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trurl9's comments:

on Dollars and Sense

I would be careful returning to college to improve job-related skills. I've taken several Information Technology courses that I thought would help me land a job, but employers sought verifiable current experience and minimized the value of related college work. This is especially true in Information Technology where expertise is specific and technology changes rapidly. So if I decide to return to college someday, my first priority will be to study topics that are interesting to me, then I might study topics that may boost my career. Pragmatism aside, you never know: you might meet your next friends or career opportunity while you're attending school. Learning new stuff is preferable to settling for ignorance and myopia.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Shovel Ready?

What am I looking for in a stimulus package?

Federally-supplied and free Viagra or Cialis.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Our Slice of the Stimulus

We're borrowing money to stimulate the economy and it's going to disappear into a black hole again.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Gambling in the Recession

I'm surprised that the recent raffle sold out in 12 days. More surprising is that 250,000 tickets times $10/each is $2.5 million. What's the state or lottery going to do with a measly $1.2 million when Oregon's deficit is billions? I suppose Raffle revenue will keep the Oregon Lottery running in 2009.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on The Changeover: Farms, Food, Forests, Fuel

Does Secretary Vilsack believe we understand ALL the ramifications of GMOs such that we implement them in our food supply?

Nature took millions of years to arrive at what we have on Earth today. I don't think our knowledge and understanding of nature is mature enough to serve GMOs willy nilly on our meal tables as we have. I'm concerned about the unintended and unanticipated consequences of our actions which might not be discovered for 20-100 years.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Necessary Roughness?

As a straggler behind Buddhism I think a lot about not saying harmful things. What is really the truth and what is illusion? Am I causing suffering with my words and actions? I come to understand that the less I say (except on TOL) the better. I really need to spend more time listening and asking questions. The more convinced I am that I know the truth, the less I actually know.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Shovel Ready?

Alternate take. After reading other comments here, I have to agree: a stimulus program built on debt is going to lead us to the same place as credit card debt, or mortgage debt based on mortgages we couldn't afford. We're hosed. I figure this stimulus is an attempt to give us a handkerchief instead of a parachute to survive the crash landing of our economy. We're trying to slow down our descent but we're doing it stupidly. Could my parents have been right - again? Hard work. Get educated. Savings. Put off purchases until you can buy stuff outright. No debt except for mortgage. Damn those wise old people for taking away all my live-for-the-moment fun!

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Shovel Ready?

Dave, thanks for the WSJ link. Unfortunately, tables like this can not take into account how efficiently each state will use stimulus dollars. Wish we had a way to see how effectively our state and local governments use their dollars. The perception is that governments sucks at expending the people's money effectively.

This new stimulus won'te get to me because I live in a spider hole: a middle-aged Oregonian with high tech skills who has had trouble getting sniffs at new, well-paying employment.

Oregon's poorest first need food, housing, healthcare and education.

Second, we need to provide jobs and training so people can work on already started projects.

I bike but there isn't enough stimulus money to use much of it on bike path improvement - as much as that resource is desired.

Investing in highways has to be done but it's like throwing money into potholes and driving over it. Fix the highest-priority highway projects in the maintenance back log but let's not build new highways.

Scrap the Columbia River Crossing. I get the feeling this project is pushed by businesses who rely on trucks to deliver goods. These businesses lay off people at the first sign of trouble. I don't want to be threatened by businesses who force us all to concede to their demands or they'll take their jobs somewhere less expensive. I don't want to be polluted out of Portland.

We need to promote, push, demand telecommuting. Was on the freeway yesterday and 90% of the cars were occupied by one person. As much as we love the independence and convenience afforded by cars, we must struggle to drive less.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on As We Are: Suicide

Excellent show topic. Thank you for airing this largely taboo topic sensitively and thorougly.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on February Show Suggestions

Watched the American Experience show on J. Robert Oppenheimer and was stunned and tormented to learn more about our Bomb and its creators. What a terrible and terrifying piece of history. Can we have a discussion to see how ready we are to completely disarm our thermonuclear weapons regardless of what anybody else does?

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on The TOL Site, 2.0

TOL 2.0 is looking and working better. Like the wysiwig formatting instead of the bogus formatting codes. There still seems to be a limit to the length of my rants (which is a good thing). Is there a limit? Love the tag cloud for organizing and perceiving topic activity. Like that the call-in phone number is almost the first item on help page. Maybe some day I'll call in. Nah! Psyche! Good job.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Grandmas-In-Chief

My siblings and I were raised by my parents and grandparents. It took a village to keep us idiots from being run over. My mom worked and my grandparents conveniently lived next door. It must hurt parents and grandparents to hold their squirming progeny whose only objective is to escape the tyranny of, and committments to, the ancients. Youngsters have little appreciation that they're inextricably linked to others despite their fervent desire to seek independence. My grandparents were nutty, but they loved us with all they had to love us with. Their committment is inspirational even as I've squirmed my way to freedom. I'm humbly satisfied that I took care of my grandparents and parents even though I often wanted to run away. My bolded words represent the illusions I hug with humor and insight.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Black and White and Googled All Over

The Internet is a fledging tool; it's far from mature; it's experiencing growing pains and evolving faster than our ability to comprehend the implications of its evolution. With the rise of the Internet we have more contributors, but the problem remains: there are few excellent journalists telling us what we need to know. How do we get out of the mess were in? Journalism attempts to impartially provide information we need to know based on: who, what, when, where, why, how. Why is what you're telling me important? Can I use what you're telling me to benefit? We need to educate ourselves; we need to put on our thinking caps to filter truth from fiction.

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on Lower Returns for Higher Ed

I empathize with those who have called in expressing that they've lost money in their 529s, but I haven't heard anyone refer to the most annoying sentences in a prospectus: "You may lose money investing in this instrument. Past performance is no guarantee of future performance."

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on The TOL Site, 2.0

Could you arrange the order of shows from newest to oldest so the newest show in a category appears at the top of the page?

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on The TOL Site, 2.0

New site. Congratulations. Thanks for playing Herbie's *Butterfly* and *Gentle Thoughts* as bumpers. Brings back good memories. I'm using Firefox 3.0.5 and right now the screen is only half width. Have fun getting the site together!

posted 4 years, 3 months ago
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on The Changeover: Treasury Secretary

Federal and state tax forms are too complicated, time consuming, unfair, etc. It's easy to make mistakes filing tax forms, especially if your financial matters are complex. How many people have access to capable tax lawyers and they avoid paying taxes altogether? Have you ever tried getting answers from the IRS? Fuhgetaboutit!

Geithner's $34k mistake is inconsequential if he's capable of being an effective secretary. He's paid the taxes with interest. Let's get on with life.

The question I'd ask the secretary is what external pressures are placed on the secretary to make decisions beneficial to special interests? It would be wonderful if the secretary responded like the attorney general who said water boarding is torture. I seek an honest, transparent and illuminating answer.

I'm extremely concerned how TARP money is spent because it is not helping thus far. I hear financial institutions are sitting on the money instead of investing in loans and mortgages.

The economic stimulus should provide:
- $20/hour jobs city, state, government jobs
- health care for the indigent and poorest
- food for the indigent and poorest
- job training for those who will work
- tax relief for small companies so they can hire workers and grow

The economic stimulus should not help:
- poorly run corporations that are risky investments with respect to TARP
- excessively paid board and executive officers indirectly bailed out by TARP

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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on TOL Pre-Empted for Inauguration

Seriously, I was more moved and impressed when Obama was elected. That's when I got excited and scared. So many problems. Can Obama move a do-nothing congress and a populace riddled with a Santa Claus length list of maladies?

Not as seriously. Can we get off raving about Michelle's gown and get onto saving the planet please? Inauguration day is akin to flight attendants serving cocktail weenies to the passengers standing knee-deep in icy water on the wings of flight 1549. We've got to get the hell out of here, people! Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

The world is falling off it's flipping axis and we're arguing about the color of drying fingernail polish. We've got four decades of stupidity to rework. Let's let The Messiah get on with his thing while we get on with ours. Sheesh already!

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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on Hunger and Thirst

delete me

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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on Hunger and Thirst

I remember camping with my father in November. We shared "quality time" freezing our buns off in the back of the station wagon as the snow flakes fell gently on Wy'east's shoulders. I'll never forget the sound of the giant flakes sizzling as they dropped into the frying pan along with the bacon. Wy'east is the Multnomah indians name for Mt. Hood according to Wikipedia.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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