Reed College's aging nuclear reactor keeps a-reactin' away, while federal regulators decide whether to renew its license. The "research" facility, which is right on campus next to the psychology building, is 43 years old.

Some inspectors from the federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission -- the Sergeant Schultzes of the atomic power industry -- visited the Reed facility in a routine visit in late November, and the inspection report is here. Apparently Reed passed, but there were a few items in the writeup that caught our eye. First, some possible corner-cutting on safety:

During the past several years the radiation protection duties at the facility were completed by various individuals who were Reed College part-time employees. They filled the position at the RRR facility designated as the Reactor Health Physicist (RHP). Recently, after discussions among Reed College management and staff, it was decided that the RHP position was not needed and that the College would be better served by having staff members and/or students complete the radiation protection duties at the RRR facility. Because the facility TS still required that there be an RHP on various committees, the Reactor Director was assigned as the interim RHP. Reed College management also decided that a Certified Health Physicist (CHP) would be retained once each year to conduct an audit of the campus radiation protection program. It was noted that the campus Environmental Director continued to fill both that position and the position of Radiation Safety Officer for the campus as well. The licensee was informed that the elimination of the facility RHP position, the completion of the RHP duties by staff members and/or students, and the completion of an annual audit of the radiation protection program by someone from outside the facility, such as a CHP, would be considered by the NRC as an Inspector Follow-up Item (IFI) and would be reviewed during a subsequent inspection (IFI 50-288/2011-203-01)....

Next, it was a relatively bad year for radiation exposure among the workers, most of whom are students:

The inspector determined that the licensee used optically stimulated luminescent (OSL) dosimeters for whole body monitoring of beta and gamma radiation exposure. The licensee also used thermoluminescent dosimeter (TLD) finger rings for monitoring beta and gamma radiation exposure of the extremities. The dosimetry was supplied and processed by a National Voluntary Laboratory Accreditation Program (NVLAP) accredited vendor (Landauer). An examination of the OSL and TLD results indicating radiological exposures at the facility for the past two years showed that the highest occupational doses, as well as doses to the public, were well within 10 CFR Part 20 limitations. The records showed that the highest annual whole body exposure received by a single individual for 2009 was 9 millirem deep dose equivalent (DDE). The highest annual extremity exposure for 2009 was 12 millirem shallow dose equivalent (SDE). The highest annual whole body exposure received by a single person for 2010 was 3 millirem DDE and the highest annual extremity exposure for that year was 40 millirem SDE. Through September 2011, the highest individual whole body exposure that had been received was 21 millirem DDE and the highest extremity exposure through September was 700 millirem SDE. The relatively high whole body and extremity doses received thus far in 2011 were received during the course of an experiment when the sample and sample holder were removed after a long irradiation and the aluminum sample holder was more radioactive than anticipated. The SOP has been revised as a result....

In reviewing the RWPs, it was noted that one had been used in connection with work involving the removal of a sample and sample holder from the Central Thimble (as noted above in Paragraph (2) above). After the RWP was used and the personnel dosimetry was processed for those involved in the work, the licensee discovered that one individual had received a dose to the extremities of 640 mr. Upon investigation the licensee determined that the sample and sample holder had been irradiated in the Central Thimble for an extended period and the person who removed the sample and holder probably did not take all the proper precautions during the work evolution. The inspector indicated that nonroutine jobs are often the ones that can lead to problems because the work evolution is not familiar and individuals may not complete the operation properly without extensive training and practice. This can be especially true with those jobs involving highly irradiated samples can. Through discussions it was agreed that such jobs should be reviewed not only by the Facility Director, but also by the Radiation Safety Committee. This would allow others to consider the work and through their collective expertise and experience, possibly determine better or more efficient ways to complete the job....

