I'm in Eugene Oregon now and I'm finding quite a lot of differences between Eugene and Burlington.   First of all, Eugene is about five times large in population.   It also sits next to Springfield, Oregon which is a blue collar town.  Eugene is a university city, much like Burlington, home to the University of Oregon. 

 The bus service here is excellent.  They have one free bus the “EmX” which goes from Eugne to Springfield every ten minutes in its own travel lane of a six-lane main street.  That makes seven lanes total!  It's fast and efficient, a state-of-the-art marvel in bus transportation.

 Another difference is the fact that you can buy a day-pass for bus transportation for only $2.50.  A one-way fare is $1.25, just like in Burlington.  But Burlington doesn't sell day passes.  What a difference it makes in terms of economic activity if you don't need to worry about paying another bus fare every time you want to go somewhere.

For example, there is a bus which runs about 60 miles out of Eugene into the Cascade Mountains.  Yes, it's a CITY bus and only costs $1.25.  You can take you bike on it too.  That means that you could commute into Eugene in the morning, take a few buses around town, and return to your country home for the total of only $2.50 a day.  For $35 you can get a montly pass.  What a deal!

Bicycles are very popular here and the most stolen item in town.  Theft seems to be the big crime in Eugene.

Food is cheaper too, by a long shot.  I bought broccoli for 99 cents a pound yesterday.  Fruits and vegetables in general are better and cheaper here.

Rents are cheaper too.  I could get an apartment here for much less than $500 a month, perhaps for $350.  When I arrived in Eugne I stayed in a Hostel for $22.  It was a nice clean place too.  I learned that there is another hostel which is about the same price.  Where is the Burlington Hostel anyway?  I tried to find it once but couldn't.

Here's a URL with some comments from others about Eugene.

http://www.hostelz.com/hostels/USA/Oregon/Eugene

I'd say this place has more “hippie culture” than Burlington does.

It also has a more active anarchist culture.  It's liberal but with a “Big Brother is watching” attitude about it.  Eugene has a history of hassling vagrants. The homeless shelter is run by a religious group and the equivalent of the “Day Station” is run by another religious group.  The Catholics are big in providing food and services here.  It has a distinctively more Christian feel than Burlington does.

The Pacific Ocean is about an hour away.  The Cascades are about an hour away in the opposite direction.  So you can cool off at the beach or at the hot springs in the mountains.  If you want a big city, Portland is about two hours north of here.

Marijuana is plentiful and virtually legal.  Actually, one of my friends here has a grower's permit for medical marijuana, both for himself and another person.  I've seen his plants in the back room .. about two dozen.  He doesn't have to hide the grow room or the bags of pot laying around.  It's quite nice to be “out from under” the oppressive thumb of government.  There are 15,000 Oregonians who have permits to use medical marijuana, mostly for pain reasons.  7,000 new applications have been filed in the past year.

See http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/ommp/data.shtml  for details.

Oregon is a big state, compared to Vermont, which is a small state.

Oregon votes by mail … everyone does.  It seems to work fine for them.  Talk about paper ballots …. it works.

Oregon has no sales tax.  It's really quite nice to pay the price advertised rather than that price PLUS sales tax.  At some pleaces in Vermont the sales tax seems to be close to ten percent.  That makes a difference.

Cigarettes are cheaper here but not by much and the Governor wants to add a 65 cent per pack tax.  States everywhere are looking for ways to increase revenue.  

I'm thinking of presenting my Vermont Freedom Currency idea ( http://stevemoyer.us/vfc ) to Oregon as well.  We need to “crack the egg” on the money system, the idea that the banks control our lives through the debt mechanism.  We can have more than one way to get what we need.  We simply need to break out of the box which I call the “tyranny of money.”  Perhaps Oregonians will be open to the idea.

 Steve Moyer

Cross posted from Rational Resistance.

 Although there is still a year and a half left of Bush's reign, commentators have started discussing the historical significance of the Bush administration. Never mind that he's the worst, most corrupt, president in history, we've survived incompetence and corruption before.

No, the key here is the absolute war on our constitutional system of government that Bush has carried out, and this week's events have once again demonstrated how these attacks have worked. We have already seen Bush's use of “signing statements” as a means of undermining or sidestepping the Congress. He has made it clear that nothing that the legislative branch can do can limit his executive power.

Now, his statement this week on the Scooter Libby free pass demonstrates that he has the same attitude toward the judiciary. Here's what he said: “I respect the jury’s verdict,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive.”

Again: “I have concluded“.

Anyone with the slightest knowledge of American government knows that the trial and sentencing of those charged with crimes is a power of the judicial branch, and there are good reasons for that. Reasons like protecting the innocent from over zealous or politically motivated prosecutions, and like sheltering the criminal justice system from favoritism and undue influence.

In other words, it isn't up to the president to determine the justice of a sentence, it is up to the courts. If there were an argument that the sentence was unjust and excessive, Mr. Libby would be free to make that argument as part of his appeal.

In this case, though, by commuting the sentence, specifically based on his own determination of what is a fitting punishment, Bush has announced to the world that his executive power knows no bounds, and that, as in the case of signing statements, he will rule as he will, by fiat, unbounded by the rule of law.

I don't ask whether the United States can survive this corrupt autocrat. I do ask whether our democracy can.