Our Fiendish Predicament Summed Up in a Single Graph

What fossil fuels made possible, the inexorable end of fossil fuels will make impossible to continue

Two Englishmen Shooting Balloons in Slow Motion . . . That Is All « Fun

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/01/06/two-englishmen-shooting-balloons-in-slow-motion-that-is-all/

More Saturday fun

Strike a blow for common sense and sustainability 6:30 pm MONDAY NIGHT at City Hall

Well, thanks to more tireless work by the Chickens in the Yard (CITY) folks, the city staff has prepared a recommendation for City Council to make substantial, significant improvements to the original hen-keeping ordinance adopted a while back.

So, once again into the breach, public-spirited citizens of Salem! Please show up at City Hall Council Chambers tonight for the first reading and to testify in favor of the proposed rewrites. They won't be adopted tonight, but they do have to get enough support to get to second reading and then, ultimately, final adoption. And that's where you come in: come and show your support for more sensible rules for keeping hens in Salem!

Here's a word from Barb Palermo, Henactivist Extraordinaire. Contact Barb if you have questions about the proposed changes and how long you can expect to be there, etc.

The revised chicken ordinance (to be discussed and voted on Monday night) has been posted on the city's website (pdf) . . . . City staff is recommending passage of the revisions. They left the price of the chicken license up to the council to decide and instead of the coop being 10' from your own house, it's 3' - but other than that they have rewritten it exactly as proposed, including increasing the number of hens to five and allowing them at community gardens!

We still need 5 votes though, so another good show of supporters Monday night is essential. Could you please write about this in your blog in hopes of getting folks to attend?

Isabel Allende tells Tales of Passion

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/heb/_tells_tales_of_passion.html

Bring the joy back to teaching and learning

Best thing on Ed for some time. Sadly, it is retired educators who seem to be able to stand up to the charlatans like Arne Duncan and the No Child Left Behind Snake Oil chorus.

http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2012/02/bring_the_joy_back_to_teaching.html

More on our predicament: Business trying to silence the warnings on climate

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/02/18/cyberbulling-scientists-using-threats-in-an-effort-to-silence-the-discussion-on-climate-change/

Cyberbullying Scientists: Using Threats in an Effort to Silence the Discussion on Climate Change « JONATHAN TURLEY

The Great Train Robbery ... By the Trainsters at Union Pacific, trying to hold US up!

House Bill 4028A: Oregon’s Union Pacific Gravy Train

 “If their tracks need repairs, it’s their job as a business, not ours as taxpayers, to fix them.” Jody Wiser, Tax Fairness Oregon, Willamette Week, Feb. 8, 2012.

 
 “Gravy Train,” the recent Willamette Week story by Kara Wilbeck, notesthat last year, Union Pacific Railroad had profits of $3.3 billion. Yet since 2006, under a law stating that Oregon should subsidize transportation businesses that “lack capital,” the state has already handed out $24.7 million tax dollars to this corporate giant.

The current legislative session in Salem is slashing school budgets and senior services, potentially closing a jail and counting every penny. ButHB 4028A is trying to add another $10 million to the $40 million already in the fund called “ConnectOregon,” for gifts to businesses and to public entities for multi-model (non-highway) transportation projects.

Of the 69 grant applications – most ask the public to do most of the spending
·       48 are for grants where the project owner will pay 25% or less of the project cost.  Thus the public through ConnectOregon will be covering 75% or more of the cost. 

·       11 applicants will cover 25% to 50% of cost.

·       10 applicants will cover 51% to 75% of the cost.

Of course there may be other grants or loans coming to the project owners from other sources, which would further reduce their own contributions. 
 
Of that additional $10 million for ConnectOregon, $8.2 million could go to UP. The gravy train just keeps rolling along.

Why is UP once again seeking Oregon subsidies? The corporate giant’s mouthpiece Aaron Hunt answers in discredited terms that should make taxpayers grab for their wallets: the corporation just “wanted to partner with the public” and create “trickle down throughout the economy.”

This is the type of taxpayer rip-off that giant corporations like to arrange behind the scenes, even as their mouthpieces are complaining about “big government.” 

In this short session, the next decision point in the state legislature is coming right away in the Capital Construction Sub-Committee of the Ways and Means Committee. Legislators there could add the extra $10 million--but passing out more cash to corporations is not acceptable. 

Please phone or email one (or more) of the committee members now and say “NO” to the $10 million ConnectOregon allotment in HB 4028A. Tell them to use our tax dollars to pay teachers to teach, not to pay for corporate-owned railroad tracks. Thank you.

Click here for talking points and the phone numbers and e-mail addresses of committee members.

Tax Fairness Oregon

Food Co-op Meeting at Grand Theatre, 7:30 pm, February 21

This is a meeting to explore a great idea to fill a big gap in Salem. Lots of good potential here. a very dynamic core group of organizers bodes well. See you there!

What Presidents should remember when sending young people off to die

Here's something worth pondering on President's Day.

We dedicate ourselves, first, to live together in peace the way they fought and are buried in this war. Here lie men who loved America because their ancestors generations ago helped in her founding, and other men who loved her with equal passion because they themselves or their own fathers escaped from oppression to her blessed shores. Here lie officers and men, negroes and whites, rich men and poor–together. Here no man prefers another because of his faith or despises him because of his color. Here there are no quotas of how many from each group are admitted or allowed. Among these men there is no discrimination. No prejudices. No hatred. Theirs is the highest and purest democracy.

Any man among us the living who fails to understand that will thereby betray those who lie here dead. Whoever of us lifts up his hand in hate against a brother, or thinks himself superior to those who happen to be in the minority, makes of this ceremony and of the bloody sacrifice it commemorates, an empty, hollow mockery. To this, then, as our solemn, sacred duty, do we the living now dedicate ourselves: to the rights of Protestants, Catholics and Jews, of white men and negroes alike, to enjoy the democracy for which all of them here have paid the price.

And non-theists too.

For Oregon farmers, oil-rich canola is either promise or peril | OregonLive.com

http://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/02/for_oregon_farmers_oil-rich_ca.html

Take action against this disastrously horrible idea. More effort to place the needs of rich auto drivers over humanity's need for real food. Growing rapeseed to make motor fuel in the Willamette Valley is like putting an oil refinery in the Vatican or the Louvre, only much more serious. Art can be recreated ... Getting those genes back out of the fields would be like trying to put toothpaste back in the tube while on fire.

Is there no level too low for the biofuel-mad subsidy seekers? Apparently not.

Tell Oregon Dept of Ag to do their job, and protect the future of food in the Willamette Valley.