And despite the claims that the reactor makes little waste, Reed did in fact ship some radioactive waste out of the facility during the year:

Through records reviews and discussions with licensee personnel, the inspector determined that the licensee had completed various shipments of licensed material since the last inspection of transportation in December 2009. The licensee had completed one solid radioactive waste shipment to date in 2011. The necessary forms containing the appropriate information were completed as required. Appropriate procedures were in place for shipping various types of radioactive material.

It was noted that the licensee had also received a shipment of fuel and had completed a fuel shipment in 2011. These shipments were reviewed by the NRC and the results of these reviews were documented in Inspection Report Nos. 50-288/2011-201 and 50-288/2011-202 respectively. The inspector noted verified that the licensee individuals who were designated as “shippers” no longer worked at the facility. The licensee acknowledged that selected staff members would need to attend the appropriate training and become qualified to ship radioactive material....

Apparently, Reed's waste goes out on Woodstock, 82nd, and Foster to I-205, and then to I-84, finally ending up over at the Idaho National Lab waste dump.

Overall, it's not a pretty picture. Aging facilities, wholesale staff turnover, a layoff and job consolidations, student help, bad trends in radiation exposure... but you know what they say in the nuke industry: Nothing to see here, folks. We know more than you. And trust us, nothing can go wrong.

Over in northwest Portland, just west of the I-405 freeway and in the higher letters of the Alphabet District, there used to be some actual industry, especially trucking. Blue collar jobs, like the ones the politicians around here keep telling us they're trying to bring us. But now all those businesses have been chased away by the bad attitudes in City Hall, and there's no hope of them ever coming back. And so it's time to decide what else should be located on that prime real estate.

You'll never guess what the city planners have come up with.

What's that you say? Well, how did you know?

That's right, apartments!

Those glorious, wonderful, ugly crackerbox apartments. But hey, there's still a lot that hasn't been decided: eight stories, or 22, or 30?

There's also some debate about park space. Some people have suggested an actual traditional park with, you know, a playground. But to the creative 20-something know-nothings running city government, that's an impossible sell. They'd rather have some super-sterile concrete thing with a few blades of pathetic "native" grass that no one will ever sit by, except maybe the occasional junkie tying up.

There's a whole public involvement charade in progress on this, but let's face it, it's going to be more high-rise apartments that existing residents will heavily subsidize, some hideous totem poles, a bunch of Subway sandwich locations, a lot of fake brick, and a ton of pretension. Cue Randy Gragg! Go by streetcar!

Here's a wild one in Willy Week: Phil Knight's building a new sports building on the University of Oregon campus, but nobody in the administration of the university admits to knowing any of the details of the project. When Uncle Phil wants to build something, they just "lease" him the land, no questions asked, and when he's had his way with the property, he just surrenders it back with his new toy on it. During the construction, everything's "private," and therefore secret.

It's a little like the Penn State football program in that regard.

Here's a tale that does not speak well of what we thought was a sleepy southern suburb of Portland.

Yesterday, on our post about the City of Portland's outrageous $60 parking zone "Gotcha," we got this comment from a poster calling himself or herself "PdxBug":

Jack, These zones have been in place and enforced this way for many years. The reader who sent this in is just upset they got caught. Where on a red light does it say to "stop"?

When you check the IP address from which that comment was posted, you get:

IP Address: 74.120.152.212

NetRange: 74.120.152.0 - 74.120.155.255
CIDR: 74.120.152.0/22
OriginAS: AS12102
NetName: CITY-OF-PORTLAND-OR-USA
NetHandle: NET-74-120-152-0-1
Parent: NET-74-0-0-0-0
NetType: Direct Assignment
RegDate: 2009-12-10
Updated: 2009-12-10
Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/net/NET-74-120-152-0-1

OrgName: City of Portland
OrgId: CITYOF-152
Address: 1120 SW 5th Ave
Address: Room 450
City: Portland
StateProv: OR
PostalCode: 97204
Country: US
RegDate: 1998-10-23
Updated: 2011-03-31
Ref: http://whois.arin.net/rest/org/CITYOF-152

They have found so many ways to give the citizenry the finger. It's a sort of a wayward achievement.

