Are you one to keep track of sustainability news in your local paper, maybe The O and perhaps online? Do you faithfully follow LUBA appeals and UGB hearings? Are you looking for the next green tax credit, or want to keep tabs on how your elected reps are working to protect the planet?
There are a bunch of you out there like that here in the great PNW, but as with any proactive search for news and information, it's a hell of a chore to keep up, even if you know just where to look. Wouldn't it be great if someone was doing the watching out FOR you, and simply dropped the best of what they've found to your email inbox every day? And threw in a little economic and cultural news for good measure?
Sightline Daily is a free news service and blog featuring sustainability, economic, and social news from around the Northwest. Sightline Daily emails give you a snapshot of the day's news. Our editors get up at 5AM every weekday, check more than 40 papers, and handpick the top 10 stories affecting life in our region.
Weekly Score emails give you the best of our blog every Friday. From walkability and transit to climate policy and human health, Sightline's researchers provide commentary and connect the dots across issues.
When you sign up, you’ll join a group of journalists, policy makers, and engaged citizens who use Sightline Daily to stay on top of their game. Readers call it “a great way to get the most important and interesting headlines of the day in one quick location."
Granola in vanilla Silk for breakfast, with a side of NW enviro news--how can you top that?
Ah, but you can: if you sign up for the Sightline Daily before October 29, you'll be entered to win more than just the sense of well being that comes with being properly informed. How's an all-expenses, two-night trip to the Emerald City sound?Two Amtrak tickets, two nights at the snazzy new Hyatt Olive 8 with breakfast included, vouchers for dinner at the equally hip Lark and Sutra, plus other goodies for activities during the day. Does. Not. Suck!
Even if you don't get the chance to sign up by the 28th, or don't win the trip, you'll still come out a winner if you sign up. A well-informed electorate is a powerful electorate!
Fruit exporters in Washington, Oregon and California have been in negotiations with Japan for years to allow cherry imports without requiring the fruit to be fumigated for codling moth. Growers in the U.S. have argued the pest is not a problem for cherries.
Japan agreed on Thursday to allow cherries from orchards that use traps to control the pest, rather than fumigate for it. Fumigation tends to shorten the cherries' shelf life, so growers have typically shipped them by air. Under the new rules, growers should be able to export more cherries in the future by ship, which is less expensive.
"It's a big deal, not so much because of the volume, but because of the fruit quality," said Jim Archer, manager of Northwest Fruit Exporters, a nonprofit trade group that represents apple and cherry packers and shippers in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. "Fumigation takes a toll on the fruit quality, and it does not have as good a shelf life." The traps use pheromones to attract the moths then catch them with a sticky material.
As someone who considers the July weekend when he and the rest of the Joes go to Hood River to pick cherries to be one of the highlights of the year, I'm excited for our growers. More exports means more financial stability for the orchards, which means they'll be around for me next year, and the next, and the next. I just hope they grow enough for the locals, too.
As promised, Oregon Republican Chairman Bob Tiernan on Tuesday launched a radio commercial accusing Gov. Ted Kulongoski of "intentionally delaying" his signing of two tax bills to make it harder for opponents to refer them to the ballot.
The radio spot, running on five stations in the Portland market and two others downstate, seizes on an issue that has been closely followed on conservative talk radio and in blogs. The governor has until Aug. 10 to sign bills while opponents have until Sept. 25 to gather enough signatures to place the two tax bills before voters (they need just over 55,000 valid signatures for each measure).
Anna Richter Taylor, Kulongoski's spokeswoman, reiterated that the governor is not delaying on signing the bills. "That's a false accusation," she said. "He's not sitting on it."
She said the governor will follow his usual process in handling the flood of bills at the end of the session and will probably sign the bills next week.
Frankly, what if he WERE sitting on it? Totally his perogative, and with "pocket activity" based on elapsed time since passage, clearly the timing of a signing or vetoing action is part of the job, and part of a governor's powers. For a bill that the GOP seems to think is a slam dunk for repeal in a referendum, why the whining about how much time they'll have? That doesn't sound like exuberant confidence. A better radio ad? "Wait all you want, Governor--Oregonians have already made up their minds to send your tax bill packing." But that's not the way the Party of Boo-Hoo rolls, I guess.
Sorry this is so late everyone, I have been busy in my personal life and have received a job offer this week. I appreciate your patience as I begin to juggle work, life, and the site.
As always please check out my site Oregon Watch for all your Measure 49 needs.
Onto the news... Another slow week and really only two issues appeared in the news this week, fire safety, and the Oregonian's in Action lawsuit over the ballot title decision. Lets get going..
As always, please check out my site Oregon Watch for all your Measure 49 needs.
There seems to be a lot of noise out there right now about the issue of surviving spouses and what rights they have under Measure 49 and what rights they have under Measure 37. Northwest Republican is promoting a story over on a blog called The Truth about Measure 49 (The Truth), both sites are Anti-Measure 49. The story is claiming that Measure 49 will not provide surviving spouses with benefits as the Yes on Measure 49 campaign has said here. What is the real story, who is actually right? Lets get to it.
In the first of what will become a series of posts, I proudly present
the In the News Weekly Roundup. There was at least one article a day
for most of the week, and lots to wade through over the weekend. Lets
get to it.
(I hope by promoting this we can encourage Matthew to continue producing these for us. While M49 looks to be in decent shape for passage so far, it's important to stay on top of it and continue making the case for reform of M37. I look forward to more updates...maybe with links to the articles mentioned next time? - promoted by torridjoe)
Third installment, one day late. The news about this measure just doesn't seem to die down. I am thinking that this issue will more than likely pick up steam in the press as time goes on and as election day nears. Let's get it rolling.
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