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We have much to learn whether biomass will be beneficial or harmful long term.

Laidlaw Energy Group has implemented biomass energy production in the Northeast U.S. LLEG faces hurdles like NIMBY and environmental regulation. It's expensive to build new electricity transmission infrastructure. The debate whether biomass will be sustainable and environmentally plausible continues.

http://www.laidlawenergy.com/

Germany has "swept their forests" for fuel for centuries. What is Germany doing that we could learn from? Also intrigued by "portable forests" used by paper mills for paper production. Could biomass energy producers lease land from farmers to grow "portable forests" for energy production?

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Currently high speed rail would not affect me. I ride the train to Seattle for amusement once every decade. I would like to see well thought out high-speed rail that is integrated with urban mass transit. I don't know to what extent rural communities should be served by high-speed rail.

What I don't want is "high speed rail service" that picks up passengers every 14 feet. High-speed rail is beneficial in high-density population countries like Japan and China, but it doesn't make since for the western U.S. Maybe the east coast could benefit more from high rail.

In the west I'd like to see improvements of existing trains to transport people and goods more efficiently, but not high speed rail which sounds like "tracks to nowhere." If we're building high rail to create jobs, that is short sighted. Once the infrastructure is built most of the railroad builders will be unemployed again.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Tuition Equity sounds great. There should be no distinction between in-state and out-of-state tuition. Educated people, whether they're citizens or not, are key to a successful future.

Would like tuition at Oregon's universities to be based on services universities provide. Tuition should cost $xxx/hour and be charged equally across all students. So, if it costs $Y billion / year  to run Oregon State, then $Y billion / total # hours offered yields the tuition / hour rate. Oregon universities would be self regulating and refrain from abusing students with excessive tuition. Universities would be responsible for partnering with corporations and governements to graduate students with skills useful for a successful life. If foreign students take their U.S. skills and degrees back home, excellent. Major problem in the world: too much ignorance and fear; too little education, wisdom and compassion.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Children must also be prepared by their parents to be the best and brightest. One commenter listed schools as social places where kids learn how to play in a social sandbox rather than how to pay attention and think.

In addition to better teachers, schools need better students. Parents need to make tough-love decisions like insuring their children read, calculate and think.

Children thrive when exposed to a breadth of ideas and opportunities. If parents are too busy with their careers to participate in educating their children then they should reorder their priorities.

Schools can't provide all the education and support children need. I realize we're talking closing and consolidating schools but let's not lose sight of the big picture. Fewer video games and less wasted time surfing the Internet are in order.

(Don't get me wrong: I rely heavily on the Internet, but I primarily use web surfing time to improve skills, make money, and leave steamy nuggets of wisdom on TOL's lawn.)

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Where does one get training for the UAV business? Your business seeks licensed EEs and MEs with at least four years of professional experience? How does one keep their engineering skills up to date living and working in  the Gorge?

I worked at a sport shop in Hood River and learned that almost every employee had at least a four-year degree. An aeronautical engineer, a mechanical engineer, a high-school math teacher, several pilots, a fire fighter, a dentist, a lawyer, a PhD. in advanced something or another.

It was an amazing and motley assortment of surf urchins living the dream and staying as far away from careers as possible. They were living in Hood River precisely for the sporting life style.

We had a saying, "The worst day of windsurfing was better than the best day of working for a corporation." I was immediately labeled a "loser" because it had taken me so long to quit my corporate gig and smell the coffee.

Many discussion hours were spent scheming how to avoid being "tapped" by the man. By "tapped" I mean being employed, working more than 40 hours a week, wearing a suit, and having too many responsibilities for the level of pay received.

In this cuspidor of beach bums the alphas were those who spent the most days windsurfing or kiting each year. They'd  boast, "Yep! I was on the water 273 days in 2003. I would have had more days had I not broken my ankle sky diving."

Some would boast, "I've lived in my van with my girlfriend for three summers now." These cats were the CEOs of the slacker world; the motivational speakers who literally lived in vans down by the river.

Hilarious.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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To be successful as an Oregon employee one needs to sport a large enough pair of cajones to ask for and get the raise they deserve, especially if they compentently complete the work of two or more people.

Those who desperately cling to jobs while they're worked to the bone make it difficult to raise overall pay in Oregon. It's an employers market with plenty of potential employees fighting for a scarcity of jobs. Corporations are brilliant by holding onto their cash instead of hiring employees. 

Those who have work fight desperately to cling to their jobs. When burnt out employees break down on the job, they are replaced by another desperate cog. Orwell would be pleased by our improvement to Management by Big Brother Number One.

It is up to each individual to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to get the training they need to compete for the ever dwindling number of jobs. No excuses.

Educationally speaking, Chinese children hand American Children their lunch because they are disciplined, hard working, and they don't whine when steamrolled by a little adversity.

