It's Apple time

Apple Watch, only $349, 
while supplies last next year

Now that Apple has introduced larger iPhones plus a new Apple Watch (no i, please), it's been fun reading some of the comments online.

Here are a few:

Does the new smart watch have an app for telling the time?

Is that an iPhone in your pocket, or are you just happy to see me?

Everyone willing to put a Google Glass on their head is sure to buy the iWatch.

It will be a big time-saver to have the watch broadcast my heartbeat to my friends. As it is, I have to call them every 5 minutes to give them this important information.

Today my Apple fanatic boyfriend told me he loved me more than Apple products...even the new iPhones. It must be true love!! He's willing to be in a relationship with an Android user.

Cargo pants; the trendiest iPhone accessory.

I was hoping for an iPad with phone inside so I could walk around with it on my shoulders like the old Boom Boxes. 

So disappointing, yet I will be making my way to the apple store to buy the new phone.

I actually have a phone that just makes phone calls.

the only thing i need to know about the new iPhone is if my dad is going to stop paying for our family plan at any point in the near future 

I am waiting for the Apple film camera and the Apple typewriter.

Did not someone do all this already?

When the news media becomes the finger puppets of giant corporations and the government, who can the people turn to for journalism?

isn't telling time sort of over, anyway?

iDon'tcare

Obama's economy better than Reagan's?

Forbes

According to Forbes magazine, which is hardly a liberal rag, the U.S. economy under President Obama has outpaced the economy under President Reagan.

And, its really not that close.

At the same time in both presidencies, the job growth under Obama beats Reagan by a full year.

The stock market rose a whopping 190 percent under Reagan during his first 67 months in office.

Under Obama, the market is up 220 percent.

Call that a facial on all those Republican talking points about how to turn an economy around.

Again, which party is the party for business?

Of course, historically, the stock market has done better under Democratic presidents than under Republican administrations.

And, Forbes reported in 2012 that if you "Want a Better Economy? History Says Vote Democrat!"

It looks like Forbes was right then and is right now.

Who knew?

Apparently, "Obamacare" is not a drag on the economy, but rather a stimulant.

But, if voters want Republicans in office, look toward Kansas and the catastrophe unfolding there.

Thanks to ridiculous tax cuts, the Kansas budget relies more on those who do not have money rather than on those who do.  Small wonder that they now have a budget crisis.

Kansas' Gov. Sam Brownback tried to blame President Obama, but that backfired.

Thank god we're not in Kansas anymore.

'Perverse' city codes allow OSU-Cascades to build 10-acre campus

As expected, a hearings officer approved the plans for the 10-acre campus of OSU-Cascades, further cementing Bend's status as Bend-Over, Oregon.

The new four-year university in Bend will be about the size of a high school parking lot.

Oh, and the 5,000-student university will have about 300 parking spaces, since most college students don't use cars, according to OSU officials.

Higher education here is reaching new lows before any ivy-covered walls are constructed.

The best part of the hearings officer ruling, according to the daily paper, is that he knows the whole process is bogus, but that's what the city code allows.

The hearings officer noted that OSU's piecemeal approach to building it's west-side campus (the 46-acre pumice pit wasn't included this time) "comes very close to thwarting sound planning and the very purpose of the city's master planning provisions."

"It is understandable that the opponents of this application view the 'ownership issue' as a convenient excuse to avoid the master planning process."

But, code is code and master planning be damned.

Uh, no kidding. Most residential streets don't even have sidewalks, particularly on the west side.

The state spent $120 million building the parkway through town and the city allowed massive retail development on the parkway's northern end, creating gridlock, which defeated the purpose of the parkway. The state estimates it will cost $240 million just to fix that problem.

The city just hiked its storm drainage fee because it refuses to assess any such fee on developers.

Afterall, developers essentially wrote the city's codes.

That is why parking issues are so vague.

The hearings officer wrote that even evaluating the parking plan "represents a difficult if not perverse exercise because there is no legal standard set forth in the code for determining whether a parking plan is adequate."

Therefore, the hearings officer was "left little choice but to conclude that the City Council, in adopting this provision, intended to provide a very flexible tool for estimating needed parking for colleges."

Um. "A very flexible tool?"

Was the hearings officer referring to himself?

And is the "perverse exercise" referring to the fact that developers are bound and determined to destroy the goose that laid the golden egg in Bend?