Here in Portland, you tell the Sam-Rand Twins what they want or hear, or else. Now Mayor Creepy and the Fireman have fired the entire citizen's budget advisory panel at the police bureau.

How long will the residents of the city put up with these guys? Not only is it bad for the average person's morale, but it's also extremely unattractive to businesses, when City Hall is an out-of-control middle school student body run by a couple of mean, dim-witted kids that nobody likes.

Not one to miss out on any sophomoric drama, Fireman Randy thinks that John Canzano's blunt criticism of Mayor Creepy is "disrespectful and unbecoming."

Too funny. How much would it be worth to put all three of these guys in a tub and push it far, far out to sea?

What a hero! Bill Wyatt, running the Port of Portland, has agreed to take a mere $321,000 out of the public coffers this year. Thank you, Bill, and God bless you.

Here's an interesting campaign tidbit: The trade unions (at least the private industry ones) are going with Tom Hughes for Metro and Loretta Smith for county commissioner over Bob Stacey and Karol Collymore. I thought it would be all tighty-righties and grumps like me going that way, but it's interesting that some labor groups are making those calls.

Remember those mildly scary Metro recycling songs we pointed to a couple of weeks ago? Now we see what they're for. I am not making this up -- Metro is running a puppet show. And they're currently paying puppeteers $14.77 an hour.

They ought to bring in Neil Goldschmidt for one of these gigs. Kind of like letting David Bragdon drive the zoo train before he left town. Crouched down behind the stage, Neil wouldn't have to show his face, which of course he isn't allowed to do any more. And let's face it, he's experienced at the job. He's been the pulling the strings on Metro, and the Port, and Tri-Met, and OHSU, and who knows what all else in Oregon government, for 20 years or more. He'd be perfect.

The flap over GOP gubernatorial candidate Chris Dudley's avoidance of Oregon income taxes while a pro basketball player takes a wicked turn today, as Willamette Week's intrepid muckraker, Nigel Jaquiss, insinuates that Dudley may have in fact underpaid his Oregon income taxes, as opposed to legally avoiding them.

Jaquiss suggests that although he bought a home in Camas, Washington, Dudley, who also continued to own a home in Northwest Portland out toward Kyronland, might have still been an Oregon resident for tax purposes. Dudley, of course, claimed that his domicile for tax purposes was in Washington. Even Jaquiss admits that tax residency can be a tough call sometimes, but the question he's raising is potentially quite troublesome, and WW, which will surely endorse Kitzhaber come November, isn't shy about asking it.

As a tax lawyer, I find it interesting that the electorate is being treated to such a prolonged inquiry into Dudley's state tax situation from well over than a decade ago. Apparently, he isn't giving the Kitzhaber camp much else to shoot at. Meanwhile, the criminal investigation into state contracts held by Kitz's significant other passed onto and off of the news pages in a couple of days. That little problem is a lot more current, a lot more relevant, and a lot more serious.

Two of Portland's least likable fellows, Mayor Creepy and sports pundit John Canzano, went at each other on the radio for a while yesterday. It's refreshing that Canzano is pointing out what a poor excuse for leadership the city has right now. But the trigger for his ire? The city didn't give enough money to Canzano's idol, Little Lord Paulson, and now His Lordship is packing up his baseball team and selling it right out of Oregon. Waaaahh!

Now, that's funny.

What really happened here? Henry III carpetbagged into Portland, bought its minor league soccer and baseball teams, and immediately decided that the Beavers didn't work. He wasn't on a the scene but a month or two and already he was talking about "re-branding" the baseball team. But he soon gave up trying. As he wasn't turning a dime of profit with the Bevos, he figured he could make a lot more dough by beefing up his soccer operation. And so if he couldn't get the city (or some other sucker municipality, like Beaverton or Vancouver) to build him a brand new baseball stadium with little or no money shelled out on his part, he'd fold the baseball team and stick with soccer. The old stadium, which the city had just blown $30 million on, would be the perfect scapegoat.

