Opinion

I was relieved, and even excited when I heard that Congress had voted, "No" on the Wall Street Bailout yesterday. Hyper-inflation will not help Main Street. If the Wall Streeters are so selfish that they are willing to save their collective asses while pretending that this does not hurt you and your family, then why should we care about them? (unless you do business with them)
No government bailout will help our economy when what they are pouring into it has no value. This fiat money is created from nothing, has no value, and will only cause the money that you already have to lose value.
They are stealing your prosperity and doing it intentionally. Listening this morning to some of the congressmen explain why they voted no, and why they are looking at other possible legislation, it is clear to me that they intend to say "Yes" soon.

I went to the Tower Theatre for the first time thinking it was going to be a great event. I was going to see Taj Mahal!
I've never been more embarrassed in my community.

Shame on the Bend Downtowners. They completely misled us into paying $5 to get into NOTHING! My friends and I stood in a long line and handed over our $5 each for the privilege to walk through a filthy, sweltering hot tent ONLY to pay more if we wanted a beer or food, AND we couldn't get anywhere near to watch the wienie dog races.

Stop the presses; the Bend Bulletin just endorsed Chris Telfer. Wow, I never saw that coming.
But seriously, I know a lot of locals consider The Bulletin's editorial board to be a bunch of ill-informed, predictable, and intellectually dishonest knuckleheads who do little more than carry water for the local builders, developers and the Republican Party. But I'm not sure I buy it. In fact, I think all The Bulletin's editorial positions and endorsements are the result of a long, hotly debated, deliberative process. Because if they weren't, then some clown like me could sit down several weeks before the election and, with great certainty, make a list of who will eventually receive that paper's backing. But because The Bulletin has no bias, and my name isn't Nostradamus, I could never do such a thing.
But maybe I should try, ya know, just to prove my point. Maybe I should make a list of all the candidates the Bulletin would simply have to endorse if they were in fact surrogates for the development community and the Republican Party. I think I will.

Come on…let's face it: the Controlled Burning in Oregon is outta control.
Hmmm, Let's see…It's a No Brainer that early this past Wednesday winds were extra strong from the get go…Not talking a little breezy here, we're talking strong, forceful, steady, blustery winds. Could it be a dangerous type of person with a mindset to "Get on with outta controlled burning" that allowed the now Wizard Fire to spread uncontrollably on Thursday, Mr. Forest Service Man? No question about it, there's your mysterious answer; search no further Mr. Ranger Man. So forget your heroic pledge, how you, "Vow a complete review to see what went wrong, and work to prevent any repeats of this problem." The only "Sequence of Events that took place that need corrective measures" is you and the mindless decision to forge forward to burn Thursday.
Let’s take another perspective of burning, a different view from another angle of LIFE. Let's say there are plenty of forest fires from spring to fall, none of them landed remotely near or around where controlled burning has left all life dead and trees charred from past years. So now what? What on Earth cajoles the human mind into believing that these controlled burns are in fact saving more LIFE than they KILL? Now that's the Real Mystery for sure!

In the history of economics these are "interesting times", times when the great deceit that is "Free Market Reaganomics" was exposed for what it really is - a lie covering up a thieving game in which exorbitantly paid gamblers play high risk games with other people's money - a game in which winnings are privatized and losses are subsidized by the taxpayer. Is there no end to the bovine forbearance of the American taxpayer? In the interests of full disclosure, I'm a foreigner, living in Bend and I've had the benefit of several years of entertainment in which the American populace has been skillfully divided against itself by trivialities like gay marriage, gun ownership and the Oath of Allegiance while the aristocracy laughs all the way to the bank in their $750,000 cars.
The sight of an ultra-right, Neo-Con junta fervently nationalizing financial institutions Cuban style is high comedy indeed. Hey Ronald, what happened to "trickle-down" economics?

 
I am writing this to let everyone know about a parking ticket scam going on in the dirt lot behind the Midtown (and please know it has nothing to do with owner or operator of the Midtown). Last Friday, Sept. 12, I parked in said dirt lot around 7:30pm to work at a concert at The Domino Room like I've done for the past five years. (I actually always assumed it was part of the Midtown's property, but it's not.) Upon returning home around 1am I noticed a parking ticket under my windshield wiper. When I opened the envelope it was issued for "Not having a parking permit" to park in that dirt lot, a fine of $25, and it was written up at 10pm! On a Friday!! The following Monday I called the issuing company, "Municipal Parking Services," out of Redmond, which is basically a guy and his cell phone, and inquired about the ticket. He informed me the owner of the dirt lot, a lawyer in town (who no one has anything nice to say about, btw) hired his company to ticket people at night during concerts for parking in his lot. He also told me new signs were posted and there was nothing I could do about it. Remember, I've been parking in this same spot for five years without a single problem.

The political cartoon (?) in the Sept. 18 edition of the Oregonian was right on! McCain is pointing to a graph saying "The Fundamentals Are Strong." The graph shows "LIES" up, "BALDFACED LIES" up, "WHOPPERS" up, "DENIAL OF OBJECTIVE REALITY" up, and "CANARDS" up! Palin is looking on with a big smile. Let's check for facts: Palin's acceptance speech "trips up on her facts, and Guiliani and Huckabee have their own stumbles on Night 3 of the Republican confab" (Source: www.factcheck.org/elections-2008/gop_covent'n)
Summary:
"Sarah Palin's much awaited speech at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night may have shown she could play the role of attack dog, but it also showed her to be short on facts when it came to touting her own record and going after Obama's.
We found Rudy Guiliani, who introduced her to be as factually challenged as he sometimes was back when he was in the race. But Mike Huckabee may have laid the biggest egg of all.