Currently downloadable at the link:
https://www.washco.gop/
Download as .pdf.

On October 7, on the holiday of Simchat Torah and on the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, Hamas terrorists from the Gaza strip launched multiple attacks on undefended civilians in Israel. Elderly people, women, and children were sadistically tortured and murdered. There is no need to recount the details of these atrocities here; it is now known that the attacks killed more than 1,400 people, in the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The Israeli Defense Forces are now conducting a massive counterattack - Operation Iron Swords - to eliminate the Hamas threat in Gaza.

The barbaric slaughter of women and children, elderly, and infants, should horrify and enrage people of every faith and nationality. The attacks were directed against Israeli Jews, but the victims included citizens of the United States, Canada, the UK, Germany, France, Thailand, Nepal, and other countries.

The defense of Israel is Israel's responsibility, but Israel's enemies are America's enemies. Hamas and its patrons in the Islamic Republic of Iran have made "death to America" a mission statement since their inception.

Being a civilized nation cannot mean being a weak nation. Cowardly savages target women and children, as Hamas does, while hiding their own military command centers in hospitals - again as Hamas does - knowing their enemies will be reluctant to strike there.

These atrocities have shown us the terrible cost of liberal illusions. Israeli "peace" activists, with eyes only for their own country's perceived wrongs, maneuvered the nation into a position of catastrophic weakness under the rallying cry of "ending the occupation".

Not a single Israeli soldier "occupied" Gaza from the 2005 withdrawal until October 7. The butchery in Israel was openly celebrated in America by leftist groups like BLM and by student groups at Harvard. Both the origins of the carnage and its aftermath show the ability of so-called "intellectual" and "enlightened" people to rationalize any depravity.

The attacks also show the importance of an armed citizenry. Israelis rightly take pride in their country's Defense Forces, but as Americans we understand that individual self-defense is a human right given by Almighty G-d. Be the State ever so powerful, it is up to the citizen to be on guard against the State's abuse of power - and against the State's neglect.

Finally, for Americans, the attacks are an ominous reminder that a nation that remains indifferent to an armed, hostile presence on its borders - or within them - will suffer grave consequences.

The weeks since the terrible events of October 7 have seen a surge in overt anti-Semitic acts, but also - especially in America - an outpouring of support for the Jewish state. Together with decent Americans of every faith and across the political spectrum, Washington County Republican Party stands in support of Israel's right to defend its people.

Also at the link: Endorsement of Donald Trump as Republican candidate, and statement against Oregon's new "disinformation" office.

https://oregoncatalyst.com/54395-uo-researchers-gov-brown-stop-promoting-vaccines.html

Well, Governor Kate Brown is indeed a bad messenger, but that's not the main thing. The whole premise of this survey is "If only we could find the right 'messenger' to tell you to do the thing we want you to do, then we could get you to do the thing."

That doesn't account for the fact that at the end of the day, many of us ultimately make that decision based on how we assess the risks and benefits, irrespective of who the 'messenger' is.

If you wanted to get my trust on this issue, you would have to undo the actions of every major health organization, and all of the social media censorship on the issue, for the past 18 months.

... is what's been forecast for the next couple of days around here. That's 45 Celsius for you foreigners. The Western Desert may live and breathe at that temperature, but here in Oregon we generally prefer it a wee bit cooler.

Oregon hasn't been hit as hard by the coronavirus as our neighbors to the north and south, but within Oregon, Washington County - where I live - has the highest number of cases. I don't worry too much about getting the illness personally; I don't like crowds and generally avoid them, plus I'm fortunate to have a fairly robust constitution. Typically if I get sick at all it'll last for about 24 hours and then I'm done. But I do want to be mindful of not being party to transmitting the illness to an elderly or infirm person.

Anyway, my second full day of work-at-home went pretty smoothly. I am getting used to the routine and I suspect I'll come to like it. My job (IT support) is one of those best suited for remote work, and it's likely that the COVID-19 thing will have the effect of accelerating a trend that's already well underway. So from a professional standpoint, the chance to get accustomed to the practical realities of working from home - and supporting others who do - can only help me in the future.

Last time I went shopping, I stocked up on shef-stable food. Grocery Outlet had two flavors of Tasty Bite for 99c a package. One of these - the vindaloo - I hadn't tried before. I had previously only heard of vindaloo in the context of "pork vindaloo" which the vegetarian and kosher-certified TB product obviously is not. So I gave it a try. Most of the TB flavors, even those marked "spicy", are fairly tame. Not this stuff! As it happens I'd been hankering for some hot Indian food, and (short of a trip to one of the nearby Indian restaurants) this filled the bill pretty well.