Even the Sam-Rand Twins, The Don, and Mother Vera Herself couldn't easily sell two new stadiums to the rest of the Portland City Council, nor could they ram that prospect down the throats of the local citizenry. And when the going got tough, Paulson took the easy way out and pulled the plug on Portland pro baseball. No other city in the region was stupid enough to pick up the slack, and so now the AAA-class Beavers will be moving to California under new ownership.

The Beavers' leaving town is nothing new. They've done it any number of times over the years, and sooner or later, the minor leagues have always come back to Portland. The Single-A-class Portland Rockies were an example of the eventual return. But this time around, since Paulson soccer is taking over exclusive use of what was formerly the city's multi-use stadium, baseball will have no place in Portland to come back to. And now that the city's going another eight figures into hock to remodel the existing stadium, it's approaching the point where it may not be able to raise the money to build a new ballpark, even if it wants to. (Not to mention the fact that the laid-off and angry public is starting to catch on to what rotten investments these public stadium deals generally are.)

With all the money the Paulsons have at their disposal, they could have kept pro baseball in the Portland area if they really wanted to. But they didn't, and so now it's gone. Yes, Sam Adams is a pretty crummy mayor, but not building two stadiums for the New York robber barons -- which he and the Fireman tried hard to do -- was a good turn of events for Portland.

Jake at utterlyboring.com takes us for a cruise.

Glorifying vandalism.

The bureaucrats' latest foray into something that's best left alone: Now the city is going to get into the business of selling heat, air conditioning, and hot water in the Pearl District. Today they put out for a $50,000 contract for a consultant (no doubt already hand-picked) to keep things rolling:

The City of Portland’s 2009 Climate Action Plan (http://www.portlandonline.com/bps/index.cfm?c=49989&) established the goal of producing 10 percent of the total energy used within Multnomah County from on-site renewable sources and clean district energy systems by 2030. To support this goal, the City hired a consultant to perform a feasibility study of a neighborhood district energy system to supply space heating, space cooling and domestic hot water to existing and new buildings in the North Pearl District. This study documented the potential business case for a district energy system in the North Pearl District....

For the past year, the City has been working with partners to analyze and gauge the feasibility of a range of neighborhood-scale utility investments. The City finds that District Energy (DE) investments are likely to be among the most economically viable and environmentally beneficial strategies to reduce energy use and carbon emissions....

The City of Portland, Bureau of Bureau of Planning and Sustainability is seeking proposals from individuals, firms, teams or consultants, hereafter called “Proposer(s),” with demonstrated experience in district energy development, financing and ownership, and proposes to engage the successful Proposer for the following services:

a. Convening stakeholders, investors and suppliers with the intent to support installation of at least one DE system.
b. Performing research and reporting on district energy (DE) ownership, financing and development strategies, including an analysis of opportunities and barriers.
c. Developing an outreach plan and providing education to the community about the benefits of DE systems.

A little bit of Oregon history has died with this fellow. Too bad I missed him in his prime -- he seems to have been quite the character.

It's that time again -- time to crank up our charity pro football underdog pool for the second year. It's a season-long game in which players try to pick one NFL underdog each week that will win its game outright -- without the benefit of the point spread. Winning players receive the number of points that their underdog was predicted to lose by -- and the player with the most points at the end of the playoffs in January is the winner.

The entry fee is a Jackson, and all proceeds go to charity. The top finishers in our underdog standings get to say to which nonprofit organization (501(c)(3)) the money will go. Last year, we sent more than $420 to worthy charities, and this year the pot promises to be substantially greater.

Entry fees aren't due, however, until next Wednesday, the 15th -- which means you can play this week's 'dogs now, and if you like the game, pay first thing next week. Your first week pick will still count.

