edited by: Mike Landfair,
Oregon Editor
Chandra Brown of United Streetcar (a subsidiary of Oregon Iron Works) is one of 100 business people who will be at President Obama's December jobs summit. Here's the press release from Congressman Blumenaur:
Blumenauer Announces United Streetcar President Chandra Brown to Join President Obama at Jobs Summit
Portland, OR -Congressman Blumenauer (D-Ore) [...]
The big news today is that John Minnis, the state's police training director and a former GOP state senator (and spouse of former GOP House Speaker Karen Minnis), has resigned his post - amidst a criminal investigation.
The big question: what's he being investigated for?
Presumably, it's big. The investigation is [...]
The coalition of folks opposing the CRC hope to make a big public showing at the next Project Sponsors Council meeting on December 4th (9:30AM at ODOT in Old Town).
This is the meeting where the Sponsors will review the proposed cost reductions. The central message for the activists will be [...]
Anna Griffin gets it right in The Oregonian:
A bit of friendly advice to the fine men and women of the Portland Police Bureau:ÂNigel Jaquiss reports in today’s Willamette Week that Nike, PGE and other large Oregon corporations are funneling money to oppose two tax measures on the ballot in January through the Portland Business Alliance and Associated Oregon Industries.
PPS School board director Pam Knowles recently resigned as Chief Operating Officer [...]
Why waste more of the public's time and resources cutting elements one by one from an unpopular plan that we can't afford? Join grassroots opposition group Stop the CRC! on December 4 at the Project Sponsors' Council meeting to demand that we start over with a smarter project built upon [...]
In an Oregonian guest opinion today, Blue Oregon contributor Jesse Cornett urges police union members to reject the no-confidence measure targeted at Commissioner Saltzman and Chief Sizer:
This week, your union executive board is asking you to take a vote of no confidence on Portland Police Chief Rosie Sizer and Commissioner [...]
Less than a week before the new federal rules take effect that require bloggers to disclose free stuff they get to review on their sites, along come a couple of nice bottles of wine from Troon Vineyard down in Grants Pass:
Even though these slipped in under the wire, [...] Nothing to do with Oregon, everything to do with Republican artistic tastes, and too good not to share; the website of George R. Hutchins, American, Ronald Reagan Republican, Jesse Helms Republican, who wants to be North Carolina's next 4th District Congressman.
This thing would best be described as if Lazlo Toth' [...]
What will be at stake when Measures 66 and 67 are on the ballot January 26? The services that make up 90% of the state budget – education, health care and public safety. The State pays most of the cost of public school for over 550,000 children; provides Oregon Health Plan coverage for [...]
Wild Bill Sizemore: Surprise! I'm running for governor!
Smilin' Bob Tiernan: Sorry, I thought we quit you some time back:
This morning, the Crooks and Liars blog page has an ad for a front group called Generation Hope: Word is out this morning that President Obama has decided to send an additional 34,000 troops to Afghanistan. If true, this could well rank as the worst decision so far in his Administration.
The fiasco of the Afghan elections, which underscored the Karzai government’s lack of any real [...]
"There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." —George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002
The Oregon political world's radar blipped yesterday upon' [...]
Sometimes it's enlightening to have statistics animated, but this animation left me with a kind of a sick feeling.
Via Echidne, this link ([cohort11.americanobserver.net]) supports an animated map of the USofA, divided into counties, from a year before the recession starts to the present day.
As you watch the map,' [...]
There's a little joke we here around the house where we try to come up with stock phrases you're likely to hear that, if you lost picture and they didn't station ID, you'd still be able to know which station you were on.
How would you know you're watching KPTV Channel' [...]
Yes, he's back, the political gift that just keeps on giving, taking a break from playing martyr over his self-inflicted wounds generated from repeatedly shooting himself in the foot in is war against the eeeville teacher's unions over the past decade or so, in the election year blockbuster Wild [...]
I get the feeling he thinks he's capitalizing on a tea party zeitgeist of which he would be a natural leader, and he must seize the moment personal circumstances be damned--but this is really not a good way to announce your candidacy for governor:
Sizemore filed Monday to seek the [...]Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Bill Sizemore has filed to run for Governor - setting up a possible Kitzhaber/Sizemore rematch, pending primary races in both parties. (Kitzhaber beat Sizemore in 1998 by a margin of 64% to 30%.)
What do his fellow Republicans think? At the O, [...]
Last week, in a post about bike funding, I alluded to a proposal to allow more bike facilities to be funded as part of transit projects. Now Congressman Blumenaur's office is urging advocates to comment on the proposal:
Dear Transit, Bicycle, and Pedestrian Friends and Colleagues,
As Jonathan Maus posted in the [...]
It looks like the stolen emails from a climate research center at the University of East Anglia are a classic example of "the dog didn't bark."
That is, the big news from this peek into the private professional correspondence of climate scientists is that there is no big [...]
I made it to the Left Bank Thursday to watch Al Gore endorse Bill Bradbury. "Endorse" barely covers it; if you were to write the speech you'd want to hear from a national bigshot to launch your campaign, you could pretty much transcribe what Gore' [...]
Nominate your favorite route as an Oregon Scenic Bikeway and inspire people to experience the best of Oregon's natural beauty from the seat of a bicycle, now and for future generations!
