The Wandering Eye

Black Friday 2009 has come and gone. Thankfully, there were no fatalities this year.

Appropriately enough for the week of Turkey Day, political activist-cum-racketeer Bill Sizemore has announced he’s going to seek the Republican nomination for governor.
In a statement released to the far-right-wing NW Republican blog, Sizemore said he was running to “break the stranglehold the public employee unions have on the state of Oregon” because “he is the only one willing to challenge that behemoth head on.

The mysterious proprietor of the BendBubble2 blog – I Hate to Burst Your Bubble, alias Homer, alias Butter, alias Paul-Doh – announced Sunday that after almost three years he’s hanging it up.
We have to give Homeboy props for being one of the first, if not THE first, to declare publicly that the emperors of Bend real estate were absolutely buck naked and our boom was a creation of smoke and mirrors as phony as the tourist industry’s claims of 300 days of sunshine and golf in January.

Bend has always touted its beauty, its charm, its “healthy outdoor lifestyle” and its mythical “300 days of sunshine a year.” But we may be on our way to inadvertently becoming famous as something else: the real estate fraud capital of the United States.

Last month Greg Walden caught the H1H1 (“swine”) flu, and he wasn’t happy about it. He also isn’t happy about the way the government handled the swine flu epidemic.

In Jewish folklore there is a town called Chelm in which all the inhabitants are complete idiots.
Over the years many jokes have been told about the foolishness of the people of Chelm.

The anticipated big showdown Friday over Congressman Greg Walden’s vote on health care reform turned out to be a bit of a fizzle: Instead of encountering each other at Walden’s office, the Walden supporters stood on one corner of Greenwood and Wall and the opponents stood on the opposite corner, holding signs, shouting slogans and getting honks and waves from passing cars.
Walden was the only member of Oregon’s five-member congressional delegation to cast a vote against the health care reform package last week, and also to vote for the Stupka-Pitts anti-abortion amendment that was tacked onto the bill.

Happy days are here again in the local real estate market, if you go by the headline in yesterday’s Bulletin.
“Housing inventory plummets in Bend,” the headline said.

There could be a showdown between liberals and the tea party faction tomorrow at Rep. Greg Walden's Bend office – or maybe not.

Chris Dudley, who some around here may remember for playing two six seasons at center for the Portland Trailblazers, is putting out feelers about a run for governor on the Republican ticket next year.
The 6’11” Dudley had a not particularly distinguished NBA career, knocking around among six different teams and amassing a career average of 3.