a half day was devoted to a Diversity, Equity and Inclusion indoctrination.  We (a group of about 300 primarily white, older, college-educates females) were asked to identify 1. Ways we were privileged, and 2. Ways we were discriminated against.  Being white, older and educated dumped us all into the privileged category no matter what our personal histories were, or that Oregon is predominately white.  Objecting made no difference.  You either had earned or unearned privilege, and being white was the main indicator of your privileged status.  Angry doesn’t begin to describe my reaction to being subjected to this racist exercise.  

I can’t imagine my children being in a school that dumped this kind of polluted, manipulative propaganda on them.  If this rubbish had been going on in the 90s I would have taken them out of their school.  Many parents today are doing just that.  I wonder how long private schools and home schooling will be legal?  

On the Bingo chart below, how do you rate?  How does that make you feel?  

How do you think school-age children would feel?  

Why isn’t this child abuse?  

In Defiance Of Youngkin, Fairfax Public School Demands High Schoolers Participate In ‘Privilege Bingo’

THE FEDERALIST.   BY: JORDAN BOYD.  JANUARY 19, 2022

In the school district’s latest move defying Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s executive orders banning “inherently divisive concepts” from public education curriculum, Oakton High School, which is part of Fairfax County Public Schools, asked students to participate in a “privilege bingo.”

The exercise titled “identifying your privilege” is littered with bingo spaces accusing students who are a “military kid,” “white,” “male,” “cisgender,” “Christian,” and more of being privileged.

According to a report in The Daily Wire, Assistant Superintendent Douglas A. Tyson told concerned parents that the screenshot in question originated from “an approved FCPS English Curriculum lesson that is centered around students selecting a ‘choice’ test and examining in detail the author’s perspective on a wide-range [sic] of issues.”

The exercise, Tyson continued, was designed for students to determine whether authors have “privilege that may or may not be present in the work” and then reflect on their own biases based on their race as well as economic and educational status. 

Parents and students in Virginia who have fought critical race theory and other radical ideologies in their schools over the last two years, however, aren’t so pleased. 

“It’s particularly sad and poignant that this came out the week of MLK Day. I mean, this is yet another district in America that is teaching children to identify themselves and treat others by characteristics that, in this case for the military thing, is absolutely meaningless,” Nicole Neily, President of Parents Defending Education, told The Federalist.

 “These are students who, at the end of the day, want to get a good grade, are picking up on these cues from their teachers, right? And so they regurgitate these talking points and things like this. And I think it’s very difficult for students to say what they need to say to get a good grade while maintaining kind of their own perspective on issues. This feels very coercive, quite honestly,” Neily said. “…Fairfax parents, obviously, have been extremely outspoken about their unhappiness with a number of elements of the school system.”

This is so wrong

 I don’t have an Alexa or Nest or any “smart” appliance that tracks my habits or talks to me.  The exceptions are my car, but I turned off the voice that tells me to keep my eyes on the road - now I just get a light on the dashboard with the message and I obey. And my TV.  But I question just how “smart” the thing is because whenever I press the speak button to ask for a particular show, the TV responds, “I didn’t get that. Can you repeat your request?”  Pretty stupid machine.  

Now, can you imagine a master computer using an algorithm or an anonymous geek-bureaucrat sitting in a bunker somewhere, deciding that your car should be turned off - whenever and wherever you are?  Someone the scenario that needs a kill switch will decide how you are supposed to use your car, otherwise why have it?  Don’t believe it will be for our convenience.  If government wants it, government will control it.  

When will your car turn off?

Maybe when you exceed you mileage quota for the month. Maybe when you exceed the distance from your home you were allowed to go, or you go to a place that is off limits like a National Forest (only open to elites and select bureaucrats) or visiting someplace or someone who was deemed politically undesirable.  

If you look into the twisted minds of the far left statist central planners, it isn’t enough to threaten our free speech or practice of religion.  Freedom of movement, the right to defend oneself, freedom of association and private property rights are all being threatened.  The blueprint has been written and we are getting glimpses of what is in store for us.  

Mind how you vote!  

Get this thing overturned!  

Zerohedge

Biden's Infrastructure Bill, Now Signed Into Law, Mandates "Vehicle Kill Switches" By 2026

BY TYLER DURDEN. TUESDAY, JAN 18, 2022 - 09:30 PM

The rumors we first reported on back in December have turned out to be true: the United States federal government is apparently in the process of trying to force automakers to install kill switches in their vehicles that authorities can use to shut down any newer vehicle.

The law comes as part of President Biden's infrastructure bill, which was recently signed into law, according to Yahoo. The government kill switch is - like all good thefts of civil liberties - being positioned as a "safety measure". The mandate needs to be put into effect by 2026, Muscle Cars & Trucks reported.  

We noted last month that former Rep. Bob Barr, writing for The Daily Caller, called the measure included in the bill "disturbingly short on details", but for the fact that the proposed device must “passively monitor the performance of a driver of a motor vehicle to accurately identify whether that driver may be impaired.”

