It Really Is Astounding
It really is amazing how a single conman has highjacked the entirety of our democratic republic, and has the majority of Americans pulling their hair out.
Tagged with: Democratic Republic
From a Guest Blogger: Street Lights Get an Eco-Friendly Upgrade
Good news for the city of Detroit: The streetlights may soon come back on. Towards the end of 2012, only around half of the approximately 88,000 street lamps in the city were functioning. (To put that number in perspective, there are around 55,000 total street lamps in Portland.)
A lack of illumination can impact the safety of drivers and pedestrians. Many business owners and residents in Detroit have expressed concern that the lack of working streetlights is contributing to an increase in street crime and gang activities. Faulty streetlights can also lower perceptions of an area—if the streetlights are malfunctioning and neighborhoods go dark at night, then property values may drop.
But Detroit is not alone. Copper wire theft has left more and more streets darkened around the country in recent years. In Sacramento, copper thieves have vandalized
approximately 18,800 streetlights in 150 neighborhoods since 2010. (Fortunately, most of them have now been restored.) Thieves target the control boxes for the lights, which contain the wires. The control boxes are being made more secure as a result.
Street lighting is also making news overseas: In Paris, the City of Light, the French government is proposing to simply turn off streetlights throughout the country between 1am and 7am as a cost-saving measure.
Seattle is also planning on reducing their electricity bills—but without plunging the city streets into darkness. Instead, they are switching from sodium vapor lights to LED
lights in around 44,000 street lamps, which they estimate could save them as much as $2.4 million a year—or more—while keeping the streets and sidewalks illuminated and citizens safe at night. And Seattle isn’t alone in this pioneering effort: San Francisco, Vancouver, B.C., Portland, and Los Angeles are testing and installing them as well.
LED lights last considerably longer than traditional sodium vapor lights and are much more energy efficient. They are touted as a more eco-friendly way to save the city money on electricity bills without increasing safety concerns.
Street lights require ongoing maintenance, be it repair or simple upkeep. If you live in Portland and you notice a street light outage or any other issues with street lights such as vandalism, you can call the Street Light Outage Hotline at 503-865-LAMP (5267) to report it. (If you notice a problem with a traffic signal, call 503-823-1700.)
What’s “Enough?”
Human greed and indifference to the suffering of others didn’t just emerge on the scene in the last four years, but they certainly have been greatly amplified in a blink of an eye, haven’t they? The U.S. president was elected largely because his supposed wealth was the object of the envy of the undereducated working class.
The obscene enrichment of a very few and the extreme suffering of the many are the defining characteristics of American life today, especially in the face of a pandemic in which 22 million have lost their jobs, one-third of whom are suddenly without healthcare.
If there is a path that leads towards a sustainable civilization, it is most certainly not rooted in the disenfranchisement of the vast majority of the world’s population, leaving masses of the hopeless and apathetic.
Enough–that’s a good concept.
“It is not the man who has little, but he who desires more, that is poor.” – Seneca
Doing One’s Own “Research”
My cousin-in-law voted for Obama in ’08 and ’12. A few years later, after a short but steady diet of Fox News, she told my wife, “Obama is a terrorist,” and “Trump is making America great again.” My wife gently challenged her, but this went nowhere. The words “I’ve done my own research” are what ended this brief but sad conversation.
No matter how bizarre, illogical and unfounded your beliefs are, you will be able to find a couple of YouTube videos that supports them. From that time forward, you can say that you have “done your own research,” and walk away with an even stronger belief in the bull**** you started with.
Prosecuting Trump–More
Here’s a conversation between a Fox News devotee (who still happens to be a friend) and me:
Craig: Per our talk last night, here’s a piece on the subject (of prosecuting Trump after he leaves office that, coincidentally, I had just written a couple of hours before the call.
Friend: Somewhere you seem to have lost the concept of “innocent until proved guilty.” (more…)
Tagged with: Prosecuting Trump
Trump’s Georgia Call Disgusting, But Probably Won’t Go Anywhere
I can’t imagine what’s “murky” about asking (then begging, then threatening) someone in a position of authority to change the results of an election without evidence that there were voting irregularities and that the count is therefore incorrect.
Having said that, I too doubt it will be prosecuted, given that there are so many more straightforward ways to go after Trump criminally.
Tagged with: Trump's Georgia Call Disgusting
Generally, Americans Are Liberals
When I came across the statement at the left, I mentioned to its author that the majority of American share liberal values.
As shown here, the majority, in many cases the vast majority, have distinctly liberal viewpoints on topics as wide-ranging as the economy, inequality, money in politics, taxes, the minimum wage, workers’ rights, healthcare, education, climate change and the environment, gun safety, criminal justice, immigration, abortion and women’s health, and same-sex marriage.
We “American communists that (sic) wish to partake in the destruction of western (sic) civilization” actually represent approximately three-quarters of the U.S. population.
Tagged with: Americans Are Liberals
It’s All “Anti-Trump”
Here’s a Trump supporter who actually makes an excellent point. The only reason we have Biden is because we had Trump, and 81 million people made him disappear.
Speaking strictly for myself, I wouldn’t have voted for Biden in a million years if it weren’t required to remove a sociopath from the White House.
Tagged with: anti-Trump
A Great Day for the World’s Dictators
It’s enemies’ (with an apostrophe after the s), but outside of that, this guy makes an excellent point.
Champagne corks are popping in the palaces of every authoritarian head of state on Earth, celebrating the fact that the world’s most powerful democracy is being put asunder by 120 Republican representatives backed by 74 million people who are desperate to overturn the 2020 presidential election, using nothing more than conjecture and innuendo.
Tagged with: World's Dictators
Turning the U.S. Senate Blue
The Democrats have to be favored in Georgia here, because:
• They just won the presidential election, albeit narrowly.
• These Republican candidates are truly loathsome people, though perhaps not to the level of Trump. (more…)
Tagged with: seditious attempts to overturn the election
