Daily Score Blog

By now you've probably noticed we've been talking a bit about Vancouver over the last couple weeks. That's because we're giving away a free three-day trip for two to BC, just for signing up for Sightline Daily emails.

If you haven't signed up already, tomorrow will be your last chance to get in on the action. You'll still be able to sign up for Sightline Daily's email news service -- where our editors get up at 5 AM every weekday morning to pick out the best sustainability news from our region -- but after tomorrow night, you won't have a chance at that free trip.

So get to it; sign up here and you could soon be experiencing a getaway in Cascadia's crown jewel of a city.

PS, if you're already signed up, you still have time to share it with your friends, family, and colleagues who could also benefit from Sightline Daily. Click here to spread the word.

With just a week to go before the election I don't have much to add to the defeaning chorus of "No on Measure 63" editorials from Oregon's newspapers. (I could be mistaken, but I don't think there's been even a single "yes" editorial in the state.) But let's take a look at what newspapers are saying.

First, my favorite (for selfish reasons), the Oregonian gives it a thumbs down while also giving nice props to Sightline:

The measure would allow Oregonians to make up to $35,000 worth of home improvements without obtaining, or worrying about their failure to obtain, building permits. Which sounds swell. The glitch, pointed out recently by the perspicacious Seattle-based environmental nonprofit the Sightline Institute,is this: We Americans hop around a bit. In any given year, roughly 15 percent of us move.

That means our castles change hands frequently, sometimes even twice in a single decade. The remodeling experiments you bravely undertake, in the privacy of your own home, ultimately become your bequests to the next person who purchases your, um, laboratory.

Freelance construction projects don't always lead to disasters, collapses and tragedies, of course. But they do frequently saddle new homeowners with unpleasant surprises and defective workmanship that's expensive to fix. That's why so many skilled construction trade groups in Oregon have united in opposition to Measure 63.

I'm giving bonus points for use of the word "perspicacious."

The economic crisis continues unabated (scroll down to the shocking international list of October stock market losses). New voices keep speaking up.

The case for new federal stimulus spending keeps getting stronger: Robert Reich explains the macroeconomics.

Tom Friedman argues that the economic crisis should not be the end of green. Instead, green should be the way we end the economic crisis: