Oregon Votes Anti-Science Stupid

Since you can't see me shaking my head as I write this, please reach out with both hands, grasp your monitor, and move it quickly back and forth.

What else can you think? Portland gave in to anti-science fearmongering and voted, yet again, to keep fluoride out of their water supply, 61% to 39%. The well-to-do liberals who pushed for this -- very hard -- will be fine -- they can afford dental care and daily fluoride pills for their kids. The ones who will suffer are the children of poor or ignorant parents who can't afford the supplements, or don't know what fluoride is or why it's so beneficial.

As Slate wrote:

Arguably most importantly, Healthy Kids and fluoridation have the endorsement of the massed forces of rationality and medical authority. Almost every credible national, state, and local health and science organization—private and public—gives its blessing to optimal levels of water fluoridation: The American Medical Association, the American Dental Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, the World Health Organization, American Academy of Family Physicians, and  the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, which named the measure one of the 10 greatest public health achievements of the 20th century. They all agree that fluoridated water is perfectly safe and extremely effective at preventing tooth decay.

The city likes to tout a motto of "Keep Portland Weird." To that let's add "Also, Toothless" -- almost one-fifth of Oregon's children 6-9 year olds had untreated decay. (Yes, this anti-fluoride sentiment reaches statewide.) A survey last year found "Oregon ranked 25th – or 7th from the bottom – in percentage of children with untreated decay compared to 32 other states with similar data."

In other stupidity in the state, two southern Oregon counties voted yet again not to raise property taxes, despite barely having any police presence left at all. (I wrote about Josephine County earlier.) That leads to idiocy like this:

In Grants Pass last month, officials locked down an elementary school while police searched for a burglar with a stolen rifle. Officers found the suspect with the loaded rifle hiding in a nearby shed, but cited and released him because the Josephine County jail didn't have room.

How niggardly are these counties? The Oregonian wrote: "Josephine County residents pay 58 cents per $1,000 of assessed value for county operations, the lowest rate in the state. Curry County follows just behind at 60 cents and Lane County's rate is $1.28, the seventh lowest."

In comparison, Multnomah County, where Portland is, has a rate is $4.34.

These counties are very conservative and in a snit because they no longer get much money from the federal government for timber logging on federal lands, which the counties lived off of for decades and think they're somehow entitled to. Which is all the fault of the communist environmentalists, don't ya know.

Because these counties refuse to take care of themselves, despite what many are calling a public emergency, the rest of the state will now have step up and pay for it, though there is talk of the governor pushing for a special income tax levy on these counties alone. I hope it goes through, or as least that the counties secede, maybe to Nevada.