It's amazing that one false move could erase a decade or more of goodwill in a matter or a day or two. But that's what's happened. Stunning, really.

Most of the board and officers will probably be gone by Valentine's Day. That's what one gets for "playing it safe" in the internet age.

In light of our post of last night about the latest $60 "Gotcha" from Portland City Hall, we think that these ought to be posted in the parking zones to alert unsuspecting motorists of the operative rules:

The Portland City Council can easily get one's blood boiling, but in brighter moments it's important to stop and savor the sublime hilarity of their actions. Take the police fitness money scandal, for example -- the one in which any cop can get an extra $739 pay just by showing up once to take a blood test:

Ninety one percent, or 823 of the 900 members of the Portland Police Association got the extra pay the first year for simply showing up to get their finger pricked for blood, blood pressure taken and height and weight checked. The original plan was to have police take a timed obstacle and physical abilities test. Passing would earn the premium pay – 1 percent of top step officer salary, or $739.

The city scrapped the fitness test after the union balked about having to take the exams off-duty without receiving overtime. Yvonne Deckard, director of the city's Bureau of Human Resources, said the potential cost of paying officers overtime to take the fitness test would have been unacceptable.

We're surprised comics the world over haven't been yukking it up over that one. It's just too good. But almost as funny are the politicians' reactions to it. This abomination must stop! Yes, so outraged are the city commissioners that by gum, they're going to try to negotiate that out of the next union contract!

Leonard asked the City Council to consider a resolution that would put off any change until a new contract is negotiated in 2013. Under his plan, the city's Bureau of Human Resources would be directed to develop a physical fitness test for police before agreeing to pay a 1 percent premium health and fitness pay to officers in the next contract....

Mayor Sam Adams, who serves as police commissioner, said today, "Negotiations or implementation of the negotiations didn't go exactly as I had hoped."

The council voted 4 to 1 to approve Leonard's resolution. Saltzman objected.

What courage. What wonderful stewardship of the public's hard-earned money.

The capper of them all, though, is this:

Saltzman wants to require notetakers at all contract talks to provide an "accurate record" and greater involvement of the council and city attorney's office in crafting city bargaining agreements.

Note-takers? Note-takers? We've got five commissioners, each with a dozen or more minions running around on staff, and nobody knows what's in the union contracts because they need note-takers?

Fred Armisen, eat your heart out -- you'll never be that funny.

Our old partner from law practice, Greg Macpherson, made it official yesterday that he's running for mayor of Lake Oswego. We've always liked Mac as a politician, and were dismayed to see him lose the state attorney general's race at the hands of the public employee unions. They snuffed out his career in Salem as revenge for his daring to cut back their precious, and grossly unsustainable, pensions.

But we're afraid that we won't be supporting his mayoral run, because as the Lake O. rebels have warned us, Macpherson's in tight with Homer Williams and the real estate developer set who are still pushing condo bunkers, and a streetcar to Portland, for that 'burb's east side. If there was any doubt about that after his recent testimony in favor of the streetcar, Mac certainly sent out the bat signal in his e-mail announcement yesterday:

It appears he's gone completely over to the Portland planning mafia. Which is too bad, on a number of levels.

In any event, the rebels down that way had better find themselves a good candidate, and soon, because Mac is going to be hard to beat. And if he wins, the bankrupting apartment bunkers with their dopey trolley will be very much back on track.

Stenchy saw his shadow, which means there'll be two more weeks before the next garbage pickup.

The race to the bottom has never been more apparent. If you live in Portland, you pay money to a company in Spain to keep some well connected local landlord's office building occupied. All in the name of saving the planet -- and "jobs," of course.

