The O declares today that the Portland school board's tightening of its once-liberal transfer policy is "[l]ost in the drama of sign-carrying parents protesting potential school closings." Really? I don't know whom they've been talking to, but everyone I've heard from about the schools lately has mentioned it prominently, right up there with the impending high school shutdowns.

There's only one way that closing Grant as a neighborhood school (turning it into some sort of specialty focus school) is going to get some affluent and middle-class white students into Jefferson -- which is undoubtedly among the primary goals of the current shuffle. And that is, if the school district doesn't let those students opt out of Jefferson.

But of course, what Super Carole and her bobbleheads are missing is the fact there will always be alternatives to Jeff -- several private high schools will take the displaced students, and the parents can always move them the heck out of Sam-Rand. I'm sure they'll miss the streetcar, but sometimes you have to sacrifice for your kids.

Hold on to what's left of your wallets, Portland taxpayers. The real estate venture known as Portland State University is talking big -- lots of new apartment towers for a projected sudden wave of new students. They'll knock down their parking garages, because all of the students will soon be arriving by streetcar. And hey, let's cap I-405 and build over it!

Sound familiar?

This is the latest maneuver from the same West Hills developer-construction Mafia that brought you the SoWhat district and will soon have you paying for the "sustainability center." The university doesn't have the money for any of it, really. I'll bet it's all supposed to be done with "urban renewal" -- property taxes that will be diverted from the ever-dwindling basic services that government provides around here.

There's a recession bordering on a depression in progress, and now's the time for the city's taxpayers to invest eight or nine figures in housing at Portland State?

Good news for soccer fans -- the American "major" soccer league and its players have reached an agreement and called off a strike that was set to take effect on Thursday, the league's opening day. Not-so-good news for Portland taxpayers, who are ripping up PGE Park for soccer, is the prognosis for the league's finances. Here's the president of the league this morning:

Garber said Seattle and Toronto were the only profitable MLS teams last year.

"We also collectively agreed that we need to grow our television ratings and attendance," Garber said. "Perhaps five years from now we have a league that's operating with all teams at a profit."

How many "planners" are on the Portland city payroll? A hundred? Two hundred?

Then why does the city have to pay an outside consultant $75,000 to do "strategic planning" for the housing bureau?

Oh, and the housing bureau needs that special somebody to help it build a "brand." Are we running public housing here, or a chain of submarine sandwich shops?

Here's the money paragraph from the official amalgamation of bureacurat psycho-babble surrounding the bid invitation:

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

Analysis: Review and synthesize data, planning work and community and stakeholder input gathered to date towards setting a community housing needs framework to guide the development of PHB’s strategic directions, goals, priorities and direction.

Public Participation: Conduct needed community and stakeholder engagement to fill informational gaps, validate assumptions and set a standard for PHB’s public process.

Strategic Plan Development: Facilitate with staff and stakeholders the development of a 3 year PHB Strategic Plan that will include the following:

- PHB Mission, Vision, Values and Priorities
- PHB’s Impacts:
- How will the community benefit from the formation of PHB?
- How will the new organization measure its improvement from past models and going forward?
-PHB goals, objectives, strategies, performance measures and deliverables.
- Programs: defined outcomes, goals, strategies and deliverables for our direct community investments.
- Influence: Strategies and outcomes for resource development, legislative agenda, community engagement and intergovernmental work that serves PHB’s mission.
- Community Equity: complete the process underway to define PHB’s vision for community equity and to set corresponding goals and strategies to achieve the vision. Proposed structure for PHB public involvement and advisory bodies.
- An organizational development critical path to achieve change.
- PHB Business functioning and community relationships: optimized to meet and exceed new objectives and performance measures.
- PHB Communications: Identify key strategies for establishing a PHB Communications Plan, including PHB branding work and Strategic Plan marketing and distribution.

