WTF

$2,500
That's how much a small and exclusive group of Portland Republicans paid earlier this week to attend a private fundraiser with GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney.
Roughly 70 people attended the lunch event, paying $1,000 a plate for the privilege of meeting with Romney.

When it comes to cowardly acts, vandalism is right up there with kicking kittens. It doesn't take a lot of guts to tag a building with a can of Krylon.

That's the number of uninsured Oregonian's who will be eligible for health insurance coverage under a new health care exchange established this week by the state Legislature. The Oregon House voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to approve the legislation establishing the exchange and the bill is headed to Gov.

5.1%
That's how far home prices dipped across the country when compared to the first quarter of 2010.

While folks in Bend have been praying for spring, a group of residents in Prineville has been focused intently on another season as of late and it isn't summer. They've been thinking about Christmas, and thinking hard. Some of them have been hitting the streets, gathering signatures in an effort to save Christmas – not from the Grinch, mind you. No it's worse. They're trying to save the holiday from the godless atheists over at the ACLU who would stop the city from erecting a Nativity outside Prineville's town hall.

That's the number of species that the Department of Interior and the Fish and Wildlife Service have pledged to evaluate over the next six years for Endangered Species Act protections. The pledge is part of a settlement with one of the key litigants in a series of cases brought against the federal government over its inaction on more than 250 threatened species, including the western sage grouse.

Were we the only ones left scratching our heads at the presence of hundreds of D.C.

That's the number of Oregon high school students who will not graduate on time this year, according to a report issued this week by the Oregon Department of Education. While the state's drop-out rate is actually much lower, under four percent, the numbers show that a large percentage of students who enter high school don't finish on schedule in Oregon.

Last week it was a law adopting the “Code of the West” as Oregon's official code of conduct – a code that included such truisms as “know where to draw the line” and was first laid out not by a buckaroo on a bunkhouse wall, but buy a former Wall Street investor. This week's unnecessary legislation award goes to Rep. Jean Cowan of Newport and the rest of her House cohorts who spent at least part of their day on Tuesday considering a piece of legislation that would make it illegal to feed dangerous animals, such as wolves, bears and cougars. OK, file this one in the “duh” category.

At some point in their lives, all little boys want to be cowboys. Most grow out of it.