Here's a new atrocity from Sam Rand City Hall. A reader writes:

I recently discovered an interesting and unusual Portland parking law today after I was issued a ticket. I parked in the NE industrial area near Widmer brewery (zone J 2 hour zone) in the morning (9am) and returned again briefly in the afternoon 2pm. Apparently it is ILLEGAL in Portland to go to the barber shop in that zone in the morning and return for a meal in the afternoon according to the parking regulations (below). I even parked on a different block! Oh well, Portland has my $60.

16.20.860 Violation and Enforcement.

C. During permit designated hours, it is unlawful for a nonpermitted vehicle to:

1. Exceed the maximum visitor time limit allowed within the signed permit area;

2. Return to the signed permit area for a period of 12 hours after parking for any time period.

Silly reader. Probably lives in a detached single-family home, too.

Look, friend, there's an easy solution to your problem: Don't do business in Portland.

"Urban renewal" is now officially dead in the bankrupt Golden State. It will take a long time, but eventually the same thing will happen in Oregon. The middle class and the poor will continue to suffer for the rich folks' sake, until finally the government is too broke to function. What a waste.

Finally, the City of Portland admits that shooting an unarmed man in the back is wrong. "In the Campbell case, the city hired multiple outside attorneys to represent Frashour and Lewton and two other officers who were subsequently dismissed from the case." And now, on top of that, we'll get to pay $1.2 million in damages. Who's running the police bureau, anyway? Whoever they are, they look incompetent. Maybe they're just drunks.

Is the City of Portland being run by vicious, petty, vindictive people? Here's somebody who thinks so, based on personal experience.

Call us crazy, but we have a theory: Willamette Week really, really doesn't want Eileen Brady to be the next mayor of Portland. We're not sure why that is, but whatever the motive, the Wednesday wonders are pounding on Brady relentlessly, pausing only for the latest bong news.

Here's Nigel's latest slap: New Seasons doesn't want its workers to unionize. And it's all Brady's fault! Last week her problem was that she really had nothing to do with starting up New Seasons; this week the problem is that she was the ruthless mastermind behind allegedly illegal labor practices by the company. She's bad either way -- so you're supposed to vote for Jeffy, apparently.

They keep digging up unflattering stories about Brady, but to us, the overall effect is praising her with faint damn. She didn't vote in Oregon while denying that she owed Oregon resident taxes, as one of her opponents did. And she didn't blow off court appearances, drive on a suspended license, run a shadowy network of political organizations, or sleepwalk her way through a year and a half at a job she had no interest in. Therefore, although she's not worthy of our vote, she's a darn sight better than either of the other two major face cards in the race.

Funny thing. Here it is a Presidential election year, and all of a sudden (a) the official unemployment numbers are down, and (b) there's talk of an imminent strike on Iran, by Israelis armed with weapons, if not aided by soldiers, from the United States. Oh, and watch out for Iranian "terists" here in the "homeland" -- they could strike at any moment, so hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your kids, hide your wife...

By summer we could have a nice little "recovery" to talk about, and a commander-in-chief who needs our support as we save ourselves from the Ayatollah (or equivalent). And bring back "code orange" at the airport! For some reason, to some of us older fish, it all looks like bait.

We've been leafing through the City of Portland annual financial statements that have just come on line, and we've adjusted the unfunded pension figure on our debt clock (see left sidebar) in light of our findings. As best we can compute, the city's unfunded liability to its retirees as of Jan. 1, 2011 -- for pensions, health care, and disability benefits -- was about $2.9 billion, and that number was growing at a rate of about 6.5% a year. With those figures in place, the current liability is slightly lower than our debt clock was estimating, but it's still well over $3 billion. And as a result, the city's aggregate long-term debt has slipped below $11,000 per resident for the moment, to just over $10,900. We'll keep monitoring the city's financial data as it is released to keep the clock as up-to-date as we can make it.

The City of Portland's big fat annual financial statement for the year ended last June 30 has finally hit the streets. The whole phone book is here. Among the interesting insights it provides is that the city's outstanding bonded debt rose by $493.4 million in that year; of that, $212.5 million was used to pay off pre-existing lines of credit. Taking into account another $4 million or so of miscellaneous other debt that the city took on for this and that, it is left with a net increase in debt of $284.9 million. (That doesn't count the underfunded and unfunded pension liabilities, of course.)

