2016 off to a rousing start

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Militiamen/'Patriots' occupy wildlife refuge

The Ducks choke away a sure win, the Saudi-Iran split heats up big time, the stock market plunges thanks to China and militiamen occupy a remote outpost in southeast Oregon.

And, it's just the fourth day of this Leap Year.

Also, on Tuesday, gun sales are about to reach an all-time high when President Obama finally announces some basic, common sense, gun-safety reforms.

Obama's actions, no matter how tame, could be a tipping point for the militia types, particularly those 20 or so holed up at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge near Burns.

This latest confrontation between ranchers and the federal government over management of public lands would be another comical episode of "Angry White Men," except that these "patriots" are willing to kill or be killed, if necessary.

Incredibly, a majority of respondents to an online poll for KTVZ in Bend, more than 100 miles away from the scene of the occupation, believe that an armed takeover of a federal facility is an acceptable way for the militiamen to make their case. Yes, there are crazy people everywhere.

Still, this hasn't stopped the rational world from poking a little fun at all these yahoos and their sympathizers.

Leave it to Twitter to get the ball rolling with #Y'allQaeda, #VanillaISIS, #YokelHaram  and #YeeHawdist.

Evidently, you can't have a movement without a hashtag, aka, pound sign.

The wildlife refuge, by the way, is a mecca for birdwatchers and was established in 1908 by President Teddy Roosevelt.

Who knew that militiamen and women had a thing for greater sandhill cranes.

Actually, they don't.

They just care about riding around showing off their guns. They think they know what is constitutional, but they obviously do not.

And, it appears a bit of Mormonism is to blame.

These so-called ranchers believe they own all the land that belongs to the government.

But, if we're talking real ownership, here is a map that shows who the land should really belong to:

These nutcases from Nevada, Idaho, Oregon and elsewhere claim they're willing to stay at the refuge for as long as it takes.

I say let them freeze to death in the frigid high desert.

That way, the authorities can pry the militiamen's sacred guns from their cold, dead hands.

Bend fails again to clear streets of snow

Un-plowed and un-sanded intersection near my house on Dec. 3. 

Now that warmer weather has melted most of the snow, it's time to point out that Bend did a terrible job of clearing roads after last week's snow storm.

Yes, the forecast two days before Thanksgiving called for about 5 inches to 9 inches of snow.

In fact, we got between 12 inches and 18 inches of snow.

Okay, the city was shocked that there was more snow than predicted. That doesn't mean there is less snow to clear. It means they had better get their butts in gear and clear the streets.

Only the main roads were cleared, and not that well. The state did a better job than the city and they handled Highway 20 as it winds through the city.

Hardly saw many snowplows out, except in shopping center parking lots. This makes sense because the busiest shopping days of the year were last weekend.

But, I ventured forth on "Black Friday" to Costco. A relative went to Fred Meyer. There were hardly any shoppers at either place.

Of course, it was below 20 degrees out and that kept some shoppers away. Also, the national trend showed less spending on "Black Friday." Yet, it seems obvious in Bend that drivers couldn't get out of their neighborhoods due to un-plowed and un-sanded streets.  Retailers in town should sue the city.

A snowplow finally did our street today, almost a week and a half after the storm. Yesterday, it took a friend six tries just to get up the short hill to our house.

On Tuesday, a full week after the storm, the first sanding dump-truck came down our street. I went out to see what he put down on the road. It appeared there were a couple handful of cinders on the un-plowed snow, which didn't do any good. Other intersections in our neighborhood showed similar amounts of cinders. In fact, most intersections in town did not have enough sand or cinders for traction.

It's not surprising that the city can't plow the streets in a timely manner. Afterall, it can't even fix huge potholes for at least a year.

To add insult to injury, though, the city said that for the first time in years it would fine people and businesses for not clearing sidewalks that fronts their property.

Really. The city can't clear the streets of snow and expects citizens to shovel off their sidewalks or else?

How pathetic.

Clearly, Bend is a poorly-run town with a city manager way in over his head. The department of public works doesn't.

Obviously, the city didn't want to spend so much money clearing the roads so "early" in the season.

No, it wanted to save money to pay city staff to tell the public, "we did the best we could" or "we don't have that much money."

In this era of lower expectations, Bend delivers on that count.

Can this cancer be cured?

The latest carnage in Paris shows how difficult it is to contain the cancer of Islamic extremism.

We can cut out the tumor, by bombing Syria and Iraq, but the cancer then metastasizes wildly to places like north Africa and now Europe. And such a wide swath of land has been immune to the chemotherapy of reason.

