Riding through Linn County farmland the other day, I stopped at an old house. From the looks of what was left of it, IÂ guessed it was at least a century old, maybe more. The roof was mostly holes, except where somebody had nailed up some sheet metal a long time ago. The front door […]
Lots of stuff going on, all of it bad for personal freedom and autonomy: The Supreme Court says that if the police arrest you for a serious crime, they have the right under the Constitution to sample your DNA as well. The government gets a look at cell phone records handed over by Verizon. Meanwhile, […]
The raccoon bill has apparently died in the legislature. This is Senate Bill 474, which would add raccoons to those wild animals — bears, cougars, coyotes and wolves — it is illegal to feed lest they become habituated to humans. The worry behind the bill is that feeding raccoons attracts them and concentrates their number, […]
Just as I expected a few weeks ago, the cougar hunting bill has died in the legislature even after the House had approved it by a strong vote of 40-19 on April 23. When the bill got to the Senate, it was assigned to the Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, headed by Portland Democrat […]
At the urging of local members of Health Care for All-Oregon, the Albany City Council has let itself be pushed into backing a Democratic proposal before the legislature on health care. The council Wednesday passed a resolution backing HB 3260. It would require the Oregon Health Authority to conduct a study of different health care […]
In Albany, customers of the city wastewater system face projected rate jumps for sewer service totaling some 57 percent over the next five years. That’s way above inflation. What’s going on here? What accounts for this huge jump in the price of a very basic public service? Several things, actually. For one thing, parts of […]
As you may have read in the papers on May 5 and 6, a study has found that people on the Oregon Health Plan were not necessarily in better health than those who were not on the plan. It did find that those on the plan used health care services more and did not face […]
