GAME ON: Holiday family fun • B1 DECEMBER 24, 2011
New prep ski league • D1
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AFTERMATH OF REPRIEVE
Snake-bitten teen still healing • C1 A quirky Christmas: Anonymous gift swaps thrive online
State aims to recoup Procrastinators rejoice: $18,000 for Some tree lots still selling fatal drugs By Lauren Dake
By Eric Johnson
The Bulletin
San Francisco Chronicle
SALEM — While preparing for Gary Haugen’s execution, the state ordered enough drugs to kill him and possibly a few others inmates. There are 37 people on death row, and even though Oregon’s last execution took place 14 years ago, officials wanted to be ready in the event that Haugen’s execution would be closely followed by another. Now, those drugs are sitting in a Department of Corrections pharmacy, the vials set to expire within the next three years. The state’s tab in preparing Haugen for the execution of Haugen, who waived all his legal appeals and asked to be put to death, topped a million dollars. There were hefty legal fees, overtime accrued by Department of Corrections staff, research and travel time. Then, last month, Gov. John Kitzhaber ordered all executions in the state stopped for the remainder of his term. Haugen was scheduled to be executed by lethal injection Dec. 6. With the governor’s order, all 37 death row inmates were granted a reprieve. The moratorium on executions put Oregon’s Department of Corrections in a strange position. At a time when the drugs needed for lethal injections can be difficult to come by, Oregon is trying to sell its unused drugs and recoup the $17,953 it spent. Three drugs were purchased to carry out Haugen’s execution. The first, pentobarbital, was purchased to induce unconsciousness. The second, pancuronium bromide, was procured to stop breathing. And the third, potassium chloride, was to stop his heart. See Drugs / A7
You might get a video game, or you might get a stuffed purple unicorn. You might get an iPad, or you might wind up empty-handed. No matter the outcome, Reddit’s anonymous gift exchanges are quickly becoming a holiday tradition. This year, the online community is going for a Guinness World Record, in the newly created category of “Largest Online Secret Santa Game.” “This has become a lot of people’s one Christmas gift,” said Dan McComas, founder of RedditGifts, which organizes the exchanges. McComas started Reddit Secret Santa in 2009 as a side project in AskReddit, one of the social news site’s most popular sections. Now, he and his wife, Jessica, are full-time employees of Reddit Inc. What began with more than 4,000 participants that Christmas has ballooned this year to nearly 40,000, from 114 countries. The anonymity baked into Reddit’s design means that many Santas “stalk” their matches online to drum up gift ideas. Last year, one user, or Redditor, painted his giftee an old-fashioned portrait using the publicly visible photos he found on his match’s Facebook profile. McComas called Redditors’ detective work a “kind-hearted kind of stalking.” “I’ve got a pretty good idea of what is on the Internet about me,” McComas said. “I would think that most people, when they sign up, think about what somebody’s going to be able to find.” See Secret Santa / A4
Ryan Brennecke / The Bulletin
Richard Doerfler, 68, cooks hot dogs over a fire ring at his tree lot across Highway 97 from the Cascade Village Shopping Center on Friday afternoon. Doerfler said he’s happy to negotiate prices, within reason. By Scott Hammers The Bulletin
T
here’s no better day than today to pick up a drastically discounted Christmas tree, if you can find one. While dozens of tree lots dotted the region until
just days ago, nearly all have shut down, leaving just a handful of vendors for procrastinators to buy from.
Whoever ends up with the last tree in town is unlikely to go home with the kind of sad, scraggly thing made famous by the “Charlie Brown Christmas Special,” according to seller Andy Seevers. As Oregon is the country’s leading producer of Christmas trees, local tree lots have the luxury of stocking only the freshest, fullest trees. Noble firs and white firs are the most sought-after, Seevers said, along with the faster-growing and thus lower-priced Douglas firs. Still, he said there’s a niche market for small and shabby-looking trees.
“You do get some, ‘I’m looking for a Charlie Brown, so I’m not going to buy from you,’ ” he said. “I’m sorry — all of my trees are perfect.” Seevers, 33, and his stepbrother, Jake Hermelins, spent several years working in tree lots run by family friends before deciding to branch out on their own this year. Hermeling is running a lot at the corner of U.S. Highway 97 and Cooley Road, while Seevers is based on Reed Market Road a block west of 15th Street. The business is lucrative for some, Seevers said, passing on the rumor often told in local tree vendor
circles of a man who sent four kids to college on the money he earned selling trees every December. The brothers said since Wednesday, the bargain hunters have been out in force. Hermeling, 24, said he negotiates discounts on a case-by-case basis. “It depends on the person. If it’s a single mom and that’s all she has, I’ll work with her,” he said. “But if it’s a guy who’s just trying to get a tree for $5, come on, man, I’m trying to make a living, too.” Richard Doerfler is in his ninth year of running a tree lot across Highway 97 from the Cascade Village Shopping Center. Like the stepbrothers, he set up the day after Thanksgiving, and has been on the lot every day since. As of midafternoon Friday, he was down to his last five trees. A warm December is a mixed blessing, Doerfler said, making a long day on the lot easier to endure, while also encouraging larger numbers of people to head out into the forest to cut their own trees. See Trees / A6
Logging in with speech or a touch — anything but another password By Somini Sengupta New York Times News Service
Passwords are a pain to remember. But what if a quick wiggle of five fingers on a screen could log you in? Or speaking a simple phrase? Neither idea is farfetched. Computer scientists in New York are training their iPads to recognize their owners by the touch of their fingers as they make a caressing gesture. Banks are already using software that recognizes your voice,
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supplementing the standard PIN. And after years of predicting its demise, security researchers are renewing their efforts to supplement and perhaps one day obliterate the old-fashioned password. “If you ask me what is the biggest nuisance today, I would say it’s the 40 different passwords I have to create and change,” said Nasir Memon, a computer science professor at the Polytechnic Institute of New York, who is leading the iPad project.
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Many people would agree. The password has become a monkey on our digital backs — an essential key to our many devices and accounts, but increasingly a source of exasperation and insecurity. The research arm of the Defense Department is looking for ways to use cues like a person’s typing quirks to continuously verify identity — in case, say, a soldier’s laptop ends up in enemy hands. See Password / A6
Vol. 108, No. 358, 70 pages, 7 sections
Fred Conrad / New York Times News Service
Researchers are focusing on making log-ins simpler, more secure — or even automatic.
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KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE
Oil project likely to endure despite political setback By John M. Broder and Dan Frosch New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration confirmed this week that if forced by Congress to quickly decide the fate of the proposed Keystone XL oil pipeline from western Canada to the Gulf Coast, it would probably kill the project. ANALYSIS But does that mean the $7 billion pipeline project is dead forever? Will it curb the inexorable global demand for the exploitation of Canada’s huge oil sands deposits? Will it affect the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide in beneficial ways and slow the pace of climate change? The answer to all three questions — barring unexpected changes in the politics and economics of oil — appears to be no. The tax and unemployment insurance extension approved by Congress on Friday included a Republican provision that requires the president to decide on the 1,700-mile pipeline within 60 days. The State Department, which has authority over cross-border pipelines, said it could not complete the environmental review within that time and would be unable to recommend that the project be approved. White House officials said Obama would honor the agency’s advice. But State Department officials and industry analysts say there is nothing to prevent TransCanada, the company proposing to build Keystone, or a different pipeline operator, from submitting a new application for a similar project. See Keystone / A6
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TOP NEWS TAX CUT: Obama signs bill, A3 IRAQ: Sectarian rift widens, A3