Which, of course, is code for some kind of device that is constantly on and monitoring your vehicle - and will likely have the power to shut down your vehicle anytime it wants. 

"This is a privacy disaster in the making, and the fact that the provision made it through the Congress reveals — yet again — how little its members care about the privacy of their constituents," The Daily Caller wrote. 

It appears that in President Biden's future, not only will you not be in charge of your own personal health decisions, but you also won't be in charge of whether or not you can fire up your car, which you bought with your hard-earned money, to drive it somewhere, when you deem fit. 

That decision will now "rest in the hands of an algorithm", the report said. Similar monitoring and control devices have faced constitutional opposition, the report notes, "notably with the 5th Amendment’s right to not self-incriminate, and the 6th Amendment’s right to face one’s accuser."

Barr concluded: "Unless this regulatory mandate is not quickly removed or defanged by way of an appropriations rider preventing its implementation, the freedom of the open road that individual car ownership brought to the American Dream, will be but another vague memory of an era no longer to be enjoyed by future generations."

Alchemy CO2

Fascinating to see creative and brilliant minds at work.  What are the downsides to this new technology?  

Wired  February 2022

The Quest to Trap Carbon in Stone—and Beat Climate Change

The Big Inhale

On a barren Icelandic plateau, this plant sucks CO₂ out of the air before trapping it in stone. Build 10,000 more and we might stand a chance against climate change

BY VINCE BEISER,  PHOTOGRAPHS BY TANYA HOUGHTON

Everyone I spoke to in the direct air capture industry says that they, too, believe the world needs to cut CO₂ emissions as deeply as possible. But that will take time, and by now, there’s already so much CO₂ in the air that even if we magically quit burning all fossil fuels tomorrow, the planet would continue to feel the effects of climate change. What’s more, renewables won’t solve all our emissions problems anytime soon: Large airplanes can’t yet run on electric batteries, and cement production generates CO₂ as a byproduct, for instance. “We’re at a stage where avoiding carbon is no longer enough,” says Wilcox, the Energy Department official. “We’re going to have to be taking it back out of the atmosphere.”

European-style digital ID threatens civil society

 Massive protests are occurring as civil rights are threatened.  Digital vaccine passports entitle citizens to participate in society - no vaccine passport will condemn one to a second-class form of existence, or worse.  When currency goes all-digital, we all become government serfs.  

Can… will this happen here?  

Is America still the “land of the free and the home of the brave”?  

*******

Violent protests break out in Europe over vaccine mandates, lockdowns

New York Post,  By 

Jackie Salo. 

November 21, 2021

A man shows a poster reading: ‘Against Passes. Stop the covid noose. Freedom’ during a demonstration against the reinforced measures of the Belgium government.

AP Photo/Olivier Matthys

Violent protests have broken out against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and lockdowns across Europe amid new tough rules to curb winter waves of the virus.

Demonstrators angry about the new measures gathered in Austria, Croatia, Italy, Northern Ireland, the French territory of Guadeloupe and the Netherlands to protest the moves.

In the Netherlands, a second night of riots broke out Saturday over a partial lockdown, one day after police opened fire on people protesting the rules in Rotterdam.

Protesters hurled fireworks at police and set fire to bicycles in The Hague, as cops used horses, dogs and batons to chase the crowds away, the BBC reported.

In Northern Ireland, several hundred people opposed to vaccine passports gathered outside City Hall in Belfast, where the Christmas market opened Saturday — and proof of vaccination or a negative COVID-19 test was necessary to enter.

In Italy, 3,000 protesters showed up to Circus Maximus, an ancient chariot-racing ground in Rome, to protest against “Green Pass” vaccine certificates required at local workplaces, restaurants, cinemas, theaters, sports venues and gyms.

“People like us never give up,” read one banner in the red, white and green colors of the Italian flag.

Tens of thousands of people, including far-right groups, also joined protests in Austria on Saturday after the government announced a new national lockdown and plans to make the vaccine a requirement in February 2022.

Protesters chanted, “Resistance!” and blew whistles in the massive Heldenplatz square ahead of the lockdown, which will start Monday and last 10 days but could go up to 20.

STREETS OF RAGE 

Cops clash with anti-vaccine passport protesters across Europe as countries tighten rules to fight Omicron wave

• The Sun, Tariq Tahir  
16:37, 8 Jan 2022

• COPS have clashed with anti-vaccine passport protesters across Europe as countries tighten up measures to tackle Omicron.

  France, Italy, Austria and Germany all saw angry demonstrations against the measures, with some turning violent. 

Demonstrators took to the streets of Paris in response to President Emmanuel Macron’s vow to “p*** off” the unvaccinated.

In the French capital protesters retorted by adopting his slangy wording, chanting "We'll p*** you off".

