Fight GIGO! Take the Fantasy Funding Survey

GIGO is the old wisdom from early computer days, a reminder that no process is better than its inputs, so garbage in gets you garbage out.

The gangsters running the 3d Bridge scam have resorted to Survey Monkey surveys on Salem's willingness to spend imaginary money for an imaginary benefit with no alternative uses for the money considered in the mix. It's pure garbage of the rankest kind.

An unscientific funding survey is a particularly deep crock of GIGO because we actually know quite a bit about how to identify preferences for spending -- there's nothing more well studied in America than how to know what people are willing to pay for things (which is often quite different from what people will tell you, or that they even realize themselves).

So the only reason for this little joke of a survey is to allow the con men (CH2M-Hill) running this very cushy racket through their obedient pets at ODOT ($60k/month corporate welfare for the last seven years, with millions more in the pipeline) to collect some propaganda nuggets they can try to use to sell their product to the rubes ... Which is to say, us, the people of Salem.

The deep, abiding cynicism of Salem's Bridgasaurus Boondogglus Crew is a marvel to behold. It's our own little version of life as it is lived in many little banana republics and African barely-nations, where the gangsters on the top ignore the needs of the people and instead build themselves massive, useless projects funded by debt that ends up bankrupting the people and lashing them to debt for generations.

It's the oldest story in public administration -- one of the reasons the poor are always with us is that the capture of the people's representatives by the well-heeled few, the Chamber of the 1%, is almost always with us too.

> ODOT is fielding an unscientific Survey Monkey survey to enable anyone to voice their opinion on how to fund the 3rd Bridge:
>
> https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SYJMC9J
>
> Questions 14-20 ask about the four identified funding methods: property tax, gas tax, vehicle registration tax and tolls on all bridges (Marion, Center and the 3rd Bridge).
>
> We urge you to take the survey and indicate that you "strongly oppose" all four methods of bridge funding.
>
> You can also indicate on Question 12 that "the project should not be built."
>
> Do it now!
>
> Forward this to your friends and ask them to take the survey. This is a great opportunity to send a strong message that we don't want a 3rd Bridge and we don't want to pay for it.

Tuesday, 12/2, 6 p.m. Salem Police Facility Task Force Meeting, change of location

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

>
> The Police Facility Task force is meeting Tomorrow, Tues, Dec. 2 from 6 to 8 pm at Courthouse Square (Transit building) on Court St., in the 5th Floor Boardroom. Consultants will be present to discuss the design of the proposed facility. The public is invited to come and observe the meeting and to comment as well. I really hope that some of you will attend. Thanks.

Powerful: Ferguson Rorschach [feedly]

Ferguson Rorschach
http://read.feedly.com/html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.resilience.org%2Fstories%2F2014-11-25%2Fferguson-rorschach&theme=white&size=medium
----
Shared via my feedly reader

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

A horribly depressing article full of happy talk

What It Would Really Take to Reverse Climate Change
http://read.feedly.com/html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fspectrum.ieee.org%2Fenergy%2Frenewables%2Fwhat-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change&theme=white&size=medium
----
Shared via my feedly reader

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

WORD: Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question [feedly]

Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question
http://read.feedly.com/html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.resilience.org%2Fstories%2F2014-11-26%2Fsix-myths-about-climate-change-that-liberals-rarely-question&theme=white&size=medium
----
Shared via my feedly reader

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

The forgotten scourge that never went away

MisLEAD Trailer, 3 min from Tamara Rubin on Vimeo.

Depressing because probably true

The Only Way to Stop the Empire
http://read.feedly.com/html?url=http%3A%2F%2Fcluborlov.blogspot.com%2F2014%2F11%2Fthe-only-way-to-stop-empire.html&theme=white&size=medium
----
Shared via my feedly reader

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

Reminder: Transportation in the Next American City TOMORROW

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

From: Strong Towns <team@strongtowns.org>
Subject: Reminder: Transportation in the Next American City TOMORROW

