Saturday, January 23, 2010

Sagebrush.

What's with Cascade Bancorp? Down, down, down -- then up 30% in one day, and then down 15% over the next 3 days...

Meanwhile, Columbia River Bank goes down for the count.

Guess who Linda and I got our original home loan from?

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Really? Seriously? You want to maintain that unlimited corporate advertising isn't going to sway the election outcomes?

So advertising doesn't work? Or advertising works and you don't care that our country can now be bought and sold?

I can't tell if the defense of this action is completely naive or completely cynical.

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For the second time since I've been reading the Source, a Wandering Eye column has been removed. What's with that? It was a commentary on the Facebook Server "farm". I'm thinking maybe the math was off? (I also thought of parsing the math, but quickly realized it was beyond my legal-fu and math-fu.)

One thing about a personal blog; no one can remove it but me.

Another thing about a personal blog -- no one can keep me from pointing out when someone else has been censored.

Censored may seem a harsh word, but unless the Source explains Why it took that action, that's what it looks like.

The best solution would be to let the truth be hammered out in the comments, and if there is information that needs to be corrected, then do so, and make a note of it.

But removing it completely? That just makes me wonder how free the columnist really is to state his opinion, you know?

(Besides....Bruce called me the "Sage of Minnesota Avenue" in the censored entry..... Heh.....ha,.....hee,hee....

Though I've noticed that whenever HBM mentions me in the online column, it isn't printed in the actual paper. Which seems kind of petty to me, but .... shrug....)

*****UPDATE********

Bruce responds: "Before everybody gets all paranoid, let me explain that the Source website crashed yesterday and all of the content after Jan. 19 was lost. I have restored the three Wandering Eye posts that were lost, including the one about Facebook's server farm."

Oh................nevermind.


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Watched Caprica last night, and sure enough the B.S.G. guys are up to their old, wonderful, tricks.

Also watched the last Conan last night, and Tom Hanks was smooth and amusing, as usual, and Neil Young is eternal, and Will Ferrell.....sucked as a singer. A 30 second joke turned into a lame ending....

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The economy is undergoing a recovery?

According to economist Alan Beaulieu, today's Bulletin:

"....(but) with a broad, rocky bottom we're going to crawl through then claw our way up the other side..."

Well, alrighty then. When you put it THAT way.

I don't know about you, but crawling and clawing through rocky bottoms sounds painful...

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The Oberdoferman apologizes for being "over the top lately."

You think? (Linda commented; you have to watch out for becoming what you hate. Oberdoferman doesn't want to become the Fox of the other other side....)

Jon Stewart saying that he had "lost the high ground" was really telling, I think. And Oberdoferman was actually savvy enough to realize it.

Jon Stewart is King.

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16 comments:

Anonymous said...

HBM ( our blackdog ) writes that Column, and boyz of Sister's own the paper. Which of course tie back to Hollern of Black-Butte who owns everything in the tri-county.

I didn't see the SORE-EYE, but I'm sure that HBM said something that was TRUE and that could NOT stand.

The fact is the big-zero had an excellent story about the 'facebook' boondoggle yesterday. But the big-zero(oregonian) news is not fit for central-orygonians.

Anonymous said...

Many times the little-boy who runs the SORE for the master's deletes stuff.

I guess you never commented on the SORE? Eh? dunc?

If you had you would know that virtually everything get's deleted, and yes quite a bit of HBM's stuff get's deleted, even he can't please the master.

So now we can add facebook, to our suterra list of 'top-secret' un-mentionable deals that take place in the darkness.

Duncan McGeary said...

You amuse me, Bilbo.

For which my blog is probably cursed...

Anonymous said...

Let it be hearby known that BILBOofBEND has nothing to do with comics.

That BILBO and DUNC have never met.

The DUNC only tolerates a variety of opinion, to show that he is a fair and honest broker of discussion.

That said like I wrote a long time ago. Central Oregon really is "MORDOR", and HOLLERN is SAURON. HBM is just an orc trying to be human. DUNC is human trying to be a Elf.

I'm just an old senile hobbit, trying to find humor now that our hobbiton has been infested with goblins.

H. Bruce Miller said...

"For the second time since I've been reading the Source, a Wandering Eye column has been removed. What's with that? It was a commentary on the Facebook Server "farm". I'm thinking maybe the math was off? (I also thought of parsing the math, but quickly realized it was beyond my legal-fu and math-fu.)"

Before everybody gets all paranoid, let me explain that the Source website crashed yesterday and all of the content after Jan. 19 was lost. I have restored the three Wandering Eye posts that were lost, including the one about Facebook's server farm.

And Mike Hollern has no financial interest in the Source.

H. Bruce Miller said...

"I'm just an old senile hobbit"

You got the "senile" part right anyway.

Owen said...