Follow these signs to experience [...]
Metro is reporting that TPAC (Transportation Policy Alternatives Committee - the technocrats) had a discussion about the impacts of climate change policy on the Regional Transportation Plan, but the momentum still appears to be for the status quo on the project list:
Other TPAC members, while acknowledging the importance and [...]For much of the last decade, the Pearl District has seen a succession of mixed-use condos built within the neighborhood while just across Burnside, the West End has, aside from a small project here or there, remained relatively stagnant. That changed, however, [...]
U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy announced this weekend that he had been barred from communion by Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Tobin because of the congressman's position on abortion.
Communion shouldn't be used as a political weapon. It's God's table.  All are welcome.But Bishop Tobin's actions' [...]
The Sunday Oregonian featured a story comparing two businesses and their different views of Measures 66 and 67. Paloma Clothing’s owner Mike Roach said he supports the measures. The other business owner, Bess Wills of Gresham Ford, said that the new minimum tax will [...]
With an aerial bombardment worthy of Sarah Palin, a suddenly rejuvenated Martell Webster and the rest of the Blazers went Wolf-hunting on a reliably bad Minnesota team that has now provided 30% of Portland's wins this season, blowing them out this time by the greatest margin at 28, 106-78.
It ended [...]
Here's a publication that we stumbled upon yesterday at the grocery store:
It says it's issue no. 7, which means this monthly has been going for a while. Good for them, especially in these tough times.
For those readers who find this blog too cynical, may we suggest that you find [...] Via the Streetsblog network.
The Dutch cabinet has agreed to reduce vehicle ownership taxes and impose a new tax based on kilometers driven (complete with GPS tracking - privacy protections are promised). The new tax will be higher during peak driving hours.
The government is predicting reductions in both emissions and [...]
Join TJ Monday @730 AM on KPOJ's Morning Show with Carl Wolfson and Friends, on your AM dial at 620, or via the web directly here or on your Iphone/3G/ITouch using the IHeartRadio app. That's producer Paul Pimentel on the left, Christine Alexander, Carl Wolfson, and national writer and [...]
... by Walter Brasch
It wasn't unusual that Rush Limbaugh went ballistic on his show, Nov. 13. He does that several times a day.
It wasn't unusual that he mixed a few facts with opinion and outright lies in his three-hour daily show. Fact checking for the man who calls himself "America's'" [...]
The bad news: It's leveled off at 11.2%.
The good news: Oregon's unemployment rate in May was 12.2%
The bad news: The national unemployment rate is 10.2%.
The good news: Oregon's state economist says the recession's over.
The bad news: Some [...]
One of the manifold reasons I'm disaffected with the Mother Church (my term for the Catholic Church) is that it has not only treated my human brothers and sisters who are LGBT so very unforgivably shabbily in the past, but continues to pretend that the those problems in the past' [...]
As I sit here writing this post I know I'm about to dive into the equivalent of a boiling vat of hot lava. I'd like to be able to just let it go, walk away and move on with my life. But it just keeps coming back--like a toothache I've' [...]
"It might as well have cooties. Hardly anyone wants to touch the thing, or get close to it," wrote Steve Rubenstein in a special column to the San Fransico Chronicle. According to Rubenstein many nonchain bookstores won't sell it, with one bookseller telling him, "Our customers are thinking people, they're" [...]
Two names opted out of the upcoming Goobernatorial contest very recently: Steve Sheilds on the Democratic side, and Rep. Greg Walden on the Republican.
According to The Oregonian's Mike Russell, Sheilds read the winds and saw that he was a long shot at best.
That said, I [...]Clearing out my back-log, I see, back on the 18th, The Oregonian's Charles Pope reported that our freshman Junior Senator, Jeff Merkley, was awarded the Golden Gavel.
This is an award that any freshman US Senator that acts as presiding officer for 100 hours or more during any given session' [...]
You'd think that members of the Portland (Oregon) police force would be embarrassed that several of their brethren weren't able to handle a combative 12 year old girl.
An officer shot her at close-range with a beanbag gun, even though several men had her down on the ground and were [...]
Steve Duin outlines the litany of recent complaints about the Portland Police Bureau in an article for The Oregonian:
In the brutal chain of personalities and events that have licensed Portland police to turn a beanbag shotgun on a 12-year-old girl, the aloof commissioner, absentee mayor and anything-goes police chief aren't' [...]Your Neologism of the day:
pa•li•en•a•tion: (noun) The word that describes that betrayed feeling you get after waiting multiple hours in the rain and cold with two copies of a ghostwritten book by an archconservative former governor, when you discover that she's decided to swan on out of there because she's [...]Dave Johnson makes a very smart case for taxing the rich. As he said, in the hey-day of steep taxes on the rich, America did a much better job of living up to its billing as a land of opportunity for all and everyone was better off then.
While [...]
As part of an agreement hashed out at the end [...]
No, they're not kidding.The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) has announced the winners of Portland’s 2009 Office Energy Showdown. Now in its third year, the Showdown recognizes Portland-area office buildings that have made significant achievements in energy efficiency.
Participation saw a nearly 30 percent increase in the number of participants from [...]
26 years later, this song still cracks me up. 