The conservatives are right: Americans can't handle the responsibility that being free imposes.

Oregonians, pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off, spit and rub dirt on your abrasions and broken bones, and get busy. Work, work, work. There will be time for rest and recreation when you prop up daisies.

The U.S. drives wages down while Chinese wages rise. Soon there will be economic parity throughout the world. I did not know the U.S. and China were conspiring to create global harmony by equalizing opportunity. Brilliant. Why didn't our governments tell us this is what they're up to? Guess I missed the most recent five-year plan.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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In the short term taxes should be raised across the board 15% to give the government the ability to fund education, health and social welfare programs.

When I was younger there always seemed to be enough money to keep state parks open, roads and bridges were repaired, services were provided to the public effectively, and students received good public education. What happened? There were even bureaus to prop up starving artists and musicians.

Instead of cutting taxes and gutting government we would increase government and school spending so that public entities would attract better candidates to run things competently.

We would make progress if we reduced the complexity of the tax code.  Get rid of credits and loopholes. How about a 15% sales tax in which we ditch the income and corporate taxes? This would provide incentive to limit consumption which would be a good thing overall.

No toll roads or bridges in Oregon forever. Rather than build the Columbia River Crossing with debt. Let's save the money before we build it. While we're saving we can come up with a plan that will actually mitigate traffic jams in Vancouver and Portland. (Yeah, right.)

The CRC should be a series of three tunnels side by side: southbound, northbound, pedestrians and bikes.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Did Desolation say rant. That's my queue!

I own a car. I use the car to drive around and eat while I talk on my mobile. I got the car from an auto dealer because stealing cars is frowned upon in this jurisdiction.

I lock the car in the garage to keep the Oregon four-letter-word off it, but I bring it out to polish it up and worship it. I loves my car and I'm guaranteed ownership by the second amendment to the Bill of Rights of  the United States of 'merica. (Queue Star Spangled Banner.) 

I "sponsored" my children in my car.

My kids understand that I use my car to pollute the environment and get fat and unhealthy. But they're too young to learn about using cars to hunt people who blithely operate conveyances whilst yacking on their mobiles.

What double standard? It's alright for me to talk on my mobile when I drive because I'm a responsible, trained and certifiable mobile owner.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Guns are psychological magnets for violence. Guns serve no purpose in the quality of life I pursue. I'm concerned I would use guns inappropriately under duress.

Guns tend to imbue gun owners with a false sense of security. Guns provide the weak with false courage. They get in over their heads because they haven't thought through their actions.

I do not hunt or feel inclined to defend myself so there is little reason to own guns.

Were I to own a gun for self preservation then I must be psychologically prepared and trained to use it.

If I used a gun to defend my home the probability is high I would end up in jail instead of the criminal(s). My faith that our current justice system would work correctly is strained.

I was pulled over by police while riding my bike. They wondered if the air pump in my pack was a weapon. Scared police equal over-reactive police.

I don't blame police for being defensive as events in Rainier and Walport have unfolded. But a few police become drunk with false power when they abuse citizens.

Those I emulate have set non-violence as the foundation of their being and it gives my life meaning to join their ranks. Peace through superior - peace.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Well, we learn yet again that guns are too easy to access in the U.S. We learn that there are too many psychologically damaged wingnuts loose in our midst. The dangerous ones don't control themselves by wiggling into the too tight skinny jeans of a society purportedly governed by the "rule of law" and personal responsibility.

We learn that Americans act out their "I can do what I want because I ain't hurtin' nobody" thing until they go too far and get rules of law imposed on the majority of us who aren't acting like gigangimous puckering exhaust ports.

We learn that Durham loose in Waldport is a current news story that affects the lives of numerous people. Plus it's turned into a manhunt which feeds our desire for prurient entertainment. "Martha, my dear, where are my blue soma pills? Did you burn those philosophy books like I [aksed]? Montag is in our driveway with his fire truck - again."

TOL offers us the opportunity to shape a thoughtful conversation along the lines that guns are completely unnecessary in this society. Stupid humans shooting folk causes more harm than good. Stupid humans cling desperately to their second ammendment rights while their freedom and guns get stripped away by the lunatics they vote for. Lunatics lash out at the government, their mouths afroth with the spittle of incendiary vitriol they don't even hear themselves screaming. Meanwhile the U.S. rots from a wingnut democracy into corporate totalitarianism as we vote mindlessly for American Idols.

Hamsters wear out the squeaky bearings of their hamster wheels. Lemmings are packed into shiny metal boxes, contestants in a suicidal race. Daddy grips the wheel and stares long into the distance. And from the bottom of a Scottish lake bad things rise to the surface, man. Bad things....

You're right, Chrisrmc, what's there to talk about?

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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.... Continued

So, RE Thomas, I'm a shareholder, yet I realize the limitations of this game we're playing. We keep doing the same things and expecting better quarterly results as the world collapses around us.

