So, this has been a great fucking last day and a half.
I have a leadfoot. I need to chop it off.
As a result, I have far too many speeding tickets. In Oregon, 4 or more in a 24 month period results in a 30 day suspension of your Driver's License.
My 30 day suspension went into effect at 12:00AM (midnight) on 01-05-04. Yep. This morning.
So, I'm up in Portland. My brother and I go see Bad Santa, before he has to go off to Lackland AFB in Texas.
The movie gets out, we head back to the hotel. I miss my turn, I pull over to the side of the road, look for oncoming traffic, and traffic behind me. Absolutely none, because it's 12:23pm, and it's 19 degrees outside.
So, I pull a U-Turn, and head back the other way. Bam, I get pulled over.
Asshole cop (no, I don't hate cops, but this cops was a dick from the start) informs me that U-Turns are illegal (they aren't). All U-Turns, in the entire state.
Fucking dipshit.
So, he takes my license, registration and insurance info back to his car.
The I remember that I'm suspended as of midnight.
He comes back, gives me a ticket for an illegal U-Turn ($141.00), Driving While Suspended ($421.00) impounds my ride, AND we have to walk back to the hotel (only about a mile, but it was FUCKING COLD!).
Even better, he tells me not to try to argue law with an officer of the law - well, fuck him. He doesn't know the fucking law, because ORS 311.365 does NOT make U-Turns explicitly illegal, that cocksucker.
Not only that, he takes my car keys, leaves my window rolled down (power windows), refuses to let me borrow the keys to roll the windows up, and refuses to roll the window up himself. It's starting to snow, and there's storm warnings in effect. Fucking bastard.
Then, when he searches the Explorer, he finds it neccessary to ask me why I have a 6 D-cell Mag Lite under the back seat, since I already have a 1.5million candlepower spotlight back there.
I tell him that the spotlight is too bright for some things, and I keep that flashlight in my rig.
When he tells me I can take posessions out of the car, since he's impounding it, I decide that it'll be faster for my brother and I to walk the 1.5 miles to the hotel, rather than wait for a taxi, and pay for it, which will take even longer.
That part of 82nd Avenue is dark as hell, with few streetlights, so I decide it would probably be a good idea to take the flashlight.
I ask him, "Will there be any issue with me carrying this flashlight down the road?"
He ignores me. I say "Excuse me?" and repeat my question.
He tells me that he's not going to answer my stupid questions, and that I'm just being silly.
I tell him that I think it's a perfectly valid question, since I can recall people being charged with concealing a blunt weapon for carrying a Mag Lite like mine with them, and that since he found it neccessary to question why I had it in the first place, I wanted to make sure I wasn't going to get in trouble.
"I'm not going to dignify myself with a response to your stupid questions."
Then I ask him for his name and badge number/serial number. He informs me it's on the ticket.
I tell him that it's not clear, because tickets are triplicate paper, and it doesn't come out clear at all.
He tells me again, "It's on the ticket."
So, I stick the ticket in his face and say "Look. It's not clear. I asked you for your information, and you will write it down, because, guess what, that's Oregon law, and if you want to dispute it, Mr. Officer of the Law, then I'll call 911 right now, and request State Police, or Port of Portland police to respond to this location."
He writes it down clearly. That's right, bitch - I mean, Officer Myers, serial number 31292.
I'm going to take this cocksucker down. I'll find his personal information, and then you wait and see what kind of fun he has.
And, no, I'm not going to do anything illegal. He'll just have lots of fun.
The next morning, I have to get my parents to drive up to Portland with some cash, since I'm pretty much broke.
We go to the DMV, get me an Photo ID card (required to get my Explorer back), and then head over to the Portland Police Bureau Records Division.
What a fucking joke.
It takes nearly 4 hours to get the release for my Explorer.
Why is this?
Well, due to the Orange Alert in effect over the nation, apparently they feel that the terrorist threat to their records is such to justify a reduced staff, and reduced hours - from 7am-7pm to 8am-4pm.
FOUR FUCKING HOURS SO I CAN PAY THEM $30.00 AND GET A PIECE OF PAPER.
God DAMN.
Now I know why Lars Larson calls Portland "Moscow on the Willamette".
The bureaucracy of that entire town sucks ass.
I fucking hate Portland, and this just reinforced it.
People at work give me shit about living in Albany. When I mention that I might move to Salem, I get the typical "Salem's not any better, you should move to Portland/Tualitin/Beaverton/Hillsboro/etc." - basically, Portland or it's boroughs.
Why? If Salem is shit, Portland is shit, cubed.
There's nothing better about it - it's ugly, it's crowded, there's homeless people all over the place, unlike Salem and Albany, it's too fucking big, it's government and police agencies suck ass, and it's cops are gestapo.
Fuck that noise.
From this day forth, I am avoiding Portland and the surrounding suburbs like the plague. The farthest north I'm going is Wilsonville/Tualitin.
Goddammit.
And, since I'm suspended, I need to find a way to get to work in Salem.
FUCK.
PERS reformer resigns from Oregon LegislatureEUGENE (AP) - Sen. Tony Corcoran says he will resign from the Legislature to accept a government job, saying he has to make the move because his role in reforming the Public Employees Retirement System led to a backlash at the union for which he worked.
