Girl, 13, saves pets from burning home

Her house was on fire and she was home alone, but 13-year-old Max Foster knew just what to do.
“I was the only one and I was freaking out,” said Max. “I just took it step by step.”


I'm glad my rabbit never started a fire like that.

A National VMT tax? Now with more tracking!

Earl Blumenauer is once again talking about about switching to a VMT tax rather than (or in addition to) a gas tax, this time at the federal level. Yes this would be a pilot program (full details here), but it will cost over $150 million to do the pilot program. It would also require drivers to have a GPS tracking device in their car, which opens a number of privacy concerns.

The article above fortunately mentions that some of his biggest campaign contributors are Honeywell International and Accenture. Honeywell is an RFID manufacturer (RFID is part of the GPS program) and Accenture is a leader in video tolling technology.

Blumenauer has his own political action committee as well, the Committee for a Livable Future, and Honeywell just happens to be the second largest contributor to them as well. He's best known for being very pro-streetcar (including bringing jobs to a Portland-area businesses under the "Buy American" guise) and pro-bicycle, but I don't think it's a coincidence that he's pushing for something that is so anti-civil liberties that will just happen to benefit major campaign contributors.

Slashdot has a great discussion about the topic as well. I understand his concern about potentially dwindling tax revenues from having more fuel-efficient cars, but pushing for a tracking system does not seem like something that I could see people supporting.

There are also numerous potential technical problems with the proposal, but there are also a number of Pacific Northwest businesses (hint: Garmin acquired Morrow, an avionics-related company started in Salem, and Garmin employs people in Newport, Salem and Portland) that would likely see a large windfall from this coming through. I have to wonder if his motives are in any way legitimate, or just based on making money for contributors to keep him in office.

This is not a test of the emergency broadcast system

The Station Fire might be impressive, but that impressed me almost more. Something like palm trees and radio towers et al. Only, you know, not in German.

Once again, the hills of Los Angeles are burning.

Glenn Beck's Saga Continues

So (yawn) Glenn Beck is wasting America's time, once again. Is he misleading? Probably. Some blogs are comparing him to Joseph McCarthy. That's not a compliment, regardless of what he thinks. It's a good thing that he's respectful of 9/11 by having his minions act on 9/12 instead.

Mr. Beck may be innocent, but that can't be proven definitively yet. He is still refusing to discuss the matter, without his lawyers suing for trademark infringement, but he sure likes to make others look guilty. Fark, in all its glory, seems to be the root cause of this unproven meme.

Obviously people accusing him of raping a murdering a girl in 1990 are satirizing him in the same way that he attacks others, but it's still absurd he hasn't just dismissed these accusations yet. It does seem like the same smear campaign he's engaged against others. And of course, he's fighting it.

Of course, rape and murder aren't funny, but Glenn Beck's career seems to be getting raped and murdered anyway. His number of advertisers is going down like a pederast in a boy's school.

He may burn for this. Especially if he's unable to just discuss it like a rational adult, which may be beyond his abilities. I almost have sorrow for him.

What's up Glenn Beck?

So Glenn Beck is disputing the claims that he's a rapist and murderer. It's about time he addressed these baseless concerns (that have shown up on Fark and other sites), but the ways he's doing it using various trademark laws may still leave concerns in the minds of some who haven't heard the whole story yet.

It really isn't a believable story, but the fact he hasn't discussed it in the slightest, other than leaving a layer of lawsuits is disconcerting. Even sites of a questionable nature are covering it. He obviously (in the minds of some) manipulates the truth and might make his viewers think that things that aren't the truth are, but that doesn't make him as evil as the person some claim he is.

The claims of his evilness come from the lack of his dismissing this all as just a large load of BS, which it seems to be, but it would be nice if he would attack the accusations instead of the accusers in long form, much like he's asking Obama to do.

Obviously Mr. Beck is probably an upstanding citizen, but it is unfortunate that he (as of yet) has not disputed these claims without using his legal teams to attack a blog rather than just simply stating how false these accusations are.

Transportation Funding in Congress

Just saw an interesting article from Yahoo about funding for the Essential Air Service program. Apparently it's getting a lot more funding, including for some reason routes like Buffalo NY to Jamestown NY, which isn't more than a 90 minute drive.

There's definitely a need for these services for many areas, but it sounds like there's a bit of waste involved as well.

Also in the article is a mention of another $4 billion of federal funding for high speed rail, in addition to the $8 billion set aside in the stimulus package. Hopefully Washington and Oregon can get enough of that to significantly speed up the Cascades route. I know Washington's mostly ready to go, but Oregon probably has dragged our feet too long to get much.

And now from China

Check out http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=794_1245730574 to see how the Internet is again showing people the inside of a suppressive regime. I wonder what else the Internet can deliver?

2009 Eurovision Song Contest Final

So I had never heard of this before, but CNN had an article about protests outside it earlier today. The official site has some background, as well as a live webcast I've now been watching most of the afternoon. Balkan Girls Like to Party Like Nobody by the Romanian group was quite amusing though. The swing-pop German and dance/techno Ukraine musicians were by far the most entertaining, each for their own reason. Hopefully they'll put some of these on their YouTube Channel. Some of the acts were very unique.

Edited to add props to the Finnish fire dancers and musicians. I've never seen Scandinavian rap before, and it's just crazy...

NY Times

So, the NY Times has made a stand about Frugal Portland. It's the Frugal Traveler in Portland, making for more fun than expected. We're Portland. We do that.

The New Old Lompoc and Ground Kontrol made it.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer

So, shit happens sometimes, but the Seattle PI is shutting down, that's not good. I've been a fan for a while (full disclosure, the Seattle Times had a letter from me, once.)

I lived in San Diego when I read them most, but since moving to Portland I've read them a bit as well. It's unfortunate that the press (as the first amendment calls them) is failing, but they have to walk into the new millenia. It seems that some sites are doing so, and some are not.

I hope the Cascadia Times can achieve such greatness, or at least survival on the web.