Debt service -- principal and interest paid on debt -- was $316.4 million for the year from governmental funds, and $324.4 million from proprietary funds. By our count, that adds up to a staggering $640 million of loan payments for the year. The city also spent $3.0 million in transaction costs on all the new debt it was taking on. The banks, it seems, had their way with the Portland taxpayers once again.

The city's excess of revenue over expenses for the year was $104.8 million. Property and lodging taxes grew by $13.4 million. How City Hall expects to pay off all that debt, and around $3 billion of unfunded pension liabilities on top of it, is anyone's guess.

One of the reasons for Portland's many problems is that its congressman brings home money only for real estate development projects. He doesn't seem interested in basic government services at all. But he's convinced that his "themes and approach" are "baked into" the city's "DNA," and there's "consensus" about them. That's the way the infrastructure crumbles.

It's hard to like the people who run political campaigns. Now they're sending around snitch sheets to tell you which of your neighbors vote, and which ones don't. Yeah, that's technically a public record, but is it really necessary to blab it all over, creating tension among neighbors where none is needed?

And for what? To get Suzanne Bonamici into Congress? Already she's got a strike against her in our book. Her campaign has taken the low road, as has her opponent's.

Oh, wait, don't tell me -- she has no control over that mailing. Uh huh.

Every decade or so, the members of Congress get together and scare up some votes for themselves by beating up on the IRS. Some of the laws that come out of these cycles are horrible, but some of them are good. One of the best over the years has been the establishment of a national taxpayer advocate. This is a person within the government who will tell Congress and the tax commissioner what's right and what's wrong with the way the IRS enforces the current tax system, and try to get problems avoided or fixed, without the danger of losing his or her job over it.

The current taxpayer advocate, Nina Olson, is great. She tells it like it is, and although the lawmakers and bureaucrats don't always adopt her solutions and strategies, with Olson's periodic reports, they can't act as though they didn't know where the problems are. And her views are uniformly from taxpayers' perspectives, particularly those of the average Janes and Joes who are trying to live their lives without tripping up on the nation's treacherous tax laws.

Now Olson has decided to start a blog. Anybody who's interested in the way the federal government administers the tax laws will want to give it a look every now and then.

Apparently now it's a sin to live in a detached single-family home. Here's the official word from City Hall.

Helping students stay in school is a great cause, and helping them get into college with the financial aid they deserve is, too. But why is Portland City Hall involved in it, and in particularly, why is the city's parks department in the picture? The parks department does not even have the money to maintain its assets. Why is it also doing what the school board should be doing?

All the leading candidates for the Portland City Council are poised to pimp for apartment developers. They'll be wrecking your neighborhood with more Soviet housing bunkers, and you'll be paying for them, through the thievery known as "urban renewal." But between the latest internet love shown above and this little party the other day, it's clear that Hales would be the worst of the lot in that regard.

If you haven't been in downtown Portland over the last 48 hours, then you probably didn't have some punk put a cigarette out on your face, club you with an umbrella, spit on you, try to punch you in the head, threaten you with a gun, or beat you with a metal pipe. What a dull life you must lead.

The folks at Einstein Noah, which has bought Kettleman Bagels in Portland, are promising to keep three flavors of boiled bagels on their menu as well as the other schlock that they mistakenly call bagels. They're asking for input from Kettleman fans here, but we doubt that they'll be getting too much positive feedback. To many of us, the changeover will be nothing short of sacrilegious. Indeed, we wouldn't be at all surprised if they eventually looked back on this acquisition with regret.

Opponents of disconnecting Portland's in-town open reservoirs -- and substituting budget-busting underground tanks -- are far from satisfied with the city's efforts to put the disconnect effort on hold. The city's asking the state for a "variance" of current federal regulations that require burial of the reservoirs, but as the activists note, this week the City Council will vote on a mere five-year delay of these projects, rather than an indefinite suspension.

A group led by Floy "Fly in the Ointment" Jones is asking these questions about this week's action by the council:

What about all of the consultant contracts associated with the Kelly Butte tank project, the Mt. Tabor disconnect and Bull Run UV radiation treatment plant design? When will they be terminated? Why continue to waste money designing projects that will provide no measurable public health benefit and while the LT2 rule is under revision, a process EPA says will take until 2016 (and could last longer)? There is no disease in the community related to Bull Run drinking water.

Why is the Water Bureau's scientific-data document (reservoir) not available for public review and revision right now? A public records request has been made but no Bureau response. This document would need to accompany a City's request for a revised reservoir compliance timeline? NYC prepared its data document in 2008 with additional substantive, detailed information submitted to EPA in 2011. PWB awarded cozy-consultant design contracts while NYC took advantage of every opportunity and made its case for a rule revision and permanent protection for its open reservoir, opening the door for all communities.

The trust is just not there, people. Nor should it be.

We wondered a while back what was the point of the state selling off general tax credits at auction, to pay for energy projects. It would just shift money from the general tax pool and shift it over to "green" this and that -- why waste time with a tax credit auction? You could just as easily have just transferred the funds within the state budget.

A reader who's been following this exercise has picked up a report from the state bureaucrats on how the program "worked." The report is here. Apparently someone out there was willing to pay slightly over face value for the credits -- perhaps because the buyer could use them immediately against quarterly tax obligations, rather than waiting until his or her annual tax bill is due. But the state sold only $461,000 of the credits, when the original plan was for $1.1 million.

It's still hard to understand how anybody thought this was a good idea. But apparently, they'll do it again next year. And since a lot of credits went unsold this time, it seems likely that no one will be bidding more than face amount next time.

We spent a lot of yesterday in the 'Couv, which meant driving over the bridge on I-5 a couple of times. The new bridge is a beauty. It's hard to believe it cost only $208 million to build.

A couple of readers have alerted us to this one: The not-so-clever people who have been running Tri-Met have come up with a proposal to pile up tons of tax dollars for future rail projects. And apparently the plan will mean new taxes for all of us. As one reader put it --

The first recommendation is that six counties (Clackamas, Multnomah, Washington, Marion, Linn and Lane) establish a massive rail transit district and levy a tax to improve the rail system (for both freight and passenger) in the valley. Then, they will transfer all of the property taxes paid by the railroads to the new transit district. Then they will transfer tens of millions of dollars from lottery proceeds to the rail district. Then they will levy a tax on all telephones in the state to repay the counties for the money the counties lost when the rail properties were transferred. Everybody loses but Neil MacFarlane [CEO of Tri-Met] and Tom Hughes [president of Metro government, and another apartment developer servant].

The document of which the reader speaks, fresh from Goldschmidt Party headquarters, is here. All aboard for more taxes!

Opponents of public spending on a streetcar and other handouts to the Portland developers seeking to slap up some housing bunkers on the east side of Lake Oswego scored a big victory when they tipped the current City Council away from the proposed streetcar line. But some of the opponents are convinced that the development, known as Foothills, isn't dead, despite the fact that the insane rail plan has been "suspended." One writes: "Williams Dame and White are still working on changes to City of LO codes for their project in Foothills even though the streetcar project is stalled."

The developers have said repeatedly that without a streetcar, there will be no apartments. (They have also suggested that the City of Portland sewage treatment plant down there would have to be moved or rebuilt.) And so the fact that they're still hanging around is a good indication that they're not ready to bury the streetcar just yet.

The Lake O. rebels are also taking note of this story in last week's Trib -- about how the Sellwood Bridge is going to be rebuilt with a streetcar in mind. If the sheep of Portland can be led into running the streetcar down as far south as the bridge -- and from past history, it seems clear that the developers will run streetcars in Portland wherever they darn well please -- it would be easier, some think, to extend it down into Lake O.

