1003 am 'Get This' news

10/03/07 Get This
Chris Andreae
 

1. Flunk You!:  The Oregon Department of Education says test scores for math released last week were wrong.  Kids are even dumber than we thought they were.  But, alas, so are officials.  The discrepancy between results and reality was caused by a computer coding error.  (Maybe we were wrong to imagine that playing Halo III for eight-hour stretches isn’t going to improve our understanding of technology…)
2. Around the Bend and Out of Luck:  Trillium Family Services, Oregon’s largest provider of children’s mental health care is reducing staff and closing its inpatient and outpatient programs in Bend.  So if you live in Bend and math is driving your kids crazy, it’s time to move some place where you can find adequate treatment – like Canada or France…
3. Logging Off:  The US Forest Service has agreed to withdraw plans to log spotted owl habitat that burned last year in Central Oregon’s Cascade Range.  (Good.  Now let’s turn our attention to preserving human habitat and crush suburban sprawl before we shit ourselves to death…)
4. Up In Smoke:  Measure 50 – that’s the one that would substantially up the tax on cigarettes and use the money to fund children’s healthcare – has attracted vast mountains of money from tobacco companies who are fighting it tooth and nail.  But let’s get serious:  The tax money realized,  should the measure pass, will be diverted directly to private insurers who will dump at least part of it into a slush fund to cover the cost of litigating suits filed by people to whom they  have denied coverage.
5. Never mind the fact that it sounds like the name of a porno flick – Operation TopOff-4 is coming, so stock up on tinfoil.  Yes, Homeland Security is staging fake attacks by a “terrorist organization known as the Universal Adversary”.  This UA, (Not to be confused with ‘urine analysis’ in case anyone pisses their pants…) is going to set off a “dirty bomb” on the Steele Bridge, after party at the Portland International raceway.  Grab your gonads (Or borrow a friend’s if you do not personally own a set) and call NORTHCOM            ‘s Vigilante Shield info number, 719-554-6889.
6. Lessons Learned:  TopOfficials have all but admitted that: 1. Katrina was not the massive fuck-up it appeared to be.  No, it actually was intended to simulate a massive fuck-up.  2. The first TopOff exercise remains classified for reasons of national security, so we still don’t know what we learned from that one.  3.  And TopOff-3 is still being analyzed.  So there you have it:  Homeland Security is doing somewhat worse on the tests than Oregon school children are doing at math.  Conclusion?  Put the kids in charge of national security.  They couldn’t possibly do any worse and they might even assimilate “lessons learned.”
7. The Liberty Seven trial gets underway today.  Recall, the seven guys who were allegedly planning to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago?  Well, their main man, Narseal Batiste was plied and pestered by FBI informants to swear allegiance to al-Qaeda – even though Batiste’s knowledge of the terror group was somewhat hazy and he required considerable prompting from the Feds.  Cost of the informants?  Eighty thousand dollars.  Amount Batiste was promised for promising to wreak havoc?  A few thousand dollars.  Value of scaring the American public?  Priceless!
8. Res Ipsa Loquitur:  Lockerbie revisited; The Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission discovered documents that the prosecution -  but not the defense -  got a look at.  It seems that the timer on the bomb was provided by the CIA.  (“The thing speaks for itself”)
9. In-Coming! 1:  Britain’s Sunday Telegraph reports that US and Arab air forces are practicing over the Gulf for the big hit on Iran (Which, the White House wants you to know, is the only reason we are fighting this endless war in Iraq:  Quelle surprise!  It was Iranian terrorists that we intended to attack all along.  Somewhat like the fact that the Taliban are in Pakistan so we bombed Afghanistan.  (Think about it:  Suicide bombers, snipers, the 9/11 attackers, gang bangers, purse snatchers, snatch snatchers – I could go on – What is the single characteristic they all share?  That’s right!  They are overwhelmingly male.  Let the gender profiling begin!)
10. Members of the US secretariat at the United Nations have been asked to “search for things that Iran has done wrong.”  So it looks like we are about to launch a bombing campaign on yet another country because some UN lackey didn’t wash his/her hands after using the restroom….
11. The House voted yesterday to give the Bush administration two more months to tell Congress its plans for the withdrawal of combat forces from Iraq.  (Great.  But it isn’t the “combat forces” that are causing the trouble.  It’s the private security forces like Blackwater USA that are not exactly endearing us to the Iraqi people by getting drunk and driving around shooting civilians.  So, yes indeed:  Withdraw those troops.  Nothing will change since “contractors” will still be on hand to “protect” American officials…)
12. Iraqi resettlement is dead in the water and thousands of Iraqi refugees will soon be dead from reprisals as a direct result of assisting the dingbat occupation forces.
13. Female soldiers in the Israeli Army mutinied.
14. This year, 2007, is the most violent year since the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan.  On the bright side, it’s been a great year for opium!
15. This summer the Arctic experienced a heat wave.