HinesSight

Do dogs try to cover, or spread, their poop?

When I told my wife that today's blog topic was dog poop, she said, "You're lucky that this is all you have to worry about."

Since at the time she was vacuuming the kitchen floor while I was perched at the counter with my laptop, sipping a cup of coffee and using Google to delve into the depths of dog poop behavior, I have a feeling that her comment had an ironic quality to it.

I'm unapologetic, though. Human civilization advances by exploring the natural world. And few things are more natural than pooping.

My interest in this question began a few days ago with a Twitter tweet:

Our dog pees profusely on a walk, leaving scent marks everywhere. Then poops & scratches with hind legs in ineffectual coverup attempt. ????

These seemingly differing peeing and pooping behaviors confuse me. However, our Shepherd/Lab mix, Serena, appears totally comfortable with her excretory habits.

Yesterday I asked a friend (and Greyhound owner), Hans, about this. He thought that Serena's half-hearted scratching after pooping was an attempt to spread her feces, not to cover them up.

This theory was shared by Eric, a fellow Tai Chi student with whom I started a dog poop conversation after class today. But I wasn't going to believe them until I checked with the Great God Google.

That's when things got confusing, which is why the title of this blog post ends with a question mark.

The first thing I found was that not much information about "dog poop cover" exists on the Internet. However, Google pointed me toward Dog Poop Calendar. This appears to be the preeminent source of dog poop information in cyberspace.

Here I learned about Niko, a dog who likes to spin in circles as he poops, sending feces flying all around. Whose behavior is very different from Sirius, a serious pooper who is fastidious and likes his privacy.

Yet the Dog Poop Calendar blogger wrote:

Both dogs would occasionally scratch ground with their back feet to cover the dog poop or mark their territory, though Sirius never did this until he saw Niko giving it a try. Now, with his obsession of privacy and desire to cover up his dog poop, he is careful to kick up grass and dirt at every opportunity, always with a silly grin.

"To cover the dog poop" and "mark their territory" -- opposite ends of the behavioral spectrum. Which was it? Or are dogs not bound by dualistic categorization, and embrace both covering and marking?

I pressed on with my Googling.

On Yahoo Answers I learned that supposedly dogs naturally try to cover up their waste so an enemy doesn't find them. But this doesn't explain why, most of the time, our dog makes no attempt to cover her poop. Or why dogs enthusiastically leave pee scent marks all over the place.

Answerbag didn't help much either. One person said about a related indoor behavior:

Dogs will be dogs. It's a territorial thing. I have a female Shih Tzu and she does the same thing, after she has done her business. She is just marking her territory. It's not neurotic, just a natural instinct of an animal behavior. It does not seem practical that they are trying to cover their scent, since they pee on everthing they can find and even where other dogs have been and they don't try to stratch and cover that up.

While another opined:

I always thought they scratch furiously and 'kick back' their hind legs as a covering motion. I guess this is your pup's way of 'flushing' his business. One possibility is that perhaps your pup is a deep thinker and was preoccupied and forgot to scratch and kick until he got inside.

Well, the Daily Dog Tip (from Dogster.com, which sounds like it would be a knowledgeable site) has a reasonable explanation:

So, why do dogs scratch with their hind legs after defecating? You might think the dog is trying to cover up his poop like a cat does, but it’s actually a way to mark territory, with the scratch marks in the ground pointing to the scent the dog has left.

This has the merit of consistency, melding peeing and pooping behavior in a pleasing fashion. Our dog is darn smart, but it's tough for me to imagine that she thinks (even instinctually): "pee is for marking," "poop is for hiding" when she goes outside.

So we've reached the bottom of the poop question barrel. Dogs are trying to spread their excrement when they scratch their legs. (Unless, they're not.)

"No taxation without representation" is idiotic in 2009

Once in a while I hear Glenn Beck on the radio, or see him on cable news. One of his catchwords these days is how "taxation without representation" supposedly is going on in the United States.

Huh?

We just had an election in 2008. Barack Obama was freely and fairly elected President. The Democratic Party freely and fairly enlarged its majorities in the House and Senate. I don't get this "without representation" stuff.

Beck is plugging tea parties as part of his 9/12 Project (nine principles and twelve values he came up with that are supposed to take us back to the good old we're-all-Americans-together days that followed 9/11).

The Boston Tea Party in 1773 had a legitimate "no taxation without representation" gripe. But the 2009 right-wing cry babies, who lost an election and can't get over it, are making a big ado about nothing.

Or, at least, very little.

This libertarian blog tries to defend the slogan. It turns out that taxation without deliberation really is what the anti-Obamaites mainly are steamed about.

They feel the stimulus package was passed by Congress without our representatives being fully informed about what was in it, or having time to debate it at length.

OK. So what else is new? During the Bush administration Republicans did the same thing a lot. Not the best way to run a Congress, yet hardly grounds for revolution.

That's what I hear, though, when I make my ears suffer through listening to conservative talk radio -- a call for revolution. Like this article, it's disturbing to hear the undertones (and sometimes overtones) of violent insurrection.

If I, or Rush, or Beck set up a freedom foundation to organize a real people’s revolt against the current destruction of our constitutional republic, how much money, time and effort are you prepared to sacrifice to support that effort? What are you willing to sacrifice for the future of your country, for your own personal freedom?

...Whether by peaceful means or violent action, only YOU can alter the current course of events.

...If the people fail to take peaceful action by defunding the evil befalling our nation, only violent options will remain. If they wait until they are broke, living a soup line existence, stripped of their Second Amendment rights, then they will have waited too long and they will no longer have the power to reverse any of it.

...If you don’t have the courage to take peaceful action, you won’t have the courage to take violent action either.

That's unpatriotic, unAmerican, and utterly idiotic. The United States has prospered by our unwavering commitment to respecting the Constitution, elections, and the rule of law.

"Only violent options will remain." These right-wing jokers remind me of the left-wing jokers in the Weather Underground, SDS, and other groups who played at being revolutionaries in the '60s.

I was pretty radical in those days. But not violent. I loved it when the Beatles came out with "Revolution."

