Ballots for a vote of a no-confidence on Saltzman and Sizer will be mailed to all 922 members of the Portland Police Association on Saturday. Results will be released on Nov. 30 and association President Sgt. Scott Westerman predicts they will show the vast majority on the union members have lost confidence in Saltzman and Sizer.

Westerman talked with reporters at the association’s headquarters after the union’s executive committee unanimously voted to authorize the election Friday morning. Westerman insisted that Humphreys was following bureau procedures when he fired a less-than-lethal beanbag round at the leg of a 12-year-old girl who was fighting with another officer during an arrest Nov. 14 on a Gresham MAX station platform. Westerman says the 1.4 ounce beanbag rounds can be used in any situation when a ballistic baton cannot be used to make a resisting suspect comply with orders.

Westerman would not say whether he expects Mayor Sam Adams to transfer the bureau from Saltzman or replace Sizer if the no-confidence vote goes against them.

Update, Saturday November 21, 6:47am

Officer Humphreys has filed for "stress-related disability," writes Maxine Bernstein at the Oregonian. There's a tradition of officers who are suspended under discipline doing this, she writes. Westerman from the police union says Humphreys' suspension would be "stressful for anyone."

• FISH (RIGHT) WITH (GOING LEFT) COUNTY COMMISSIONER DEBORAH KAFOURY, TPI EMPLOYEE ELVYSS ARGUETA, TPI EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DOREEN BINDER, AND MAYOR SAM ADAMS

Fish inherited the Resource Access Center project from former City Commissioner Erik Sten, when Sten left town midway through his term in early 2008. Sten told the Mercury in 2007 that the center would be open by now, so the groundbreaking is two years late, but to give Fish credit, he had to settle an unforeseen lawsuit, in the mean time.

The new shelter will have a shelter for 90 people "whose prior address was the cold and mean streets of the city," said Fish. There will also be supported housing and services for 130 more. It will also provide 125 jobs, and make a difference to "our triple bottom line," Fish said—saving public resources (research shows it's cheaper for governments to house people), saving natural resources (it's going to be Leed Platinum, dahhling), and "literally, saving lives."

• VOODOO'S COMMEMORATIVE "GROUNDBREAKER" DOUGHNUT

Fish thanked an inordinate number of people this morning, from Housing Authority of Portland project manager Mike Andrews to Transition Projects Inc. director Doreen Binder—TPI will run the center, and Binder "is a treasure in our community," Fish said—to the lady from Wells Fargo who cut the check. But of course, the best politicians know how to give others credit for their own achievements, and it was left to some bloke in the background to finally credit Fish for the success:

"This is one of the toughest projects that has ever been attempted in my however long I've been doing this," said Mayor Sam Adams. "The person who brought this project home was newly elected, he was new to the job, he came in to budget cuts, and not only had some very difficult bureaus to manage, but an unrelated lawsuit that mangled up and delayed this project."

• T-SHIRT: $20

The ceremony was attended by many of the city's luminaries, including City Commissioner Amanda Fritz, Central Precinct Commander Mike Reese, District Attorney Mike Schrunk, County Chair Ted Wheeler, as well as plenty of folks who will actually be using the services when the center opens in 18 months. It took place in a marquee—"I'm sure we'll get criticized for spending money on the tent," Fish said, and there was even a fake pile of ground to be broken for the picture.

The $46.8million project is receiving $34million in Tax Increment Financing from the Portland Development Commission. Two percent of the $46.8million will be spent on art—to be commissioned by Eloise Damrosch, executive director of the Regional Arts and Culture Council.

"This is our day," Fish concluded. "This is our time. And people throughout Portland are counting on us to seize this moment."

CoughREELECTIONSPEECHcough. Cough.

The amendment "Sunset the Columbia River Crossing Project by September 1, 2011" (pdf) proposes that the Metro Council's 2008 vote supporting the $2.6-$3.6 billion bridge project expire in 2011 if the project has not secured local, state and federal funds. Metro's straw poll vote on the amendment at the meeting showed overwhelming support for the idea: six thumbs up and Rex Burkholder's thumb sideways.

The notes from the meeting are revealing:

(1) What was the purpose of the amendment; to kill the project by subterfuge or to force a realistic assessment of the prospects for funding the project and the tradeoffs it would require to not advance other projects? For most of the Councilors the answer was the latter.

