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A suspicious package reported Friday at a bank in Mt. Angel led to the three-hour closure of Highway 214 and the evacuation of a city block.

Mt. Angel Police Department responded to a call from a U.S. Bank employee at 5:30 p.m.

Chief Brent Earhart said the employee found a suspicious-looking sack holding a cylinder-shaped object in the lobby underneath a counter.

Bank employees were evacuated to the Mt. Angel Fire Station where they were interviewed by police.

The Oregon State Police Bomb Squad was dispatched and Mt. Angel police and fire personnel evacuated the block surrounding the bank located at 250 N. Main St.

[..]

Earhart said the object in the bag turned out to be a food and beverage thermos. The streets were reopened at 8:30 p.m.

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Following the Supreme Court decision implicitly granting corporations the right to free speech (by determining that political spending is a kind of speech), a corporation has decided to take what it believes to be “democracy’s next step”: It is running for Congress.

With more than a twinge of irony, Murray Hill Incorporated, a liberal public relations firm, recently announced that it planned to run in the Republican primary in Maryland’s 8th Congressional District.

Here is the company’s first “campaign” ad:

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The American International Group has agreed to cut employee bonuses by $20 million and will distribute about $100 million on Wednesday, according to people with knowledge of the negotiations.

But the reductions may not be enough to appease the company’s critics, who do not accept the company’s argument that it has to honor contracts established before its government bailout.

“A.I.G. has taxpayers over a barrel,” said Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican, in a statement on Tuesday night.

[..]

The contracts, which were established in December 2007, were intended to keep people from leaving the company and called for the bonuses to be paid in regular installments to more than 400 employees in the unit. The final payment, which was for about $198 million, was due in mid-March, but was accelerated to Wednesday as part of the agreement to reduce its size.

So the UAW had to give up a lot, including obligations in contract before the auto industry was bailed out, but somehow the banks could not break these contracts before receiving money?

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The 24th annual Tough Guy Challenge took place last weekend, on Sunday, January 31st, on South Perton Farm, near Wolverhampton, England. Despite being billed as “the safest most dangerous taste of physical and mental endurance pain in the world”, this year’s race still attracted over 5,000 men and women – all of them signing a disclaimer saying “It’s my own bloody fault for being here”. About 600 racers did not complete the course this year – the winner being Paul Jones of Oswestry, England, completing the course in one hour 18 minutes. The Challenge is annual event to raise cash for charity with funds going to the Mr. Mouse Farm for Unfortunates. Special thanks today to photographer Mike King, who was kind enough to share 16 of his great photographs of the 2010 Tough Guy Challenge below. (31 photos total)

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Paul Jones, the eventual winner of the Tough Guy 2010 Challenge, falls as he crashes through snow-covered ice, the first racer through this particular water obstacle. (© Mike King) #

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Last year, Los Angeles County Judge Brett Klein was presented with a proposed class-action settlement in which the plaintiffs’ attorney would get $125,000, but class members would get only a $10 gift card, usable only at the store that allegedly violated the law in the first place. That is an example of the much-maligned “coupon settlement,” in which a defendant can end up profiting from breaking the law because a consumer must buy something from the defendant to redeem the coupon. These can sometimes be okay, but Judge Klein didn’t think this settlement was fair.

Another L.A. County judge, Susan Bryant-Deason, had tentatively approved the settlement, but she became ill and Klein ended up presiding over the fairness hearing. In a ruling that caught my eye when it came out last year, he ordered that the attorney also be paid in $10 gift cards, just like the people he represented. Under Klein’s order, Neil Fineman was to receive 12,500 gift cards that he could put toward the purchase of any merchandise he liked, as long as he liked the women’s clothing at Windsor Fashions.

That seemed like justice to me. But it turns out that someone (it’s not clear who) filed a complaint with the state Commission on Judicial Performance over this incident. On February 2, the Commission censured Judge Klein (who has since retired), rather than, as the person who alerted me to the story suggested, giving him a medal.

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As I’ve mentioned before, I’m putting the finishing touches on my new book, American Taliban, which catalogues the ways in which modern-day conservatives share the same agenda as radical Jihadists in the Islamic world. But I found myself making certain claims about Republicans that I didn’t know if they could be backed up. So I thought, “why don’t we ask them directly?” And so, this massive poll, by non-partisan independent pollster Research 2000 of over 2,000 self-identified Republicans, was born.

The results are nothing short of startling.

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We’ve spoken to someone who traveled to Haiti on a Scientology plane — and witnessed firsthand the ineptitude, quackery and irresponsibility of the church’s minions in a disaster zone. Here’s his account.

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The state of South Australia has a new election law that went into effect January 6, and its effect was shocking: anonymous political speech on the Internet was simply destroyed.

The law required anyone posting a political comment online during an election period to supply their real name and address or face a fine of up to AUS$1,250. The measure was grossly discriminatory—it applied only to bloggers and commenters, not to online “journals” (newspapers or magazine which are written by Real Journalists).

[..]

“I’ll give you an example: repeatedly in the AdelaideNow website one will see commentary from Aaron Fornarino of West Croydon. That person doesn’t exist,” Atkinson said on the air. “That name has been created by the Liberal Party in order to run Liberal Party commentary.”

This morning, AdelaideNow took great delight in posting a picture of Fornarino posing with a Mac and his young daughter. He’s a second-year law student who moved to the area last year and “lives in a flat on Port Rd, about 500m from Mr. Atkinson’s electorate office.”

[..]

The cries of the outraged citizenry have had an effect. While defending the new rules as recently as yesterday, Atkinson suddenly backed off from them today. He sent a statement to AdelaideNow, one remarkable for its candor.

“From the feedback we’ve received through AdelaideNow, the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all MPs and all political parties is unduly restrictive. I have listened. I will immediately after the election move to repeal the law retrospectively… It may be humiliating for me, but that’s politics in a democracy and I’ll take my lumps.”