Portland’s Freeway Names

Posted by Rick on in History 0 Comment

Portland’s Freeway Names

Unknown to many Portlanders is the fact that many of our highways have names beyond their official designations. A few of the traffic reporters in the local news still throw out names like “Banfield,” and “Sunset,” during their reports but several other names have long faded into obscurity.

In Oregon, there are three specific periods when it comes to highways. Oregon was the first state to pass a tax on gasoline in 1919, with the money dedicated to improving highways in Oregon for travel. Many highways were built with this money, many of which are still in use today. These highways mostly connected one town with another, but the ambitious Pacific Highway was built during this period.

While Oregon’s ambitious highway system proved it’s worth during WWII in supplying the needs of local war efforts, the entire system was showing it’s age. The Depression removed a lot of money for repairs and expansions, and during WWII Congress forbade any road construction pass what was necessary for the war effort. Spurned by the support of Robert H. “Sam” Baldock, the Oregon State Highway Engineer, and the strong support of Thomas H. Banfield, the Oregon legislature gave OSHD the authority to build grade-separated and controlled-access routes in 1947. The Oregon Legislature continued to pass laws and budgets to support this ambitious project well into 1949.

This also marked a turn in “modern” highway design. Previous highways could have stop lights, rail road crossing, and businesses on each side to attract travelers. Unfortunately these could cause major backups for miles along the highway. The new grade-separated and controlled-access design was meant to eliminate these backups and more efficiently move traffic between points.

By the late 1960’s and early 1970’s the “Freeway Revolts” were well under way not only across America, but around the world. Portland was at the fore front of these for a variety of reasons. The original 1950’s six freeway plan (and the follow up plan of 50 freeways by 1990,) were effectively scrapped. This left two Freeways uncompleted, and led to the complete removal of another.

These original revolts, which lead to Oregon’s Urban Growth Boundary law are credited around the world in keeping sprawl in Portland to a minimum and directly leads to it’s high livability scores.

On to Part Two

Oregon Friendly to Business?

Posted by Rick on in Analysis 0 Comment

Oregon Friendly to Business?

One of the common statements I read constantly is “Oregon is business unfriendly.” And people say that large companies are “fleeing” the State due to the environmental protections and high taxes here.

Well, Forbes Magazine disagrees with that. They say:

“Our ranking measures six vital categories for businesses: costs, labor supply, regulatory environment, current economic climate, growth prospects and quality of life. We factor in 37 points of data to determine the ranks in the six main areas. Business costs, which include labor, energy and taxes, are weighted the most heavily. We relied on 11 data sources, with research firm Moody’s Analytics as the most-utilized resource”

They peg Oregon in the #9 spot, behind Washington (#7) and Nebraska (#8). Utah comes in at #1 on their list, while interestingly, North Dakota is at #4.

The Small Business & Entrepreneur Site, doesn’t agree quite that much. Based on just tax information and only regarding Small Businesses, Oregon is firmly middle of the road.

“SBE Council’s “Business Tax Index 2012″ pulls together 18 different tax measures, and combines those into one tax score that allows the 50 states and District of Columbia to be compared. Among the taxes included are income, capital gains, property, death/inheritance, unemployment, and various consumption-based taxes, including state gas and diesel levies.”

The Tax Foundation puts Oregon at #13, only four places behind Texas (#9) which seems to be constantly touted as “the best” for Business.

Thumbtack.com Small Business Survey, in partnership withKauffman Foundation has an interactive map that puts Oregon at #20 overall. Their map measures a variety of figures, Ease of Starting a business, Tax Codes, Environmental Regulations, Zoning, Training Programs, and several others.

By any definition of the word, at least from those who get paid to think about it, Oregon seems to be decidedly business friendly.

Warrant of Arrest SPAM email

Posted by Rick on in Scams 0 Comment

Warrant of Arrest SPAM

The Spammers are starting to get pretty hardcore and innovative. The FBI is going to arrest me if I don’t send $98 to Lagos, Nigeria to initiate the transfer of $10.5 million dollars to my bank account. Keep in mind that the FBI would not be involved with international money crimes. And even if they were, doing what is suggested below is still a crime in the US.

Please do not fall for this.

“Anti-Terrorist and Monetary Crimes Division
FBI Headquarters In Washington, D.C.
Federal Bureau Of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW Washington, D.C. 20535-0001

Attention: Beneficiary

This is the final warning you are going to receive from me, do you get me? I hope you understand how many times this message has been sent to you.