...

(3) What would be the legal impact of the amendment, near term? Might the amendment have an unintended consequence? Staff could give no clear answer to that question. Staff did note that there was a precedent for removing a major highway project from the [Regional Transportation Plan] after it had been approved, the Mt. Hood Freeway.

(4) What would be the political impact of the amendment? Would it compromise the agency or region’s ability to secure Federal funding for the project? Different Councilors had different perspectives on this issue.

(5) Why was this amendment appropriate now coming 14 months after the project had been endorsed by the Metro Council? The subsequent events that some Councilors found persuasive in this regard were the failure of the Oregon Legislature to identify funding for the project, despite earmarks for other large highway projects; critical statements made by Congressman DeFazio and Baird and the recent mayoral election in Vancouver.

After listening to the CRC staff pitch their slimmed-down 10-lane bridge to state legislators yesterday, Environment Oregon's Brock Howell noted that having Metro's support for the bridge project sunset in 2011 would effectively kill the project. Howell says the funding timelines for the bridge looking grim. Here's why: to get a lot of the federal funding on board, the CRC needs to have its light rail funds secured. But funding for light rail will come from a Vanouver area sales tax, which Vancouverites will vote on in 2011 at the earliest, though the vote could be pushed to 2013 or 2014.

If the project doesn't have the light rail funding in the bag by 2011, it can't get the federal funds in the bag by 2011 and the expiration of Metro's support would send the project back to the drawing board.

The Council decided to table the amendment for now, but will bring it up at the CRC bigwig's Project Sponsor's Council meeting in two weeks.

Jobs Jobs... Jobs? Watchdog group points out stimulus jobs were claimed in congressional districts that don't exist, among other embarrassing errors.

Catholics vs. Obama: Catholic bishops are none too happy with Mr. President for his pro-choice stance on the healthcare bill. A national day of action against the anti-abortion Stupak amendment is on December 2nd.

Cannabis College: Detroit opens school for aspiring medical marijuana horticulturalists.

Dirty Government: Washington DC has the highest STD rate in the country.

Secret Prisons: Are there secret CIA black sites in Lithuania?

King of the Underworld! Michael Jackson makes a miraculous appearance in someone's ultrasound:

Abstinence Porn: Twilight's New Moon opened last night, allowing ecstatic crowds to squeal and Newsweek to run probably the worst lead sentence in the history of writing: "Like vampires, culture wars never die, but like werewolves, they sometimes change shape."

Purse Snatchers: Police bust West Linn designer purse rip-off ring.

WOOOLLLVES!: Video shows wolves are back in Eastern Oregon.

The action has outraged the Portland Police Association, whose president, Scott Westerman, stood in front of 37 fellow cops outside the Justice Center on SW 2nd, to protest against Saltzman for "trying to be the police chief."

"When the Police Association first heard about this, the idea was to remove Officer Humphreys from the street, but Saltzman overrode that," Westerman told the media this afternoon. "With no police experience, he overrode a 25-year bureau veteran and ordered the suspension of Officer Humphreys."

• WESTERMAN: OUTRAGED ON BEHALF OF THE POLICE UNION

Saltzman has declined comment on the move, personally, instead, leaving Police Chief Rosie Sizer to read from a written statement on the 15th floor of the police bureau this afternoon. Sizer also released video of the incident to reporters.

"After reviewing the video," she said, "I am troubled by it. Officer Humphreys has been placed on administrative leave and I have directed the Internal Affairs Division to conduct an immediate and full investigation into whether the use of force was justified under the totality of circumstances and whether the application of the beanbag at close range was consistent with the bureau's training." Full details on this story, including video of the incident, after the jump.

Rumor is that Humphreys was involved in another controversial use of force incident over the weekend, and that a suspension may be looming. We'll have details from the scene.

The Police Union is already up in arms, and plans a press conference immediately following Sizer's, at 4:15.

You can read more about Humphreys in this story from earlier this year.

UPDATE 3:38 PM: Sizer has place Officer Humphreys on administrative leave pending an investigation into his alleged use of a beanbag gun on a 12-year-old girl over the past weekend. Details to follow.