Rather than hand out welfare or charity out of the goodness of a rich philanthropist's heart, bring wages back into line with reality. Distribute resources equitably and compassionately. Give while you can or it will be taken from you by those more desparate.

Given that there is so much suffering the poor will eventually rise up and burn down everything and everyone they perceive has caused their suffering.

Capitalism is doomed. It was a better system than previous ones. But it has inherent flaws, namely humans, at its helm.

Look what's going on in Tunisia and Egypt. Twitter Revolutions are a few minutes away.

I read an article in the early 1990s that discussed in detail why Africa would continue to fail, and why that failure would spread throughout the world. It talked about how Africa's natural boundaries were imbalanced by slavery and European colonialism. The article pointed out that the deterioration is extremely complex with numerous moving parts. 

Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, Steel provides an interesting observation of how these moving parts of humanity and the natural ecosystem interact with each other.

The problems we experience in America are tied to the crap going on in Africa and the Middle East. The U.S. caused some of that imbalance. But we're all inextricably intertwined.

Due to imbalances caused by greed, corruption, competition, stupidity, ignorance, arrogance, fear, shortsightedness, and self entitlement, we will become footnotes in history unless we come correct.

It's not about corporate welfare, it's about human survival.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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I'm not asking corporations to create welfare jobs;  I'm asking them not to pay c-level executives 1,000 or 10,000 times more than their lowest paid workers.

How much pay is enough? One c-level executive taking home $10 million a year is 200 people making $50,000.

I don't want to stifle creativity and innovation, but I don't believe creativity is based on pay. I'm creative because that's what I do. I don't need to be over compensated when it creates unnecessary and avoidable suffering in the short term.

Does Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, need a $100 million parting gift? He's already worth $6 billion. Larry and Seregy (co-founders of Google) taking $1/year salaries is insulting. They have far more wealth than they need. Yeah, they created Google and deserve to be compensated handsomely. But billions when there are Vietnam vets waiting for handouts at so many intersections in Portland?

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet get it. They understand that their success will be short lived unless they rebalance inequities in material distribution. Don't believe me? That's fine. I'm a lunatic and fool. The only difference is I know it. The people in congress and the board rooms should follow my lead.

Our human-created systems are natural ecosystems. Humans are a subset of nature not a master of it. Human systems bend and break when they get out of balance. They always have. Every society before ours that attained greatness has become a footnote in history.

Those who built the pyramids are poor sons of guns ready to toss Molotov cocktails.

Romans are history. Maximus Decimus Meridius can only get a gig as hired muscle for the Sicilian mob as Italy falls on its side and rots.

China is always interesting. Somebody gets control but their dynasty gets wiped and replaced by something else. Rinse the blood out and repeat.

The Dutch had their shorts dropped by their Tulip revolution. They owned the world for a few years. Now they kick back and keep a lower profile. Be rich quietly and don't overpopulate your ability to provide services to your people. They stopped tilting with their windmills so when will we?

And, OMG! The British. They owned sunrise to sunset but are on the verge of going down in flames with the U.S.

Too much of anything is replaced by something else. Haven't we learned anything at all?

To Be Continued....

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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I listened to Obama's speech and one commentator expressed my feelings precisely. I felt like I had eaten a fine meal but I was hungry an hour later.

Obama crafted fine words as he began is re-election campaign for 2012, but his words are meaningless because he's a puppet controlled by an array of unseen forces.

Obama did not mention once that 20% of Americans are under or unemployed. Furthermore, Obama did no excoriate private industry for their lack of effort to fix the problems.

Why is it up to the government to create jobs? Last I heard many corporations sit on record amounts of cash. Corporations aren't hiring but nobody complains about that.

The commander in chief isn't the human resources department. Private industry is the biggest creator (and destroyer) of jobs in the U.S. Nobody discusses why private industry doesn't do their part to alleviate joblessness.

Those in power in America and private industry hold the government and majority of Americans hostage. They cry, "If you don't eliminate my taxes, give me subsidies, get rid of annoying regulations, I'm taking my corporation and jobs overseas."

Obama did not evicerate lazy Americans who apathetically sit on their hands and fail to vote. If American citizens don't vote tunnel-visioned do-nothing politicians out, they get what they sow. American citizens create their own suffering through their myopic self absorption.

Whether you vote Democrat or Republican doesn't seem to matter. The level of corruption and backroom dealing by those who've seized power is difficult for citizens to overcome. (But we still have to vote to slow down the rot.)

Who watches over the corporations and government to make sure they do what they're supposed to do instead of what they want to do. Where is the integrity, honesty and compassion that is supposed to be a hallmark of being an American? I conclude that because corporations and governments are made up of we the people, we need to blame those staring back at us from our mirrors for our problems.