Portland's unzipped mayor and his court jesters on the City Council have really hit a nerve with this sewer-bills-for-bike-boulevards thing. Last night members of the citizen utility board gave the council a piece of their minds, although of course, the politicians weren't around around to hear it. And there will be another opportunity for public expression on this issue quite soon. Sewer customers who live in town will get to vote on city commissioners Nick Fish and Dan Saltzman again in May. The sewer-bike scam is the kind of issue that can sway many people's votes, if their opponents handle it properly.

Apparently commissioner Amanda Fritz is also learning a bitter lesson here: When you cast your rush-rush vote for one of these Sam-Rand pigs in lipstick, don't try to explain yourself. You make yourself look really foolish when you do. Now she's correcting her highly inaccurate justification from the other day for voting yes on the sewer money raid, when she said the cost of the diversion would be just 90 cents to the "average" sewer customer. Er, no:

If $20 million were cut from BES's Capital Improvement Projects for the purpose of cutting rates and reducing ongoing debt service, the impact to a typical residential customer would indeed be about 7.5 cents per month, in the first year. The impact in the second year would be greater, up to 15 cents per month, and top out in the third year at 22.5 cents per month. So the annual return to ratepayers would be $0.90 in year one, $1.80 in year two, and $2.70 in years three through twenty-five. Overall, the total amount over 25 years would be about $65.

I don't know if having the information about ongoing rate impacts would have changed my vote, if I had received it earlier. Our federal government borrowed billions of dollars last year, and by doing so was able to send money to states to fund projects to provide jobs. This investment in jobs, instead of paying off the debt, can be seen in the same light. On the other hand, our Portland Utility Review Board voluteers are charged with commenting on ongoing rates, and I would have liked their input on a decision that affects ongoing rates in this manner.

This has been a challenging week, with the proposed changes to the Independent Police Review process being considered today after only being released for public review on Friday, and with the intense Council debate on the Hurley case in the Fire and Police Disability and Retirement system yesterday. My staff and I work long hours doing our best to find out accurate information, and to make good decisions based upon thoughtful consideration of facts and public input. I am not always successful in these goals. I will continue to base my actions on what I believe is best for the public good in Portland, recognizing that reasonable people can and do disagree on what that means. Sometimes I disagree with myself after further discussion. You're welcome to continue the debate and input here, however I will be unable to check back until Sunday due to a packed work schedule on Friday and family obligations on Saturday.

And besides, this isn't about jobs. I'm sure most sewer customers are fine with the city using their sewer bill payments to hire construction workers to build improvements to the sewer system. But when you take the money and throw it at some la-la bike plan, those are the wrong kinds of jobs -- jobs that sewer users rightfully resent being placed on their backs.

This one is another Sauvie Island bridge move -- Sam Adams showing his impulse control problems again -- and it deserves a similar outcome.

Can't wait until this is a regular thing down here in Portland.

If it happens, it will be quite shocking.

And spoken by the owner of the Seattle "major" soccer league team:

Roth said he doesn't think the players fully understand the league's economic situation, or choose not to accept it. Only a couple MLS franchises make money, Seattle and Toronto. Coupled with low television ratings and sagging attendance, he said it is hardly the time to radically reform the league's structure.

It's hard to beat Portland local government for comedy, but as usual our rival to the north gives us a run for our money.

It seems as though the city government of Portland is pumping out money to consulting contractors at the rate of $1 million a day. Here's yet another advertisement soliciting more outside expertise, this time from the transportation bureau. You'll recall that yesterday, we reported that that agency is going to an outside firm to draft up its new tax assessment system for the SoWhat-Portland State real; estate black hole. Today we've got another $1.2 million for "Graphic Design, Organizational Development Services, Public Involvement and Public Outreach, and Transportation Finance & Economic Analysis."