It's easy to enter -- just send your pick by e-mail to underdog@bojack.org. That's the only way to enter this year; picks posted in comments on this blog or by e-mail to any other address will not count. The deadline for entries is 11:59 p.m. Pacific time on Saturday night (or prior to kickoff if you're playing the Thursday game).

The official rules are here, but enough of that -- on to the first week's lines. Do you see an underdog (in caps) below that can win its game outright? Good luck, everybody!

7 CAROLINA at New York Giants
6.5 DETROIT at Chicago
6 OAKLAND at Tennessee
5 MINNESOTA at New Orleans (Thursday)
4.5 KANSAS CITY vs. San Diego
4 CINCINNATI at New England
4 ST. LOUIS vs. Arizona
3.5 WASHINGTON vs. Dallas
3 SEATTLE vs. San Francisco
3 PHILADELPHIA vs. Green Bay
3 CLEVELAND at Tampa Bay
3 BUFFALO vs. Miami
2.5 BALTIMORE at New York Jets
2.5 PITTSBURGH vs. Atlanta
2.5 HOUSTON vs. Indianapolis
2.5 DENVER at Jacksonville

Feel free to leave comments below, as advice and kibitzing is always appreciated. But don't forget -- only e-mail entries to underdog@bojack.org will be counted in the game.

When you mention "Blumenauer" in an outgoing e-mail message, Thunderbird suggests changing it to "Blunderer."

When you blow up dams, these guys show up. Interesting that even Jason Atkinson is fixing to stop them.

We blogged last week about the obscene compensation packages collected by the chief executives of the Portland area's public companies. Here's another study on the subject, by the Portland Business Journal, which shows that the heavy, heavy rain also falls on the seconds, thirds, and fourths in command. Heck, I even know two of the guys in the top 40!

They also report on corporate directors, here. It looks like $200,000 a year is the going rate to sit on a high-end board around here. Peter Kohler picked up a nice $168,000 from Standard Insurance. Way to go, Doc! And thanks for the SoWhat District.

As regular readers here know, the powers that be are proposing to build an immigration holding tank and detainee processing facility in Portland's SoWhat District -- a facility where people will be deported for not jumping through the hoops to enter the country legally. But the people pushing that project sure seem to be having a hard time accepting the fact that they have to jump through hoops themselves. They're bending the city's land use rules to the breaking point and beyond, rather than allowing their plan to receive the full public review that the law requires. And the municipal bureaucracy, apparently with the vocal support of a certain city commissioner's office, is going right along with them.

The neighbors who are concerned about the siting of the facility in SoWhat have been asking questions about the city's process to date, and the information they've been able to wrest from planning officials is troubling, to say the least. First off, the project has been in the works since last spring, or perhaps even earlier, although the first anyone outside the inner circle got even an inkling of it was in July, and the first anyone actually shone a spotlight on the jail aspect of the deal was in August. By May 10, city permit specialist Kara Fioravanti had already reviewed an application for the new facility and made an "initial determination" that the facility resulting from the planned renovation and expansion of an existing bank office building would indeed be a "detention facility," triggering a high level of scrutiny under city land use rules.

We've been through that question on this blog at some length, here. Of course it's going to be a "detention facility." There will be people in handcuffs, in federal custody, behind bars, being guarded by sworn federal officers -- and at least some of the guards will be armed. Up to 100 prisoners -- there's really no better name for them -- will be trucked to the facility and kept in locked rooms, under guard, up to 12 hours, while they await hearings before an administrative law judge. There will be not one but two fences around the detention area.

But of course, when there's money to be made by a developer, all common sense is thrown to the winds, and the endless hemming and hawing begins. The architects who are pushing the project hired a lawyer who made an impassioned plea that the immigration detainees really aren't in "judicially required" detention because a deportation proceeding is a civil, not a criminal, matter. "[A]ny detention that occurs in the facility in question," he write, "involves neither a judge nor court."