You say you want a revolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
You tell me that it's evolution
Well, you know
We all want to change the world
But when you talk about destruction
Don't you know that you can count me out
Don't you know it's gonna be all right
all right, all right 

Yes, things are going to be all right. Chill out Glenn Beck, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and all you other revolution-inciters.

The United States is a representative democracy. If the people don't like what their elected officials are doing, tax-wise or otherwise, they'll say so in the next election.

So have your tea parties. Drink some chai, gripe about Obama, and then accept that the will of the people is being carried out -- even if you don't like what's going on.

Back in November Glenn Beck urged his listeners to accept Obama as President and to support him in every way posssible.

Good advice then. Good advice now.

Metolius editorial in Oregonian wrong again

Oregon's largest newspaper, the Oregonian, is dead-set on defending large destination resorts that threaten the fragile -- and drop-dead beautiful -- Metolius River basin.

Today's editorial outrage is "A Process of Critical Concern." It repeats a previous erroneous contention by the editorial board that current governmental and legislative efforts to protect the basin are end-runs around the state's land use planning system.

But for those who believe the state has an effective and respected system for sifting environmental, recreational, economic, agricultural, housing and other needs, the process that was engineered to protect the Metolius was far less beautiful than the river. The developers and Jefferson County officials who invested money and time into legally navigating the difficult approval process are entitled to the frustration they feel, after being knocked off their horses in midstream.

Fact 1: The process that's led to the Metolius River Basin being recommended for approval as an Area of Critical State Concern (ACSC) has been a state law since 1973, as the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development points out.

The Oregon legislature first authorized the designation of an Area of Critical State Concern (ACSC) as part of the legislation creating the statewide land use program (Senate Bill 100) in 1973.
 
At that time, several areas were identified as possibly warranting state protection in the face of uncontrolled development, including the Columbia River Gorge, areas of the Oregon Coast, and portions of the Metolius basin. Several of these areas were later protected through federal action, or through special state land use goals.
 
While the Metolius area was not immediately protected, Jefferson County did plan most of the basin as forest lands – limiting further development to forest-related uses.

So the process that is of such "critical concern" to the Oregonian editorial board is well-established.

It just hasn't been used until now, because never before has there been such an ill-considered attempt by a county to trash an irreplaceable natural treasure for some cash: property tax revenues.

Fact 2: Which gets us to one of the words in the Oregonian editorial: "midstream." Yes, the developers and Jefferson County officials are midstream in their efforts to add 3,000 homes and 10,000 people (at peak times) to an area that now has only a few hundred full-time residents.

So where is the unfairness? Just as the developers had the right to ask Jefferson County to rezone their forest land to permit destination resorts, so do the people of Oregon have the right to say "No way!" before the permitting process has been completed.

Which, it hasn't been. Over at BlueOregon, Carla Axtman has documented this in an excellent series of informative posts. Here and here she talks about the unfinished nature of the land use approval request.

In 2006, the Jefferson County Commission changed the zoning map to allow the resorts. However the process that allowed those changes is now in part in front of the Oregon Supreme Court. Thus the 2006 zoning map is still on hold and has not gone into effect.

With the two destination resorts still sitting on land zoned just for forest management/timber harvesting, the landowners can't file the land use applications to build the proposed resorts. In other words, neither of these landowners has the established right to build these resorts.

Nor should they.

Hopefully the legislature will agree with the Land Conservation and Development Commission, which held several public hearings on this issue, that the Metolius Basin needs to be designated an Area of Critical State Concern. (HB 3100 is the vehicle for doing this.)

The Oregonian editorial made it sound like the big bad state is trying to overturn a popular local decision. Wrong.

As I told a legislative committee that was holding a hearing on another bill to limit destination resorts, almost everybody in the Camp Sherman area (the main community in the Metolius basin) is opposed to the destination resorts.

The rezoning process was initiated by a few would-be developers, and pushed along by a few county commissioners. Money was, and is, the overriding factor for both parties.

Yet a study has shown that destination resorts actually cost local governments more taxes than they bring in. And the state is willing to allow the developers to use land in a less environmentally sensitive area for their destination resorts.

So saving the Metolius Basin from unneeded harmful development is entirely lawful, appropriate, and fair. Oregonian editorial board, you got it wrong.

Oh, my god, I'm twittering!

The devil must have made me do it. Or, the Grand Lord of Why Not? Because a mere three days ago I had blogified about how Twitter didn't interest me.

And now I have a Twitter page. An Emerson quote comes to mind:

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

What turned the corner on tweeting for me was a moment when, in the course of pondering the pros and cons of opening a Twitter account, and thinking "this craze is useless," I realized:

Yes! That's the point! Uselessness!

Such was one of the themes in my "The Tao of Paris Hilton" post, the popularity of which made it possible for this blog to surpass a million page views in a relatively short time. (Tip: to generate web traffic, put up photos of semi-naked famous female cultural icons.)

Once I appreciated the Taoist beauty of Twitter's uselessness, where most communications are 140 characters of less of inanity, my fingers raced to the sign-up page.

I worry about what I say on my blog posts. I try to make sense in my email messages. But with Twitter... fuck it! How wrong can I go in 140 characters? Plus, who's going to read my crappy tweets anyway?

At the moment, hardly anyone. So my first goal is to attract some followers.

This is one of the things I like about Twitter. On other social networking sites you have friends. With Twitter, you have followers. Cool. (Even better would be "acolytes," or "fawning admirers.")

At the moment my following is precisely zero. If you're concerned about the state of my fragile ego, as you should be, head to my Twitter page and click on "Follow."

Don't worry about whether there is any good reason to do this. There isn't. Remember the mantra: uselessness. Gaining a follower will make me feel better, and it won't make you feel worse.

Otherwise, I'm not promising much from this whole Twitter thing. Basically, it's fun -- another opportunity for me to play with my iPhone.

It's a kick to be able to take a photo and easily have Tweetie upload a compressed version to Twitpic, and embed a URL in my tweet. I also like watching the 140 character counter count down as I one-finger type an iPhone tweet, putting a stopper on my usual writing verbosity.

Since ego-loss isn't one of my personality characteristics, I've done some research into how to gain Twitter followers.

