The story of inmates who saved the lives of 3 boys in a flooded creek.
“Just because we’re incarcerated doesn’t mean we’re bad people.” An incredible story.
Would you vote for a guy whose entire policy platform involved letting people directly vote on every bill that passed his desk? That’s what Oregon resident Daniel Hollingsworth, who is running for Senate in 2014, is hoping for. Good idea or bad? (via Hacker News)
A new study from the Instituto Mexicano Para La Competitividad A.C. (Mexican Institute for Competitiveness) reveals potentially devastating consequences for a number of Mexican drug cartels should marijuana be legalized in a handful of the United States. The Mexican think thank believes the legalization measures on the ballot in Colorado, Oregon, and Washington could cut combined cartel profits by as much as 22 to 30 percent, and could severely cripple the infamous Sinaloa Cartel that operates in Western Mexico. source
I have not had a drink in years and the one time I do this I what happens. I will never drink again.Portland, Ore. resident Justin Gilpatrick • Reacting on Facebook to an ordeal in which he got drunk, fell asleep in a dumpster (rather than driving home), was picked up in a dump truck and was compacted with the trash — twice. He lived to tell about it, obviously, only having suffered minor injuries, but a pal of his who chose to drive drunk instead of dumpster-diving got into a three-car crash, though he didn’t get any life-threatening injuries, either. Enjoy your sobriety, Mr. Gilpatrick.
A very rare occurrence, especially in the U.S.: An Oregon man in his 50s contracted the “Black Death” plague while trying to remove a dead rodent from a stray cat’s mouth. While somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000 instances of the plague— yes, the same plague that devastated a third of Europe’s population in the 14th century — only ten to fifteen instances happen in the U.S. each year (this being the fifth incidence of plague in Oregon since 1995). Instances of plague are so rare that vaccination against it is no longer sold in the States, although it does exist. The man was still in critical condition in a hospital in Bend, Oregon as of Friday, and is being treated with antibiotics. (EDIT: As ajoyner notes below, New Mexico has had a number of cases, strangely, in affluent areas.) source
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The Simpsons creator Matt Groening breaks hearts in politely explaining that his animated family’s hometown is not, in fact, modeled after Springfield, Oregon.
Matt Groening knows how to make an Oregonian cry.
They just got turned around. They sought some shelter in a hollowed-out tree and basically they stayed in the same place. But it was heavy vegetation where they were.Curry County, Ore. Sheriff John Bishop • Discussing the disappearance and later recovery of a family of mushroom pickers who spent six days lost in an an Oregon forest. Considering their situation — lost in a forest in freezing temperatures for roughly six days — the three family members (husband and wife Belinda and Daniel Conne and son Michael) came out of the situation relatively unscathed, with the three suffering only minor injuries. It helped that they largely stayed in the same spot. While the trio could see the helicopters circling them overhead, they had no way of sending them a signal informing them of their presence, slowing things down. The trio were lucky — former CNet editor James Kim died under similar circumstances five years ago. source (via • follow)
The “blogger-not-a-journalist” thing still sticks, but … In the past few days, there’s been a bit of an uproar on the decision by a federal judge to decide, in a defamation case, that investigative blogger Crystal Cox isn’t a journalist protected by shield laws. We were ticked, too. However, Forbes reporter Kashmir Hill disputes the way the story was first presented by Seattle Weekly, which broke the story: “The facts in the case are far more complicated, and after hearing them, most journalists will not want to include Cox in their camp.” Hill points out that it appeared Cox was attempting to engage in reputation damage, not journalism, including sending out the e-mail shown above, in which Cox reportedly offered reputation-protection services. And ultimately, Cox’s claims —the ones that hit court after she was forced to give up her source — didn’t hold up to scrutiny. The fact of the matter is, the shield law element of this shouldn’t have even come up in the case: Even without it the claims wouldn’t have held up, according to Kevin Padrick, who claims ruin at the hands of Cox’s many sites. source
jacjacattack asks: i read your post about the oregon blogger, crystal cox, and i would love to hear your thoughts on the now-official divide between journalist and blogger, since you guys are (to my understanding) a bit of both. do you think that the court case will significantly change anything in the blogosphere? has it impacted how you run (or would run) shortformblog? (great blog by the way; very informative. thank you!) x
» SFB says: It’s early, and the decision only affects bloggers in Oregon at this point — and that’s only according to one judge. But now is a good time to definitely comb through journalist shield laws and figure out which states need updating. Seattle Weekly, which broke the story, talked to Bruce E. H. Johnson, the man who wrote the shield law in Washington, and he said this about the case: ”I believe the shield law would have been applied [in Washington state]. Oregon’s law was probably written before blogging was accounted for.” So, the real question is how to get these laws updated for an era where a “journalist” is anyone with a camera phone and a Twitter account. To answer your question: It’s too soon to say it’s had a chilling effect, but if it goes the wrong way, it certainly could. — Ernie @ SFB
Blogger told she’s not a journalist, fined $2.5 million: This is an important case. The Oregon blogger, Crystal Cox, runs a number of legal sites that play whistleblower to various firms. One of those firms, Obsidian Finance Group (they of obsidianfinancesucks.com), sued over defamatory postings. Nearly all of the alleged defamatory postings were thrown out in court — except for one. The post was fact-based, Cox claimed, as it was based on a source inside the company. But here’s the important part: A federal court claims that she’s not a journalist (as she doesn’t work for a media organization), despite the fact that the post was journalistic in nature, and she’s not subject to the shield laws that protect journalists in her state. Hence … the fine. This is important. Follow this story.
Edit: As the story continues to get press play, the story is becoming more complicated. More details here.
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buntsfromaleftcoastgirl asks: Regarding the Postal Service announcement yesterday about slow-downs, my local Oregon NPR station noted this morning that the slow-down would effect Oregon's vote-by-mail as ballots have to be returned--not just postmarked--by election day. Oregon officials are pushing to get voter's pamphlets and ballots to Oregon voters sooner so they can be returned with enough time to slog through the USPS.
» SFB says: Good to know. Here’s the story, for the curious. This is another example, to us, about how a one-day delay in receiving mail will cause a ripple effect far beyond the Postal Service. To put this in Netflix terms: This is the U.S. Postal Service’s Qwikster. — Ernie @ SFB
At first glance, this just looks like an editing trick: Someone spliced together a bunch of clips of Oregon lawmakers to make it look as if they’re singing Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up.” Right? Wrong! In fact, the whole thing was an elaborate prank hatched by the lawmakers themselves; they schemed to surreptitiously insert the song’s lyrics, one by one, into their speeches on the House floor. After over a year of editing (!), Rep. Jefferson Smith, the brains behind the operation, released the finished product into the wild. It was a true bipartisan effort, involving Democrats and Republicans (the chamber is split 50/50). “Just having a little fun together helped develop some professional relationships,” Smith explained. Hopefully, this kind of fun will soon spread to the federal level (nudge nudge, Harry Reid). source
(Note: quick clarification thanks to danielholter)
A smart federal, state and local law enforcement investigation caught a criminal tonight bent on mass destruction and murder in our city.Portland, Oregon Mayor Sam Adams • Quoted in a Tumblr post about the whole deal with the attempted suicide bomber, Mohamed Osman Mohamud, in his town. Yeah, that’s right. The mayor of Portland has a Tumblr, which is pretty freaking rad. It’s even more rad that they caught the dude before he could do any serious damage. But we offer a conditional, here: Tumblr buddy theonlyplformat makes a pretty great point about this incident. Why wait until he’s about to blow something up? Why not stop him four months earlier when he had already made the threat? (via inothernews)
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