• SUBTEXT OF BIG PINK ARROW: "SUCK IT, KITZHABER"

But I lost my nerve. Instead, I asked Bradbury was whether he felt rumors of bad blood between Gore and his opponent, John Kitzhaber, may have had more to do with Gore's endorsement in next year's primary than anything else. "I'm aware that there was some bad blood between Gore and Kitzhaber," said Bradbury. "But Al Gore doesn't normally make endorsements in Democratic primaries. I don't think it's a case of "gotcha back, Kitz," as much as people might like to think it is."

• BRADBURY: CLIMATE BUDDIES WITH GORE

So I asked for a couple of priorities on global warming, should Bradbury win election as Governor. He said "we need to stop being 40 percent reliant on coal," saying we need to close PGE's Boardman coal plant, which Sarah Mirk has done extensive reporting on, for example, in this piece on "Oregon's Filthy Secret."

Trouble is, closing Boardman isn't up to the Governor. It's up to the three-person public utilities commission. How would Bradbury influence that? "Well, you make the appointments, don't you," he said. "It's something that the Governor's voice needs to be very strong about."

Another priority for Bradbury's green agenda? "In California, the energy commission just adopted a rule on energy consumption for these 42 inch flat-panel HDTVs," he said. "They use two to three times the electricity of an old-fashioned tube television, and in California they just made a new rule that says we need to reduce their energy consumption by 50% by 2013." "There's a company called Viseo that produces flat screen TVs that already meet that standard," Bradbury continued. "It's not true that it can't be done, it's just that Sony and Panasonic have chosen not to meet the standard. So I think we should follow California's lead there, just as we have on tighter pollution standards."

Those sound like concrete enough proposals to me. It will be interesting to see if the Kitzhaber campaign chooses to make climate change a key campaign point, now, or whether they're just willing to concede it to Bradbury and focus on jobs.

SMUGPOCALYPSE NOW: Despite record unemployment, Portlanders are happier than ever to live here.

LEAVING RANDYLAND: Willamette Week should apologize for its desperate feature on a certain City Commissioner.

BICYCLE RACE: Nonprofit investigates Portland's biking racial gap.

PUT GOOD MONEY INTO POLITICS: We suggest three possible Political Action Committees for your $50 tax refundable donation this year.

Read the goddamn news.

TASERING A TEN YEAR OLD!!! Arkansas cop gets suspended.

FIGHT CLUB AT TEN Breaking: Brad Pitt has got considerably less cut, in the face, over the last decade. This is a tragedy. Also, hair:

AL BORE!!! Be more interesting!

PORTLAND SPIRIT OWNERS BITCH ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING!!! The wivver's getting higher, says Dan Yates, an outspoken Republican and owner of the Portland Spirit. It's gwobal warming...build the bwidges higher! Reminds me of one of the Al Gore counter-counter-protesters' signs, last night:

STOP MOVING HERE!!! Oh. You did. I didn't mean it. We need you. Keep moving here!

NEWSPAPER DISTRIBUTORS TIED TO ORGANIZED CRIME!!! In New York, Jay. In New York. Please don't "confuse" my shoes with cement and drop me in the Willamette!

"What if a group of white supremacists want to buy the cover?" Creative Loafing sells its cover for charity. We already did this. Because we're THE FUTURE OF MEDIA IN PORTLAND^TM.

PALIN, OR VAMPIRES!!! Which is more annoyingly over-exposed?

THE WRONG SIDE OF HISTORY!!! Critics of medicare and social security trucked out the same criticisms for those programs back in the day as the Tea Baggers are using on health reform. Nicholas Kristoff (who is from Yamhill county, by the way) says boo sucks in the Times.

Good day.

Did I mention you should buy the book?

“If we were to decide in this generation to take for granted all the hard work of previous generations, and then give the back of our hand to all generations following us,” he said, “that would be the most immoral choice that any generation on the planet has ever made.”

All the press were in the nosebleed seats. There was no wi-fi, of course. “Did you see that naked PETA chick?” asked one of the news anchors, about another protester outside—she wants Gore to become a vegetarian and was handing out fliers quoting Paul McCartney. “I just talked to her for a while so I could stare at her tits.”

Meanwhile, I wished I had one of these, like the dude from the O:

We’ve had more forest fires and more lightning strikes, said Gore. People are dying. Global warming is terrifying. It’s all driven by greed. We’ve got to stop it!

And then this: “For every one of us 6.8 billion people on the planet, there will soon be one billion transistors per person,” said Gore.

That's a lot of transistors!

There were no other surprises.

"He was let go," says Mary Roberts, Board Chair for the organization."The board decided, and it was a very difficult decision. We really thank Scott for all of his work, and we would not be here without his contribution over the last 11 years."

"The whole ecosystem for bicycling is moving out of it really being just about the bike to it being a much bigger agenda," says Roberts. "Bicycling really becomes about transforming a whole city and state, and so we're really looking to find an Executive Director who has worked on that stage."

Bricker has no future job lined up. He was told this morning at a meeting with the board, says Roberts. He has so far declined comment.

The BTA says it's now launching a "national search" for a new Executive Director.

Roberts says the BTA plans to "push much harder" for the bicycling agenda across the state, from now on.

"This is good news for the community and the state," she says.

Update, 12:15:

"The way I'm looking at this, I think that leadership within an organization is not black and white," says Bricker. "And bicycling has a lot of leaders in it already. What I think I brought to the organization was being a great partner and continuing to build the leadership overall in the community.

"It's a board's role to hire and fire an executive director," Bricker continues. "But this is their choice. The upshot is that a new person will take charge of the organization and walk into a strong, vibrant and financially solid organization. The staff is really energetic, and the board is strong and really opinionated. I feel really strong about the service I provided over the last 11 years, the organization is in great shape. From my personal standpoint, I've been doing this for a long time, and this was the most challenging role I had at the BTA. I feel wonderful about my accomplishments, and I'm looking forward to some vacation for myself and my family. I plan on volunteering for the tax measures that are coming up, and then on seeking opportunities in the public policy arena."

In 2008, the BTA had a significant financial loss. "Some of that was cash, some of it was accounting. But in 2009, we're actually going to have a really solid year," Bricker says. "While there's a lot of opportunity for financial growth, from my standpoint, that's not one of the things driving this."

"I think the board wanted someone else to lead the organization," he says. "They just wanted someone else, and the reality is is it's their choice, and leadership is a key aspect to that."

Update, 12:20:

"I've had mixed feelings about the direction that the BTA was going, definitely," says Jonathan Maus, editor of BikePortland.org. "I don't think there was the right vision, that the BTA was capturing the spirit of the community the way they can, and I think some of that can be attributed to the leadership."

"When was the last time the BTA had a rally at city hall?" asks Maus. "When did they last disagree with the mayor on a point? When did they last push people to really comment on the bicycle master plan? And when two people died in October it was the community that responded, and the BTA hasn't always been that quick to respond on these issues. They've clearly taken a more disengaged approach, in the past. What Bricker told me in the past was that they had a nuanced position, and I feel that given the place we're in in Portland right now, we need a really engaged advocacy group to push the city that's really getting comfortable with biking, and the BTA, I think, has thought that being strong, means you're losing your seat at the table. But I think there's a way to be strong and still stay respected."

"I think a lot of the community were disappointed that the BTA wasn't more of an advocate in the Columbia River Crossing process, too," Maus continues.

"I hope it's a realization at the BTA board about the changing nature of bike advocacy in general," says Maus. "Maybe they're recognizing that they need to hasten that shift in the way that it happens in Portland. We need to start looking beyond the "bicycle" in the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, and not continuing to segregate out bicycling from other modes of transportation advocacy."

From this reporter's perspective, an event at the Bagdad theater earlier this year certainly captured the "complacent" spirit of the biking community that Maus may have been referring to. I even wrote a column on the subject. But who's going to pet Portland's kittens, from now on?

Bricker says he's going to continue to be active in Oregon policy, and good luck to him.

“Excited delirium” is a controversial medical term often associated with deaths in police custody where a Taser has been deployed. We quoted state medical examiner Karen Gunson on it last year, in preparation for a lengthy feature on Taser use by Portland cops:

Likewise, there is controversy around the existence, or otherwise, of "Excited Delirium," a cause of death often associated with Taser deployment, but not recognized by the American Medical Association. Oregon State Medical Examiner Karen Gunson tells the Mercury "I don't actually think the term is controversial," meanwhile Dalia Hashad, director of the USA program for Amnesty International, says "we need to ask why the person died, not make up the term to explain the situation."

In the Chasse autopsy, however, Gunson ruled out excited delirium as a cause of death, ruling instead that Chasse died of blunt force trauma to the chest, caused by another person or a fall. Gunson has since been quoted in depositions saying Chasse's 26 breaks to 16 ribs were most likely the result of kicks or a "dropped knee" by cops. Gunson found 48 separate abrasions or contusions on Chasse's body, including 16 possible blows to the head. Chasse would most likely have lived if he had been given proper medical care, Gunson said.

If the city has procured experts of its own who are willing to say that Chasse may have died of excited delirium, then their testimony will run against that of the state medical examiner.

The city’s new excited delirium defense also appears to have come as a surprise to Tom Steenson, attorney for the Chasse family. Court documents show that Federal Court Judge Garr King granted Steenson extra time to consult with his own medical experts during a phone conference on November 12—Steenson now has until December 18 to respond with expert testimony of his own, with a trial still tentatively scheduled for next March.

It is against the city attorney's policy to comment on ongoing lawsuits, and Steenson declined comment this morning.

"It looks like the city is grasping at straws," says Jason Renaud with the Mental Health Association of Portland, an outspoken critic of the city's response to Chasse's death. "It's fairly clear from the forensic evidence that Chasse died of blunt force trauma, resulting from the brutal beating by the three police officers. We can also see from the video evidence and testimony that he was unconscious at times after the Tasering, and that he was denied proper medical attention."

"Continuing to defend the indefensible erodes and degrades the authority of our leaders in city hall," Renaud continues.

Update, 3:34pm

"Excited delirium was a term invented to try to blame deaths in custody on something other than police interaction, but in almost all cases the people would not have died if the police had not used violence on them," says Dan Handelman with Portland Copwatch.

Somali pirates try to attack a U.S. ship, and have their assess handed to them by the red, white and blue! USA! USA! USA! (Yeah, I'm not sure why I'm thrilled either.)

In Michigan, many camped out to be the first in line to get Sarah Palin's new book, and… wait. This just in… those people thought they were in line for Twilight: New Moon.

President Obama will not be reading Sarah Palin's new book, because it could be regarded as an assassination attempt. (It may BORE him to death! HAR!!)

Al Gore is coming into town today, and the anti-environment nutbags are celebrating by scribbling asinine graffiti on the wall of the Keller Auditorium.

The space shuttle Atlantis "slipped beautifully" into the international space station, which immediately filed a sexual harassment suit.

Two southern California cities have banned the declawing of cats—which seriously, is a stupid, barbaric practice. Disagree? Then allow me to pull out your fingernails.

Happy birthday, Mickey Mouse! Also, happy birthday, Oscar from The Office!

The staff of Providence St. Vincent Medical Center here in Portland don pink gloves and DANCE THEIR ASSES OFF to raise awareness for breast cancer. KA-UTE!! (It also raises my awareness that the Mercury is lagging way behind in office dance videos.)

In case you're like me and haven't filed taxes since, oh, I don't know, 2004, you probably want to take advantage of Oregon's Amnesty Program. Here's the thing: it ends tomorrow. Don't fret:

All you have to do is send in your application by Thursday, November 19th. The two page form is available here. Assuming it's accepted (and why wouldn't it be?) you'll have another two months to prepare your actual taxes.

The amnesty ought to save you (and me) a fortune*. And really, everybody wins: Oregon gets to pocket a little otherwise unexpected revenue as truants avoid some penalty. Unfortunately there's no way to send in an application online—so print that sucker out and get it postmarked NOW!**

*Terms are relative.
** Or move into a bus, pirate electricity, join an Anarchist collective, start scavenging dumpstered computer parts, bagels and spoiled wine, and make your living off the grid.

“It looks like this could be the beginning of a positive trend,” says Christian Kaylor, a workforce analyst with the OED. “Certainly the worst seems to have passed, although I would want to see the trend continue for three to six months to make sure we don’t have some kind of double dip situation.”

Portland's Metro area accounts for more than half of the statewide data, and the Portland figures are due out early next week, so this is a good indicator for Portland.

Kaylor says Oregon has tied its worst unemployment in history, in 1983. "It looked like we were going to pass that number, now it looks like we won't, that we just matched it," he says.