Given that I have no idea what purpose Twitter serves in the cosmic scheme of things, it was encouraging to read:

This is the first thing you need to know: It’s not really about how you tweet, what you say or who you talk to but who you are.

Excellent.

First off, Paris Hilton is my second cousin. Seemingly this should gain me some reflected Twitter glory. OK, not much. But since I have zero followers at the moment, my Twitter trajectory can only go up.

Second, I've written a best-selling book about Plotinus. Granted, it is only "best-selling" in comparison to other books about a Greek mystic philosopher hardly anybody has heard about. But there's got to be some author-groupies who would be delighted to find a tweet from me sailing onto their cell phones.

Third, I'm a blogger. So I'm hoping that at least a few of those who visit my HinesSight and Church of the Churchless blogs will take pity on my follower-less soul and click on that Follow button.

I promise to tweet some family dog photos. And when I next see my granddaughter, for sure some super-cute two year old photos.

Along with a whole lot of uselessness -- the main draw for Twitter followers.

Killing coyotes isn't necessary. Our neighbors are wrong.

We're engaged in a not-entirely-friendly debate with some neighbors about coyote killing. They're out to shoot the critters. We want to live with them.

The facts are on our side, because killing coyotes generally results in more of them, not less.

So says a factsheet, "Living With Coyotes," from the city of Tigard here in Oregon.
Download Coyote factsheet

While coyote control can be effective in eliminating specific individuals, it will not help reduce local populations. Coyotes have a compensatory, density-dependent breeding rate. Killing coyotes disrupts population structure causing more coyotes to breed and have larger litters. Coyotes will also quickly fill into vacated habitat from adjacent areas. For these reasons, eradication efforts frequently lead to increases in local coyote populations.

This conclusion is echoed by a scientific opinion letter on coyote control written for Predator Defense.
Download Coyotes_letter_Dr_Crabtree_11-04-97

Although removal of offending individuals can temporarily alleviate predation rates on the protected species, the alleviation is usually short-term and likely has long-term side-effects that make control activities ineffective. It can not be over-emphasized how powerfully coyote populations compensate for population reductions.

Over six years ago our neighborhood association was debating this same issue. The facts haven't changed. Coyotes aren't a big problem out here.

Or even a small problem, with rare exceptions, except when people attract them onto their property by feeding animals outside, not properly closing garbage cans, and other actions that put out a "Welcome" sign to coyotes.

As the Arizona Game and Fish Department points out:

Coyotes are curious, clever, and adaptable. They quickly learn to take advantage of any newly discovered food source, and are often attracted to yards with abundant fruit and wildlife to eat.

It's strange that our neighbors moved to their five acres, just as we did, to be closer to nature than is possible in the city. Yet they want to kill animals that fill an important role in our local natural ecosystem (coyotes are great at controlling rodent populations).

It bothers us when people shoot guns in a populated area when it isn't necessary. Especially since we have a coyote-colored dog who goes with us on walks along a community trail that extends through the neighbor's property.

Hunting is a lot more dangerous to humans than coyotes are. Or, cougars. Or, wolves.

But at least our neighbors haven't taken seriously the tongue-in-cheek land mine suggestion another humorously-minded resident came up with. Guess we should be thankful for that.

Twitter doesn't interest me. Do I need to tweet that?

Since I have two blogs, a web site, several laptops, and an iPhone, I keep wondering why Twitter hasn't tweaked my interest.

Everybody seems to be twittering, or "tweeting," these days. Well, nobody that I actually know. But I've been reading about The Twittering Class.

Which makes me wonder, should I join the Twittergentsia? I don't want to be left out of a cool social movement, especially when it involves technology. So I tried to convince myself that I needed to start tweeting.

First stop: a couple of important people's Twitter pages. First impression: yawn.

John McCain has over 254,000 followers of his tweets. I can't see why.

Ditto with George Stephanopoulos' Twitter page. The only tweet that seemed to have any interesting content was mostly incomprehensible. This isn't going to replace a New York Times story:

Early read on Geithner plan from plugged in investment source asset managers he knows just won't play until sure WH can control Congress

I then journeyed to Twitter itself, seeking to learn its mysteries from the source of all things Twitterish.

Not surprisingly (given Twitter's limit of 140 characters on tweets), I found conciseness under "Why?"

Why? Because even basic updates are meaningful to family members, friends, or colleagues—especially when they’re timely.

Eating soup? Research shows that moms want to know.
Running late to a meeting? Your co–workers might find that useful.
Partying? Your friends may want to join you.

Well, my mother is dead. I'm retired. And this sixty year-old's idea of a party is a hot bath, the latest issue of People magazine, and a glass of wine. I'd invite people to join me, but it's a small bathtub.

Here's my main problem warming up to Twitter: clicking on the main page's "Watch a video!" link led me to this bit of questionable philosophy.

Real life happens in between blogs and emails

Hmmmm. For one thing, I don't like this putdown of blogging and emailing, both of which I do a lot of. I feel that these are very much part of my "real life."

And I'm not convinced that adding Twitter tweets to my other electronic communications would enhance the real life that, presumably, I'd be telling people about.

Mark Morford had a clever column recently, "I Twitter for you!
Too old/busy/jaded to 'social network,' but still want to seem hip? Call now!"

Allow me introduce you to my groundbreaking new company, Geekamania.com. I created it to meet the needs of smart but also slightly bewildered, overwhelmed, angry, out-of-touch, nervous or otherwise increasingly irrelevant people, just like you!

The concept is very simple. Who needs Facebook and MySpace and the like? You do! But who the hell has time for such pathetic digital hoo-ha nonsense when there's dishes to be washed and gardening to be done and kids to be driven around and thorny little roses to be stopped at and smelled? No one!

That's where Geekamania comes in. Let us do the annoying but necessary-evil social networking crapola for you! For a small monthly fee, we'll keep you connected and relevant, even vaguely respectable/marginally noticeable to the jaded, spiteful, easily distracted ADHD youth of today, whether you think you want to be or not. It couldn't be easier!

Quite a few years ago, before all this social networking stuff became fashionable, I used to visit the Governor's Cup coffeehouse in Salem fairly often.

