Oregon Hikers

retired jerry wrote:That's where it will be after several earthquakes

The melting polar ice could push Alaska south. We've seen the power of water...

Several questions that will never be answered. Union Pacific seemed to know the cause of the crash very soon after the incident. This seems like one of those "oops" moments. Like maybe a repair crew was working on the tracks at the time and there was a communication error with dispatch? Fact is, bolts don't come undone by themselves, especially along railroad tracks that had just been inspected just weeks before days before. If I may add some thoughts to this great mystery, it wasn't just a single bolt that caused this accident, but several bolts that had been dislodged perhaps on purpose?

One thing for sure..... Union Pacific should be very thankful for the enormous amount of grace that has been given to them by the powers above. If they did not believe in guardian angels before, they should now pay more attention.

The other issue is this...

Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky, a senior organizer with Columbia RiverKeeper, told ThinkProgress. "They (City of Mosier) used the democratic process to pass a resolution, they have been active in public comment periods on fossil fuel transportation for years, their citizens are part of a broader, region-wide coalition. They’ve done everything right, and yet they still experienced this horrific tragedy in their community."

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/0 ... pposition/

Something more important to think about. Our democracy is in trouble. USA is on the threshold of losing its identity as a "full democracy" and could soon be officially labeled a "flawed democracy". It wouldn't take much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index


In 2015 USA was rated at #20 on the democracy index, just below Uruguay. Yes indeed, the democratic process is broken in the USA and everyone needs to understand how bad things are here.

they should be thankful it didn't happen on one of those stretches where the tracks go in the middle of the river

Something more important to think about. Our democracy is in trouble. USA is on the threshold of losing its identity as a "full democracy" and could soon be officially labeled a "flawed democracy". It wouldn't take much.Yes indeed, the democratic process is broken in the USA and everyone needs to understand how bad things are here.

I'm certainly no expert on this but, I believe we have always been more a representative democracy or even a republic than a true democracy.

https://www.bing.com/search?q=democracy ... 5501142599

https://answers.yahoo.com/question/inde ... 020AAuFy8a

I guess we all have different ideas of what a democracy is. As I understand it, democracy is the belief in freedom and equality between people, more so than a specific system of government. American democracy has worked hand-in-hand with our constitutional republic, or so it was in the past. USA is now drifting further and further away from democracy into something else. Nobody seems to agree just where this thing is going.

windmtnpete wrote:Nobody seems to agree just where this thing is going.

Hmmm, seems to be widespread agreement on the right that it's actually gone to socialist hell, while the left sees us tumbling mindlessly towards fascism.

kepPNW wrote:

windmtnpete wrote:Nobody seems to agree just where this thing is going.

Hmmm, seems to be widespread agreement on the right that it's actually gone to socialist hell, while the left sees us tumbling mindlessly towards fascism.

While the people who ignore cable news go on with their lives blissfully unaware of our impending doom..

Just a thought... if everything really wasn't quite so bad and people turned off their tvs and computers a bit more often, the big multinational corporations that run the media would lose a lot of money... Of course that wouldn't influence how they present things...

pdxgene wrote:

kepPNW wrote:

windmtnpete wrote:Nobody seems to agree just where this thing is going.

Hmmm, seems to be widespread agreement on the right that it's actually gone to socialist hell, while the left sees us tumbling mindlessly towards fascism.

While the people who ignore cable news go on with their lives blissfully unaware of our impending doom..

No kidding!

kepPNW wrote:

windmtnpete wrote:Nobody seems to agree just where this thing is going.

Hmmm, seems to be widespread agreement on the right that it's actually gone to socialist hell, while the left sees us tumbling mindlessly towards fascism.

Meanwhile those of Libertarian bent see socialist hell and fascism as two sides of the same coin.

Webfoot wrote:

kepPNW wrote:

windmtnpete wrote:Nobody seems to agree just where this thing is going.

Hmmm, seems to be widespread agreement on the right that it's actually gone to socialist hell, while the left sees us tumbling mindlessly towards fascism.

Meanwhile those of Libertarian bent see socialist hell and fascism as two sides of the same coin.

Yep.

The people who are caught in the middle always get to see what's happening and frequently get the worst treatment. The native tribes here are a good example of this. Ironically, if our system is working correctly, it's the native tribes that have the most power here to stop the oil trains from destroying the Gorge.

Blast from the past.... it's our only hope.