The details:

Service Area I: Graphic Design a. Graphic illustrations b. Graphic design c. Desktop publishing d. Presentation graphics, displays and posters e. Logo design and illustrations f. Public meeting displays

Service Area II: Organizational Development Services
a. Internal organization meeting facilitation
b. Strategic planning
c. Professional coaching
d. Employee mediation/resolution
e. Diversity and work force planning
f. Organizational design
g. Business process improvement

Service Area III: Public Involvement and Public Outreach
a. Public outreach campaign strategy development and implementation
b. Communication services
c. Public strategic planning
d. Internal and external meeting facilitation

Service Area IV: Transportation Finance And Economic Analysis
a. Revenue and expenditure analysis
b. Modeling revenue and expenditure alternative scenarios
c. Economic Analysis
d. Development of revenue mechanisms
e. Database development
f. Presentation of analysis

Alas, I'm not doing the whole basketball tournament prediction thing this year. As usual, I haven't been following the college game hardly at all, and as a result I have no clue as to what's going to happen in the "big dance."

I see that the President has filled in his bracket, though. It must give him a feeling of relative accomplishment to get that out of the way.

Anyway, of all the madness, here's one of the more interesting pieces of fandom we've seen this year: the outcome of the 64-team men's tourney based on graduates' starting salaries. Kansas is eliminated in the first round! [Via TaxProf Blog.]

There should have been a fail-safe program in place to prevent this. [Via Al, my palster.]

"Soccer won't ever reach the height of baseball or [American] football and it probably won't be as popular as ice hockey," suggests Wangerin. "But it will find its place. One analogy I've read is that soccer will be more like a boutique coffee shop, rather than a massive supermarket."

Even Repo Man has been replaced by a computer.

Here's a rough one for rock fans of a certain age -- Alex Chilton has died.

Word is out -- Fred "Crocodile" Hansen is retiring from Tri-Met. But the Goldschmidt Gang's grip on the agency will doubtlessly continue as long as Governor Ted and his appointees are calling the shots. Hey, maybe the Guv will want to run Tri-Met himself!

The O sends Fred off in style, with a photo of him in front of the WES train, which should have been named EPICFAIL. He will leave the agency weaker and less effective than it's been in many years. They'll blame the economy, but I don't think so. It's clueless management as much as anything else. Go by streetcar, Fred!

Hey, wait a minute, he's only 63. Perhaps there's one more Network appointment before he is weaned from the public breast. The Port? OHSU? Oh, the possibilities.

When it comes to throwing money at consultants, Portland takes the cake. Now it's even going to farm out writing its own tax rules. Here's a new request for proposals on a so-far-open-ended contract to create the new system of "transportation system development charges" on the hapless fools who build buildings in the SoWhat district and vicinity:

The expansion of lightrail and the streetcar requires significant funding. On June 17, 2009 the City Council adopted resolution 36709 (attached as Exhibit E), which directed the Bureau of Transportation to pursue the final funding plan for the City’s contribution to the Portland to Milwaukie Lightrail project. Exhibit A of the resolution proposed a TSDC overlay or Local Improvement District (LID) for the South Central City/University District/Science and Technology Triangle (see attached map, Exhibit F). Opportunities for additional TSDC Overlays may be favored by property owners over LIDs or other fees because of the deferment of the assessment until development of the property....

The City of Portland, Bureau of Transportation is seeking proposals from individuals, firms, teams or consultants, hereafter called “Proposer(s),” with demonstrated experience in the creation of system development charge programs, financial and economic analyses, transportation modeling and traffic analysis, and public coalition building/outreach abilities.

The Bureau of Transportation proposes to engage the successful Proposer for the following services:

1) develop the boundaries of one or more potential TSDC overlay district(s);
2) develop a TSDC overlay project list for potential district(s);
3) create a new rate study, and make recommendations to the Portland Bureau of Transportation on potential TSDC overlay districts.

With the updated project list(s), the City would like to target future TSDC funds to: 1) maximize the use of TSDC overlay revenue as leverage; and 2) obtain the most beneficial transportation infrastructure improvements needed within the potential district(s).