Almost every time I'd go there, I'd see the same group of people ensconced in a prime seating area near the front windows. Not all of the kaffeeklatsch'ers would be present every day, of course, but some of the regulars seemed to be full time Governor's Cup inhabitants.

After a while I began to wonder what they talked about. If you have a life outside of a coffee house, then you can share stories about it over an expresso.

But if most of your life involves talking about your life, won't there come a time when you run out of outside stories and all there is to say is something about the saying you've been doing?

So I'm going to pass on Twitter for now. Maybe, for ever. The dog is bugging me to go for a walk.

If I had a Twitter page, I could put up a tweet whenever she did that: "Dog is bugging me to go for a walk." 

Does anyone care?

And wouldn't I eventually end up saying stuff like, "Now I'm thinking about putting up a tweet about the dog bugging me to go for a walk"? Probably followed by, "I'm wondering if I'm putting too much time into thinking about putting up a tweet about the dog bugging me to go for a walk."

Hell with it. I'm going for a walk.

Now we've really proven Dr. Laura wrong

For five years Laurel and I have been building up to our ultimate nyah, nyah, you're so wrong! retort to Dr. Laura Schlesinger, the advice guru who is fond of reducing complex and mysterious human relationships to simplistic sound bites.

Back in 2004 I warmed up with "14th anniversary -- take that Dr. Laura!" I noted that Laurel and I had known each other for about eight months before we got married, and I proposed within four months.

A no-no for Dr. Laura, especially since I'd recently ended an eighteen year marriage. I said:

One of her oft-heard Relationship Tenets was that no one, absolutely no one, should commit to a serious relationship, not to speak of getting married, until some ridiculously long time had passed after a divorce—a year, I believe, maybe more. The notion seemed to be that a person can't think straight, or trust their feelings, until some sort of lengthy psychic cleansing/healing process has taken place, which can't be rushed.

Ridiculous. A point I repeated last year on St. Patrick's Day in "18th anniversary -- Dr. Laura is even more wrong."

However, my gloating couldn't be complete, because my first marriage lasted a few months longer than 18 years. Thus I had to say:

This anniversary means a lot to me. I was married a bit more than eighteen years in my first martial go-around, which ended in divorce. So Laurel and I soon will be together longer than Sue and I were.

I don't know if there's any generalizable lesson to be drawn from this except: if at first a marriage doesn't succeed, try again.

Second time around, hopefully you'll have learned something about how two people can live together without driving each other crazy.

As Laurel and I have managed to do, against Dr. Laura's odds.

Really do, as of yesterday. Nineteen years! Like I said on my other blog last night...

Growth and increased understanding come with experience. That's why second choices usually turn out better than first choices.

 For sure -- here's lovely Laurel (photo taken a few years before I met her, but she still looks remarkably youthful and much the same to my eyes).

Outrageous bonuses go to PGE and AIG executives

We here in Oregon are getting a double dose of undeserved bonus outrage. Most attention is being given to $165 million in payments to AIG employees who oversaw the crazy financial dealings that led to the company's near collapse.

But let's not lose sight of our own local corporate outrageousness: Portland General Electric's CEO, Peggy Fowler, is retiring after being given a final pay package of $4.5 million and a retirement plan of $790,000 a year.

Our electricity comes to us via the excessively expensive graces of PGE. We've been trying to save energy by using compact fluorescent bulbs, wrapping duct pipes, replacing old windows, and adding more insulation.

But our monthly electricity bill keeps going up regardless, because PGE raises rates faster than we're able to cut down on our usage. Which makes Fowler's golden parachute deeply irritating, since we and other PGE customers are paying for it.

As the Oregonian article says:

Ratepayer advocates described the pay package as one more sign of a bloated cost structure at PGE, and said it betrayed a lack of accountability at a time when the utility is raising rates and thousands of customers are losing their jobs.

"What this shows is that there's no such thing as an economic downturn for the management of a monopoly utility," said Bob Jenks, executive director of the Citizen's Utility Board. "This is the highest cost utility in the region. They raised rates last year. At a time when the economy is suffering, where's the impact on the utility?"

The parallels between AIG and PGE are interesting -- beyond the fact that both companies have a three letter abbreviated name.

Back in 2003, in "The Public Fleecing by PGE," the Oregon Public Power Coalition said:

In 2002, PGE/Enron paid almost $1 million in retention bonuses to the company’s top five executives. PGE's CEO Peggy Fowler was paid a salary of $346,000, a performance-based bonus of $200,000 and a retention bonus of $400,000, for a total of $946,000 for 2002. In comparison, the head of the Los Angeles PUD makes $200,000 annually. The Oregonian wrote in a May 1, 2003 editorial (Adding insult to injury at PGE) criticizing PGE executive bonuses, "But it's the wrong tactic for a company whose workers lost their 401(k) savings in worthless Enron stock. And it's an insult to customers hit with 30 percent and 50 percent power rate increases."

Sound familiar?

Fowler and PGE have been blazing the outrageous bonus trail for AIG -- which also is out to reward its employees for costing the public huge amounts of money via incompetent managerial decisions.

Today we learned that much of AIG's taxpayer-supplied $170 billion went to pay overseas firms that had insured their mortgage-backed investments with AIG. When the securities went bad, they wanted their money.

Only problem was, AIG had neglected to put aside funds to back the insurance that had been issued. Seems like someone at the country's largest insurance company would have thought of this.

But hey, no problem! AIG just ponied up to the public trough and asked the federal government for a bailout. To prevent a world financial meltdown, the feds had to fork over the money.

And now the shameless incompetents at AIG want to reward the people who engineered this disaster with $165 million in bonus and retention payments. Shades of PGE.

AIG is claiming that the bonuses are needed to retain key employees in the company's financial products unit. As the New York Times says:

That unit was the source of the financial derivatives blamed for the near-collapse at the heart of the economy’s downturn.

On the radio today I heard someone say, "If these are the best and the brightest, then what AIG needs are the worst and dumbest."

Right on. Why the heck should the taxpayers, who own 80% of AIG after all of the government bailouts, fork out more money to keep people who should be fired?