But the country as a whole is now on the 24 month anniversary of losing jobs every month. "That's incredible," says Kaylor. "It's happened in previous recessions for six to 12 months, but for 24 months, that's unheard of."

Unemployment figures may be down, but continued net job loss in the Portland Metro area isn't reversing along with unemployment, either. In the last 12 months, the Portland Metro area has lost 60,800 jobs, which accounts for 5.9 percent of all 975,800 jobs. The unemployment rate peaked in May, "but even since then, we have lost 14,000 jobs in the Portland Metro area," says Kaylor.

So, while the unemployment rate is falling, those numbers suggest people may be leaving the workforce—deciding to stop looking for work, or physically leaving the state. "People may be deciding to go live in their mom's basement, take anti-depressants, and play X-box," says Kaylor. "They have essentially given up."

But there are options! "You could go back to school, or you could join the military," he says.

Analysts expect national net job loss to end in early 2010. "That point is coming," says Kaylor. "But then the scariest question is, when are we going to start seeing these jobs coming back? People talk about 2011, 2012, and 2013, and it gets pretty scary when we're looking that far out at when businesses are going to start hiring again with robustness."

BAILOUT BEATING!!! A new report criticizes Treasury secretary Timothy Geithner for not negotiating harder with AIG creditors.

OBAMA IN CHINA!!! He wants a "strong dialog." No surprise there.

ONLY 13 PERCENT OF ABORTIONS PAID FOR BY PRIVATE INSURANCE!!! The Wall Street journal probes the impact of the controversial Stupak amendment.

LEVI JOHNSTON SKIPS FULL FRONTAL!!! Some "porn star" you are.

JANUARY JONES!!! "Can't act," says Defamer. Burrrrrn.

$250K FOR FLIPPING THE BIRD!!! Titans owner is fined for swearing at a game on the weekend. Football is so weird.

VIAGRA FOR WOMEN!!! Pill makes girls' sex drive soar, says The Sun.

MARYSVILLE KIDS BACK TO SCHOOL!!! After a nasty fire.

COSTCO WILL STOP CARRYING COKE PRODUCTS!!! Because of a "nationwide pricing dispute."

CREEPY!!! It's the official Dakota Fanning aging timeline.

Obama tells a group of Shanghai students that the U.S. and China don't have to be rivals, and that our relationship doesn't have to be competitive because c'mon, we will obviously win at some point because our country is more awesome and more better and U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!

After years in prison, Guantanamo Bay inmates are finally getting their day in court. U.S.A.? U.S.A.? U.S.A.?

Hey everybody! If you've been missing Sarah Palin—AND YOU HAVEN'T—get ready for SARAH PALIN WEEK™!

Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi hosts the WORST "hot chick party" EVER!! Dude, seriously! Where is your game?

"When John Hennessey was 10 years old, he was sent from a war-weary Britain to an orphanage in Australia, where he was told food was plentiful and children rode kangaroos to school." As it turns out there were no kangaroo rides—unless that's a euphemism for being beaten and sexually abused.

From the L.A. Times: "Boys born to mothers who have above-normal levels of the controversial chemicals known as phthalates in their urine are less likely to exhibit masculine behavior." Dear guys of the Mercury: This explains YOU.

In a related story, Dear guys of the Mercury: This video is for YOU.

Portland Police Association President Scott Westerman says Saltzman's proposed discipline is being done for political reasons. He's right. Saltzman appears to be holding back from what would be a more appropriate and just finding for the officers — men who deliberately kicked a man in the head and broke nearly all his ribs — in order to appease the union.

So what options do we, the public, have when an injustice has occurred? We can get angry, and some of us are angry. We can become apathetic. We can pray for Chasse's family and for the officers who hurt and failed to help him.

Or we can demand accountability and justice from our elected officials. And we can remember who failed when leadership was required.

Vote now! Currently, 66% of KXL listeners have "never heard of" us.

I'm working on my Glenn Beck face.

GETTING AWAY WITH IT If you want to kill someone in Oregon, use your car.

HIPHOP HIGH Portland might be getting one. Apparently most of the time, kids will spend their time chillin out, maxin, relaxing and shooting some b-ball outside. Until they get in one little fight...and then what?

STANDING TALL SEIU Local 49 ain't intimidated by an arson attack.

