Posts by Hines Brian

I'm glad the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge standoff is over. I'm equally pleased that Cliven Bundy has been arrested and charged with crimes that could lead to him spending the rest of his life in prison.  I readily admit that, like lots of other people here in Oregon and elsewhere, I became quasi-obsessed with the twists and turns of this drama -- especially after the four militants remaining at the refuge started broadcasting a live audio feed featuring their wacko rants and bullhorn pleas from a FBI negotiator to surrender peacefully. So it's good to have the Malheur situation on…

I don't hear "You're a dick!" very often. Maybe never. But my citizen activism leads to me being called other derogatory names, like bombthrower.  I've made that into a term of endearment. Here's what I said in a 2014 post: I've been called a bomb-thrower by folks at City Hall. I guess this is supposed to be an insult. I consider it a compliment. I'm proud to speak out loud and powerfully when I see stuff going on in Salem that shouldn't be. My goal is to throw truth-bombs that open up minds and demolish barriers to seeing what is happening behind…

OK, let's get this straight right off the bat: I'm pretty much clueless about betting. So if I make some dumb-ass mistake about odds and what-not in this post, that's because I'm a betting dumb-ass.  (I'd say there's at least a 50-50 chance of that happening.) That said, I'm a believer in prediction markets. Which basically involves a bunch of people betting that something will, or won't, happen.  A Washington Post story, "Why Marco Rubio now has the best chance of winning the GOP nomination," caught my eye today.  Marco Rubio placed third in the Iowa caucuses Monday, but observers liked…

Way back when, I thought I'd be more excited tonight, what with the Iowa caucuses finally kicking off voting that will culminate in November 2016 with a new president of the United States. Problem is, it feels to me like the campaigning has already gone on forever, plus or minus a few eons.  I just looked at the online New York Times front page. With most of the Iowa voting counted, Ted Cruz appears headed to a narrow victory, as does Hillary Clinton. Whoopee. That's my lack of enthusiasm talking. And I'm a political junkie.  There's something wrong about an…

Like so many other people in Oregon, I've been avidly following developments over in Harney County, where a bunch of wacko right-wing militants have taken over the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge for bizarre reasons only their twisted minds have a chance of comprehending. (The Portland Oregonian has extensive coverage of the takeover, now in its 24th day.) Every morning I fire up my laptop and head to the Oregonian's "What you need to know today" page. There's always something newly irritating -- a fresh outrage by Ammon Bundy and his band of no-nothings. As we enter the third week of…

Being a proud progressive, I'm committed to rationality, fairness, sound arguments, and fealty to facts. (Which makes me much different from most right-wing conservatives these days.) So I've been pondering whether I'm justified in being outraged at what the militants who have taken over the Malheur Wildlife Refuge here in Oregon are doing, given that I was supportive of the Occupy Movement.  After all, both groups took over public property in an attempt to bring attention to their causes. Which basically are transferring federal land to private ownership in the case of the militants, and reducing social/economic inequality in the…

Watching Obama's 2016 State of the Union address last night, my wife and I were struck by how rarely Republicans applauded anything Obama said.  The Daily Kos has a partial list of the subjects that left Republicans cold and apathetic in "What did Republican lawmakers hate about President Obama's State of the Union address?" For those keeping score at home, here are just some of the issues that President Obama raised during Tuesday’s State of the Union address that Republican Senators and Congressmen in attendance refused to clap for, let alone get off their asses and cheer: Nearly 15 million new jobs and the…

News and political junkie that I am, the presets on my car's satellite radio prominently feature the POTUS (Politics of the United States), MSNBC, CNN, and NPR channels.  Usually I listen to them. But today I kept channel surfing -- listening for a short while, then mentally blurting out a profanity and clicking on either my Chill or Classic Rock music channels.  My willingness to hear blather about what might be, what could occur, what the future possibly could bring, it's sunk to a low level.  I've been gradually heading in this direction for quite a while. Today, though, I…

I've been on the fence about the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). On the whole, free trade makes sense to me. But opponents of this proposed agreement between the United States and eleven other Pacific Rim countries have made some good arguments against it.  So I went into today's Salem City Club talk, "The Trans-Pacific Partnership: A Look at the TPP Through an Oregon Lens," with an open mind.  I'm good friends with Russ Beaton, who gave the talk. Russ is a retired economics professor at Willamette University. He's heavy into sustainability, progressive politics, organic gardening, and other Good Stuff.  I don't…