And why should PGE customers, like my wife and me, pay Peggy Fowler many millions of dollars for raising our electricity rates considerably above those of other utilities in the Northwest?

[Update: Here's a clever idea from a congressman -- add a surtax that would only apply to the AIG bonuses, thereby effectively taxing them out of existence and returning the money to government. Excellent.]

Destination resorts cost Oregon taxpayers a lot

Last Thursday I fired up our Prius and trundled down to the Capitol to testify in favor of a bill that would prevent additional destination resorts from trashing Oregon's beauty and livability.

Having gotten to the hearing room early, a rarity for me, I was one of the first people to sit at the HB 2227 witness table.

Early on in my testimony I plugged a 2007 blog post, "Save the Metolius from destination resorts," quoting an outrageous remark by Bill Bellamy, a Jefferson County commissioner.

"Whether or not you like what destination resorts have done, it's phenomenally significant what they do to property tax revenues."

Against the wishes of local residents in the Camp Sherman area, Jefferson County pushed through zoning changes that would allow two large destination resorts in and near the Metolius River basin.

Currently the full-time population of the basin is only several hundred. The resorts would add up to 10,000 more people at peak times.

Terrible idea.

I told the Oregon House Land Use Committee that we were drawn to become part owners of a forest service cabin on the Metolius because the area was so unspoiled.

Black Butte Ranch, a nearby destination resort, didn't appeal to us because we wanted to vacation in natural surroundings rather than golf courses, swimming pools, and paved bike paths.

This, I said, is what draws visitors to the Metolius and other world-class environmental attractions in Oregon. It sure isn't destination resorts. How many people go to the Grand  Canyon or Yellowstone National Park because they've heard of a great resort there?

Not many, for sure.

I was pleased to hear Rep. Mitch Greenlick ask another witness a question along that very line, after this Chamber of Commerce type had testified that destination resorts are just the most wonderful thing, because they attract so many visitors to Oregon.

Greenlick wanted her to comment on the idea that what draws people to areas like the Metolius River Basin is their naturalness -- a lack of subdivison-like destination resorts and other quasi-urban amenities.

She dodged the question, being one of the few witnesses at the hearing in favor of more destination resorts, and so not wanting to admit that plunking hundreds or thousands of homes down in the middle of a forest isn't the best way to attract more visitors to "unspoiled Oregon."

1000 Friends of Oregon lists other problems with destination resorts here. But in these tough economic times some are willing to ignore those drawbacks because they believe resorts are a financial gold mine for cash-strapped counties.

Rep. Gene Whisnant made this claim in his testimony. He lives in Sunriver, a central Oregon destination resort. Not surprisingly, he thought the resorts are wonderful and waxed on about the benefits they bring to a local economy.

Unfortunately, Whisnant left the hearing before Eric Kancler from Central Oregon Landwatch demolished that argument. With facts, in the form of a recently released analysis of the costs and benefits of destination resorts in Oregon. 

It turns out that these resorts end up costing taxpayers a whole bunch of money for roads, schools, and other infrastucture, over and above what they bring in via property taxes and such. Here's a summary of the findings.

A proposed Deschutes County resort was used as an example.

In conclusion, local governments and local taxpayers would be left with a cost burden of $46 million if the Thornburgh Resort is fully completed as proposed. This is a net cost after the resort has been credited for all known payments and tax revenues it will generate. The cost will ultimately be borne by other taxpayers (not the resort) through some combination of higher taxes, reduced public services, and lower facility service standards. 

Sure, there's a place for destination resorts. But what they've largely become in Oregon are rural subdivisons for full and part-time homeowners, rather than dedicated tourist facilities.

A Crook County rancher testified that he can't even get into a nearby destination resort. It's a gated community. A costly one, according to the Central Oregon Landwatch study.

The most fundamental question that this report seeks to answer is, "How will the approval of a destination affect local taxpayers and the general public?"

The answer it turns out, is that the standard model for a golf-course subdivision-oriented destination resort presents local governments and taxpayers with a substantial net burden that will result either in higher overall taxes or a decrease in the quality of basic services.

Jeez...I didn't win "sexiest vegetarian" contest

Oh, man, I'm so bummed. Laurel picked up the newspaper yesterday and pointed out that PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door contest had a male Salem finalist.

And the guy wasn't me. The reason must have been that I didn't enter.

 Heck, what would have prevented a sixty year old who's been a vegetarian for almost four decades, and is still able to flaunt a beefcake tofucake photo like this from winning the contest?

Oh, here's an idea: ageism.

I carefully inspected the photos of the male and female Sexiest Vegetarian Next Door 2008 contestants. Well, "carefully" actually only applies to one of the categories -- which featured this winner.

But I did zip through the bio's of the 16 male finalists and learned that the eldest was just 40. Forty! Are there no sexy vegetarians older than that? 

Hopefully PETA will include a Senior category in its 2009 contest. I'm working on losing a few pounds and doing some extra weightlifting just in case. (Plus, figuring out how to use Photoshop, probably my best bet.)

Index investing rocks and Jim Cramer sucks

I've hugely enjoyed watching Jon Stewart roast CNBC in general, and Jim Cramer in particular, over the Comedy Central humor fire.

If you missed Stewart's spot-on demolishing of CNBC's and Cramer's supposed financial acumen, you can catch up here and here.

Cramer is entertaining on his frenetic "Mad Money" show. But his investing philosophy -- individual stock-picking and market timing -- is a proven loser. Why anyone follows his bad advice is a mystery to me.

Hopefully The Daily Show's expose of Cramer's cluelessness will lead fans of Mad Money to look elsewhere for sound investment advice.

On the first of Jon Stewart's rants he shows Cramer saying in 2007 that Bank of America "was going to 60 in a heartbeat." Today it's around 5, yet guess what? Cramer is still saying Buy! to B of A (sure sounds like it...watch very end of video on that link).

Here's one of Stewart's better lines.

Maybe the most shocking Jim Cramer gem is when he is advising that his audience buy stocks: "You should be buying these, and accept that they are overvalued, but accept that they are going to keep going higher. I know that sounds irresponsible but that's how you make the money." On that day in 2007, the Dow was at 13,930. It is now below 7,000.

