Here's a dilemma we'd love to have: Say the state has put a machine in our home that spits out money at the rate of $70,000 a year. But later the state tells us it's strapped for cash and can only afford to let the machine dispense, say, $64,000 a year.
Eric Flowers
Life During Wartime: Politics Afghan style, justice Scotland style, and more!
The author has been sent on the road to discover a lost country formerly known as America. He is reporting from Brooklyn, where only the dead know, on assignment for Or-Bust.com and The Source Weekly.
Fraud in Afghanistan? You're High!
Based on over 2,000 complaints and growing evidence of fraud, Afghanistan's Electoral Complaints Commission (located beside the Opium Poppy Ministry of Defense) has ordered a partial recount of the disputed August 20th presidential/puppet-to-be election. Bush's best buddy, Hamid Karzai, can't get re-elected without a coup of his own government, so his awesomely named challenger, Abdullah Abdullah may have a chance. One polling station reported (without naming the ballot box stuffer) nearly 100% of votes cast for a single candidate. Sounds like Florida in 2000, or Ohio in 2004, don't it? One other note: Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother to the current president of Afghanistan, is chairman of the provincial council in the Kandahar region, which is the most productive – and profitable – opium poppy producer in the world. Note #2: In August, British troops seized several tons of raw opium from a farm owned by Karzai, which Karzai quickly denied. Note #3: Two more U.S. troops were killed in a bombing in Kabul; we now have a record level 62,000 troops in Afghanistan, with the Pentagon set to ask for more, and Britain readying to pull out.
Time To Face The Facts U.S. Health Care System Is Terminally Ill
Opinion and conjecture abound on the prospect of changing how to pay for medical care in Oregon and across the U.S.
Beyond a Wake-up Call
Forty-seven years ago Rachel Carson wrote “Silent Spring” warning of the indiscriminate use of toxic pesticides and their effects on our health and the environment. She challenged agricultural methods and government policies.
The Nattering Naysayers
So let's get this straight. Obama's predecessor took America to war under false pretense, citing “weapons of mass destruction” that everyone agrees did not exist, and today's Republicans don't want Obama addressing children because of “indoctrination?”
Our previous president preached war against Iraq to anyone who would listen, children, adults, young and old, making us partners in his blunder, and the Republicans dare talk of keeping their children safe from Obama's ideas? What are Obama's ideas? That the government can be an active partner in change, rather than a nuisance? And this notion is suppose to be bad?
The Republican Party seems determined to be “against” everything Democratic.
Why Single Pay Works
When Senator Jeff Merkley ended his town meeting at Summit High School, I was standing with the microphone man waiting to be the next speaker. In the last five years I have had over $300,000 in medical bills, largely because I was a passenger in a head-on collision that broke my bones in 27 places.
We Do It Harder In Bend
The idea for a Reverse PPP brings to mind the difference I have noticed between the two places I split my time: Bend and Portland.
Where else but Bend would something as physically taxing as the PPP cry out for making it harder.
Let Detroit Lead The Way
For the last 10 years I've been suffering silently as people awkwardly tried to pronounce the year, since we crossed from the 1900s to the 2000s.
But the auto industry is leading a new linguistic trend that we all should embrace.
Mystery Death Solved: MJ's autopsy report, the recession report, and a call for help
MJ Murdered!
Unidentified sources with the LAPD confirmed what we all knew in our hearts, The King of Pop's death was no accident. LA's coroner has reportedly determined that Jackson's death was more than just another junkie accidentally overdosing. And make no mistake, whatever MJ once was, he was by the end of his life a junkie. The LA Times reported this week that Jackson spent the last hours of his life pleading with his personal physician Conrad Murray for his “milk” – Jackson's pet name for the powerful sedative propofol. Jackson had recently gotten hooked on the drug (with the help of Murray) as a sleep aid.
Beating A Hasty Retreat Health care backpedaling, dispatches from the drug war, Rove returns and more!
Editor's note: Guest columnist sits in this week for Mick McMenaminuses who has departed for parts unknown with flask full of cheap whisky and a newly minted Chase Visa card. Godspeed, Mick.

