The Democratic Party of Oregon has put out a brutal video slamming our own Congressman Greg Walden for letting a million dollars in Republican campaign funds disappear on his watch.
Dems Slam Walden on Missing Million
Elk Don’t Belong in Farms
Do we really need to domesticate another wild species? Is keeping a herd of pet elk as cute and harmless as it seems? Consider this:
Chronic wasting disease (mad cow disease for deer and elk) has been spread from elk farm to elk farm and sometimes from elk farm to wild elk in over a dozen states in the last 15 years. CWD is always fatal, and you can't even tell if an animal has it until it dies. Meanwhile, it's contagious for two or three years or more before the animal dies. It's nasty, and the risk to our wildlife is too great to contemplate.
Saskatchewan spent $20 million eliminating CWD from 38 elk farms. Wisconsin has spent over $12 million trying to eradicate CWD from its white-tailed deer herds. These are taxpayer dollars.
The Boot: The Bottled Water Habit
It’s a hell of a racket: Take one of the most abundant natural substances on Earth — something that literally falls from the sky for free — put it in bottles and sell it for $8 a gallon or more.
Barackstar Status: Neither spring break nor a basketball loss can stop Obama in Eugene
Spring break has officially begun at the University of Oregon on this Friday afternoon, but there’s no shortage of young faces remaining on the Eugene campus. A line, five people thick in some places, starts at the doors of McArthur Court, extending in both directions for more than a thousand feet, nearly enclosing the university’s massive athletic complex. There isn’t a basketball game at Mac Court today — the team is in Little Rock, Ark. and slowly losing its lead in a first-round NCAA tournament game. And there isn’t a concert either — live music doesn’t stop at Mac Court too often these days. These people are here to see Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential hopeful who is in the midst of a less than two-day sweep of Oregon in preparation for the state’s May 20 primary.
Walden’s Locked-Door Policy
In December 2007 I got an e-mail from the folks at MoveOn.org asking if I would be willing to deliver a petition (signed by over 900 residents of our congressional district) to Congressman Greg Walden. I am not a joiner, and I don't agree with everything MoveOn says, but I resisted my own reluctance and agreed to do it, because I believed in what the petition said.
MoveOn sent me the names of several other people in our area who had agreed to meet at the congressman's office on Dec. 13.
I called the congressman and reached his receptionist, who told me the office would be closed that particular day. I asked her if they would agree to at least have one of the staff stop by the office and receive the petition on behalf of the signers. She said, "No."
Why They Hate Hillary
The reason Hillary Clinton has such negative image problems is that when she was the First Lady in Little Rock she helped pass legislation to improve the ailing state school system and extend education for 4-year-olds. This hit the big boys in Arkansas right where it hurt them most, in their pocket books. Their hatred of her became vitriolic and they formed a Republican committee to taint and discredit her image.
While our homeless veterans and mentally ill are eating out of garbage cans to survive, right-wing Christian radio has spent millions to billions of dollars duping hard-working Americans to vote time and again with the wealthy, who are laughing all the way to their banks. Newt Gingrich suggested to Rush Limbaugh and other mean-spirited conservatives to repeat "words" like sick, pathetic, welfare, crisis, traitor, cheat, steal, bizarre and radical over and over to brainwash their audience. Let's not forget that during this time Newt was having an affair and served his wife divorce papers while she was recovering from her illness. Read Molly Ivins' books, god rest her witty soul. I am so sorry that she is not here to witness what is happening.
Good News: We Don’t Have to Pay Taxes
Your sidebar on people who don't pay taxes exemplifies the incredible job of brainwashing our society has undergone.
No one should be paying federal income taxes.
The 16th Amendment was never properly ratified.
The Supreme Court had previously ruled a central bank was unconstitutional prior to the creation of the current Federal Reserve Bank in 1913. Since the 16th Amendment was never properly ratified the IRS is illegal. There is no law that says we the people have to pay income taxes.
Four Thousand
A macabre milestone was passed on Sunday: The 4,000th American soldier was killed in Iraq. The 4,000th death was recorded when four troops were killed by a roadside bomb that exploded near their vehicle in southern Baghdad.
The American death toll since the invasion of Iraq five years ago this month has now exceeded by 1,002 the number killed in the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001. It does not, of course, include the nearly 30,000 US troops who have been wounded in action, nor the Iraqi civilians who have been killed, a number that probably will be forever unknown but that has been estimated at more than 600,000.
Vice President Dick Cheney (he of the five Vietnam-era draft deferments) was interviewed by ABC News on Monday and asked to comment about the 4,000 American troop deaths. He seemed to think they were not that big a deal, pointing out that those who went to Iraq all volunteered for military service.
Life in Murals: Dave Kinker puts his inspiration
A window onto the wall. You know David Kinker's work, even if you do not know David Kinker. You may have noticed the murals and sign paintings by this 19-year Central Oregon resident enlivening the likes of the Deschutes Brewery, McMenamins OId St. Francis School, and St. Charles Hospital, among many others. Or you may simply have noticed the way a seemingly unremarkable wall in a public place actually expanded the space, deepening its connection with the viewer.
Kinker grew up between Arizona and an area outside of Jackson, Wyoming. He has painted the Grand Canyon, but only on commission.
"Arizona is my history," he says, "but Bend is my home."
Bachelor Butte: A fiery past lies under the blanket of snow
No matter what the name, or how it is used or abused, Bachelor is still a fine old volcano.Most residents of Bend, Sunriver and Redmond see the lovely, 9,000-plus-foot-high volcano every morning. It stands alone, like an old bachelor, among the crowded Cascade skyline. Millions of people have hiked and been hauled to the top, then hiked or skied down her slopes and – I'm sorry to say – probably never given a thought as to when and how it got there.
Bachelor wasn't alone in its violent and hot past. It belongs to a string of volcanic events about a mile and a half long, known geologically as the "Mount Bachelor Volcanic Chain" (MBVC).
If the volcano hadn't become an outstanding skiing area, it would probably still have its early name, "Bachelor Butte" as it was known when it was just a fair-to-middling shield volcano just across the Cascade Lakes Highway from Tumalo Mt.

