The Portland police shot and killed another person Tuesday night. According to this story, police say the dead man, Jason Spoor, was a suspect in a nearby homicide that had just occurred, and that he "was armed and refused to drop his handgun."

This incident might blow over quickly, except for the identity of one of the two officers who fired on the alleged suspect: Scott McCollister, who shot and killed an unarmed woman, Kendra James, in 2003 and was disciplined for it, only to have the discipline reversed on appeal.

McCollister's involvement in this case is has not gone unnoticed. Ill will still present from the James killing seems likely to fan flames of discontent in connection with the latest fatal shooting, no matter what the facts may turn out to be. In any case, it is a difficult time for all involved, and by extension, for the city.

Their stock took a beating.

It's truly amazing to watch the Portland City Council act like a middle school student government over the city budget. They're clucking around over $45,000 here, $200,000 there, when the big number is the $2 billion of police and fire pension liabilities that nothing's being set aside to pay.

Eventually, those chickens are going to come home to roost in the Rose City, and it is going to get very, very unpleasant.

Bloggers of America, keep this person in your thoughts and prayers. And be thankful for what we've got.

Finally, State House candidate Cyreena Boston has sent us a flyer that didn't look like an ad for something else:

Meanwhile, Secretary of State candidate Vicki Walker, whom we enthusiastically support, has released a radio spot that's the antithesis of hipster irony.

Yesterday we got two Obama mailers on the same day:

We're voting for the guy, but that seems sort of wasteful even if we were still on the fence and they might have made a difference.

Macpherson and Kroger are said to be neck-and-neck, as are Brown and Metsger. My own gut is that they're right about the former, wrong about the latter -- Brown's got all the money and will probably win. (No runoffs in a partisan primary, of course.)

The Portland mayor's race is the focus of today's political poll. The two frontrunners are way out ahead of the lesser known candidates, and most pundits give Sam Adams the edge over Sho Dozono. But what do pundits know? There were probably plenty of people who were banking on Frank Ivancie over Bud Clark way back when, and look how that turned out.

Anyway, people, give us your prognostication about where it will all wind up on Tuesday night -- your prediction, not your preference:

"Oh, nothing, sweetie."

Uh huh.

The mayor's throwing a leadership summit, and I'm not invited. A reader who was invited, however, has stooped down to show us commoners what the invitation looked like.

If you're such a save-the-trees environmentalist, why have you sent our household no fewer than four glossy mailers -- three in the last four days? I was going to vote for you, but now you are beginning to impress me as a bit of an obnoxious phony-baloney. Our ballots are still waiting to be filled out. Why must you give us such serious second thoughts?

One of the joys of seeing tax season pass is the knowledge that the statute of limitations has closed on another tax year (at least if you cut fairly square corners with the government in the past). This year, for most of us, 2004 slid into tax irrelevance as of April 15. At our house, it's time to clear out the supporting documentation for the tax return we filed for that year. (But we keep our copies of the returns forever, of course.)

Our sense of closure is diminished somewhat by the discovery that we inadvertently forgot to file one of the required return forms for 2007. Oh well, we'll have to file late and see what happens.

Glow-in-the-dark babies.

Here's an internet service that might catch on... or might not.

Successful computer programs often inspire useful plug-ins. This blog now has one. Whenever mentioning the OHSU aerial tram, we can now link here to send readers to an appropriate satellite site.

In the race to succeed Erik Sten on the Portland City Council, the two frontrunners are Nick Fish and Jim Middaugh. But there are three others in the race as well: Ed Garren, Fred Stewart, and Harold Williams Two.

How do you think that race will come out? Remember, vote your prediction, not your preference.

I was riding the train last Friday morning, having left my car at the shop. Along the way, a person whom once upon a time we might have called a "crazy lady" got on. She was friendly, and loud. "A happy Mother's Day to all the mothers," she announced to no one in particular. "It's cold today. But next week, on Friday it's going to be 90."

Over the years, I've learned that when a crazy lady tells you what the weather is going to be a week in advance, she's probably right.

Here's an interesting one.

Here's an interesting piece in today's Times about Craig of Craigslist.

Speaking of which, that site currently has a couple of computer items that you just can't live without. Tell 'em I sent you, for a special discount.

