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rethomas's comments:
on How To Die In Oregon
It's easy to transfer our own shortcomings onto others, but I'd ask you to consider that the responsibility I have to my fellow humans and society not to use a firearm irresponsibly is the same that keeps me from taking a high-speed left-turn into the Saturday market crowd with my F350, keeps me from flying a private plane into the side of a hospital and keeps me from using some of the more interesting things I learned in Chemistry and Biology (luv that viral engineering class) in a highly inappropriate manner.
We can make fun about it all we want, but in the end it's about people and how responsible we are with things and ideas... perhaps something that we as a society need to work on.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on How To Die In Oregon
I know this topic is specific to a terminally ill person taking their own life, but I'd wager that there are a lot more of us who have signed the legal doc's ("living will") that give us the responsibility to end another persons life (under specific conditions) when they are no longer able to express themselves... this is also a death with dignity, no?
Knowing that I might have to "pull the plug" on my parents always gives me strongly mixed emotions when I try to imagine it... knowing that I'm taking their life while at the same time knowing they'd thank me for it... gonna be a strange time for me if that ever happens.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on How To Die In Oregon
"And people want this power?" Some of us like the responsibility that comes with this particular freedom.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Live from Salem
Can you ask the folks in Salem why the Oregon College Fund investment choices consistently fall short (http://www.oregoncollegesavings.com/performance/index.shtml) of the "Blended Index" funds that they are benchmarked against? Is this due to mgmt fees or mediocre investment strategy?
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Sex Education for College Students
What I really could have used in college along these lines was a broad-based understanding of what drives each sex in relationships, how they approach them, how they think and see the world around them, what they expect, how to best meet their needs and how to best integrate sex into the calculus of a relationship.
It took me far too long to: Realize that it's the woman that makes a man a good lover; Accept that women are superior to men in many ways (and that I should be thankful that they're willing to put up with me) :-)
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Complaining on FB
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Creating Sustainable Jobs
:-) I asked my wife (from Russia) about this... she explained that they all grow their own stuff because they can't afford to buy them in stores... as soon as they can, they do.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Creating Sustainable Jobs
As it is for me, I'd have to work five hours... three hours a day to fulfill my obligations to the tribal government and then I can work my two hours to meet my basic needs. :-)
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Creating Sustainable Jobs
"Companies do not want these skills."
Only partially correct... you're right that if you don't have the basic skills for the job, good comm's, interpersonal and ambiguity skills won't get you the position. However, given two applicants with similar skills, I'll hire the person with better comm's interpersonal and ambiguity skills.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Closing & Consolidating Schools
Aren't parents (to some degree) being charged for their children's schooling? Property tax, yes?
Now if you're proposing chopping the property tax funding for schools and charging parents directly for their children's attendance, it would be interesting to see what the per-child charge would be... anyone know?
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Closing & Consolidating Schools
This made me remember the first time my relatives from Europe came to visit us on the south coast of Oregon and saw my high school (which sits atop a hill) from a distance... they asked if it was a prison... :-)
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Closing & Consolidating Schools
My apologies if #2 was too succinct... I wasn't talking about freezing a revenue/spending stream... I was talking about increasing one by removing the credits many now take for their children (as dependents, etc... myself included) from state and federal income taxes.
I acknowledge the inefficiencies of government, but until we change the funding model, public school funding will continue to come through government hands.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Closing & Consolidating Schools
After reading these posts, I'm going to stick my neck out and suggest some long-term solutions that we can throw stones at...
1) Better teachers... we can either take an incentive approach to get the best and brightest or take a national service approach... all college grads can either do 2yrs in the military or 6yrs of civilian service (teaching). Incentivise early retiree's from industry to teach. Meritocracy.
2) More funding... phase out all federal and state income tax credits/deductions/dependencies for children over a period of 10yrs... link the added income for schools. One exception: Adopted children.
3) How education is delivered... parents choice subject to a 2yr probationary period... if the child isn't meeting standardized norms, then they're returned to a public classroom.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on Closing & Consolidating Schools
From what I've seen, the modern equivalent of the one room school house is either direct (one family) or cooperative (multi-family) home schooling.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on A Good Place to Work?
I wonder how the German's are doing it? They have a high degree of social services, universal health care and a thriving economy. I'm curious as to how much their government and industry work together to focus on infrastructure and manufacturing capability.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on TOL in Salem
We may not always agree, but (IMO) you're dead-on here...
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on The Reality of Guns
Dead on, thank you.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on The Reality of Guns
hartwms, nice job of taking a narrowly focused comment and globalizing it... generally labelling a group negatively (e.g., paranoid) is an act of persecution akin to the negative labels historically associated with other groups of people that parts of society didn't like.
Unfortunately you missed the point (my apologies if it was too obtuse)... we're never going to come to the middle and have any kind of meaningful dialog until we all stop tossing verbal grenades at one another. Labeling someone a "paranoid" regardless of whether they are or not isn't going to get us there.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on The Reality of Guns
We may not always agree on the politics, but I wholeheartedly agree with your suggestion :-)
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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on The Reality of Guns
Jacob, it would be wise for you to learn the difference between prudence and paranoia... your sweeping generalizations are offensive and only serve to deepen the privacy concerns of firearms owners and provide added justification to those "survivalist websites" you frequent.
If you want the "paranoia" to end, stop the persecution and start enabling a safe harbor to discuss the issue.
posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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