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thx1138's comments:
on Grant County Says 'Keep Out'
Maybe Grant County can provide some rocks so these folks can crawl back under them?
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Going Annual?
Annual? Isn't the biennial fleecing of voters enough?
I would propose triennial or quadrennial gatherings and shorter sessions. That way they have less time time to figure out the optimal distribution of spoils and patronage before passing legislation.
Double their pay and send them all out on paid leave. That would make their work a lot less taxing!
posted 3 years, 2 months ago
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on Kicking the Kicker?
"A single state bank, the biggest of the big, with branches in every rural district, in every factory, will constitute as much as nine-tenths of the socialist apparatus. This will be country-wide book-keeping, country-wide accounting of the production and distribution of goods, this will be, so to speak, something in the nature of the skeleton of socialist society."
Lenin, Collected Works, Vol.26 page 106.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Kicking the Kicker?
Any business owner or head of family could run the government 10 times more common sensibly. But that's just not what it's about.
No matter how much more money the State spends, it is never enough. The State is organized around two central principles:
1) Government is too small.
2) Your taxes need to go up to pay for more programs.
If the bureaucrats had their way, we would direct-deposit our paychecks into the State Treasury, and we would get everything back in in-kind services, AFTER they take their cut for bureaucracy and PERS.
You and I can better manage OUR money 100 time better than State can, even on a sunny day. Don ever forget it's OUR money not the State's money.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Kicking the Kicker?
Legislators want to “fix” the kicker because it results in taxpayers getting their own money back. Once legislators get their hands on it they just can’t let it go.
If you want a “rainy” day fund just make a new budget item and set aside set aside some of the revenue that comes in. When is there NOT a crisis for funding for schools, fireman, police, and PERS?
Of course you need to put some very clear restrictions on when the money can be used -- what constitutes an emergency?
I guarantee it will rain in Oregon.
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Oregon Meth
stevenmiles is right on!
Check your paradigm, this policy may be winning a skirmish in the so called War on Drugs, but the meth problem itself is a by-product of this War: The government in 1988 made it more difficult to obtain the P2P precursor used to produce amphetamines, creative chemists switched to ephedrine, and the latest civilization-imperiling “plague” was born.
You can predict the same thing to happen again. Making meth hard to obtain is just spurring efficiency innovation in the industry. “Mom and Pop” meth labs are being eliminated in favor of more “professional” ones operating by criminal organizations from Latin America and Asia. They enjoy economies of scale and reduced competition and we, the public, enjoy increased gang activity and the narco-militarization of our neighborhoods and neighboring countries. Also, creative chemist have invented “shake and bake,” one pot meth making. The thinking that limiting the distribution is limiting the distribution is just wrong. Didn’t we already try Prohibition?
posted 3 years, 3 months ago
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on Finding Solutions: What Works and Why for Housing
What would be useful to know is that the biggest impediment to low cost housing is the high cost of construction permits and building fees and the bureaucracy in general.
While there are legitimate health and safely concerns there is little to negative valued added by the Governments oversight.
It cost an average of $25,000 per unit for permits and miscellaneous fees to build in the tri-county area. These cost have quintupled in the last 15 years. And what do you get for this increase in cost? A process that took days to weeks now takes months or years to get your project, that’s been drawn by an architect and engineered, APPROVED by some overworked bureaucrat. At $25000 a pop only higher end units can be built. That's why there's no "affrodable housing"!
The City of Portland wants $13000.00 for permits to bring water to Dignity Village. This is not $13,000 for a plumber to bring a water line. This is for permits alone! Correct me if I am mistaken becuase I got that figure from a Think Our Loud show not too long ago.
Some plumbing outfit would probably install some showers to dignity village for free to get publicity or a tax right off. But this can’t even happen. Did you know that in the City of Portland you can not install a water line and meter yourself? You can’t even hire a private plumber who paid his business licenses to do this for you. You have to hire the City of Portland plumbing monopoly to install your water line, and, that’s on top of the permit fees. It now cost $4500, up from $500 just a few years ago, to get a water meter installed. This does NOT include $100 a foot to run some plastic tubing down the street to your property.
The actual meter probably cost around $300. But $4500.00 plus $100 a foot goes to pay for a fleet of shiny late model trucks that compete with private licensed bonded taxpaying contractors; and the PERS for bureaucrats to sit around and dream up schemes to create so called affordable housing. and the Portland Bureau of Environmental Se
You can thank Commsissioner Sam Adams. He was Portland's Commissioner of Public Utilities; he ran the Portland Office of Transportation and the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services.
posted 3 years, 4 months ago
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on The Inner Lives of Boys
The big societal message for boys is that they are worth less than girls. They see women, an actually majority of society, being treated as a “special class.” Everyday boys are told they are not as important as girls and that this is “equality.” Why would you expect any other behavior from boys when they can see what the have to look forward to as men.
Everywhere it’s girls this, women that. There’s a Girls Inc, but no equivalent Boys, Inc. They see on TV boys and men are the fools and the girls/women really rule the roost. It's totally acceptable to insult boys and men, however if the equivalent was done to a girl or a woman it would be a sexist scandal. The message is clear, so called equality is skewed toward females.
Boys see women are now going to war, however, in non-combat positions. The message is clear to boys and men: they are to be sacrificed with their lives really on the line while women get the same glory and benefits for a tenth of the sacrifice. If a women is killed, it is a huge deal. We will all hear her name. If 35 men are killed in one day; it's noteworthy.
Boys are told they are violent, rapist, and rapscalions; that they will drop out of school early and are less likely to go to college. I guarantee if women died ealier than men it would be a national scandal and attributed to the patriarchial conspiracy. These are the behaviors and outcomes we EXPECT of boys and men. It’s our own fault for these messages. Unfortunately, it’s only going to get worse until we start empowering boys as much as we do girls.
posted 3 years, 7 months ago
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on Rx: Health Promotion
The government, FDA, needs to get out of the recommendation business. If you actually eat like the newest food pyramid suggests you’ll end up looking like a pyramid! There are too many carbohydrates at the top.
If you were cynical you’d think the recommendation were designed by those who treat obesity associated diseases - to create those diseases! OR, perhaps it’s the Feds way of dealing with multi-trillion non-funded promises of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. People are going to die early and it’s going to look like natural causes. It’s their own fault for being obese not the governments that recommend people eat like cows being fatten for slaughter. The FDA has no accountability for it’s bad recommendations and mistakes.
The FDA is controlled by the food and drug business interest not by what’s in the public interest.
Who in government has the credibility and incentive to really give sound preventive advice? Spare me.
posted 3 years, 10 months ago
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