Let’s say you’re out for a nice walk one day and you see some people hacking up a tree with a chainsaw. What is your first thought? Maybe it’s something like, “What are they doing! They’ve cut down a big old beautiful tree… how dare they… tsk tsk.” Or would you think, “Gee, that was [...]

Today’s Oregonian carried an interesting commentary piece by E.J. Dionne in its opinion pages. Dionne asserts that the conservative movement and its ideas on the economy are worn-out just as liberal ideas were in the 70s: …it took until this moment in 2005 for Republicans themselves to realize (even if many won’t acknowledge it yet) [...]

Yesterday I popped into the warehouse of one of my contractors and happened upon an heated discussion among the warehouse workers. It totally caught me off guard since I had never heard any of them talking about politics before. I was short on time and needed to get some work done, but I was curious [...]

The Washington Post has reported that Idaho Republican Senator, Larry Craig, has successfully eliminated the Fish Passage Center, an agency that counts endangered fish in the Columbia River. The center, located in Portland, uses meticulous mathematical methods for fish counting, but Craig claims that such methods are “data cloaked in advocacy” and that “false science [...]

Our governor isn’t fairing so well amongst Oregonians, according to the latest SUSA poll. Ted Kulongoski only has a 44% approval rating. And he doesn’t fair well amongst his more liberal constituents, 32% of whom disapprove of his job as governor. Ouch. He needs that vote if he wants to win the next election, that [...]

Over at Blue Oregon, contributor Caelan MacTavish discusses the annual “Buy Nothing Day” which falls on the biggest shopping day of the year, the Friday after Thanksgiving. MacTavish urges supporters of BND to consider an alterternative: Buy Local Day. As a small bidness owner and a close friend of other small bidness owners, I always [...]

If you’re like myself, you’re signed up with a bunch of organizations like MoveOn, the Natural Resources Defense Council, People For the America Way… that all have e-mail action campaigns, which has the result of filling up your e-mail box with campaigns every week. With so much at stake these days, it’s certainly not a [...]

Over at Portland Transport, Rex Burkholder has blogged about his experience at the first national conference on peak oil, held by the Association for the study of peak oil-USA in Denver this past weekend. For those unfamiliar with the term “peak oil” it refers to the top of the bell-curve of oil production, the point [...]

Congress is about to rip off the tax payers of this country by overturning a congressional ban on a little known 19th century law that allowed the sale of public land to mining interests for the Wal-Mart price of $2.50 to $5.00 an acre. In 1994 Congress had the sound mind to ban this obscure [...]

Today’s editorial pages in the Oregonian include an outstanding commentary piece on the economic implications of land use planning on property value and why a Marion County judge rightfully overturned Measure 37. It’s written by two economists who debunk the theory, claimed by pro-sprawlers, that without land use regulations property owners could develop their subdivisions [...]