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I think Obama is incredibly brilliant and he is working the extremes against each other in an impossible situation trying to salvage something of our nation.  He was a constitutional law professor before he went into politics.  He knows full well all the ways our government falls short of American law.  He knows how the system works---better than you and me put together.  And a few more.  And here's where my conjecturing begins.  I believe that Obama realizes that our nation has been hijacked by business, that multinational corporations have more influence on our laws and procedures than the people do.  The people have abdicated their vote by being uninformed and apathetic.  I believe that Obama cares about the people more than any party platform, and more than he cares about his image.  In spite of our overall slackness.  He sees the utter disaster that impends, and he is trying to work inside a corrupt system to help it implode enough that the people have a chance.

A word about the impending disaster.  My parents were the last American generation to be richer than their parents.  Their time represented the peak of wealth in the American general population. We are going to have to find our new normal, and where that ends up depends dramatically on how we choose to disassemble what we have.... The new American standard of living depends on what happens now.  And it took more than one president or one generation to create it.  It is the perfect storm leading toward the end of an empire, and a crisis of resource availability versus population planetwide.  Obama can't fix it. Things will never again be what they were.  But the way Americans think, or the way the media thinks, that's his job.

posted 2 years, 5 months ago
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Yes, I swim in it, and row and paddle. I was a river guide on many rivers around the US from 1989 until 2000, and have worked as a river ranger for the BLM, and have worked in river conservation in West Virginia, attempting to minimize Acid Mine Drainage.

I am new to Portland and I am very interested to hear more about specific toxins and their sources. Paper mills can be a source of dioxin: what is the dioxin content of the Willamette at Portland? Military installations are a source of perchlorate: what is the content of perchlorate? How much mercury is in there? What else is in there that might go through the skin?

The fecal matter in the river frankly does not alarm me. As long as we do not ingest it, the bacteria will not harm us. Our skin is "shitproof". And I have worked in rivers that had higher fecal coloform levels than the Willamette.

posted 4 years, 9 months ago
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