Oregon allowed its minimum wage to increase by $.45 an hour on January 1, 2009 to $8.40, with automatic adjustments based on adjustments to the consumer price index.  Likewise, ballots 66 and 67 promise to pinch business in other ways.  The problem with both together is that the vast majority of businesses in the state of Oregon are small. As with many small businesses, you often have the owners as managers who work off the clock. Instead of hiring more people, the owners put in 80 hour weeks instead of their normal 60 hours. It isn’t that business owners want to work longer hours – it is that the cost to do business in the state of Oregon is not in scale with the economics of sales in the state of Oregon. Oregon is a great state for good intentions, but has a history of poor implementations.

Unfortunately, when the national economy improves, it tends to improve at a much slower rate in the State of Oregon. What few positive indicators Ive seen in the tech business in the last 2-3 months will hardly make a difference, at least in early 2010.

2009 has taught me a few lessons in personal, human kindness. I can’t say if the current economic climate is something we deserve or not, but in the absence of a pocket full of cash, one free gift we can give other human beings is to default to kindness, politeness and mercy. There are no cost ways to make difficult times easier for those around us for weathering these difficult times.

Check this Google Maps project for tracking outbreaks and suspected outbreaks in your region.

There have been a few suggestions on the local news that some information would become available next week about this outbreak in the state of Oregon – sorry Oregon, that’s just too long to wait! If by chance this strain has gotten into any school, its also likely to already have been brought home to the family. Step one is to send home anyone with flu-like symptoms and keep them home the full 7 days after the symptoms pass.

To recap – Sam Adams has admitted to engaging in a romantic relationship, that culminated in sex with a legal teen, but only after the teen became of legal age. This occurred prior to running for the office of mayor. Sam Adams lied about this during his mayoral run and instructed the teen to lie as well. The story resurfaced, and at first Sam Adams lied again, saying the teen was at first being mentored by him; later, he admitted it was all about the sex. After brooding and clearly getting some character support from friends and supporters, he’s announced he will not resign and go back to work.

Many (current) Sam Adams supporters would like to turn this scandal into an us vs gays argument, since that’s a good way to malign those who want Sam Adams to step down. This has never been about Sam Adams sexual orientation.

This about Sam Adams lying to become mayor; a scandal during the mayoral campaign of this sort could have meant Portland would have a different mayor. Sam Adams deprived the public of being able to make a decision.

This is about Sam Adams lying again and again, in layers of lies. He lied to others by saying the initial rumor that emerged around this was a falsehood. He lied to the public, saying it never happened. He lied that the relationship started as some sort of mentoring relationship between him and the boy.

He continues to lie to us: he wants to apologize for lying, but he refuses to give up the spoils he received, because he lied.

Sam Adams demonstrates the same sort of personal qualities of Clinton era politics – the quality of a grown up child that admits fault only when presented with undeniable evidence of his guilt – and continual denial after continuous lies, even after admitting to previous lies.

I don’t like the comparison, but it fits. And I happened to like the Clintons for the most part; however there is a character flaw they have, Monica for Bill and Whitewater for the both of them, that will always hang over them as once overindulged children who grew up thinking its okay for basically good people to make morally corrupt choices for their own gain. You see, I think Sam Adams is a basically good person – like the Clintons. But he needs to own up and pay the price of his lies, and the only way to demonstrate that is to give back what he took. If he thinks he is qualified to be mayor, then let him run again. This is about what the people of Portland want, not what Sam Adams wants. You can only know that in an open election.

Mayor Sam Adams should resign as recommended by The Oregonian rather than submit to a recall because he lied in order to win the election that made him mayor of Portland. A recall is inappropriate as recalls function to question a seated politician who otherwise earned their position but subsequently failed to serve. Mayor Sam Adams lied in order to win an election. It isn’t the very short time in office for which he should be judged.

Sam, if you go for a recall – this will continue to haunt you for the rest of your life. By resigning, you can regain some of your political and personal integrity by starting again and letting the voters decide again, should you wish to run for office some time in the future.

The interface for building characters and comic strips is a very clever, easy to use set of tools that uses Flash – Flash without the pain of having to use Flash the product (vs Flash the player). It lets you resize, flip and make other transformations to your characters.

Toonlet is a lot of fun, and it has tools for sharing your creations with others – on your own website, through feeds and the like.

The Oregonian reported that Gail Achterman, chairwoman of the Oregon Transportation Commission – who also heads the taskforce on landslide risk stated:

The hard policy decisions have simply not been made…It’s easier to do nothing and wait for FEMA to bail you out.

The report was first generated in response to fatal landslides that occurred in 1996. The state has done nothing to inform would-be property and home owners in high risk areas. The Oregonian states that one reason for this was the Measure 37 debate. Measure 37 allows property owners to require local government to waive regulations imposed after a property purchase that would reduce the value of the property, or to financially compensate the property owner.

The Oregon legislature and local governments demonized Measure 37 for a variety of ills and successfully put on the ballot and passed Measure 49 to remove many of the rights restored to property owners in Oregon by Measure 37.

A sad part of living in the state of Oregon is that the initiative system – known as the Oregon System, established with great foresight by the 1902 electorate – is a necessity for Oregon voters to maintain control of their state despite the legislature and state bureaucracies. That the legislature or state or local governments would suppress this information about landslides – which affect high value properties where individuals build homes – is beyond offensive. While highly politicized groups suggest curtailing the initiative process – this sort of suppression is exactly why the initiative process has been enshrined as the most progressive form of government.

Important Links

• General Information on Landslides in Oregon
• Find your Home on a Landslide Hazards Map
• The Oregonian’s Blog on Green Issues in Oregon