Now that the wise, calm, steady hand of Ted Wheeler has left the Multnomah County commission for the state treasurer's office, suddenly the makeup of that board looks pretty scary. Jeff Cogen will be jumping into Wheeler's still-warm seat as commission chair, and he is going to wield quite a bit of power. But he's still a relative unknown, and of the other three continuing commissioners, two are of grave concern.

Judy Shiprack (nee Bauman) wasted no time revealing her role as construction contractor shill when she ran out to Lents with Fireman Randy last summer to try to cram the Paulson baseball stadium down the horrified neighborhood's throat. And yesterday The Latest Kafoury, Deborah, popped up in Willy Week to tell the world that she's so happy that Wheeler's gone, because Cogen is going to supply a new brand of leadership -- "pushing the envelope," whereas Ted was merely maintaining the status quo.

Uh oh. Major uh oh.

Can you say "Convention Center hotel"? Can you say "new urban renewal districts"? It certainly sounds as though the stupidity in these arenas, skillfully stalled by Wheeler, could be about to resume.

Will Cogen stay the course and stand up for fiscal responsibility at the county level? I don't know. He's a former protege of Dan "Legend" Saltzman, the resident West Hills rag doll on the Portland City Council, and you'll soon see a lot of the two of their lawn signs side by side. Saltzman has never stood up to the big money real estate weasels, or the cops, or to anybody else for that matter, and it remains to be seen whether Cogen will do so. One can only hope.

It gets even scarier when one considers who's up for Cogen's soon-to-be-vacated seat. The Reverend Chuck (Inside Track to God) Currie is one of the candidates there, and he would likely be a second vote for whatever Deborah Kafoury wanted to do. When she tried to stay on in the state legislature despite actually moving out of her district, old Chuck was quick to defend her actions. He's also on the record, on this blog and elsewhere, as believing that Erik Sten was one of the greatest leaders Portland has ever seen. If Currie makes it onto the commission, any similarity between the county government and an adult enterprise would be strictly coincidence.

The other candidates include Karol Collymore, a current Cogen staffer who one might think would be a second vote for Cogen's agenda; and Roberta Phillip, whom we like a lot but is a political rookie with the potential for being eaten alive by the big money interests from the west side. Paul Van Orden is another attractive young candidate, but he reminds us of a cute orange tomcat left out in the yard at night and surrounded by hungry urban coyotes. Tom Markgraf, an Earl the Pearl flack? Great, if you like spending money on things that don't work.

Shiprack, Kafoury, a rookie, Cogen, plus Diane McKeel, the token member from Gresham... Go by streetcar, people. Go by streetcar.

We blogged last week about how Portland's now changing or bending the rules on the bidding for its parking management contract, long after the bids were received and closed. Yesterday they issued yet another set of "clarifying" pronouncements, in effect making up yet more rules and interpretations.

This particular bidding round is tainted beyond recognition. To prove that it's not rigged, the city needs to pull the plug on this contract and put it back out for another round of bidding.

Amanda Fritz, Portland's psychiatric nurse-city commissioner, continues to minister to the patients at City Hall. But now she's defending the creepy mayor's plan to divert $20 million of sewer bureau revenues to bicycle improvements -- a plan that will be passed, with no public testimony allowed, today. Fritz does a better job of selling it than the mayor can, but that's not saying much. The whole thing is insane.

Meanwhile, an alert reader questions whether the sewer-bills-for-bike-paths maneuver is illegal because it violates the state's property tax limitation. The Oregon Constitution limiting such taxes states:

A "tax" is any charge imposed by a governmental unit upon property or upon a property owner as a direct consequence of ownership of that property except incurred charges and assessments for local improvements....

"Incurred charges" include and are specifically limited to those charges by government which can be controlled or avoided by the property owner.... Incurred charges shall not exceed the actual costs of providing the goods or services.

Before he killed James Chasse in the summer of 2006, Portland's violent man child in blue had one of his moments in another alleged fare evasion case on MAX. The injured citizen in that case has now reportedly had the charges against her dropped, but she's still not too happy about the stitches she got back then.