Strong Towns Tomorrow, November 25 is our next Strong Towns webinar. As you may have seen over social media and the blog, we have a new presentation and initiative called Transportation in the Next American City. It has been in beta test over the last two months and now we want your feedback. See the overview description below. We will start at 12:00 PM Central Time. To participate, simply log in to the Webinar portal on the member site. Transportation in the Next American City When: 12PM Central Time - November 25 Where: Click here to login You must be a member to attend so, if you haven't signed up, now is a great time. We are chipping away at our goal of 324 more members by the end of the year - we're down to just 248 left. Join today and help us while getting a little something in the return. BECOME A MEMBER Can't make it Tuesday? We'll be recording it and making that available on the Strong Towns Membership platform at www.strongtowns.us after the webinar. Visit the webinar portal page via the link in the right sidebar. TRANSPORTATION IN THE NEXT AMERICAN CITY Overview: For more than six decades, local governments have been accustomed to building new transportation infrastructure, expanding existing systems in addition to constructing completely new facilities. While liabilities have grown, transportation funding has not kept up. Now there is a desperate need for local governments to shift from building to maintaining, from an approach that emphasizes expansion to one where we mature our use of existing investments. In difficult economic times, this is a scary, but necessary, realignment. Topics Covered:  A brief history of how we arrived at the current set of problems, particularly how centralization and an abundance of funding created short-term efficiencies but has stifled the development of alternative approaches. Identification of the reasons why local governments find themselves stuck in the current paradigm and strategies for overcoming these obstacles. The important difference between a road and a street and how to get the most out of each. How to productively respond to congestion and safety problems within an urban environment. The role of state and federal funding in local transportation decisions. How to get the most out of these funding sources without compromising the financial health of the community. Dealing with resistance to change from public safety and maintenance staff. The role of transit in creating a balanced portfolio of transportation options. Strong Towns http://www.strongtowns.us/   Strong Towns ·  You can also keep up with Strong Towns on Twitter or Facebook. Created with NationBuilder, the essential toolkit for leaders.

Marion-Polk Food Share’s Youth Farm in Salem, Oregon [feedly]

MPLAS makes the news


Marion-Polk Food Share's Youth Farm in Salem, Oregon
// City Farmer News

Real Dirt
November 2014

The Youth Farm is a collaborative educational project of the Marion-Polk Food Share and OSU Extension 4-H Youth Development Program that is aimed at increasing the quality, diversity, and stability of local food systems. Located in the heart of Salem on the Oregon School for the Deaf campus,

our two acre Youth Farm engages secondary school students in running a small farm business and develops a new generation of farmers and activists committed to providing access to healthy, fresh food for all members of our community.

Read the complete article here.

----

Shared via my feedly reader

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."

Conservation is self-preservation - Thos. Friedman

A black elephant, explained the London-based investor and environmentalist Adam Sweidan, is a cross between "a black swan" (an unlikely, unexpected event with enormous ramifications) and the "elephant in the room" (a problem that is visible to everyone, yet no one still wants to address it) even though we know that one day it will have vast, black-swan-like consequences.

"Currently," said Sweidan, "there are a herd of environmental black elephants gathering out there" — global warming, deforestation, ocean acidification, mass extinction and massive fresh water pollution. "When they hit, we'll claim they were black swans no one could have predicted, but, in fact, they are black elephants, very visible right now." We're just not dealing with them at the scale necessary. If they all stampede at once, watch out.

...

It starts with a simple fact: Protected forests, marine sanctuaries and national parks are not zoos, not just places to see nature. "They are the basic life support systems" that provide the clean air and water, food, fisheries, recreation, stable temperatures and natural coastal protections "that sustain us humans," said Russ Mittermeier, one of the world's leading primatologists who was here.

That's why "conservation is self-preservation," says Adrian Steirn, the South Africa-based photographer who spoke here. Every dollar we invest in protecting natural systems earns or saves multiple dollars back. Ask the people of São Paulo, Brazil. They deforested hillsides, destroyed their watersheds, and now that they're in prolonged drought, they're running out of water, losing thousands of jobs a month. Watch that story.

Walking around the exhibit halls here, I was hit with the reality that what we call "parks" are really the heart, lungs, and circulatory systems of the world — and they're all endangered.

...

John Gross, an ecologist with the U.S. National Park Service, who has worked in Yellowstone for 20 years, uses a NASA simulation to show me how the average temperature in Yellowstone has been rising and the impact this is having on the snowpack, which is now melting earlier each spring, meaning more water loss through evaporation and rapid runoff, lengthening the fire season. But, hey, it's just a park, right?

People forget: Yellowstone National Park is "the major source of water for both the Yellowstone and the Snake Rivers," said Gross. "Millions of people" — farmers, ranchers and communities — "need those two rivers." Yellowstone's snowpack is their water tower, and its forest their water filters. Its integrity really matters. What happens in Yellowstone, doesn't stay in Yellowstone.

...

Carlos Manuel Rodríguez, Costa Rica's former minister of environment and energy and now a vice president of Conservation International, explains to me the politics of parks — and the difference between countries that have their forest service under the minister of agriculture and those where the forest service is under the minister of environment or independent. Agriculture ministers see natural forests and parks "as timber that should be chopped down for something 'productive,' like soybeans, cattle or oil palm," said Rodríguez. Forest services and environment ministers "see their forests as carbon stocks, biodiversity reservoirs, water factories, food production plants, climate adaptation machines and tourism sites," and protect them.

Guess who's in the first group? Honduras and Guatemala, where many people live on degraded hillsides. Some 50,000 children have been sent from Central America to the U.S. this year — unaccompanied. Where did they come from? Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador, Central America's most deforested states. They cut their forests; we got their kids.

. . .

"Let's live on the planet as if we intend to stay."