Plus, for whatever success we're having bombing the terrorists, it proves to attract more converts to the cause. As if beheadings on YouTube weren't horrific enough, men and some women still flock to join ISIS/ISIL from around the world.

It's a terrible sickness that has engulfed the Middle East and beyond.

There doesn't seem to be a cure.

We had troops "on the ground" for more than a decade in Iraq and, instead of stabilizing the country, it destabilized the entire region and gave rise to ISIS.

More troops in Syria or Iraq is likely to destabilize Turkey, Jordan and others.

There are too many enemies, Kurds vs Iraqis and Syrians, Sunni (Saudi Arabia) vs Shia (Iran), to figure out who are the bad guys and who are the good guys. Throw in Russia's backing of Syria's Assad and we have the makings of a major regional war.

Should that happen, side conflicts will surely flare up elsewhere as either religious, ethnic or racial scores are settled while the world is distracted by the Middle East.

Meanwhile, Republicans want President Obama to stop ISIS now, even though they have no ideas how to do it. Strangely, these same folks were unconcerned when terrorists struck Madrid and London after our invasion of Iraq. Hey, it wasn't the U.S. that was attacked, they said then.

Plus, how does anyone think we can solve the problems in the Middle East when we can't even solve our decades-long gang violence in Chicago and other big cities. Also, we have about 12,000 killings per year from guns and about 18,000 suicides by guns. And, we have no political will to stem those annual numbers.

Republicans also want Obama to protect Christians in the region but not Muslims.

Great. That'll play well. What a bunch of idiots.

Until people of all stripes give up the hate, and there is no sign that they will, this cancer of terrorism will continue to eat away at the soul of the world.

Keeping up with the candidates

The Donald and the Kim: America's first couple

Actually, no.

There isn't much reason to be interested in the presidential race more than a year before the election.

The media, and I mean TV and to a much lesser extent radio, are hyping up the presidential race to absurd heights because they are the prime beneficiaries of the billions spent on attack ads and other advertising.

More than 90 percent of Americans, me included, couldn't be enticed to watch the debates so far.

Yet, all you hear about on the news is the drama, the back-biting, the name-calling.

Hey, if it works for the Kardashians, why not the candidates.

But, the poll leaders now will surely be last, when the electorate pays attention next year.

To the casual observer, it seems completely ridiculous that candidates like Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Ted Cruz are the leading lights among Republicans.

Then again, it's perfectly understandable that incompetence is applauded by the Republican base because that is exactly what those who hate government prefer in their leaders.

The Republican-dominated House of Representatives can't get out of its own way to offer any legislation worthy of becoming law.

Republicans campaign on the premise that government is incompetent and then get elected to prove that premise.

And, when things start to falter, the fall-back position, the one that always works for its base of supporters, is to castigate the mainstream media.

Of course, I don't know why they would blame Fox News, the No. 1 cable news show or the arch-conservative Wall Street Journal, the largest daily newspaper in the nation.  But, they do.

Actually, when they say "mainstream," they mean what the vast majority of rational people believe.

Fox News and the WSJ editorial page present a counter-reality that their devotees deem to be reality.

Well, they represent reality the way the Kardashians represent reality TV.

It's all fluff and bluff, signifying little.

At the end of the day, or at the end of a Kardashian episode, (I did watch about 30 seconds while flipping through channels) there is nothing to remember and nothing to take seriously.

Which is perfect for the social media era.

The warmest October on record?

Could be a wild ride this winter

Evidently, it is, in Bend, Oregon.

We've had few hard freezes this October, little rain and no snow.

The highs have been in the 60s and 70s.

The forecast for the rest of the month shows slightly cooler temps in the mid-50s and some rain, but no snow.

I've only lived here 31 years, but I've never seen Mt. Bachelor so bare, so late in October.

We've already had the warmest June on record here in Bend. It's safe to say that 2015 will go down as the warmest year in the city's history.

Granted, the history only goes back about 110 years and the earth is roughly 4.5 billion years old.

But still, this is amazing for Bend. At our house, we haven't put the flannel sheets on yet and probably won't until mid-November. I haven't even worn flannel shirts that much.

Now, this is nothing compared to the 90-degree temperatures experienced in the L.A. area this month.

Or, the routine 80-degree temps in the Bay Area in October.

If much of Oregon and Washington are experiencing drought, one can imagine what's happening in California.

To the credit of many in the Golden State, they have conserved enough water that we don't hear that much anymore about their dire water situation.

But the situation is still extremely alarming down there.

Californians, and to a lesser extent Oregonians, are expecting the largest El Nino on record to save the day and bring record rainfall to the West Coast. It's already brought Hurricane Patricia to Mexico and ridiculous rains to Texas.

Of course, rain without a deep snowpack won't bring much water relief to the parched Pacific Coast.