Besides, the plug that's been pulled down south could easily be plugged back in again. Although the mayor and a big streetcar pusher are leaving the council, they could be replaced with more developer cheerleaders. For example, Greg Macpherson, who's pondering a run for the mayor's office, testified on behalf of the streetcar when the push was on to ram it home despite majority sentiment against it.

That's part of living in the Portland area -- bad ideas don't die, they just take a nap and come back refreshed. Ask the taxpayers who don't want to pay for the convention center hotel, or the water users who don't want to pay for unnecessary, counterproductive water treatment and underground storage. You don't just have to give a year or two of your life to opposing projects like these. The people who will profit from them keep showing up at city hall year after year, seemingly for the rest of your days. It's exhausting.

We have mailed out the checks to the charities whose champions scored on their behalf in our recently concluded pro football underdog game:

First prize - $510 - Pete Rozelle - Oregon Food Bank
Second prize (tie) - $135 - John Ch. - Children's Scholarship Fund, Portland
Second prize (tie) - $135 - Michael K. - Blindskills, Inc.
Fourth prize - $75 - Usual Kevin - Street Roots
Fifth prize - $55 - PDXileinOmaha - Human Solutions

We added 1% for the time value of money, and so the total donations came to $920. A nice byproduct of the entertainment we had with the game.

If we get a chance amid the hype of Super Bowl 46, we'll analyze the results of the underdog year, so that our players will be ready to go with their strategies come next August. Thanks to all who played, and especially to our blog benefactor who for the second straight year threw in $250 to sweeten the pot.

Especially when it's filming them. But if they take it away from you, it could be a nice $200,000 payday for your lawyer.

Here's a funny one: The faculty troublemakers down at U.C. Nike -- in addition to talking about unionizing -- have been keeping tabs on how much the school is paying outside lawyers to fight the pending investigation into apparent violations of athletic rules by the football team. When the profs asked to see the most recent bill from the Kansas law firm, they got a copy -- sort of. Here it is. Ha! Ha! One of the chief rabble-rousers reports further about it on his always enlightening blog.

You'll be watching soccer.

Today comes the sad news that our friend and former partner, and a regular reader of this blog, Gail Achterman, has died. She was 62 years young. We've never met anyone else quite like Gail, and we doubt that we ever will. She did a lot of good for Oregon, and she never cared about getting rich doing it. She'll be missed.

Here's a chilling photo that appeared this afternoon:

That's apparently the window of a law office a block away from the site of the other night's fatal shooting of a mentally deranged man by Portland police. Reportedly he pointed a fake gun at the cops, and so a couple of them apparently emptied their guns on him.

That's the parking structure roof on which it all went down, square in the center of that window. And yes, that's the southwest corner of the structure facing you, which is where the man was killed.

It's a good thing there wasn't a cleaning person or someone else in that office at the time. In downtown Portland, it seems, you're never safe from the garbage going down on the streets, even in your office many stories above ground.

By all accounts, he is a very sick fellow. Being a former police officer and a convicted child molester is going to make for a very difficult time in prison.

A reader writes:

Apparently the Oregonian has its own computer problem and I [am] guessing you won't be reading about it in the paper. We've been on their Easy Pay credit card system for over a year and we recently started receiving invoices in the mail showing our payment in arrears. A quick review of the credit card statement shows that we were still being charged for the subscription every month. After a ten minute wait on hold, we talked with an account representative who told us they recently changed billing systems and account data from the old system did not transfer to the new system as expected and that they were manually updating accounts. I was told to ignore the mailed invoice. If this was a government system problem it would be front page news.

Don't worry, Willy Week will pick the story up. They never miss a chance to take a swipe at the O.

And help regulate it, too: The City of Portland is looking for a citizen representative on its noise board.

What? What's that you say?