Computers are marvelous tools — microchips helped put the words you’re reading on this page, for instance.

But computers are lousy spelling teachers.

Which is why we disagree with the Oregon Department of Education’s recent decision to allow seventh-graders and sophomores to use computer spell-checkers when they take state writing tests in January.

If you think Oregon’s congressional delegation is ignorant of the great sprawling lands that lie east of the Cascades, we offer a single word to refute the theory:

Biomass.

Logging slash, to use the colloquial term.

For decades the accepted method of dealing with this debris was to pile it out in the woods and then burn it.

This produces a little heat and a lot of smoke, neither of which has any value.

Western governors gave the federal Endangered Species Act quite the tongue-lashing last week.

Utah’s Gary Herbert deemed the law “nonsensical.”

Idaho’s Butch Otter chimed in with “broken, bankrupt and fraud."

When it comes to college scholarships, Leo Adler’s name reigns supreme in Baker County.

As well it should — Adler, the philanthropist who died in 1993, bequeathed his $20 million fortune to the community, with more than half set aside to help Baker County and North Powder students go to college.

In the past 15 years, thousands of local residents have benefited from Mr. Adler’s generosity.

But lately another benefactor has helped make higher education more attainable for Northeastern Oregon students.

Oregon Trail Electric Cooperative.

The non-profit utility, which supplies power to most of Baker County and to parts of Union, Grant and Harney counties, will dole out 28 scholarships, each worth $3,000, in 2011.

Yet just a decade ago, OTEC’s scholarship program consisted of four awards of $1,000 each.

The link between drug and alcohol abuse and crime is so strong that it could better be described as a stout steel chain.

We’re not talking cause and effect.

Drugs don’t commit crimes, of course — people do.

Yet a cavalcade of research shows that large percentage of the people who commit crimes also use, and in many cases abuse, drugs.

Which is why responsible prison systems — including Oregon’s — try to cure inmates’ addictions while they’re incarcerated.

That approach is more expensive, but the extra dollars are well-spent.

Inmates are less likely to commit another crime after release, which means fewer innocent victims and fewer people to keep locked up on the taxpayers’ dime.

“Comedian” is perhaps the job least likely to be associated with Oregon’s outgoing governor, Ted Kulongoski.

But last week’s announcement from our usually laconic governor seemed to us positively Seinfeldesque.

Kulongoski’s timing was exquisite, and he made us laugh.

The topic, however, is utterly serious.

Kulongoski proposed drastic changes in Oregon’s budget — most significantly in the compensation package for state workers.

What elicited our chuckles is the governor’s ability to unveil his plan with a straight face.

We don’t know whether the FBI actually prevented Mohamed Osman Mohamud from detonating a bomb in downtown Portland last Friday.

But we’re pretty skeptical of the notion that the desire to kill people who turned out for the city’s Christmas tree-lighting ceremony originated with the federal agency rather than with Mohamud.

Yet that seems to be the implication of the strategy that Mohamud’s lawyers unveiled Monday.

His public defender, Steven T. Wax, told reporters that the defense team is “looking into the question of entrapment.”

Sure it was just water.

But it doesn’t take much of any liquid to damage, beyond repair, flimsy paper documents.

The water that gushed into the Baker County Courthouse from a broken pipe valve last weekend ruined things that are relatively easy to replace.

Carpet and ceiling tiles, for instance.

When a Baker County grand jury indicted Brian Cole of Baker City earlier this year on charges of misdemeanor sex abuse, we expected that a jury would decide whether or not he is guilty of the crimes, which involved a 17-year-old girl.

We certainly believed that’s how our justice system is supposed to work.

Except sometimes it doesn’t.

On Tuesday Judge Garry Reynolds approved a civil compromise, signed by Cole and the girl, that dismisses the four counts of third-degree sex abuse against Cole.

The matter isn’t settled, though. Cole is scheduled to go to trial Monday on two counts of providing liquor to a person under 21.

The basic premise behind Oregon’s civil compromise statute is reasonable.

If a person steals someone’s wallet but then returns the wallet, with all the money inside, then a judge might be justified in avoiding the expense of a trial by approving a civil compromise.

In that hypothetical case, the victim has been made whole, at least financially.

But Judge Reynolds’ ruling highlights a problem with Oregon law that the Legislature should fix as soon as possible.