Editorial

Take a close look at almost any far-right-wing organization in this country and you'll probably find that the Koch brothers have their fingers in it.
The Koch brothers, Charles and David, trace their family fortune and ideological pedigree back to their father, Fred C. Koch, a John Bircher from Texas who went around in the '60s raving about the imminent Communist takeover of America. David Koch ran for president in 1980 as Libertarian on a platform that called for, among other things, abolishing Social Security and public schools.

You have to give the City of Bend credit for trying to come up with a way to jump-start this town's economy. The only problem is it keeps coming up with the same idea over and over again.
Almost four years ago, after the real estate bubble had popped and folks here had finally figured out it wasn't going to re-inflate any time soon, the city council had the bright idea of letting developers defer payment of SDCs, or systems development charges – fees paid to (partially) cover the cost of road improvements, sewers and other things made necessary when somebody put up a new housing subdivision or shopping mall. Instead of having to pay SDCs up front, the new policy allowed developers to wait nine months or until they applied for an occupancy permit, whichever came first.

Back in 2002, the developers of Pronghorn promised Deschutes County that – as state law requires – they'd build 192 lodging units at their swanky “destination resort” out among the scrub junipers east of Tumalo. At least 150 units were supposed to be in place by 2007.
Instead, in an event that's come to be as predictable as the crocuses popping up in spring, they've kept coming before the Deschutes County Commission hat in hand to plead for a little more time. Times are tough, they say. Tourism numbers are down. They just can't make all those lodging units pencil out right now.

Until he saw the colored flags on the trees, Jerry Gilmour never knew there was going to be a logging operation practically in his backyard.
Gilmour, who has a weekend cabin he built himself in the woods near McKenzie Bridge, along Highway 126 between here and Eugene, made some phone calls and discovered none of his neighbors knew about the logging plans either.
When the neighbors learned about the Goose Project – which, among other things, will result in the harvesting of more than 27 million board feet of timber, including trees up to seven feet in diameter, and involve building almost eight miles of temporary roads through the forest – they swung into action to try to block it.

Republicans like wars. Iraq I and II, Afghanistan, and now (potentially) Iran – they've been gung-ho for 'em all. But now they've embarked on a project that's ambitious even by their standards.
They've declared war on half the population of the United States. The female half.
It started when Catholic hospitals and other institutions complained that President Obama's healthcare reform law requires them to provide insurance coverage for contraceptives to their employees. That, they claimed, interfered with their freedom of religion.