Corporations complain that everything is lined up against them. They pay the highest taxes on the planet. They can't compete. Yet I read many financial statements and see C-level boards making so much money that it's obscene and wrong. The greed and misrepresentation of those in power is fundamentally wrong.

Can't the powerful hear their own words? Are they deaf as well as tunnel blind? They lie and misrepresent truth over and over. While that's hardly new, we're running out of time for that crap.

Speeches don't do anything for me. I'm looking for action that is right and beneficial.

posted 2 years, 3 months ago
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Are kids in inner cities and under-performing schools going to have access to technical gizmos?

I'm not against technology but I'd prefer that students without learning disabilities learn how to do the tasks by hand before they're allowed to rely on technology. I found my education more valuable if I learned how to derive or find information instead of just punching buttons without knowing how the underlying process worked.

posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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My parents could not be married in Oregon in 1953 so they did so in Stevenson, Washington. During the 1970s my family refused to buss me from a NE public grade school to a suburban grade school.

90 percent of the students attending my grade school were black. My family asked why white students from the suburbs weren't being bussed to predominantly-black inner city schools.

I attended a historically black college for a few years and learned that Civil Rights aren't just for blacks and other minorities.

Dr. King sought to free ALL of us from our chains of fear, ignornance and hatred. Too many become obsessed with Dr. King's race or his eloquent oratorical style, but too few take action on Dr. King's quest for hope, unity and peace.

It's unfortunate that many refer to MLK day as a "black holiday" which is more a nuisance than a day to reflect on the teachings and actions of one of the world's special people.

Dr. King infused us with compassion and love as did Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi and numerous other enlightened souls.

Be enlightened and compassionate. Throw off manacles of suffering and illusion. Be free.

posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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Portland should be wary of partnering with the JTTF. Was the FBI sting of Mohamud an attempt to scare Oregonians into the arms of cooperating with Federal agencies? What respect and information will Oregon anti-terrorism enforcement receive as a JTTF partner? Or will Oregon be expected to bend over backwards and submit to the authority and dictates of Federal anti-terrorism efforts? There are too many questions that do not have sufficient answers for Portland to consider partnering with the JTTF.

posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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Couldn't wait to live on my own which I did after graudating college. Lived the single life for a decade or so before meandering home to care for my parents. I fought against moving home because I wanted to continue living the free and single illusion.

My parents were challenging to live with. We locked horns and head-butted each other to determine who was more stubborn. I was taking on educated parents who'd survived The Depression, World War II, Korea, their children, Vietnam, The Cold War, and the Conservative Debacle. My parents were crusty pieces of shoe leather and dried bird spit. Life with my parents is funny in retrospect but it wasn't so amusing until we matured and built harmony.

But I'm "free" now so illusions are back on the table 24/7. I carry grim satisfaction that I took care of my parents when that was the responsibility I wanted to fulfill least. Watching my parents fade and pass away was "too real" and so many heaping mounds of el toro poo poo!

One lesson of life is that life ends. (Thumb against nostril and a derisive clearing of the sinuses regarding the nature of impermanence.)

posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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Exerting effort and seeing it pay off is more meaningful than being a fan.

I've tried to become competent at several endeavors and have gained appreciation for experts who make certain skills look easier than they are. Roy Underhill's hand-done carpentry is amazing and encourages me to get into the shop.

Since I don't want to be a football player I watch a few games and marvel at the skills others have acquired. I hope Oregon defeats Auburn and finishes their perfect season. A victory would be meaningful to many, but for me, an Oregon win would be an amusement, a green-and-yellow stick pin in the virtual globe of my life. Much like the Trailblazer's national championship has a red-and-black stick pin. Do you recall what the world was like in the middle to late 1970s?

I focus more on the challenges facing Earth today. Overpopulation, destruction of the environment, and the hoarding and misuse of wealth and resources by the minority to the majority's detriment.

We ignore the decay of our planet and the largely unintentional incompetence of people whilst we distract ourselves with the temporary excitement of gladiators and lions circling each other menacingly in the Coliseum.

Oregon will always be considered a backwater by those who think wherever they are is the best thing since sliced Voodoo doughnuts. Bless their condescension and arrogance. Hopefully they'll stay away from Oregon and infest their own bedding.

posted 2 years, 4 months ago
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How many of you don't drink or have stopped?

Too poor to afford alcohol?

Too spiritual to poison yourself with alcohol?

Bad headaches from red wine?

Feeling rough for several days after drinking?

Alcohol is expensive in establishments. Unwilling to pay over $3/pint. Economy downturn is partially responsible.

Do you really like the taste of beer? It truly is an acquired taste.

posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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Terminator Stout is probably my favourite. I like the name. Sometimes after drinking a few pints I feel like square-headed Arnold wearing cyborg shades.

"I"ll be back, ash whole."

Ice wines are a nice treat. Don't drink much any more.

posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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