SheBop, a "female friendly sex toy boutique," in Portland, Ore., has a great blog where they post comprehensive guides, among other things, on less-often addressed sex and sex-toy issues like the
sex toy cleaning guide,
Lube 101,
how to use a cock ring, and
the lowdown on Kegel exercises. Probably
NSFW.
posted by Lutoslawski
on Jul 25, 2011 -
29 comments
The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment: Evidence from the First Year (or, What Happens When You Give Poor People Health Insurance?) "We find that in this first year, the treatment group had substantively and statistically significantly higher health care utilization (including primary and preventive care as well as hospitalizations), lower out-of-pocket medical expenditures and medical debt (including fewer bills sent to collection), and better self-reported physical and mental health than the control group."
[more inside]
posted by OmieWise
on Jul 11, 2011 -
65 comments
Right around 1879, the
fishwheel (
historical images,
McCord replica) came to the Columbia River. A clever application of mill-like thinking to traditional net fishing techniques, the fishwheel's river-powered automation of upstream harvesting revolutionized canning in Oregon and Washington, drawing both commercial attention and
critical concern [NYT 1881, PDF]. Two men, Thornton Williams and William Rankin McCord, each filed patents for fishwheel designs in 1881 (
#245251) and 1882 (
#257960) respectively; Williams brought an infringement suit against McCord which was
dismissed on the grounds that the invention was not new, being based directly on the publicly documented work of one Samuel Wilson in 1879. Fishwheels were fair game.
[more inside]
posted by cortex
on Jun 28, 2011 -
15 comments
Sam Adams, the recently elected openly gay mayor of Portland, Oregon, has come under fire for lying about a relationship he had with a teenage legislative intern in 2005 named Beau Breedlove.
When first asked about the relationship in 2007 during the election campaign, Sam (then 42) claimed he was being a mentor to the young man.
Sam recently cut short a trip to DC to return to Portland to publicly apologize and control damage over a
new article in which he admits to having a sexual relationship with Beau.
It's got the town divided over whether he should resign of if the whole thing is being blown out of proportion.
posted by strangeleftydoublethink
on Jan 22, 2009 -
116 comments
A few years ago when I was visiting Alaska, one of the more interesting portions of the trip was the 45-minute drive from Anchorage to Girdwood along the
Turnagain Arm of Cook Inlet. This is one of the world's rare bodies of water that features
bore tides, an amazing scene. The highway is one of only 15 roads in the United States that have been designated an "All-American Road." What about some of the world's greatest highways?
[more inside]
posted by netbros
on Apr 17, 2008 -
17 comments
The state of Oregon is holding a
health insurance lottery where 91,000 hopeful enrollees will be competing for a couple thousand spots under the Oregon Health Plan, the state's Medicaid program. OHP was created to cover those who made too much to enroll in traditional Medicaid but too little to afford market healthcare, and this development comes as a result of budget cuts and a subsequent enrollment closure in July of 2004. It's a far cry from the universal health care coverage that the plan was suppose to lead to, and marks a
dramatic turn for the state's once-ambitious health care reforms.
(Previously in dystopic health care developments)
posted by Weebot
on Mar 30, 2008 -
64 comments
Tripcheck : Is an online service of the Oregon Department of Transportation. Zoom in on the map and click on a camera icon, and you can see a current image taken by a camera at that location.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste
on Jan 20, 2007 -
17 comments
Fisher Poets You've heard of
cowboy poetry, sure, but how about the verse of modern-day fishermen and women? Taking the
Cowboy Poetry Gathering as their model,
fisher poets have plunged into the
celebration of occupational culture with their own
annual festival in Astoria, Oregon. Get a glimpse into this difficult, dangerous, and unpredictable way of making a living through the work of
Erin Frestad,
Geno Leech,
Toby Sullivan, and others. Listen to the sounds of the gathering on
this piece from PRI's Here & Now, too.
posted by Miko
on Nov 3, 2006 -
8 comments
Suzanne Swift, a Eugene soldier, has been arrested for refusing to return to Iraq after leave. She reports that she was
sexually harassed by superiors. She was picked up at home by Homeland Security agents (according to local heresay) and held in Lane County Jail overnight, before being transferred to Fort Lewis in Washington.
More local news
here.
(Disclaimer: I attempted to link a Military.com story on it, for balance, but was unable to.)
posted by Danf
on Jun 15, 2006 -
73 comments
"We were forced to evacuate the remotely operated vehicle,
'Jason II,' several times to avoid getting it enveloped in volcanic clouds," said Bill Chadwick, ...one of the authors of the study. "But at other times, we could observe the eruption from only 10 feet away - something you could never do on land. So in some ways, we were able to see processes more clearly at the bottom of the ocean than we ever could on land. That was surprising." From
KGW (
bugmenot).
Podcasts, videos, images, sounds, daily logs, and lots of information can be found on
the project's website.
posted by pwb503
on May 25, 2006 -
5 comments
Twice a victim. A 17-year-old girl in Beaverton, Oregon accused her then-boyfriend, 18, of raping her along with two of his friends. Not only was the case dismissed, but prosecutors then decided to charge the girl with filing a false report; she was found guilty this week: included in the judge's reasoning were such things as "she did not act traumatized" to his satisfaction, and "the woman's false accusations were serious enough to lead to charges." Several bloggers have touched on this story and its potential impact, including
Kevin Drum,
Shakespeare's Sister, and
Kevin Hayden, who knows the victim personally.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Dec 4, 2005 -
134 comments
Oregon man gets jailtime for website. There's a lot you can do on the internet, but "cheating" the state out of tax revenue is a crime. "Washington County Circuit Judge Michael McElligott found Eric Ivan Guthrie not guilty of racketeering and computer crime for selling cigarettes through the now-defunct Inexpensivesmokes.com Web site. However, McElligott found Guthrie guilty of doing business as a cigarette distributor without a license, two counts of unlawful distribution of cigarettes for not affixing the packs with Oregon revenue stamps and five counts of failing to comply with tobacco sale requirements for not verifying that buyers were at least 18 years old. Oregon Department of Revenue has the names and sales receipts for 7,500 people who bought cigarettes online without paying the state tax of $1.18 a pack. A small percentage have been sent bills, and officials are determining how many others will be asked to pay the state". This seems wrong.
posted by Mack Twain
on Aug 21, 2005 -
37 comments
Those OLD states are totally 2004.
I should wait until
Thursday, but: If you're fed up with the idea of living in America OR Canada, consider moving to
The State of Jefferson, a county on the Cali/Oregon border with big dreams and a kickass
flag.
Of course, they haven't seceded
yet, but when they do, it's only going to be a matter of time before we can all live in the utopian
Republic of Cascadia, where, as Jefferson residents, we'll run on Metric Time and help
strengthen Cascadia's southern border against Californian incursions.
And hey!
Public radio!
posted by dougunderscorenelso
on Jan 29, 2005 -
20 comments
After reading that
beef has been recalled from my local grocery store, I spent some time reading
Mad Cow USA a book written back in 1997 but not widely published because of fears of repercussions under the Texas food disparagement act. AlterNet has an
article written by one of the book's authors summarizing some of the key points of the book. Some claim that only ground beef is infected, while
others claim that's bull.
mad-cow.org has a lot of good information on the topic, and it seems the powers that be are going to
blame Canada.
posted by woil
on Dec 30, 2003 -
14 comments