Is there really nobody in town who can tell us what this was all about? And it appears from the comments there might have been two of them.

This is a depressing illustration of the sorry state of our federal government.

Here's a front-office development that has fans scratching their heads.

First Multnomah County's public health director said there was no scientific evidence that Portland's open drinking water reservoirs needed to be covered. Then he said there was no scientific evidence that they didn't need to be covered. Now he's saying that they do indeed need to be covered.

Way to go, Doc. Follow along with what Fireman Randy says, or else you'll be working at Kaiser.

Speaking of trees in Portland: On the west side of I-5 between John's Landing and Terwilliger Boulevard in SW Portland, crews have been up on the roadside hill, logging! Ah, those were the days.

I always thought those trees were probably what kept that hill from sliding down onto the freeway. Is there a retaining wall in the works?

Scroll down to see that at least somebody down there has a conscience.

They'll be working on the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge next year, and as a result, bikers and hikers will be detoured around to some less wild places for that summer. Your friendly neighborhood bald eagles will enjoy the improvements to their digs, but some of the other trails down that way will be getting an extra workout.

Walking around inner northeast Portland lately, we've noticed that many street trees that were planted 75 to 100 years ago are really wreaking havoc with the sidewalks, and that many large, gangly, unstable limbs are swaying around overhead waiting for the next big storm. As just one example, a widow maker fell off our neighbor's gum tree last fall, and around the corner a sidewalk that was completely redone about three years ago is already being broken up from below by the roots of the monster trees nearby.

A friend of ours suggested a while back that street trees have a useful life, and that many of the trees in the city's older neighborhoods, although beautiful in the abstract, are starting to become problems as a practical matter. Maybe, he mused, Portland should think about adopting a plan to replace them -- a gentle and gradual process.

There's no sign that City Hall sees things that way at all. Indeed, rather than loosen up the rules about street trees, the City of Portland's moving in the opposite direction. It's about to adopt new rules that will put more of a burden on property owners, and of course expand the regulatory empire, all in the name of "green." Under the new code, even single-family lot owners won't be allowed to cut down any trees on their property with a diameter of 12 inches or more, and any tree that's taken out will have to be replaced, even if the old one was dead, diseased, or dangerous. Both of those rules would be new.

The official spin of the benefits provided by these and many other proposed changes is here. One big reason given is simplification of the existing rules. We love it when they take away our rights because it's simpler if we don't have them.

It's bad enough that Portland's building streetcar lines to nowhere, when there is not enough money to operate the transit system it already has. But now it's also planning to rip out streetcar tracks that it laid just a few years ago and move them!

First it was the Moody Avenue tracks to the SoWhat District, which the feds apparently have agreed to pay $23 million to help elevate. The projected cost on that one at last report was $66 million.

And now the locals are also scratching around for $4 million* to move the streetcar tracks down by Portland State so that they run through the hippy-dippy new "sustainability center," where businesses are supposedly going to pay super-premium rates to relocate to a building with compost toilets:

One project would shift streetcar tracks from Southwest Montgomery Street and Fourth Avenue through the site of the future Oregon Sustainability Center. Although the $2 million in stimulus money didn’t come through, Pearce said, there’s a pending state Connect Oregon grant that could replace that portion of the project’s $4 million* cost.

Another project site, Southeast Water Avenue, plays heavily into the future of the area’s rail systems. Riders would board light-rail trains and streetcars there before crossing the river on a new transit bridge.

Rerouting Water Avenue would make connections easier for commuters, and move traffic around an area where both the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry and the Portland Opera plan to expand.

The project would cost around $7 million.* There aren’t any obvious grant sources that could replace hoped-for federal stimulus money, Pearce said.

* - Preliminary, liars' budget figures.

Reading the latest Irvington neighborhood newsletter last night, we learned that the neighborhood association's land use committee is suggesting that the city abandon the idea of encouraging bicyclists to use Northeast Ninth Avenue as a main thoroughfare between Broadway and Irving Park. In particular, the committee is concerned about that block of Ninth between Broadway and Schuyler, which they say is bicycle-unfriendly.

