Too Much Regulation

Someone recently said,

"a man without a job is not a man.
a job without pay is slavery
if i work for less you will get paid less.
regulation is the only way to even the playing field"

Apart from trying to comprehend the english that was written I don't know if you could be more wrong. Too much regulation will strangle the business community. As a small business owner I can attest to the fact the Oregon has way too much regulation. We have passed "leveling the playing field" and gone on to "killing competition" which, in this case, is local small business. Unfortunately, in the last election, the people of Multnomah county spoke for the rest of the state and elected the people and party who support more regulation. We are loosing the free market fast.

I do not understand the logic. We need MORE regulation to... stop bad, mean, evil business owners working children to death in sweat shops...?

Saddam Executed

Thankfully Saddam the Evil has been executed. The guy who put people through human shredders is dead.

I may be a little mean, or cold hearted but I think that capitol punishment should be meted out in the same way in which the "bad guy" killed his victims.

The reason Gov. Bush in Florida is suspending execution is because the last guy to get the syringe took about 34 minutes to die. Diaz was already a convicted murderer when he was found guilty again of first-degree murder, kidnapping, armed robbery, attempted robbery and possession of a firearm in Florida. 34 minuets is not enough if you ask me.

Does anyone disagree with capitol punishment? How many people do you have to kill and in what ways do you kill them before you have forfeited your own life?

Is there a war on Christmas?

"Merry Christmas." When shopping, you may not be hearing that too much this year. According to Bill O'Reilly and others, there is a war on Christmas. The "secular-progressives" are trying to shut out the whole religious side of arguable the biggest holiday in the U.S. What does this mean?No saying, "Merry Christmas" to shoppers at stores, calling the Christmas break at school a "winter break", suing the local fire department for putting a Christmas tree on the fire truck (Eugene), schools celebrating Kwanzaa (a holiday that was invented by a convicted murderer and torturer in the 60s) but not allowing a Christmas tree or even, yes, Santa.

Yes, I would say that there is a war on Christmas.

I believe that the "secular-progressives" are trying the eliminate all signs of a Judeo-Christian heritage that our country DOES indeed have. We can get into the whole semantic side of it, but there is no doubt about it.

What good will come from this?

I do not think that any good, definitive change will. Our society was built on those values and there is good reason to keep them. Somebody please tell me what is wrong with the Ten Commandments?

Mt. Hood Tragedy

It was a tragedy what happened on Mt. Hood, those guys freezing to death up there and to top it off, it is Christmas. But there is no way government should be dictating what gear I have to have in order to climb a mountain. We do however, need to have some way to distinguish how much of a rescue is mounted when tax payers are footing the bill. Stupid people do stupid things (and this in no way reflects what recently happened, those guys were skilled, experienced climbers). So there will be times when people need rescuing, but where do we draw the line? If someone goes up the mountain wearing shorts and taking a bag lunch, do we drop everything and pull the national guard in to "fix" his problem? Basically, we don't need government keeping us 100% safe at all times. Most people have common sense... o.k. some people have common sense.

Oregon Hates Small Businesses?

Once again the state of Oregon seems to be sticking its head into the wrong end of am issue. The Democrat Herald is reporting that the Department of Consumer and Business Services has decided to enforce the 70-year-old Oregon Pawnbroker Act. The definition of this law is "if a company lends money at more than 10 percent annual interest and takes possession of personal property to do so, it is a pawn activity." The DCB has already started enforcing this.

To be left alone by the DCB you have to pay an initial fee of $500 and an annual fee of $350. This is just another redundant, nonessential fee that puts pressure on small businesses to meet the bottom line. Larger businesses are pretty much unaffected by this, so this is really a strike at the smaller guys. If there is anything we should be doing it is giving the small guys a break.

This enforcement is going to put small businesses out and cost jobs to the ones that can afford it. So with the small amount of money that it will bring in, what is the net gain? Less businesses and less jobs so that the state can give a few more bucks to the Oregon Cultural Trust.

An Inconvenient Fact

With Al Gore's environmental dissertation "An Inconvenient Truth" being released and all the arguing over whether there is any truth in it, completely stretched or not, it got me thinking. No it should not be shown in high school business class (Portland). If it is shown, hopefully in a science/environment class, it should be done so with the other side having equal time.

To the untrained eye, mine, it is a politically charged movie that really places the blame for global warming square at the feet of humans, specifically humans living in the United States. That is a fairly large assumption because according to the CIA's world fact site the population of China is 1,306,313,812. Yes, that is 3 commas and just so you know, the U.S population is 295,734,134. I think it would be safe to say that there are also cars in China. With that many people you can imagine how many.

A recently released 400 page U.N. report says that cows "passing wind" is the biggest contributer to carbon dioxide build up in the atmoshere--greater than the amount of emissions from all planes, trains and automobiles the world over.

Some scientists/professors on a physics forum were going back and forth over the timeline in "An Inconvenient Truth". Some said it would be hundreds of years, with the same pattern of warming, for the earth to have the consequences shown in the Mr. Gore's Hollywood production. Other scientists/professors were saying the movie was right on.

With all of these conflicting reports who are we laymen supposed to listen to? What are we supposed to believe? It seems scientists are writing white papers in peer reviewed journals supporting both premises.

I do not know a lot but I do know that California and Washington emmision standards are rediculous. I hope Gov. Kulongoski does not bring in those same standards. I think it would be just another beurocratic layer that we would have to wade through, which would add more cost to government, in turn be more cost to us and make our lives more complicated.

So where do we go from here? Maybe that is why I am writing this. Where can I find intelligent, truthful, and honest explanations and answers for problems?

I feel that in trying to answer the above questions, the Liberal side of the aisle tends to become emotional, even to the point of hysteria. When dealing with the macro, i.e. the global environment, I think logical thought and emotionless examination are the keys to seeing the big picture and coming up with a workable and fair solution.

So what do you think?


PS-If you haven't picked up on this yet, I believe in less government and people doing things for themselves, not having mommy and daddy in the capitol wipe their butts for them.