Gov. Ted Kulongoski appointed the Cottage Grove Democrat to the Employment Appeals Board on Monday. The panel rules on appeals of state decisions on unemployment insurance benefits to workers who lose their jobs. The position pays a top salary of $84,000.
Corcoran, who has spent eight years in the Legislature, had worked as a negotiator for the Oregon Public Employees Union.
As a legislator, he volunteered to chair the Senate committee that pushed through reforms to a state retirement system that was $17 billion in the red. The unions estimate the reforms will cut individual retiree benefits by 10 percent to 30 percent, depending on where members are in their careers.Asked why he had decided to accept the governor's appointment, he said: "The biggest part of it was that my union chose to punish me.... The job assignment they gave me was under a supervisor who once tried to get me fired. They were basically just punishing me, in my view."
Rich Peppers, an assistant deputy director with the union, said his group opposed Corcoran's pension reforms, but it did not retaliate against him for his work as a legislator.
"I would just disagree strongly with his characterization of what's going on," Peppers said.
Senate President Peter Courtney said Corcoran's departure from the Senate, coming after making politically difficult decisions that put him at odds with his allies in the labor movement, made him the session's "ultimate tragic figure."
Courtney said he'd begged Corcoran to change his mind, but to no avail.
If he is confirmed by the Senate when it's scheduled to meet on Nov. 6, Corcoran will give up his legislative post that month to accept the appointment as one of three members of the Employment Appeals Board.
"I'm proud of the work I did, basically saving PERS," he said.
Corcoran's Senate district includes the neighborhoods surrounding the University of Oregon, outlying rural areas south and west of Eugene and rural easternmost Lane and northeastern Douglas counties.
The greed of Oregon's public employees is astounding...
This guy does what needs to be done, and, to be quite honest, did the best for PERS recipients that could have been done, but because HE was the one to cut into their benefits, he gets stomped.
They ought to disband PERS entirely. Fuck these people.
Strike Cancels Another Week Of Classes
No Negotiations Scheduled
MARYSVILLE, Wash. -- About 11,000 students will miss another week of school because of a teachers' strike.
Instead of meeting new students for their first day of school this week, Marysville teachers carried picket signs outside their buildings.
The 700 educators voted overwhelmingly to strike, citing poor pay, benefits and working conditions. The district said they offered a competitive contract.
The district on Friday canceled classes for all next week, saying no negotiations were scheduled. Union officials say they're waiting to hear from a mediator.
You know, I've heard the argument that teachers really don't make that much money, and that they get screwed over and everything.
Fuck that.
They get 3 months off a year. Do they get paid during this time? It depends. Most school districts allow teachers to be paid either during their 9 months of work, or have their pay stretched out over the 12 months of the year.
If they don't get paid during the summer, oh darn. Either they should save part of their pay during the year to cover the summer, or choose to be paid over the 12 months.
The starting pay for a brand-new teacher in Washington is $27,284/year. The starting pay for a brand-new teacher in Oregon is $27, 903/year.
The average pay for a teacher in Washington is $42,143/year. The average pay for a teacher in Oregon is $44,988.
That's $13.00 and change an hour, for a new teacher, and $20.00 to $21.00 and change an hour, for the average teacher, based on a 40-hour work week.
(The average pay for a private sector employee, with little-to-no benefits, little-to-no vacation/sick time, and no retirement benefits, is $32,914/year ($15.82/hr) in Washington, $29,046/year ($13.96/hr) in Oregon (based on a 40-hr work week).)
Teachers generally work from 8am to 4pm, Monday through Friday. That's 35 hours a week.
They get their 45-60 minute (PAID!!) lunch break, along with the kiddies. Most workers in either Washington or Oregon get a 30 minute (UNPAID!!) lunch break. They also normally get a "prep" period, which lasts anywhere from 40-60 minutes, depending on class schedules. This "prep" period is supposed to be for them to get their day together, work on lesson-plans, grade papers, whatever. I know from experience, quite a few teachers use this as a paid break.
Teachers in both states are members of EXTREMELY generous state-funded retirement plans that have many concessions for early-retirement with full benefits, etc.
As a teacher, if you retain your job for a period of time (usually 3-5 years), you gain tenure, which essentially means, you can't be fired unless the administration/school board can document and prove gross negligence in performing your job. All you gotta do is make sure a large enough percentage of your students pass your class, and you're good to go. Hey, if you're the one grading papers, ain't hard at all to meet that requirement.
Teachers have it sooo hard off, don't they?
Oh, yeah, did I mention that they can use students as "aides", which translates to "unpaid student does my job (grading papers, making copies, etc.) thus negating my need to do anything whatsoever."
All I've got to ask is, if your job sucks so much, why did you choose it in the first place, and why don't you go look for a job elsewhere?
Well, that's not going to happen, because they've got the teacher's union behind them, and since they're a union member, they can all go on strike, fuck over the students (hey, a horrible education is better than no education), and demand more money. They may not get EVERYTHING they ask for, but they'll get more than they had before.
And next year, they'll pull this bullshit again.
Unions once had a place in our country. Now, they're abused and mis-used. Small wonder that virtually all public employees are members of unions.