It's a cute argument, but in the end it seems pretty lame. The federal statute in question specifically states that the detainees are under "arrest," subject to bail and parole. The person they are appearing before in the facility is specifically called an "immigration judge." The place is going to be a "detention facility" -- the developer and architect types need to get over it.

It's interesting that the lawyer sent a copy of his letter to Patrick Prendergast, a prominent local developer. So far, the landlord of the building -- 4310 Building, LLC -- has been identified as being connected with the Lindquist Development firm. How Prendergast gets involved in the deal has not yet been a subject of public discussion.

Anyway, a month and a half after the lawyer sent out the letter, the city's Fioravanti reversed herself and ruled that the proposed jail isn't going to be a "detention facility" after all -- just an "office." So characterized, the project would be immune from any meaningful challenge by the neighbors. If it's just an "office," the facility is allowed as of right, and all the locals can complain about is stuff like the color of the paint on the barbed wire. No discussion about traffic. No discussion about neighborhood character. No discussion about safety.

Perhaps sensing the extreme weakness of the lawyer's theory, the folks pushing the project have some other suggestions about how the jail really isn't a "detention facility." One is that the office part of the building is going to be so much larger than the part with the cells in it, that the jail use is secondary, or subservient, to the greater office use. In other words, if you put a jail in a big enough office building, it isn't a jail any more.

You would think that by now, someone on the City Council would quietly step in and stop the foolishness. But quite the opposite, apparently -- word from the SoWhat neighbors is that Commissioner Randy Leonard's chief of staff, Ty Kovatch, has sternly lectured at least one of them about the facts that the jail really won't be a "detention facility," and anyone who says otherwise is lying.

Sure. When Fireman Randy uses a word, it means just what he chooses it to mean, neither more nor less.

In any event, we now arrive at that moment that we reach so often in Portland land use matters. Will the neighbors lawyer up and put a stop to this? Or will the unholy alliance of the developer dudes, their BFFs in City Hall, and the sweethearts at federal immigration, get away with mocking the law? We'll know soon -- these guys will have the jackhammers going at the absolute earliest opportunity. All along on this one, they've been hoping to get to "You may be right, but it's too late now!" Don't think they've given up on that goal, even though, much to their frustration, somebody's noticed what they're up to.

The state trooper in that nasty wreck in Beaverton a week and a half ago was apparently in the wrong.

Which is probably why the details released at the time were so sketchy.

And when did they announce what actually happened? Saturday afternoon of Labor Day weekend!

If you don't think government at all levels is screwing with your mind, you aren't paying attention.

The denizens of Beijing are letting nothing go to waste.

Our old friend and a good friend Jack has retired from being a lawyer and is doing a lot of traveling and writing. We recently had the pleasure of spending a few hours with him and his family here in the Rose City on one of their travel swings. Right now, he and his wife Belinda are on a cross-country drive from their California home to the East Coast. Jack's been writing every day, and yesterday's posting had an interesting tale in it:

Before letting go of South Dakota, I must mention our breakfast at Bob's in Sioux Falls this morning. Since our B&B lacked B, Belinda located a spot on the way to the interstate called Bob's. From the outside it was unprepossessing to say the least. Inside was a tiny space with one table and a short-order stove surrounded by a counter full of grizzled local farmers who looked like they ate breakfast wearing a hat every day for thirty years, and probably in that same seat. There were a few spots open at the counter so we sat, feeling from Mars. No one acknowledged us, and their own interactions were monosyllabic at best. The guy sitting next to Belinda had a KOREA VETERAN baseball cap on and looked like a poster boy for emphysema. We ordered, and the food was pretty good. A young couple with a baby came in, and he started asking questions of the older guys -- turns out everyone knew each other, except us of course. After we finished, the short-order cook came over and asked : "How'd I do?" We said fine and he asked us where we were from, and when we told him everyone looked up. The cook brought over a notebook for us to write in. The entries went back to 2002. I wrote something. By now, we're part of the family. The cook picked up Belinda's Fodor's and asked if Bob's was in it. It isn't, but he told us that Bob's IS in the standard roadtrippers' bible called Road Food. Not only in it, but, he said, in it consistently for 42 years! Well, maybe, but it was a terrific place. When we left, everyone gave us a big send off.