Others carried signs saying "No to the vaccine pass", a reference to Macron's push to require proof of vaccination to enter venues such as cafes, bars and museums.

French TV images showed skirmishes between protesters and police at one site.

Protesters also rallied through the streets in Marseille, Nantes and Le Mans among other cities.

In Italy, there were protests against mandatory vaccinations for people over 50 and stricter rules for the unvaccinated.

Under the new regulations, they will not be able to do a variety of activities including using public transport and sitting at restaurants.

Germany saw police and demonstrators clash in the cities of Magdeburg and Schwerin.

The Austrian capital Vienna saw protests against the government's measures to curb Covid.

The Austrian government is pressing ahead with plans to implement plans to make vaccination compulsory, starting in February.

People in France already have to show either proof of vaccination or a negative test to enter restaurants and bars and use inter-regional trains. B

Earlier this month, police armed with batons and shields clashed with thousands of anti-lockdown protesters in the Netherlands.

Crowds gathered in Amsterdam's Museum Square to object against Covid-19 measures and vaccinations - despite a country-wide ban on group meet-ups.

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The Covid revolts: Europe’s new wave of unrest

Europe’s new wave of unrest

Spectator., Ross Clark. 27 November

What is remarkable about this wave is how quickly it has erupted into a culture war over vaccination. On 8 November, Austria’s new chancellor, Alexander Schallenberg, announced a vaccine passport scheme of the kind already in operation in France and several other countries. Four days later he crossed a line which no other European leader had then dared cross: he announced a lockdown exclusively for the unvaccinated, to take effect from Monday 16 November. A week after that, the country was in full lockdown. Schallenberg then reached for a lever which had been rejected by his youthful predecessor, Sebastian Kurz, who was removed from office in October over bribery allegations: compulsoryt vaccination, enforced with the threat of €3,600 fines for refuseniks. Even Xi Jinping’s regime rejected compulsory Covid vaccination when several regional Chinese administrations flirted with the idea in the spring. Indonesia, Micronesia and Turkmenistan are the only countries, so far, to have introduced a Covid vaccine mandate for adults. 

Schallenberg, a dull functionary whose chancellorship might otherwise have gone unnoticed by the outside world, has acquired instant notoriety, which surely he must have foreseen. Within hours, 35,000 people were out on the streets of Vienna, and copycat protests were being held around mainland Europe as their governments, too, discussed the idea. In Brussels, a crowd of 35,000 were repelled by water cannon, but not before they had damaged a police car and thrown objects at the windows of the European Commission. 

Much has been made of the involvement in Austria of the right-wing Freedom party, which has been pushing against vaccination for months and whose leader, Herbert Kickl, would have been heading last weekend’s protests had he not tested positive for Covid and obediently put himself into quarantine. Yet to portray Austria’s — and Europe’s — anti-vaxxer movement as a right-wing phenomenon misses the point. 

Europe’s anti-vaxxer movement has swept up libertarians on the right and Mother Earth-types on the left. While some have identified a link between vaccine hesitancy in the old East Germany and concentrations of voters for the right-wing AfD party, Germany has long been a hotbed of alternative medicine, with three-quarters of German doctors offering such treatments for people who favour them over drugs that have been proven in clinical trials. It should come as no surprise that a significant minority of Germans have rejected Covid vaccines, too. One thing, though, is for sure: enforcing vaccination by law will solidify support for minor parties which, like the AfD, draw their support from people who feel they have been pushed to the margins of society. 

It suits many in government to write off vaccine refuseniks as idiots brainwashed by anti-vaxxers. Justifying his decision to fire unvaccinated care-home staff, the Health Secretary Sajid Javid suggested that they had been ‘listening to these ridiculous theories on the internet or on social media’. But do all people who have declined the vaccine really fit into this category? A University of Erfurt study revealed that 80 per cent of those refusing to be vaccinated said they had no fundamental objection to the vaccine; they just wanted time to weigh up the risks and benefits. 

Given that their own government restricted the AstraZeneca vaccine to the over-sixties on the grounds of a rare blood-clotting disorder, it is hardly unreasonable that some Germans should feel wary of taking vaccines which have been developed far quicker than most. The Erfurt findings reinforce an Office for National Statistics (ONS) study which found that only 8 per cent of those who have declined the Covid jab in Britain did so because they had an objection to vaccines in general; most were simply worried about potential side effects. You can argue that they have made the wrong decision — that on the balance of risks they would be far better having the vaccine — but that doesn’t make them victims of anti-vaxxer propaganda.

The relatively high levels of infection over the summer and early autumn may turn out to be what defends us against the surge being witnessed on mainland Europe — as well as the public disorder that goes with it. We are indeed the odd one out in Europe, but not necessarily in a bad way.

According to The Guardian, as of September 2021, the following countries have some form of Covid passport:

Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Portugal and Slovenia are among the EU countries to have introduced some form of Covid pass.