Not unexpected, however. Word has it that the Rock 'n' Roll Cafe on NE Sandy Boulevard in the Hollywood district is defunct.

It was seeming like a slow Monday politically, with little to amuse us. But then on the car radio we heard the voice of John McCain as he spoke right here in Portland. He said that global warming was a real threat to the planet, and that if polar bears can change their ways to deal with it, then humanity needs to, too:

Now, that's a scream. The tighty righties must be going nuts. They really don't have anyone to vote for. All good news for Obama.

The last of the new rails went into place on the Portland Transit Mall today. $143 million later, we'll see how buses and light rail trains do in the same spaces -- along with more cars than before. My guess: It won't be pretty.

I still think the whole mall re-do was a waste of money. It needed some help, but not a grandiose rip-up. It's impossible to get anyone at City Hall not to Think Big, however. Well, at least it will be shiny for a while.

Setting up a new computer has taken a huge chunk out of my life the last week or so. But some of the hardest (and most expensive) parts of the process have been helped immeasurably by another tech-savvy reader of this blog. Just as Jake at orty.com bailed me out a while back when several web hosts failed me, so too has Joey at Skyline Technology Solutions come to the rescue when the old computer up and died.

It will still take a while to recover from the disruption of the changeover -- the blessings of being computer-dependent can quickly turn into curses. But without the help of a guy whom I met through this blog, the agony would have been much worse. Many thanks to him.

The Portland Development Commission just put out for proposals a contract for "cultural liaison services." I think it may be because the firm that was previously doing this for them didn't work out.

In the race for Sam Adams's seat on the Portland City Council, a runoff appears inevitable. But a runoff between which two candidates? Your prediction, please, rather than your preference:

Robert Bork has taken a lot of hard knocks in his life -- some of them, literally.

Here's a good one: There are only 386 chronically homeless people in Portland.

Portland's 10-year plan to end homelessness recently won plaudits from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. The number of Portlanders considered chronically homeless has dropped from 1,284 to 386 in the last two years, although advocates say the annual census of who's on the street can't count everyone.

Wow. That sounds like one of those statistics like "core inflation" and "unemployment": such a dubious measurement that it essentially means nothing.

It's coming from Caracas.

All of a sudden, to get elected to state office in our legislative district, you have to have a windmill in your picture. We've already blogged about House candidate Cyreena Boston's "daisy fresh" mailer:

This weekend, we see that Jackie Dingfelder, whose vacated seat Boston is seeking, has gone her one better in her campaign for State Senate:

But hey, one of Boston's opponents, Michael Dembrow, has got the entire trifecta:

Streetcar Smith says, "Do as I say, not as I do."

A reader writes:

So I'm walking with my boy in his stroller about an hour ago in South Waterfront. (I know how you feel about the place, but they do seem to be trying to do a good job creating a dense new neighborhood from scratch. But...)

So I get to talking with a security guard and he points out the building closest to the river, one of the tall glass towers. "See anything odd about it?" Then he tells me that the building was built with insufficient allowances for the river soil subsiding. According to what he heard, the building has a ten degree list. He says eight more degrees and it gets condemned.

The cost of a first-class postage stamp goes up from 41 to 42 cents tomorrow. The second ounce of a letter remains at 17 cents; a postcard goes up from 26 to 27.

More than you ever wanted to know about postage rates is presented and linked at this private site.

My mom stands behind her mom,
with sisters and sisters-in-law,
45 to 50 years ago.

Best wishes for a happy day to all mothers, and to all women who play that role in someone's life.

The O site had a story last night about a post on the blog of Karin Hansen, Portland Mayor Tom Potter's wife, that was apparently so hot that she took it off her site, under pressure.

Of course, Google knows all, and if you want to read the controversial post, at least for the moment, it's cached here.

By the end of election season, the political porn that we get in the mail usually becomes pretty tiresome. So it goes this time around. But never before have we received a mailer that threatens to frighten our children. Check out what showed up today:

We can't help but be reminded of this:

As our election porn series wears on, we've been a little worried lately that people might think our recent comparison of State House candidate Cyreena Boston's campaign flyers to ads for a fictional scent called "Passion" was a sexist remark. For the record, please note that this is a unisex fragrance: