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What is green?

How is green measured?

Is there a standard for green?

Is there a site that I can compare my home to the green standard?

How do I get the government, that I must get permission from to build my house, to allow me to use non conventional building materials which would let me be green? 

They did not!

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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LOL!

What a topic!  Our society has set it self up to run on plastic. Plastic has no intrinsic value when extruded and cut into thin rectangles. I dumped ALL my credit cards 30 years ago and I have yet to find a situation where I have needed one! 

I have often wondered when the simple adage of not signing a contract that YOU do not understand died.  The whole credit industry is a scam!  Not even a lawyer or litter of the breed of specialised financial types can understand those contracts...

DUH! "Just Say No!"

posted 3 years, 11 months ago
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If the state population has increased by 40% and the conviction rate has increased 600% then isn’t that an indication that there is a higher crime rate?  Last I looked you had to be convicted to end up in prison.  Is the conviction rate in error, have ‘we’ increased the number of laws so that the conviction rate went up 600% or, did we breed “Human Garbage”?
IF prisons are not the answer in the long term.  To be clear I do not think that they are!  What then is the answer?  Personally I feel that this is a clear indictment of our society’s education system on all levels.
The near term question is; if not incarceration what do we do with the "human garbage" that we have generated today if not to contain it in some form of “dump” until we can figure out how to address the under lying problem(s)?

No, I do not have the answers, only observations and questions.

posted 3 years, 12 months ago
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I almost bought Canada once when it was for sale on Ebay but better judgment prevailed. LOL!

Nothing I do has anything to do with Canada, never been there.
Know many, MANY people from Canada that come HERE for Health Care because they can not get, or get timely care in Canada.

posted 4 years ago
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I just read the projections PDF thank you for the link.

Oregon should ask, like every household asks in hard times, why am I spending money on ____?  Do I have that money to spend on ____?  Am I benefiting enough  from spending on ____ to keep spending?

An easy one...

Why do we have the OLCC?

It provides no value, and cost money!  There should be a 100% positive cash(Tax) flow from the sale of drugs.

posted 4 years ago
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Too little, too late!

Zero confidence in the Governor or State Government.

posted 4 years ago
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Regardless of right and wrong; it is painfully obvious where the bulk of the online audience resides. 

This quote from today is so true:  "Wolves are beautiful animals and important to functioning ecosystems.  They’re a native species and have a right to at least re-establish themselves before by being blasted by ranchers."

That said, the irony is that it is also a known fact that the range of the wolf, black bear, cougar, and other native predators included the Willamette Valley and the population centers there in.
Friends, let us then restore 100% of the range of the predators!  It is time to reintroduce predators to the Willamette Valley!  Let us not stop there let us mandate that the ancient migration corridors through the west hills and fertile bottomlands of the Tualatin, Fanno, Willamette, et al, waterways be immediately restored to their natural state so that the predators food supply can be restored allowing the predators a chance to thrive.  You that live there can just adapt, or better yet leave.
You that advocate for, I ask you what if it were your domesticated anamals, dogs, cats, children… self? 
I say restore the full range NOW!  What is good enough for the distant ranchers is good enough for the cities.

posted 4 years ago
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"Forgive me, but I find the need for this conversation to be repugnant.  Our government should be REQUIRED to conduct a thorough study before committing any significant amount of tax resources."

That was once a given... Responsible government.

Sadly it has been slipping away and the current mono party has not a clue.  They are printing and spending like crack fueled maniacs and hiding it from sight with things like TARP.

posted 4 years ago
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There is an inarguable need by Government and Society for a well educated citizenry.  Clearly the State Government has a responsibility to achieve funding at not less then 100% for the necessary operations of every primary school (K-12) in the state. 
Frankly, this discussion would not be happening IF the Governor and the legislature were not FAILING TO DO THEIR JOB!
Of course that is just my opinion and being just a Native Oregonian and not being a Democant or a Repliwont; What The Fig do I know.

posted 4 years ago
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Assuredly there are environmental problems in Oregon and no one in their ‘right’ mind would condone pollution! Just as assuredly much of the environmental movement in the public domain is knee-jerk reactions to pseudo-science promulgated for profit by savvy capitalist entrepreneurs.

I am curious just how the “Attorney General's Environmental Action Group” will function, what the scope will be, and how the otherwise innocent public will be protected form what really looks like a ‘Brown Shirt’ operation.  Who will bear the cost of well intentioned spurious accusations made by an illiterate, or agenda driven public? 