Plus, Donald Trump will claim that El Nino is just another illegal alien up to no good.

Trump will fix this problem or hire the best people to keep El Nino from stealing American jobs.

El Nino, though, isn't likely to make that big of a long-lasting difference to Western water woes.

In fact, it may be another example of how climate change is worse than we thought.

The war on war itself

For years now, we've had wars of various magnitudes, intensity and failure: Iraq, Afghanistan, Christmas, Easter, Halloween, terrorism, poverty, drugs, women and gluten.

Poor gluten, it was on top for so long.

Incredibly, though, it's harder for America to go to war at all.

Certainly, all the countries and holidays haven't been conquered yet. Nouns, like terrorism, still abound.

What is going on?

Well, things haven't gone that well in Afghanistan for the past 14 years or so. And Iraq, well, it was the worst war in American history, which is saying a lot when you consider Vietnam.

The wars on the holidays haven't succeeded that well either. Christmas and Easter still seem to prosper in spite of Fox News' relentless drumbeat to incite faux outrage.

Yet, Columbus Day is now known as Indigenous Peoples' Day or Native American Day in a handful of locales. Oregon, thankfully, doesn't even recognize Columbus Day. Evidently, there aren't that many Italians in the Beaver State.

But, it's clear that many Americans want war, either against Russia, ISIS, undocumented workers or cholesterol.

Even though we spend more on our military-industrial complex than all other major nations combined, we haven't had a decisive victory since World War II.

We also haven't invaded any other country in more than 10 years.

Heck, even Michael Moore has a new documentary coming out called "Where to Invade Next."

So, what are the choices for our next war?

We haven't bit on a host of opportunities from Libya, Syria, Ukraine, North Korea, Iraq again or the Kardashians.

It's enough to give a warmonger an ulcer.

Call it the war on war itself.

Naturally, President Obama shoulders most of the blame. In an acknowledgement that he needed to show some cojones, Obama recently extended our war in Afghanistan for the next president to end.

Not that it will ever end.

One thing is certain, war is good for defense contractors, the media and undertakers.

It's bad for everyone else.

The myth of 'affordable housing'

New apartments, right, will block view of iconic Pilot Butte

We need a more realistic definition of what it means to have "affordable housing."

 It's a phrase that builders, Realtors, government types and newspaper editors all say they want, but do little to make a reality for renters or buyers.

So, for clarity, transparency and truth, "affordable housing" means it's more affordable for the builder/developer, not the renter or buyer.

It's like "routine surgery," which is only routine for the doctor, not the patient.

The city of Bend is now promoting higher density home-building by not collecting up to $1 million in impact fees.

The theory is that higher density, particularly with new apartment complexes, will lead to "affordable housing."

The less, though, a builder or developer has to spend on impact fees, the more he can spend in the local media to market his properties. Hence, the local "support" for eliminating impact fees.

It does not mean the cost on those properties will become cheaper for the buyer or renter.

There is no evidence presented by anyone that no impact fees on new development creates "affordable housing."

It does mean, however, that infrastructure to support that growth will erode. Right now, Bend needs more than $80 million that it doesn't have just to maintain the current roads.

And, what is considered affordable? Paying $1,500 to rent a small house in Bend or $900 for a 1 bedroom/1 bath apartment is not affordable to most of the working class in this town.

In fact, teachers, firemen and police officers are having a tough time finding an affordable place to buy in Bend and have moved to Redmond or points beyond.

Inventory is not the problem. There are plenty of houses for sale and a handful of nearly vacant subdivisions ready for new homes.

The new apartment buildings planned for Bend are nowhere near the new OSU-Cascades campus. Walking, or even bicycling, to OSUC will be impossible for the majority of the students there. Relying on our token transit system is not much of an option either.

Bend attracts people to move here from all over the country. It is popular.

Anything popular is usually more expensive.

The going rate for renting or buying is whatever the market will bear and has absolutely nothing to do with building impact fees.

Right now, we have a bull market on price increases.

New apartments are going up right next to Pilot Butte, which is an icon for the entire region. The existing apartments there, called The Commons at Pilot Butte, had their rates jacked up by $300 a month this past summer.

The median price of a home in Bend is again nearly $350,000. Consequently, Bend is now considered one of the most over-valued housing markets in the country.

After the 2008 crash, the plunge here was steeper than in most of the country.

This roller-coaster effect underscores the point that counting on home/apartment construction to sustain our economy is as bad as relying on the timber industry was for much of Bend's history.

The underlying principle hasn't changed: Many people, particularly those who grew up here and work a minimum wage job, don't make enough money to own, or, in some cases, even rent a place to call home.