"If I had only followed CNBC's advice," Stewart says at one point, "I'd have a million dollars today. Provided I started with a 100 million dollars."

Smart investors realize that what Cramer and CNBC are peddling is pure bullshit. Plenty of sound research has proven that index (or passive) investing leads to superior returns.

Sure, a few people manage to beat the market. And a few people also win big bucks in lotteries.

But just as it'd be crazy to follow the advice of a lucky Megabucks winner ("I chose the numbers in my children's birthdates"), so is it foolish to forget that some always will pick stock market winners, or forecast economic trends, purely by chance.

In the long run, they'll almost certainly do worse than if they'd tried to merely match the market through index investing. The Motley Fool has a 60 second way of convincing you of this.

For those who are deeply addicted to stock picking and market timing, there's a 12 Step Program for Active Investors. (Listen to the "musical interpretation" link...clever.)

I've been a fairly serious investor for about twenty-five years. For quite a while I was the type of guy who'd be a Cramer acolyte. I subscribed to investing newsletters, researched stocks, tried to devise foolproof investing schemes.

Until I realized that I was acting foolishly. And started reading about index investing.

Since 2002 we've had a big chunk of our investments in DFA (Dimensional Fund Advisors) index offerings. DFA is a pleasingly geeky outfit. Their approach is highly sophisticated, as you'll see if you take their philosophy tour -- which starts on this page.

I don't claim to understand all the economics jargon. But I do know that I sleep a lot more soundly now that I've given up trying to outsmart the market.

Currently I aim for about a 50-50 mix of equities and bonds. Back in 2002, when I got into index investing, it was 60-40. Here's a chart from Mint showing how we've done compared to the S&P 500 during the past year.

The green shows that we've been outperforming the overall stock market since the downturn began. No big surprise, since our 40-50% share of fixed income investments softens the financial meltdown pain.

As do our index funds (see this Vanguard video), partly since we're not forking out for large fees or transaction costs. The overall result is that we're down about 31% in the past year, while the S&P 500 is down about 47%.

That 16% difference means that we would have done about 50% worse without following a balanced asset allocation and index investing plan. This isn't rocket science -- just simple common sense.

Which is missing from CNBC and Jim Cramer.

They try to sucker viewers into believing that the talking heads on their cable channel can predict what's going to happen with both individual stocks and the overall market.

Warren Buffet says, in less than a minute, that index funds are the best investment for most people. Is Jim Cramer a better investor than Buffet? No way.

Crazy kicker law is downside of Oregon quirkiness

I've loved Oregon's independent streak since I moved here from California in 1971. But being pioneering and one-of-a-kind in the country isn't always something to be proud of.

Let's evaluate some examples of this state's legislative quirkiness.

First assisted suicide law ...great.
First bottle bill ...great.
First statewide land use planning law ...great.
Oregon beach bill ...great. (Hawaii only other state that guarantees public access)
Oregon medical marijuana bill ...great. (Second state to have one, after California)
Ban on self-service gas ...OK (New Jersey only other state with a ban)
No sales tax ...stupid (one of five states without one)
Oregon kicker law ...SUPER stupid 

Well, five of eight "great's" is a good score.

I gave a grudging "OK" to the ban on pumping our own gas because I like to sit in my car and play with my iPhone when it's cold or rainy (which is a lot of the time). But on nice days when a gas station is busy, I'd prefer to be able to do it myself.

It's the last two items that cause Oregon the most idiosyncratic financial grief. And they're related.

Lacking a sales tax, and with property tax revenues limited by Measure 5, government revenues in the state are heavily reliant on income taxes. Obviously these go up when times are good, and down when times are bad.

Oregon should have a sales tax to take advantage of tourist spending and the underground economy. This would help even out the state revenue stream, which is highly volatile.

However, the absolute stupidest thing Oregon does is refund income taxes when the projection of what those taxes will bring in during a two year period is off by 2% or more.

Only one state, quirky Oregon, engages in this insanity -- known as the "kicker" (because income taxes get kicked back to those who paid them).

Conservatives like to say that government should be run like a business. This is a great argument for doing away with the kicker.

What business would refund money to customers who bought their stuff if its actual revenues turned out to be higher than projected in the business plan? Answer: no company that wanted to stay in business.

The Oregonian's editorial board correctly said today, "Bust, boom, bust: Oregon is kicking itself again."

Here we go again, with the state fresh from handing back a billion dollars to taxpayers, ready again to shutter courts, take police off the roads, dent schools and go to taxpayers, hat in hand, for more revenue.

This is dumb, dumb, dumb, yet Oregon can't seem to stop doing it. The question now is, have you seen enough yet? Are you willing to give up the occasional unexpected Christmas tax rebate check -- temporarily -- to allow your state to build an adequate rainy day fund?

I'd like to see the kicker law done away with. But proposed changes to the kicker are moves in the right direction.

Arguments in favor of keeping the law as it is make zero sense.

Right-wingers call limiting the kicker a tax increase, which obviously it isn't. The stupid kicker law simply prevents the state from keeping legitimate tax revenues just because the state economist wasn't able to accurately forecast how much money would come in two years down the line.

If conservatives like the kicker philosophy so much, then they should be willing to forego an unexpected raise or stock market windfall if their family budget didn't anticipate this increased income.

(Here's a cartoon that sums up the kicker craziness.)

Hopefully Oregonians will recognize the wisdom of changing the kicker law. There are times when being the only state in the country doing something means Oregon should stop doing it, because it's a dumb idea.

The first few comments about the newspaper editorial were right-wing talk show'ish nonsensical. I liked how an assistant editor at the Oregonian, Rick Attig, jumped into the discussion with his own cogent comment.

Please give the piece another, more careful read. It says the kicker policy, and the effect of closing schools one year, sending back a big kicker check the next, then shutting down courts and scrambling not to close schools again is "dumb, dumb, dumb." That's hardly the same as calling voters "dumb." Tombdragon, are there any policies this state has that you think are dumb? And if the answer is yes, does that therefore mean that you are calling the Oregon electorate dumb? You all are, of course, free to be as cynical as you want to be about the Legislature or the political leadership in this state about whether they can be trusted to save tax reserves. But that doesn't give you a license to deliberately twist the meaning of our editorial.

Rather than use our blog and the comments we encourage to invite our readers to stop reading the paper, why don't you argue this editorial it on its merits? Why is a public finance system that has wreaked havoc with the state budget over the last 10 years the right one for Oregon?

Rick Attig, Associate Editor

Right on, Rick.

The strange tale of Randi Rhodes and Nancy Skinner

I'm so happy that Randi Rhodes has departed Air America. I liked her politics, but hated her radio talk show style.

(See my "Randi Rhodes is an embarrassment to progressives" and "Air America needs to dump Randi Rhodes.")

I used to have to grit my teeth when I tuned in KPOJ, Portland's Progressive Talk Station, during the late afternoon hours when Rhodes held forth -- egotistical, interrupting callers, unorganized, factually challenged, irritatingly shrill.

(Comments on this blog post echo my feelings about Rhodes.)

Now Nancy Skinner has replaced her.

Skinner is much easier to listen to: calm, well informed, thoughtful, respectful to guests (even conservative ones), focused on events of the day rather than her own self.

What's disturbing, though, is how Skinner came to be on the air in the fashion she is, because this shows the shakiness of progressive talk radio.

Listening to KPOJ while driving home tonight I heard Mike Malloy speaking about how he understood the problem of job losses, because he'd had three jobs recently.

Malloy and Rhodes were syndicated by Nova M Radio, which has filed for bankruptcy. Rhodes was involved in some sort of contract dispute with Nova M.

In a February 16 KPOJ blog post (ALL CAPS, echoing her over-the-top demeanor) Rhodes said she couldn't reveal details about the "disabling event," but assured her listeners that she wasn't responsible in any way for the dust-up that was keeping her off the air.

Here's some additional news and gossip about the Rhodes-Nova M controversy. Apparently Sheldon Drobny, the founder of Nova M and a co-founder of Air America, attempted suicide a few days prior to the dispute.

At first Nancy Skinner filled in for Rhodes. Then, she took over for Rhodes on Nova M -- joining a sinking broadcasting ship.

After Nova M went bankrupt, a company called On Second Thought took over. Its CEO was Mike Newcomb, a doctor from Arizona (I believe). The takeover announcement was made on the Nova M web site, which now is no more.

As is the short-lived On Second Thought, according to Mike Malloy. Now he's broadcasting independently, as is Nancy Skinner -- based on her tale I heard a few days ago about all the work it took to set up a national satellite feed from Detroit.

Malloy said that he isn't being paid, along with most (if not all) progressive talk show hosts.

Conservatives like Sean Hannity make millions, he said, while liberals like him have profit-sharing deals with radio stations. And sometimes even sell ads themselves.

That's sad. Democrats outnumber Republicans in this country by quite a bit. Obama is riding a cresting wave of progressive politics. Yet progressive talk radio is hanging on by a thread.

I don't undertand it. Nor does this blogger, who is equally disturbed at the situation. Unlike me, he wants Rhodes back on the air, and says:

One thing is clear. (NOT channel) If liberal talk radio is going to continue to exist, there needs to be a concerted effort to gather a consortium of “rich liberal” investors to finance it, and they should hire radio PROFESSIONALS to manage it. There are just too many instances where good-intentioned, but inexperianced people buy networks as a kind of hobby and run it into the ground, and the talent WITH it.

I agree, so long as Skinner continues to have a show, and Rhodes doesn't. I'm concerned that Rhodes is still shown on the 3-6 pm KPOJ listing, even though Nancy Skinner is heard during that time.

Please, KPOJ, don't bring back Randi Rhodes. You'll lose this Salem listener again if you do.

Sam Adams "Gay?" video offends some (not me)

From my south Salem viewpoint some sixty miles away from Portland, I feel light years distant from the "Sam Adams is a lying, cheating, despicable bastard!" frenzy that many Mayor-haters continue to engage in.

(To bring those outside Oregon up to speed, Portland Mayor Sam Adams is dealing with a scandal involving a relationship with a fellow gay guy who was 17 when they first met, and 18 when they had sex. Adams lied about the nature of the affair prior to his election last November. Read all about it here, here, and here.)

Today blogger Jack Bogdanski put up "A new low for Portland" post. When I saw the title I wondered what serious blow had befallen the greenest city in America ("a role model for the nation").

Turns out it was a You Tube video from last October called "Randy Leonard's Wild Gay Chase." Leonard is a Portland city council member. My wife and I watched it. Laughed almost continually. Saw nothing offensive at all.

Have a watch.

What we can't understand is how so many commenters on Bogdanski's post found this five-month-old video (in their words) unspeakable, ugly, idiotic, useless, not entertaining, vulgar, pathetic, unfunny, sophomoric, unbelievable, crude, inappropriate, disgusting.

Dudes, you all need to get out more. Spend some time on Comedy Central, where my wife and I hang out a lot. Laugh more and judge less. Loosen up.

Neither the world, nor Portland, is coming to an end because the Mayor, a city commissioner, and rock star Storm Large had some satirical video fun with Adams' gayness for a Portland tradition, Candidates Gone Wild. 

Like I said before...

Portland, realize how fortunate you are. The left-leaning citizens of Salem would be overjoyed to have a sex-crazed 42-year old gay mayor named Sam Adams.

They're stuck with Janet Taylor, who would never be caught doing anything illicit, and also will never be caught leading her town in an intelligent, creative, dynamic, Green manner (I say "they" because we live five miles outside of the city limits).

It'd be crazy if Portland cut loose a competent mayor like Sam Adams just because he tried to keep his on-the-edge-of-propriety sex life private. And, admittedly, out of the campaign for mayor spotlight.

Warren Buffet and me have one thing in common

While I'm waiting for my mood-elevating soma to arrive from the government, I'll try to reduce my financial meltdown anxiety by griping about what the federal stimulus and bailout plans are doing for us, personally.

In short: nothing.

At least, nothing that I've been able to discern from reading all the newspaper and magazine articles with headlines like, "How you'll benefit from the stimulus package."

Well, the only good news is that this makes me feel like a monetary brother to Warren Buffet, investing guru extraordinaire.

Our net worth and economic knowledge are vastly different, but both Warren and me are ticked at how financial failures -- corporate or individual -- are getting a much better deal than the rest of us.

Here's how Buffet sees things:

Funders that have access to any sort of government guarantee -- banks with FDIC-insured deposits, large entities with commercial paper now backed by the Federal reserve, and others who are using imaginative methods (or lobbying skills) to come under the government's umbrella - have money costs that are minimal.

Conversely, highly-rated companies, such as Berkshire, are experiencing borrowing costs that, in relation to Treasury rates, are at record levels. Moreover, funds are abundant for the government-guaranteed borrower but often scarce for others, no matter how creditworthy they may be. ... Though Berkshire's credit is pristine -- we are one of only seven AAA corporations in the country -- our cost of borrowing is now far higher than competitors with shaky balance sheets but government backing.

Yeah, that's just how I feel. Still-solvent individuals are getting screwed just as much as successful firms like Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway are.

On the income side, money market interest rates are down to just about zero. Our interest-bearing checking account paid us 41 cents last month, even though we had an average daily balance of several thousand dollars.

I feel like telling West Coast Bank, "just keep your damn money." At the end of a year the CEO can buy himself a fancy large latte with the picayune interest. That way somebody will get some evident benefit from it.

Recently Vanguard reported it is closing Treasury money market funds to new investors because the yields are so low.

Money market investors across the industry have seen yields on their funds decline sharply in recent months. For example, the average yield among U.S. Treasury money market funds was only 0.15% as of December 31, 2008, down from 2.71% at the end of 2007 (source: Lipper Inc.). For a hypothetical investor with a $10,000 money market account, that's an annualized difference in income of $256.

So retirees and others who have acted responsibly, building up a decent nest egg of cash, now are getting hardly any income from their savings since the Federal Reserve has reduced short term interest rates to nearly zero.

Searching for a bright spot in the financial meltdown gloom, I figured that if we're getting just about no interest on our savings, then we should be able to borrow money for just about nothing.

Not exactly. Rates for a home equity line of credit are running between 4% and 10% at the MAPS Credit Union that we belong to. Home equity loans, between 5% and 10.6%.

That seems pretty steep, given how little financial institutions are paying out to depositors and, as Buffet says, how minimal money costs are to them.

Meanwhile, failed corporations like AIG keep on raking in big bucks from the government (which means us, the taxpayers, ultimately). This morning I heard Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner tell a congressional hearing, "AIG was able to grow up without any adult supervision."

That was a nice off-the-cuff remark regarding necessary regulation. However, it doesn't negate the fact that the Federal Reserve chairman says AIG acted irresponsibly.

Yet still has gotten $150 billion from the government.

We need a new well. Not wanting to deplete our cash reserves, we're considering borrowing the money for it. It'd be nice if the stimulus or bailout packages threw us a financial bone that we could chew on.

But since we're retired, we don't get a break on payroll taxes. Since we aren't behind on mortgage payments, we don't get low-cost financing. Since we aren't a failed corporation, we don't get an infusion of capital.

What we get is next to zero interest on our savings, and a hefty comparative borrowing cost. Plus being able to watch our net worth sink along with the stock market.

Things would be a lot worse if Bush were still in office, or if McCain had won last November. Still, I'm waiting for the Obama economic bump.

Or failing that, a big box of soma to support my psyche through these tough times.

Stock market down -- we need a soma high

Contemplating today's continuing stock market meltdown, which is bearing a disturbing resemblance to the Great Depression, thoughts of soma started running through my anxiety-soaked head.

Remember soma? It's a drug featured in Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World." Wikipedia recaps a book that I read a long time ago:

All members of society are conditioned in childhood to hold the values that the World State idealizes. Constant consumption is the bedrock of stability for the World State. Everyone is encouraged to consume the ubiquitous drug, soma, which is probably a historical allusion to a mythical drink of the ancient Aryans. Soma is a hallucinogen that takes users on enjoyable, hangover-free "vacations".

Sounds pretty damn good right now. Bring on the soma, Obama.

I'm ready for a brave new world. Recently I've said to European-style socialism, bravo. Ditto to legalizing (and taxing) marijuana. Unfortunately, it's going to take a while before we get there.

This is why, in the interim, the government needs to keep our brains from exploding with thoughts of We're fucked! (which is pretty much all that I hear on cable news and see in the newspaper these days).

Thus, the need for soma.

Simply redirect a few billion dollars into emergency pharmacological research from all the money that's being thrown into financial bailouts, most of which doesn't seem to be doing any good.

A drug without negative side effects that makes you feel really good about whatever is happening...bring it on. Along with the World State. Who cares about freedom and democracy if we've got soma on the shelf?

If you're not convinced that soma is for you, here's a nice collection of soma-related quotations from "Brave New World." After seeing today's Dow Jones closing value, this passage appealed to me.

"And if ever, by some unlucky chance, anything unpleasant should somehow happen, why, there's always soma to give you a holiday from the facts. And there's always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering. In the past you could only accomplish these things by making a great effort and after years of hard moral training. Now, you swallow two or three half-gramme tablets, and there you are. Anybody can be virtuous now. You can carry at least half your mortality about in a bottle. Christianity without tears-that's what soma is."

Cool! It sure would be nice if soma was available now. The same Huxley web site that provided the quotes has an article that speculates about what soma might be.

The substance that goes by that name has a rich ancient Vedic history. But religion or mythology isn't what the world requires now. We need a real drug that will make us look at our IRA, 401k, or brokerage house statements and think, Ah, so fine.

So just as the Obama administration is encouraging (or forcing) the auto industry to switch gears, this also needs to be done with the pharmaceutical industry.

There's plenty of soma-precursors for researchers to study and learn from. They need to get to work, pronto. Next time the Dow drops 300 points, I want to be in a Brave New World state of mind.

"Swallowing half an hour before closing time, that second dose of soma had raised a quite impenetrable wall between the actual universe and their minds."