Who will watch the watchers?

posted 4 years ago
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As a Native Oregonian, Life Long Environmentalist, and now steward of my own micro forest located on the high desert of Oregon.  Today I find that I am often environmentally on the opposite side of many, many resource issues popularized by the currently popular Green Action Groups or GAG’s.
IF you are going to use energy form any source to facilitate your life style you are going to pollute in some way.  You can not escape this simple fact.  You can “Feel Good” by taking the popular carbon neutral mantra as your own, not necessarily a completely bad thing.  Yet follow your money the highly profitable GAG’s and Government benefit.  The much more harmful pollutants are overlooked.  The impact on lifestyle can be minimized, and the cost to the private sector is also minimal.  One can only hope that one day the Sheep look up.
However socially acceptable it is to focus on carbon emissions; carbon and “Human Based Global Warming” are not actually the primary pollutant threat environmentally.  Your beloved Prius pollutes as much as any other land transportation vehicle of its class, several, studies indicate that the total pollution may be greater then a same class non hybrid vehicle.
If we want to go green, a good choice and more then 50 years late in starting, we need to deemphasize Carbon as the risk from carbon is actually low in comparison to many of the other chemicals we emit deliberately into our environment.  All that we need to do is to find a productive use for the emissions thus eliminating them becomes profitable.  When pollution capture becomes profitable there will be no/little pollution.
Until then you and I are emitting Plastics, Fluoride, Petrochemicals like chemically synthesized fertilizers, toxins like Dioxin and similar, and tons of solid waste that are not recycled…  You may feel good in your Prius yet you have done at the end of the day damn little with your contribution.  Go Sheep Go.

posted 4 years ago
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This idea is one of only a few of those that have come from the Feds since the election that has any possible benefits.

No land is needed the tracks will need a completely different road bed then Iron, Wood, Rock.  Raise them parallel and upgrade the existing tracks allowing higher speed of the freight lines and higher security and safety for all rail.

There will be other minor technical challenges, nothing that can not be solved as long as we think it through better then PDX did with the west side light rail.

Security could be an issue. If we get outside of the current safety box and design a system that will absorb damage up to some reasonable finite point coupling it with such simple steps as securing our national borders, this issue can be mitigated with technology, unlike what has been band-aided to air traffic.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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Hmmm... We require that the providers BUY new generating methods.  We are surprised that they have costs?  We don't want to pay for what we mandated...

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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Hmmm...

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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I am curious if it is possible to answer this question.

What is the purpose and therefore the scope of the state government of Oregon, today?

There of course follows many questions such as when the government is exceeding the scope or not meeting the scope just how is that measured by the citizenry and how can the citizenry get the attention of the government.

To be clear I am NOT proposing this question from a partisan perspective as I hold that the R's and the D's have summarily failed, and can now be simply referred to as Sneetches!

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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Thirty years ago PDX was a great place to raise our children.

Then there was the mass in-migration, not uncontrolled but STUPID growth.

Nail the UGB down hard and STOP the spread of the stupidity that is the Portland Metro area!  IF and when the various governments figure it out then and only then... LEAVE IT NAILED DOWN!

ME?  Like so many Natives, I took my business and thus my tax dollars and I relocated far away!

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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Unemployment is useless to me and I have not bothered with it in 3 decades.  The last time I stayed inside the system I could not make even my mortgage and if I earned enough on the side to make ends meet the UEI was reduced by that amount.  UEI remains a joke to many.  Simply UEI fails if you were making more then about minimum wage.

Yet there is HYPOTHETICALLY always an economy that is still working, someone that needs something! Tax wise, "Legal" becomes a luxury when the ends do not meet and your children need to eat.  Find the work that is always there outside of "the system".  Make the mental adjustment and soon you will learn that you do not need to be "employed" to pay your bills.  "Barter", work for "cash" you can get buy on much less per hour if there are no taxes (often 30-40% less).  The Taxes?  Taxes are a luxury for the times when one can afford them.  Your government will always take them late if you feel the need...  Remember that it is not in your government’s best interest for you to step (even temporarily) outside of the taxable system.  In bad times though you do what you have to do do...HYPOTHETICALLY.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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generally I do not support locking the public out of public land as has recently been done on millions of acres with the misguided federal omnibus land grab just passed in congress.

In this case as a fisherman this lake needs to be closed so that it can be studied; for the betterment of all PNW fisheries.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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“Hypothetically”, this is an effective way of avoiding all kinds of imperial entanglements: taxes; legalities, prohibitions, etc in good times, or bad.  It would seem to be possible to participate in this part of the overall economy and retain more value and individual wealth compared to the conventional cash/debit and taxed economy.  Not that anyone would deliberately opt-out of shouldering their part of supporting the ever growing governmental overburden; that would be against the law.  Still if no cash changes hands or records kept there is no way to tax.  Taxes are one thing; one might desire to eliminate the various parasitical monetary institutions that feed off their business, completely, and that is legal.

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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If you have an income generated in this state be it personal or business and you are above the poverty line you pay a flat rate tax of say 10%.  That is it, you can pay more if you want to, but you can not pay less.  No deductions, zippy.  Tax form is just a post card. Total income, you pay 10%, done.  No need for any other tax every one pays the same rate.

Then we lock the government to that amount, oh and none of this projected income they have to operate the way we do. You get paid you pay, not the other way round.  This could be enforced on Salem easily.  They can not pass a law or rule unless they repeal an existing one!  That by itself will save a simply huge amount of time, and time is money!  We already have way to many laws rules and restrictions as it is now!

The politicians and special interests will never let it happen but it simply solves the problem.

Just say NO to a sales tax!

posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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