Since 2001, the Oregon Road User Fee Task Force has worked on finding a way to collect money from owners of four-wheeled vehicles that don’t burn fuel, or don’t burn much. In 2011 the group proposed legislation, and it was rejected. Now, in 2013, it is trying again with a somewhat different approach. The bill […]
Just how nutty our economic situation has become is shown by the idea of the trillion-dollar coin. Nobody with any sense except a few columnists — and they are paid to write nutty stuff sometimes — gave this notion any credence. But then on Monday our lone Oregon Republican in Congress, Greg Walden, introduced a […]
Since the first of the year, the governor’s smoking ban has been in effect in most of Oregon state government. Wait a minute, you say. Wasn’t smoking banned already? Yes, it has been, for many years. State law bans it in any work place, including bars and taverns. And now some colleges including Oregon State […]
The White House working group on gun control seems to be considering a comprehensive program to abrogate a key liberty in the Bill of Rights, the right to keep and bear arms. That’s the gist of a report in the Washington Post on Sunday. The Post said the working group, headed by Vice President Joe […]
Somewhere around 30 million years ago, during the tertiary period in the geology of Earth, a volcano rose in what today is the middle of Oregon’s Linn County. Time marches on, and for the last half century the Harrington family, which owns more than 200 acres of forest and ranch land in that very spot, […]
Here’s a pitch for one way in which all of us can help our local economy. It’s not exactly new, but if more of us did this more consistently, local business would be healthier, and with it the employment picture. From Shawn Dawson: Thanks for the (item) on the No-D-Lay shoe store. They offer good service, […]
U.S. violence is down, far down
Here’s something worth pointing out amid all the talk about violence and calls for more gun control: The United States keeps getting more peaceful even as gun ownership goes up. Time magazine reports that there’s nearly one gun in the U.S. for every American. That would amount to nearly 300 million firearms, making us what […]