The Boot

One of the perils of living in the information age is the ready availability of so much misinformation. Want to hear how the moon landing was faked or how Obama was born in Africa? Just punch a few keywords into your browser and – Poof! – you've got confirmation of your worst fears and insecurities. Such is the case with the anti-vaccination movement that stoked fears among parents about the safety of giving their children the once-routine shots to prevent diseases like mumps, measles and whooping cough. Twenty years ago, the idea of voluntarily putting your child at risk of diseases that have killed more people than any natural disaster or all accidents combined would have been unthinkable.

Five years ago, in the midst of one of the craziest real estate booms in the country, Bend slapped a fee on new construction projects to raise money to help create more affordable housing.
The fee, the only one of its kind in Oregon, has been successful in achieving that objective. So far it has generated more than $2.7 million, and it's leveraged many times that amount in federal matching funds.
But the Central Oregon Builders Association has never met a fee it likes, and now that the affordable housing fee is coming up before the city council for renewal, COBA is doing its best to kill it – or at least put it in the intensive care unit.

Conservatives just don't like speed limits. Along with anti-smoking laws, motorcycle helmet laws and seat belt laws, they see them as another manifestation of the detested “nanny state” that's always looking over their shoulders and wagging a disapproving finger.
When Republicans took over Congress in the 1990s, one of their first moves was to repeal the national 55-mile-per-hour speed limit imposed in 1974 by the Jimmy Carter Administration. That left the setting of speed limits up to the states. Since then, Republicans across the country have been crusading to get speed limits increased – or better yet, eliminated.

When a new sheriff rides into town the locals sometimes can get riled up, especially if the old sheriff's been there a long time and the new sheriff has a different way of doing things.
That's the situation John Kroger finds himself in. Kroger was elected in 2008 to succeed Hardy Myers as Oregon's attorney general, after Myers had been in the job for 12 years.
Kroger is an ex-Marine with an undergrad degree from Yale, a law degree from Harvard and a resumé that includes prosecuting Mafia thugs and Enron crooks. As attorney general he's aggressively gone after bad guys ranging from pharmaceutical companies to child pornographers to giant Wall Street banks.

In the retail business they call it “bait and switch”: You offer your customers something that looks like a great deal to entice them into the store, then switch them to another item that isn't such a bargain. Although this tawdry practice is highly unethical and quite illegal, it's still pretty common.

Once upon a time not all that long ago, in a kingdom not much different from Oregon, there were no cell phones. And life was hard. But somehow, because they were tough and resourceful, the people of the kingdom managed to get by.
And then the Good Fairies Motorola and Nokia appeared and bestowed the wondrous gift of the cell phone upon the people, and they rejoiced. For behold, now they could call up and order a pepperoni pizza or text their BFFs and ask them what they thought of Justin Bieber's new haircut anywhere and at any time, even while driving around in their cars.

Last week saw the premiere of a movie based on Atlas Shrugged, the hernia-inducing monster of a novel by Ayn Rand. The unanimous consensus of critics was that it bombed.
Also last week, House Republicans – including the 2nd District's Greg Walden – premiered a turkey of their own: a plan aimed at trimming the federal deficit by $4.4 trillion over the next 10 years. Its twin pillars are (a) if you're rich the government will make you richer, and (b) if you're not rich the government will throw you under the bus.
The plan is the handiwork of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Ryan is a self-professed avid admirer of Ayn Rand and her crackpot philosophy, and his plan shows it.

Trying to inflate a balloon with a gaping hole in it would seem like the height of stupidity. The balloon that was the Central Oregon real estate market went ka-pow almost five years ago. But some folks in Redmond think that if they can just hook it up to an air hose, the good times will roll again.
The Redmond City Council is contemplating a proposal by John Start, manager of Redmond Economic Development, to reduce Systems Development Charges by half. SDCs are fees paid by builders and developers to help defray the costs of new roads, sewer and water mains and other public works that are made necessary by growth. SDCs in Redmond currently are $12,320 for a single-family home and $86,500 for a 10,000-square-foot commercial building. The city expects to take in $500,000 in SDCs next year. Cutting rates by 50% would, of course, reduce that to $250,000.