Cascade Bancorp is up? Cool, maybe they'll go back to the good old days and put a return address envelope in the mortgage bill again. Of the bills I pay the old fashioned way, they are the only one who do not provide the return envelope. Started about 6 months ago. When I called to ask about it, all the receptionist could tell me was that a lot of people had called to complain.

Pretty good customer service, eh?

When I look at my statement and see how many hundreds of dollars they get from me in interest each and every month, I cannot understand exactly what a 4 cent envelope that they no longer provide does for their bottom line.

dkgoodman said...

I don't think I've ever seen a media outlet that opposed campaign spending. After all, where does campaign spending go? Media outlets.

Duncan McGeary said...

Hmmm, I hadn't thought of that.

Interesting that THIS seemed to really catch the politicians notice.

Remains to be seen if the outrage is real or feigned.

RDC said...

Duncan,

Keep in mind that while you mentioned corporate spending, it removes restrictions from organizations far beyond corporations, including unions, and organizations such as moveon.org.

Basically that any organization can spend and name specific candidates as long as it is not coordinated with a candidates campaign.

So it is not nearly as one sided as you paint it to be. Unless all such organizations should be restricted and prevented from participating in elections by spending large amounts of money.

I would be perfectly happy to have all such groups restricted and leaving contributions to individuals and campaign ads to the actual people running.

Anonymous said...

The FACT is Corporations do Rule the earth. That said MOST corporations are held by pension funds. Which are held by ma&pa old-farts waiting to die. This be true of Texaco or IBM, or ADM.

There have always been many ways for Corporations to slip around election laws. Money is the BLOOD of USA poly-ticks, for that matter of WORLD Poly-Ticks. He who has the gold makes the rules, and the CORPORATIONS have the gold ( or run the FED-RES .

You can't take money out of poly-ticks, its like taking the blood out of people. Illogical.

Money Rules, in a mercantile economy. The good news is that they ALWAYS implode. All society's in history destroy their paper-currency. So you just have to wait for the toilet to be flushed.

The way the USA Constitution-Federalism works is $1 one-vote, and its always been this way, its not one-man one vote. Just calling what it is, like when I was in special forces the first thing they taught us was that USA was just a third-world banana plantation with nukes. The idea that USA is a special place is only for the children of 'cannon-fodder'.

The USA is/was a PURE capitalist experiment, a country ran for and by the Corporation ( Rich Man ). This weeks supreme court changes nothing, except I guess in the minds of weak men they now can accept the truth that Suterra, LesSchwab, and Facebook run their community. But that was true yesterday and the previous week, and it will be true in the future.

The individual in the USA yesterday was cannon-fodder, and tomorrow will be cannon fodder. The Corporation, and the men behind them rule all. Just like Hollern run's Bend.

Anonymous said...

The following comment showed up today on bendbubble.blogspot.com

Anybody know anything?

Anonymous Bewert said...

Anyone hear about the suicide on the west side last week? Rumor has it some loser hung himself in his yard.

H. Bruce Miller said...

"Keep in mind that while you mentioned corporate spending, it removes restrictions from organizations far beyond corporations, including unions, and organizations such as moveon.org."

True, but the financial clout of those organizations is minuscule compared with that of the corporations. Why do you think Republicans are rejoicing over this ruling and Democrats are denouncing it?

"I would be perfectly happy to have all such groups restricted and leaving contributions to individuals and campaign ads to the actual people running."

We agree on that. Better yet, let's have campaign spending limits. If the candidates couldn't spend the money there'd be no reason to take it from the special interests, be they corporations or unions.

Anonymous said...

"maybe they'll go back to the good old days and put a return address envelope in the mortgage bill again"

If people have auto-deduct from their bank account, the envelopes are unnecessary. I would guess that most people use auto-deduct nowadays.

Owen said...

To Jeff, you would be surprised how many people pay at least some bills by mail. Of the bills that I pay by mail, only one does not include a return address envelope.

It's not a big deal, of course. But the way it came to my attention (no warning, just suddenly no envelope after getting one every month for the last 10 years) and the blase response when I called to ask what was happening did in fact leave me feeling like an unappreciated customer - not a good thing for any company to project on a customer.

Could Bank of the Cascades handled this better? I think so. Especially in these times when banks are largely viewed by the general public as being somewhat tarnished, I'd think that the local bank would want to make some effort to show that they do, in fact, care about the concerns of their customers.

RDC said...

I think that you should go read the various reports on campaign spending (527 and 501c groups) and see what the breakdown actually is. You really might find it interesting.

Now while Coorporations have lots of assets, they have in general, no put that much directly into active campaign related programs. They have contributed to some campaigns, and they have spent on issue advertising (usually not related to campaigns, but more pending legislation). They have not tended to run adds pro or con candidates during campaigns (which is what this law pertains). On the other hand Unions, and the other various 527 and 501c groups have been very active and spent a lot of money directly tied to getting candidates elected or defeated.

The closest you come to direct corporate involvement is via the Chamber of Commerce (a 501C).