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Ramblings From the Ragged Crumbling Edge Of The Reality-Based Community

Thursday, November 30, 2006

Throwing A Tantrum With Measure 37 

...Oregon’s Measure 37, the property rights initiative intended to relieve long-time land owners from the strictures of land use regulations enacted after they came into ownership, has had its ups and down, most of which have served to demonstrate how misguided, poorly-thought-out, and ineptly written the measure was to begin with. But this is a new twist: Measure 37 as an instrument of revenge...

The facts are pretty basic, but the effort to reapply for a new Measure 37 claim is the point at which the whole supposedly honest basis of M37 goes off the tracks. The land owners have decided to embark on a war of revenge against the county by attempting to propose a diner and motel or condo’s at the same cliff-top location as their rejected retirement home. As a commercial operation or high-density housing, this claim presents the prospect of a much higher potential value - and, therefore, required payment by the county - than the personal residence that was originally proposed. What’s wrong with this is pretty basic: by their very quotes, the owners are blindingly clear that their motives are no more than the desire to mess with the county for not letting them build that retirement home and - in their eyes - lowballing the compensation offer. Given the abdication of the state legislature on the need to establish some sort of clarity to the finer details of the measure, clarity can only come through the courts, but the owners are refusing to use this approach. Perhaps they are doing so because they don’t have the money to pursue a legal challenge, but it may also be because they don’t have solid legal footing, and instead are choosing to fight a new battle that is little more than spitting in the face of the county commissioners...

The case of the Palin’s is a perfect example of just what is wrong with Measure 37, although there are other good examples (pumice mine in a National Monument, anyone?). Measure 37 didn’t fix the problem of weepy little old ladies who only wanted a little cabin out back by the loafing sheds so much as it served as a hog-calling contest for every second-string land baron porker looking to cash in, one way or another, on the elimination of the very land-use requirements that made Oregon such a special place to begin with. Many of the larger and more noted M37 claims are not so much the righting of some grevious wrong as they are the implementation of a desire to convert productive agricultural land to some use that was never even thought of until recent population growth pressures started pressing in on all the good places to live and which create a whole new set of problems and pressures that are inevitable when subdivisions start cropping up between dairy farms, wheat fields, or cattle ranches. This particular effort, however, is - by the words of the landowners themselves - little more that the use of M37 to punish county officials for a decision that was not pleasing to said land-owner. It's an outrageous use of M37 as a blunt weapon of retribution; there’s no ‘there’ there, only an angry old couple that wants to cause as much trouble as possible for the County. No rule or regulation should be avaible as a tool of personal retribution or extortion, but this measure suggests that this particular possibility is a legitimate part of the legacy that we in Oregon have been ‘blessed’ with by M37. If nothing else, Oregon’s experience should serve as a warning for voters in other states where this sort of initiative might pop up. Just as Colorado’s experience with the Tax Payers’ Bill of Rights led to the general failure of similar efforts in other states during this election cycle, Oregon’s Measure 37 should be a warning in any other state where voters might be facing initiatives that would roll back land use planning regulations. Although they didn’t sign up for it, that may be the most productive legacy that the Palin’s and their application of Measure 37 could offer to the country...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:19 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Blogging Survey, Or "Why We Do What We Do" 

...got an e-mail the other day from Dr. David D. Perlmutter, Professor and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies & Research of the William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications at Kansas State University. He and an associate are doing research assessing the state of political blogging after the election and are conducting surveys as part of this effort (apparently applying statistical analysis to the changing numbers of empty beer cans versus empty Jack Daniels bottles in bloggers' garbage cans doesn't provide the fineness of detail to which they aspire). Anyway, a cross-section of 100 blogs has been selected - this one presumably representing the category "Blogs Few People Have Heard Of" - and each site's proprietor was asked to complete this survey that forces us to think in deep, convoluted, penetrating ways about why it is we do what we do. One unfortunate side effect is that several bloggers, faced with the reality of what they are actually doing and the lost years they will never get back, have been overcome with a great stifling despondency and Atrios, Glen Reynolds, Tbogg, and the entire staff of The Note have decided to shut it all down and just walk away from this sick, desperate life that political bloggers are forced to lead...

Ok, so...just kidding about that last part, but the survey is for real AND we have been asked to provide blog readers with a link to a different survey just for them that the Good Doctor would like to use in his work. So, if you would be so kind as to take a few minutes and go through this link:
Blog Reader Survey

I would be eternally in your debt. You can even claim to have come in from another blog, should you care to protect your reputation. Do it for the children, so maybe they can someday figure out why it is that we did what we did...
Posted by: Jack K. / 1:14 PM 0 comments

Sunday, November 26, 2006

The Bad Dream That Just Won't End 

...this isn't the kind of story I really care to read as we go barreling off into the Christmas season, with all of its Peace-On-Earth, Joy-To-The_World fa laa laa-ness. There are no competing story lines here: George W. Bush and his twisted, half-witted little band of waterbrain neocons got us into a potentially never-ending conflict in Iraq that is destroying our military, not at the force structure level of numbers of troops and types and condition of equipment, but deep down at the structural nuts-and-bolts level in the personal lives of the individual troops and their families. The duties and hardships these people are being asked to endure are just about beyond the pale, not only because they being asked to do it all again the third time but because the Commander in Chief to whom they entrust their lives in the hopes that he will make wise decisions that don't waste those precious lives never did have, doesn't now have, and isn't likely to anytime soon have anything looking like a clue about how to bring this mess to some sort of peaceful conclusion. There is no guarantee, much less any reason for hope, that a third deployment to Iraq will be the last for the 3rd Infantry Division...
Posted by: Jack K. / 7:16 PM 0 comments

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