We couldn't agree more. That particular block is scary to travel on, whether you're on a bike, on foot, or even in a car. With the OnPoint Credit Union parking lot across Ninth from the credit union itself, there are many moments of chaos each weekday, with all sorts of unexpected maneuvers by cars and plenty of pedestrians marching across the street in the middle of the block. Meanwhile, the doors of short-term-parked cars along the curb swing open into the street with reckless abandon. And the four-way stop at Ninth and Schuyler is a hot spot for impatient drivers who tend to roll through the eastbound stop sign on Schuyler after dealing with parallel parking delays from customers of the nearby post office branch. (The post office traffic makes Eighth pretty undesirable as well.)

We've seen several close calls and angry verbal exchanges at Ninth and Schuyler as it is, and running a lot of bicycle traffic through there would be crazy. When we're in that neighborhood running errands, we often get off the bike and push it across the intersection, or ride on the sidewalk and behave like a pedestrian in order to avoid the many hazards out in the middle of the street.

The neighbors say that Eleventh would make a better north-south bike boulevard, and as usual, the neighbors have got it right. Ninth is not the best choice for a bike until one gets north of Tillamook.

The City of Portland released to us yesterday a copy of the $12 million five-year line of credit "facility" that it's taking out from Bank of America (its favorite private lender) to pay the city's share of the cost of the half-fast re-renovation of PGE Park by the Paulson family for "major league" (by U.S. standards) soccer. You can read the final B of A contract in all its glory here. We also asked for and received the agreement whereby U.S. Bank will parcel out the pork during construction, and the legal opinion that Harvey Rogers, the city's "special" bond counsel, gave on the financing. They are here and here, respectively.

When we recently posted about this pending transaction, we wondered whether the city would actually promise to take out a permanent loan at the end of the five years to pay off the B of A debt. We questioned whether such a promise would be enforceable. From our first reading of the final contract, it doesn't appear that such a covenant was made.

Not that it matters to the Portland City Council, but the official citizens' advisory commission on water, sewer, and garbage rates is lining up against the plan to divert $20 million from the city sewer budget for bike lanes and paths. The council is going to pass the bonehead proposal tomorrow, whereas the advisory board vote won't be until Thursday. It's all a waste of time to protest, of course, because the Sam-Rand Twins have their votes, and it's a done deal.

Senator Ron Wyden (R-N.Y.) will be touting his new bi-partisan tax plan today before the arch-conservative Heritage Foundation. Maybe that will stop them from writing checks to the campaign war chest of Jim Huffman (who was once a resident scholar at Heritage).

Instead of some goofball "clusters" idea, here's a way to improve the business outlook in downtown Portland immediately.

Here's further proof that Portland is way, way overbuilt when it comes to condominiums and doesn't need any more for a long, long time.

Here's one right out of the City of Portland playbook. You'll be charged for water, even if you don't buy any from the city and aren't hooked up to the water line.

Bureaucrats sometimes seem to go out of their way to antagonize people. Here's an example -- an exchange between someone thinking about bidding on the Portland parks bureau's latest consultant contract (to the tune of $1.45 million). The prospective contractor asks for information that would help in deciding whether to prepare a bid, and is basically told to buzz off. But the response is couched as if the mighty parks bureau official is actually being helpful:

Q. I'm wondering if it would be possible to come in to look at proposal submissions and scoring from PP&R's last on-call RFP in preparation for submitting on the current one. Also, could you please tell me what firms currently hold contracts?

A. PP&R believes the current RFP (PKS030) contains all the necessary information for proposers to complete the RFP.

However, it is possible to look at proposal submissions and scoring from PP&R’s last on-call RFP (PKS023). Please review and submit a public records request. Please note, due to record request processing time, it may not be possible to look at the information prior to the due date for PKS030 proposals.

City of Portland Public Records Request Information and Forms: http://www.portlandonline.com/auditor/index.cfm?c=35190&a=185815

As for the contracts held by Parks, again this is not pertinent to the proposal development. However, please submit a public records request and be specific if you are interested in this information.

With all the p.r. flacks, bloggers, and Tweeters that the City of Portland has on its payroll these days, it has apparently run out of money for a proofreader at the Parks Bureau. From our mailbox over the weekend:

Typographical problems aside, it's good that they've stopped sending out hard copy catalogs to everyone and her brother for every recreation season. We'd hardly look at them before into the recycling bin they went.

Now if only our City Council, which purports to be so "green," would stand up to the weasels who dump big, fat, unwanted phone books on everybody's front porch a couple of times a year, we might start believing that they really care about wasting paper.

A little bird over at the Portland Development Commission informs us that there are going to be some serious staff cuts over there later this month. Here is what appears to be a memo from the agency's management to its neophyte employees' union. In it, the PDC outlines three ways that people are going to disappear: five-figure buyouts, "severance" with a couple of months' pay, and straight layoff with the right to "bump" folks on a lower rung. In all three cases, employees who leave get six months of medical under the same terms as they do now.

According to the memo, the official word is going out to the workers themselves today.

Your state tax refund, at least in some states. As state governments start dropping into bankruptcy or its equivalent, this could be the coming thing.

The start of Daylight Savings Time reminded me of how attached to technology we've become. In cruising around the house to reset clocks, I found there were quite a few that didn't need my help. The computers, the cable TV box, the iPhones, even the little mini-weather station that we picked up as a gift a while back -- they all take their marching orders from afar. They make clear that they're telling me what time it is, and not vice versa.

Oh, there were still plenty of times to jump ahead by hand. But there are more robots around this place -- and smarter ones -- than ever before.

Here's a story that the local media is tiptoeing around: Big-time regional advertiser Les Schwab was busted by the feds for not hiring women as tire changers, and it's paid the government a $2 million settlement to make the case go away.

We love Schwab and wouldn't buy tires anywhere else. Glad to see them putting this behind them. Which reminds me -- my rig is looking a little low on air.

European tax law can be fascinating at times. Now that we know that a Pringle is indeed a potato chip, we can ponder whether a coin-operated porno booth is an "automated recreation device" or a "cubicle cinema." The tax in Belgium is much lower if it's the latter. [Via TaxProf Blog.]

"Major league" soccer scoring celebrations.

Daylight Savings Time has begun in North America this morning, but not in the rest of the Northern Hemisphere. Iran jumps in next weekend.

Here's a scary report from a Washington, D.C. think tank. Congress is spending so much money that it doesn't have, that to eliminate the deficit, you'd have to raise the top federal income tax rate to 84.9%!

And the report includes a dire warning from an economist not noted for hysteria:

"Mind boggling" is the term Martin Sullivan of Tax Analysts uses to describe the tax and spending changes that would have to occur just to get the deficit down to 3 percent of GDP.

"Our gridlocked, dysfunctional Congress simply cannot bring itself to absorb these types of painful shocks," says Sullivan. "Given these unprecedented pressures I believe that within the next decade there is more than a 50-50 chance there will be an upheaval either of the political system or the economy."

Commuting home last evening at rush hour, we were amazed at how little traffic there was on the freeway. At least the anemia affecting the economy is good for something, we thought.

Then we opened an e-mail message from a reader, which linked us to this page. It's part of the City of Portland's economic development plan, created by the Portland Development Commission.

It's good, we suppose, that the city is trying to do something about the decay of its economic base. But does anybody really think that this strategy is worth pursuing? It's so full of planner psychobabble and bureaucratic jargon -- it just doesn't seem to correspond at all with the way businesspeople think. "Cluster Organizing Framework"? "Allow for cluster leadership to emerge"? "Develop action plan with stakeholders"?

We hope this ends up creating some jobs other than at the PDC.