My friend Michael Totten has written dispatches from the Middle East and many other places, but here he writes about his native Oregon:
https://www.city-journal.org/html/fractured-west-15611.html

'Oregon is divided geographically, culturally, and politically by the Cascade Mountains, a spectacular range of volcanoes roughly 100 miles inland from the Pacific Ocean that pick up where the Sierra Nevadas leave off, stretching from Lassen County in northern California to the international border with British Columbia. Those mountains are invisible on non-topographical maps. No political boundary takes them into account. The state line between Oregon and Washington mostly follows the Columbia River, and the international border between the United States and Canada follows the 49th parallel. The Cascade Mountains are natural borders, however. Instead of dividing the Pacific Northwest into northern and southern halves along the Columbia River, it might have made more sense to place Portland and Seattle in one state and everything between the Cascades and the Rockies in another. Coming from Portland, I feel more at home in Seattle and even in Vancouver, British Columbia, than I do just an hour east of my house.

The climate is also radically different on each side. Western Oregon is lush, green, and temperate all year. Eastern Oregon is dry; much of it is desert. It is colder in winter and hotter in summer, and it’s as sparsely populated as Wyoming. Vast and empty Malheur County—by itself, five times the size of Delaware—is the least densely populated place in the United States outside Alaska.

The aesthetics are different on each side. Portland is made of brick, glass, steel, green spaces, and Victorian architecture. Eastern Oregon towns are made of wood and iron and rock. Portlanders like water features and art. Eastern Oregonians opt for wagon wheels, antler racks, and animal heads on the walls. ...'

Read the rest at the link.

http://www.oregonlive.com/wildfires/index.ssf/2017/09/gorge_retains_splendor_despite.html

'"One thing that was encouraging is there are still a lot of green trees, there's still a lot of area that did not burn," said Traci Weaver, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service and U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

"The fire did not burn through there and burn every tree and every green plant in its path. And I think people need to recognize that, that it's still going to be a beautiful place. And one nice thing about being on the wet side, like we are: Things are going to start to recover much quicker than they would in a drier forest area." ...'

'Searoad', one of LeGuin's few published works of realistic fiction, is a collection of twelve tales written circa 1990 and set in the fictional town of Klatsand on the Oregon coast. All are in short-story format except for the first (the single-page proem 'Foam Women, Rain Women') and the last (the novella 'Hernes'). All of the stories are set in the present-day era, except for 'Hernes', which chronicles the lives four generations of Oregon women and is set partly in historical time.

There are occasional nods to science fiction and fantasy: there is Rosemarie Tucket, who has a passion for SF books and a fantasy friendship with an alien 'energy man'; Frances, the narrator of 'True Love' who offers insights into Star Trek and the identity of Captain Kirk's true love; there's the apparition of Ailie's mother, and there's Johanna, who begins to see mysterious messages in the foam; and there's the visionary Lily Frances Herne, who sees angels.

But mostly they are slices of daily life in a small town. Some of the moments that stayed with me: Rosemarie's fantasy life; the 'True Love' narrator's passion for books (in her blessedly pre-internet world); Bill Weisler's existential horror upon learning that flawed works can be sold for more than perfect ones; Deb Shoto's struggle with the demon inside of her; Warren's unsuccessful attempts to avoid, and his final reconciliation with, the party of pensioners in the small town (and, implicitly, his acceptance of his own mortality); the bereaved lesbian Shirley in 'Quoits', the de facto stepmother of Barbara's children; the gradual fleshing out of Ava's character through the eyes of other characters; Jane's anguish at having "failed" to "protect" her daughter Lily (concretized in the dream-image of a watch, punning on the "watch" that she believes she failed to keep, and echoed in Fanny's earlier grieving over the loss of Johnny, p. 192); the recurring images of the Oregon coast and of the foam on the seashore; paradoxes about language and existence (how can a person "be dead" if they no longer exist? and the multiple meanings and connotations of the word "body"); and the image of the 'rain women' at the beginning. I wonder who the rain women are.

Death haunts many of the stories. There are recurring references to the body, living and dead:

- 'You couldn't *be* dead. You couldn't be anything but alive. If you weren't alive, you weren't ... you had been.' (p. 33)

- '"My father hated for the male nurses to touch her," Sue said.' (p. 39)

- 'But when the word for what you made love to was the same as for a corpse it sounded like it didn't matter whether the body was alive or dead.' (p. 58)

- 'She did not like her saying "I hated for men to touch Mother's body - it sounded glib, theatrical.' (p. 121)

There are also recurring references to the sound of the sea, and its effect on the various characters.

LeGuin has lived in Portland since 1959 and knows the region well. 'Searoad' made me want to visit the coast. It also made me think about the public and private lives of the people around me, and about how we relate to our ultimate journey out of this world.