Now I will do my David Brooks imitation. When we first sat at the counter and were being ignored, I picked up the sports section of the local paper for something to do. I learned that the local college football team, the U of SD, had its butt kicked yesterday. The headline was: "Coyotes See Positives After 38-7 Loss To Central Florida." I'm thinkin', hmm. On the west coast or east coast, I don't think the headline would be about positives after a licking like that. This is my fourth driving trip across the country, and each time I am reminded that there is a fundamental WYSIWYG decency and optimism in the middle of our land that is not in evidence in the big cities on the coasts. There's a groundedness and a patience out here, and it may very well be one of our most valuable national assets. Maybe I ought to go back some day to Rushmore, set aside my left coast cynicism, ignore all the peripheral crap, and just appreciate those monumental granite faces for what they are. Okay, now it's time for the Kurt Vonnegut coda: And so it goes.

Here's a remarkable picture, but we suspect that Freud would have a field day with it.

Brian Hines sums up the Blue predicament:

It seems to me like today's John Kitzhaber is almost exactly like yesterday's, just seven-plus years older (he was Governor from 1995 to 2003). Yet Oregon is in markedly worse economic shape, and faces much worse budget problems.

Wearing blue jeans and cowboy boots while dispensing a string of wonkish policy prescriptions in a laid back professorial manner isn't going to cut it with the Oregon electorate this time around.

Dudley's campaign recognizes that. I sure hope Kitzhaber's advisers do also before it is too late.

There have been 128 previous Labor Days in our country, and surely some of them were bleaker for American workers than this one. But we must say that this year, the nation's workforce looks as beat up as it has ever been in our boomer lifetime. The unions are fading -- except for the government employees' unions, and even they have to be looking over their shoulders these days. It's going to take a while, but their day of reckoning is also coming.

National unemployment officially stands at 9.6%, which is a bad enough number, but then one realizes that those statistics have been kept in a dishonest way for many years. The real number of people out of work is higher, much higher, than that. And some people are realizing that they aren't going to be able to collect unemployment forever. What's next for many of them is pure welfare.

What can be done? It's hard to see any easy way out. We've pretty much stopped manufacturing in the United States. "Protectionism" is out, and global trade is in. With the occasional exception of plants like the Intel installation out on Portland's far west side, there are few factory jobs left in America. Countries whose residents are far, far worse off than American workers do all the making of goods any more, and multinational corporations go where the labor is cheaper to make their profits. Making profits is what they are set up to do.

Both political parties have been perfectly willing to play along with this. Nobody made more money for multinational corporations than Bill Clinton, and so it's hard to lay the current problems solely at Republican feet. Reagan was a union breaker, but Clinton accelerated a domestic job loss that's hurt labor much worse. Technology provided a boom, but the whole point of a lot of technology is to automate tasks previously performed by unions. What's good for Silicon Valley is bad for Detroit.

Without workers, there are few consumers. Without a large army of optimistic consumers, there won't be an economic recovery.

Perhaps what we need is a new type of certification -- sort of like the "LEED" craze that the real estate sharpies have developed to market to the greens -- that gauges how much the proceeds of particular goods benefit workers in our own country as compared to stockholders, overpaid executives, and workers in other lands. Sort of what the union label used to mean. The hippies here in Portland have their "buy local" thing going, and that's good as far as it goes, but we'd like to see a similar campaign in which "local" is the United States, and somebody trustworthy (not the corporate marketers) does some hard analysis of which products are more "local" than others when it comes to jobs.

Many of us would likely be willing to pay a premium at the store to do a small part to bring American labor back to its feet. Paying the money to the government in hopes that it's going to help just isn't too appealing as the darkness stubbornly lingers.

We've got a feeling of accomplishment at the hacienda today -- we held another successful yard sale yesterday. I say "we" -- the Mrs. does all the actual setup, selling, and strikedown, and the serious task of prepping for the day, while I handle the signs on the street, run the music (gotta have good music to do retail), change $20 bills, keep the crew fed, and do a little entertaining of the young 'uns during the six hours when customers are around.

Even on the holiday weekend, the traffic to our sale was impressive. Among the stuff that went down the driveway were a bunch of my pants that I haven't worn in years for one reason or another. I couldn't believe it. The kids got some school supplies money, and we all gained some storage space in various corners of the house. Next up are stops at the consignment store and Goodwill, and then another year of the tradition will be officially in the books.

Our children have been pretty good about letting go of their stuff -- more so than I. I found myself feeling a little blue as I surveyed our goods out on the hanging rack and the tables. "We're selling the Furby game? That's it for the flowered jacket? And the fuzzy brown hoodie with the hearts on it?" Yeah, Dad.

Then there are the neighborhood signs, which we've used over and over for almost a decade. A few years ago, we had to patch over where they said "Babies." This year "Tots" was replaced by "Bikes." ("Kids" was already there.) The year that "Teens" goes up, some of the sale items may have a tear stain or two.

We noted recently that our congressman, Earl Blumenauer, was proposing shifting Social Security to a means-tested, rather than insurance-like, system. And apparently some other folks noticed. Since then, old Earl has been backpedaling faster than Ginger Rogers in her prime.

But even the watered-down version of his mental meanderings is being called into question:

My other problem is here: "Somehow you can’t look at reduction in benefits for wealthy people 30 years from now without threatening retirement security for middle-income people in the next decade. Well, that’s nonsense." Actually, it’s math. Progressive-price indexing, which is what Blumenauer is talking about here, doesn’t work unless the indexing dips all the way down into the middle class. The type of policy Blumenauer describes – "reduction in benefits for wealthy people 30 years from now" – does nothing for long-term actuarial health. You would have to basically eliminate benefits at the high-end to provide the actual revenue savings necessary. Setting aside the dangerous ground of turning a universal benefit into a means-tested program for the poor, the only real savings can derive from making this a broad cut.

The other evening, I had my second victory celebration in less than a week, with the "owner" of the Teutonic Knights -- the winner in our World Cup soccer game-by-game pick 'em contest of earlier this summer. He's someone I've known for years, but he took me to a kind of place I'd never before visited -- a soccer bar.

It is called North 45, and it's over on Northwest 21st. We had some outrageous Belgian ale and spectacular steamed mussels out on the lovely patio. There were guys in soccer jerseys, and autographed soccer jerseys on the wall. As the Coasters used to say, "That's a suit you'll never own."

Yowsa, could the Democrats actually lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives? I hadn't realized it was that bad. What a disaster.

It appears that two races in our neck of the woods could make a difference. Up in the 'Couv, Brian Baird is stepping down from his gig as worldwide scuba diving guide. He's often seemed like a Republican in disguise, but if you complain about it you're told, "He has to be that way -- he's from a conservative district." We are about to see how true that is. Coming in to pitch for the Dems is Denny Heck, a high-powered media and internet expert and longtime figure in state politics. Over on the GOP side, they're running Jaime Herrera, a youthful state legislator with a Molly Bornado vibe. Heck and Herrera ran close in the "top two" primary, but now it's down to just the two of them.

Meanwhile, back in Beaverton, David "Wu Wu Wu" Wu is up for a seventh term, this time trying to swat down Rob Cornilles, a highly polished Tualatin sports marketing consultant whose halo comes in part from his BYU diploma. Wu hasn't had a decent opponent in a while, but Cornilles has come out swinging against Wu's record while promising to vote moderately himself. The district has historically been a bit of a wild card, and this is no ordinary election cycle. A lot of voters are none too pleased with the "new normal." Wu is doubtlessly sweating -- at least a little -- for a change.

This builds character.

This is just stupid.

Two of the dead were killed by Taser. Plus a sixth guy was shot and wounded. The rug's gonna look a little lumpy with all that swept under it.

The rich are better off with a smaller percentage of a fast-growing economy than a larger share of an economy that’s barely moving.

I believe we may have another blogchild.

Ha! Ha! Let's all have a good laugh at the Republicans. This week they put out a press release that said Ron Wyden wasn't really representing his constituents in "the Evergreen State."

Silly Republicans. New York is the Empire State.

Now remember, you're crying over my Uncle Jim.

Just a reminder that our charity pro football underdog pool kicks off this coming week. The big daddies will start banging on Thursday night, and our players will be trying to pick one underdog team each week that can win its game outright. Winners score the number of points that their victorious team was favored to lose by, and the player with the most points at the end of the playoffs wins the game. The prize is that the highest-scoring players get to steer our pool of entry fees (20 bucks a player) to their favorite nonprofit charitable organizations.

Although the first games are next weekend, entry fees aren't due until September 15th, which means you can play the first week before you even pony up. For more details on the game, check out the complete rules here. To enter, shoot us an e-mail message here. We've got 16 paid players so far, and there's room for many more.

Just to whet the appetite, here's Week 1: Minnesota at New Orleans; Carolina at NY Giants; Atlanta at Pittsburgh; Cleveland at Tampa Bay; Denver at Jacksonville; Indianapolis at Houston; Miami at Buffalo; Detroit at Chicago; Oakland at Tennessee; Cincinnati at New England; Arizona at St. Louis; San Francisco at Seattle; Green Bay at Philadelphia; Dallas at Washington; Baltimore at NY Jets; San Diego at Kansas City. Underdogs and points will be announced on Tuesday.

When I'm 70, don't let me fly any airplanes. Thanks.

The people jamming Milwaukie light rail down everyone's throats have been busy of late:

A regional committee that controls transportation spending in the Portland area today approved spending additional money to fill a budget hole for the Milwaukie light rail project. After an hour of heated discussion, the panel also agreed to borrow $12 million to speed public transit planning in two more corridors.

With the unanimous vote by the Joint Policy Advisory Committee on Transportation, the region will borrow against an expected $2 million to $3 million a year in Regional Flexible Funds to generate $27.4 million for the Milwaukie project, $6 million for planning mass transit between Portland and Lake Oswego and $6 million for planning along the Oregon 99W/Barbur Boulevard corridor. That adds to $72.5 million already allocated to the Milwaukie project from the flexible funds program, and helps make it possible for construction to start next summer.

Borrow, spend on worthless crap, borrow, spend on worthless crap, borrow... The beat goes on. The fall of this region, and of our country as a whole, is going to be spectacular. Pity our poor children.

A friend and reader writes:

California has 57 Fortune 500 companies. Oregon has 2. What makes California more business-friendly? Its tax rates, environmental rules, state regulations, and general state government ineptitude cannot be said to be more business-friendly than Oregon. And compared to Delaware, which is the business-friendly corporate Mecca? Delaware has 1 Fortune 500 company. It appears that there is something else at work that attracts business to a region that is more important than the perception of a state as business-friendly, or not.

Is this the last of the hype? We hope so.

There was also a 6.3 in the Aleutian Islands this morning. Thoughts and prayers are in order for everyone affected. One day we'll need them, too.

I love trains -- but not when I think about how much they're costing taxpayers.

There's a bad moon on the rise.

A long-time reader wrote us the other evening as follows:

On our way back from dinner tonight, we found a ticketed car share vehicle (for being over the line -- when it clearly wasn't). The ticket read 11 AM, and we took the pictures at 6 PM -- maybe it was over the line earlier in the day? I can't understand the comments the officer made. I wonder who pays the $34 on a car share?