ENTER PUPPETEERS Are state level conservatives hoping to cash in on the second effort to recall Mayor Sam Adams?

SALTZMAN IN THE WOUND Why is everybody ragging on the police commissioner?

Read the goddamn news. Also, tune into KXL at noon. I'm on the Lars Larson show with City Commissioner Randy Leonard for an hour.

10 Lane Bridge? Transportation planners propose cutting the planned Columbia River Crossing down from 12 lanes to 10, but will the politicians approve?

Top White House Counsel Quits: Gregory Craig (...ory) supposedly quit over questions of whether he has mishandled closing GITMO.

Going Rogue: Juicy tidbits from Sarah Palin's soon-to-debut historical fiction memoir, including that McCain made her pay $50,000 for her own vetting.

How to Fix Afghanistan: Give money to the villages that need it, rather than the corrupt central government.

Detroit is in Ruin: One reporter's story of a murder shows a city and criminal justice system that has fallen apart.

Zoo Snafu: An independent audit shows the Oregon zoo mishandled construction projects and over-spent their budgets. Someone's got some 'splaining to do.

This isn't "real news" but it is "funny":

ORIGINAL POST:

My God, I had a good time on Monday night. The Mercury graciously paid the $85 ticket for me to attend a City Club Salon on "The Future of Media In Portland," hosted by Willamette Week editor Mark Zusman and the paper's publisher, Richard Meeker. The intimate event—I counted 21 people including myself, the cook, and the waiter—was hosted at DOC restaurant, on NE 30th and Killingsworth, and coincided with the WW's 35th birthday issue last week.

"We would not have won the Pulitzer without the web," said Zusman, after the fourth course. "Because Goldschmidt got out in front of us."

And so on. But there was also some interesting dialog, which I've captured after the jump, for all those unsure about the FUTURE OF MEDIA IN PORTLAND^TM. What's that? Blinking text? Oh, trust me...that's just one idea. There are plenty of other really, really awesome ones, I promise.

According to the survey of 3,194 random Portlanders (pdf), regular residents' perception of both the police and the city government are significantly more positive than they were five years ago. Almost two-thirds of Portlanders think the city is doing a good or very good job overall, a whopping 11 percent increase over five years ago (with the notable exception of East Portland, where only 48 percent of citizens think the local government is doing a good job). Surprisingly, I think, the city government received the highest rankings from inner NE residents, where 74 percent think the bureaucracy is doing a good job.

But NE residents were also among the most critical on the question, "How do you rate the City of Portland's efforts to control misconduct by police officers?" Forty percent of North Portlanders and 43 percent of inner NE Portlanders felt good about the polices' efforts, while 22 and 23 percent, respectively, felt "bad" or "very bad" about police control of misconduct.

But overall, Portlanders 71 percent of Portlanders think the police are doing a good job—an eight percent increase over five years ago.

One of the most split results came from a question asking about how Portlanders feel about being able to influence city government's opinions. One-third said "good" or "very good" and another third said "bad" or "very bad." Though, uh, I should point out that between 60-70 percent of Portlanders didn't attend a single public meeting during the last year, so those are maybe more armchair-philosopher speculations than anything.

So what's going on here? People rated the police and the general livability of Portland higher than they EVER have during the last five years, despite the economic downturn, an investigation into James Chasse's death that took three years and the city having to slash its bureaus by 30 percent in some cases. Are people keeping a stiff upper lip in down times or is the city PR machine buzzing just better than usual?

Balloon Boy's parents are going to plead guilty to charges stemming from the most elaborate April Fools joke ever! Too bad they did it in October.

Facebook is totally a legit alibi! Maybe I should check out this so-called Facebook and see what it's all about...

Ft. Hood shooting suspect apparently visited a strip club days before the rampage. No, really.

Hey, Oregon! We're just like California! Isn't that cool? I mean, the Pew Center for the States ranks us along with our neighbors to the south one of the top 10 states facing economic peril! Maybe the Beach Boys will sing about us, too!

Birther/anti-immigration nutjob Lou Dobbs is leaving CNN. ¿Por que?

And finally, Sean Hannity plans to address Jon Stewart's claims that he doctored protest footage to enhance his arguments. I'd come up with a joke, but I'm too busy laughing with glee! Here's the original clip of Stewart calling out Hannity: