CRAIG CLINE: On January 4th, the Statesman Journal ran an Associated Press article entitled: “Most state budgets on path to even leaner times.†The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reports that state budgets are likely to fall $180 billion short for the new fiscal year. According to the Pew Center on the States, our own Oregon is ninth among the ten “worst†states, and 30th among all states, with a 14.5 percent budget gap for 2009-10 (as of July 2009).
Youth Empowered Action Camp
NORA KRAMER: Youth Empowered Action (YEA) Camp is training the next generation of leaders and activists who will work for the environment, peace, animal rights, justice, gay rights, etc. We will be having three sessions next summer — two at last year’s beautiful venue near Santa Cruz, CA, and one just outside Portland, Oregon.
Global Warming Caused by Global Warring
CLIMATE CHANGE: The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will more than wipe out any reduction in carbon from the government’s proposed climate measures …
100 Ways You Can Help Stop Violence
WORDS TO LIVE BY: Practical ideas for living and teaching peace.
Letters to the Editor
LETTERS: 1) “Lack of Draft Leads to Apathy” from Carla Mikkelson; and 2) A poetic letter, “Where Does the President Go?” from Virginia Bailey or Portland, OR.
New Afghan War Cost Analysis
JO COMERFORD: The president’s $30 billion figure for getting those 30,000-plus new surge troops into Afghanistan is going to prove a “through-the-basement estimate.†As for the dates for getting them in and beginning to get them out? Well, it’s grain-of-salt time there, too. According to Steven Mufson and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, some of the fuel storage facilities being built to support the surge troops won’t even be completed by the time the first of them are scheduled to leave the country, 18 months from now.