Anyway, we had some of the neighbors laughing/spewing vitriol at the parking nazis when they saw us taking pictures. It was pretty funny.

  

"Over space line" -- one of my favorite City of Portland ripoffs. I paid that one once, but these days I tend to keep my visits to downtown to a minimum. It's interesting that in less than eight years, the fine has more than doubled, from $16 to $34. Thirty-four stinking dollars for "over space line." Will the last middle-class consumer to shop in downtown Portland please turn off the lights when you leave?

Up in Seattle, they've got plenty of time on their hands to yuk it up.

"Will the defendant will please rise and face the monitor? The jury foreman will Tweet the verdict."

A couple of southeast Portland residents (one a scientist, one not) sound off against Portland's mad rush to disconnect its reservoirs and build huge underground tanks for its drinking water instead. Most Portlanders don't realize it, but that one's pretty much a done deal. Remember the public hearings? Me neither.

It's all part of the City Council's borrow-and-spend disease -- what you get when you elect people with big egos and no money skills. Eventually they'll be mixing Columbia and Willamette River water in with Bull Run water -- something nobody wants, but it will mean many hundreds of millions in construction pork for the CH2M Hill types.

Where will our children live? We're getting the strong feeling that it won't be here.

Those tighty-righty troublemakers over at Oregon Politico, who have been posting government bureaucrat salaries and benefits for a while now, have just branched out into Oregon state government contracts. Check it out -- a billion, literally, for Cisco Systems; at least $620.5 million for U.S. Bank; another $230 million for Hoffman Construction. Cha-ching, cha-ching, cha-ching! Good thing there's never any graft in Oregon; where I came from, the kickback was traditionally 10%.

The nonsense that goes on after a police officer shoots and kills someone defies belief. Here's a story out of Spokane that just screams.

Without it, he claims, there will be "a revolution in the financial system."

Really? What do we have to do to get that here?

Portland City Hall just gets stranger and stranger. I love canning and the people who do it, but forgive me if I'm tired of paying taxes to be preached to about it. All the while advertising for commercial outfits, of course. Thanks, Sustainable Susan!

Let's just fix up the wonderful city we already have.

In all our years in Portland, we'd never gone to see the swifts at the Chapman School in the northwest part of town. Apparently, they've been showing up for about 16 years now. But the other night we caught the early bird (literally) version of the 2010 show, and it was pretty spectacular. (Except perhaps the part in which a local hawk dines to his heart's content.)

We blogged a month ago about political consultant Len Bergstein getting into the fray against the Lake Oswego streetcar. Today we learn for whom he is fronting -- a group "headed by Lake Oswego attorney Jonathan Harnish, Dunthorpe resident Elaine Franklin and Lake Oswego mother Marilyn Brett."

The Elaine Franklin? Does that mean her husband, Bob Packwood, is against it, too? Wow, this might be even more fun than we first thought.

Shocking, I know -- but apparently people aren't that enthused about bringing back a 63-year-old retread whom everybody thought had been term-limited out of office. Between Kitz and Wyden, there may not be a clothespin strong enough for Democratic voters' noses.

Here we go again.

We noted last week the over-the-top behavior of the Federal Aviation Administration toward an air ambulance operator down in Medford. Now Greg Walden is helping the company push back.

Speaking of over-the-top federal bureaucrats and air travel, this makes one's blood boil. When the Democrats in Congress get dinged in November, and they wonder why the progressives stayed home, they can look to this sort of shenanigans for their answer.

One of the fascinating things about my boyhood haunts in northern New Jersey was how homeowners would paint some of the concrete around their properties green. From an airplane, it looked like grass -- and maybe it kept the house a tiny bit cooler in the blasting heat of the summer.

Here in Oregon, we haven't quite reached that point. But we're getting close. According to a KGW story last night, now the state transportation gurus are painting the brown grass along Interstate 5 green rather than watering it.

UPDATE, 11:42 a.m.: Here's a link to the KGW story.