We have warned you so many times and you have decided to ignore our e-mails or because you believe we have not been instructed to get you arrested and today if you fail to respond back to us with the payment details below, then we would first send a letter to the MAYOR of the city where you reside and direct them to close your bank account until you have been jailed and all your properties will be confiscated by the FBI, CIA and other enforcement agency. We would also send a letter to the company/agency that you are working for so that they could get you fired until we are through with our investigations because a suspect is not supposed to be working for the government or any private organization.

Your ID which we have in our database have been sent to all the crimes agencies in America for them to inset you in their website as an internet fraudsters and to warn people from having any deals with you. This would have been solved all this while if you had gotten the CERTIFICATE ENDORSED AND STAMPED as you were instructed in the e-mail below. This is the federal bureau of investigation (FBI) am writing in response to the e-mail you sent to us and am using this medium to inform you that there is no more time left to waste because you have been given a mandate. As stated earlier to have the document endorsed, signed and stamped without failure and you must adhere to this directives to avoid you blaming yourself at last when we must have arrested and jailed you for life and all your properties will be seized and bank account will be confiscated too.

You failed to comply with our directives/instruction and that was the reason why we didn’t hear from you, as our director has already been notified about you get the process completed yesterday and right now the WARRANT OF ARREST has been signed against you and it will be carried out in the next 48hours as strictly signed by the FBI director. We have investigated and found out that you didn’t have any idea when the fraudulent deal was committed with your information’s/identity and right now your ID is placed on our website as a wanted person, I believe you know that it will be a shame to you and your entire family because after then it will be announce in all the local channels that you are wanted by the FBI.

As a good Christian and a Honest man, I decided to see how i could be of help to you because i would not be happy to see you end up in jail and all your properties confiscated all because your information’s was used to carry out a fraudulent transactions, i called the EFCC and they directed me to a private attorney who can help you get the process done and he stated that he will endorse and stamp the document at the sum of $98 usd only and i believe this process is cheaper for you.

You need to do every possible thing today and tomorrow to get this process done because our director has called to inform me that the warrant of arrest has been signed against you and once it has been approved, then the arrest will be carried out, and from our investigations we learnt that you were the person that forwarded your identity to one impostor/fraudsters in Nigeria when he had a deal with you about the transfer of some illegal funds into your bank account which is valued at the sum of $10,500,000.00 only.

I pleaded on your behalf so that this agency could give you till July 6, 2012 so that you can get this process done because i learnt that several e-mails has been sent to you without getting a response from you. Bear it in mind that this is the only way that i can be able to help you at this moment or you would have to face the law and its consequences once it had befallen on you. You would make the payment through western union money transfer with the below details.

NAME: DURU VINCE

ADDRESS: LAGOS, NIGERIA

TEXT QUESTION: BETTER

ANSWER: BEST

AMOUNT: $98

Senders Full Name:

Sender Full Address:

Direct Phone Number:

MTCN:

Send the payment details to me as stated above and make sure that you didn’t hesitate making the payment down to the agency by today so that they could have the certificate endorsed, signed and stamped immediately without any further delay. After all this process has been carried out, then we would have to proceed to the bank for the transfer of your compensation funds which is valued at the sum of $10.500,000.00 usd which was supposed to have been transferred to you all this while.

Note: All the crimes agencies have been contacted on this regards and we shall trace and arrest you if you disregard this instructions. You are given a grace today to make the payment for the document after which your failure to do that will attract a maximum arrest and finally you will be appearing in court for act of terrorism, money laundering and drug trafficking charges, so be warned not to try anything funny because you are been watched.

Expecting your anticipated- Co-operation.

Yours in service,

Robert S. Mueller
FBI DIRECTOR”

Important Disney Phone Numbers

Posted by Rick on in Lists 1 Comment

Important Disney Phone Numbers

Just because they’re hard to find in one place anywhere else, here is a list of important phone numbers for various Disney related places.

Walt Disney World Resort Guest information 407-824-4321

Walt Disney Downtown Disney 407-939-2648

Disney Quest Downtown Disney 407-938-6253

Cirque du Soleil 407-939-7600

Walt Disney World Merchandise Guest Services 407-363-6200

Disneyland Recorded Information 714-781-4565

Disney DeliverEars / Merchandise Guest Services (US only) 800-760-3566

Disney Catalog (US Only) 800-237-5751

Magic Kingdom Club Gold Card 800-313-4763

Disney Auctions and Disney Deals 1-800-328-0899

Walt Disney Event Services
Email: WDW.Event.Reservations@DISNEYWORLD.com
Phone: 866-247-1203 or 407-827-7600
Fax: 407-566-1387

Please comment below if any of these no longer work, or you have another one to add to the list.