A reader writes:

We just missed losing our Jack Russell terrier tonight. I let him out for his last potty break and went to my computer. Seconds later I heard him scream. I ran to the door and threw it open to find three huge coyotes in my SW Multnomah District front yard. Two ran out the gate and one jumped the fence with ease.

We checked the dog over and luckily there are no bites. But he sure is scared, and you know how fearless Jack Russells can be.

Maybe you can blog something about this, so that folks who might not be aware can avoid what might have happened to us.

Years ago, when I was part of a thought-provoking discussion group on ecology, a skeptic in our midst argued convincingly that concern for the earth was in essence a religion. The rest of us thought about it for a while, and then told him that we didn't care -- we still believed in living with the planet in mind.

Now we see that climate change is being designated a religion (or its equivalent) for some purposes under British law. Over in England, this means victory for global warming activists in some cases, but victory for the skeptics in others. It depends on the legal context.

What would that kind of reasoning mean here in the United States? Given our insistence on separation of church and state, it might mean that the constant sermonettes that we get from holier-than-thou governing bodies such as the Portland City Council might have to be trimmed a bit. Every time I roll out my recycling bins, I see a sticker that tells me, courtesy of Mayor Creepy and Fireman Randy, that "it's the right thing to do." I don't disagree with that, but I don't need the characters at City Hall to be preaching to me about it. If I relied on them for right vs. wrong, the afterlife would not be kind to me.

Outdoor swimming and diving.

You want divisiveness? Nothing beats MTV.

An alert reader wrote us today with concern about a case in which a man was sent to prison for willfully failing to pay his company's payroll taxes, even though he argued that he didn't have the money to pay them. Jack Easterday operated a chain of nursing homes in Northern California. He always reported the company's federal payroll tax liability accurately, but he paid only part of it. The IRS came after him to collect what was owed, and it put liens on the company's assets, but eventually it filed criminal charges against Easterday -- 109 counts of willful failure to pay over the payroll taxes that the company had withheld from employees.

Easterday put on testimony at his trial that the nursing homes were losing millions of dollars, and thus couldn't pay all their payroll taxes. The judge ruled that that didn't excuse him from criminal liability, and the jury convicted him on 107 of the 109 counts. The court of appeals agreed with the trial judge that in order to prove the crime of willful failure to pay over taxes, the government need not prove that the taxpayer had the ability to pay; it ruled that the fact that the taxpayer is too broke to pay is irrelevant to that crime. This week, the Supreme Court let that ruling stand.

I have no doubt that Easterday is not a saint, but I agree with the reader that in incarcerating someone for failing to pay taxes -- taxes that he or she freely reported to the government -- we ought to ask whether the person had the wherewithal to pay. Otherwise, aren't we putting people in jail simply because they can't pay a debt?

I got a flu shot this morning, and now, suddenly, I'm craving nacho cheese Doritos.

Overheard at the cllinic: someone calling it the "heiny" virus.

Here's the jail booking photo. Here's the sketch of the suspect. Same guy?

The group that wants to try again to recall Portland Mayor Sam Adams is making things hard for itself. Not only is the enigmatic Jasun "Kiss of Death" Wurster, who ran the doomed first effort, continuing to be prominently involved, but now they've also got a Kevin Mannix pal doing the strategerizing. Throw in a Victoria Taft live remote and daily all-caps e-mail tirades from Jack Peek, and you're pretty much dressed for failure in lefty Portland. What next -- Bill Sizemore and Loren Parks?

Our blog posts about the quarterly results at OnPoint Community Credit Union -- a Portland-based financial institution that we consider at least some indicator of the state of the area's economy -- have led readers from time to time to request comparisons of OnPoint results with those of other credit unions. We've resisted that invitation on a number of grounds -- mostly because we're not really an expert on financial institutions. We've been pulling numbers off the voluminous reports filed with the regulators with interested but highly untrained eyes. Besides, it's a time-consuming deal.

But the challenge has been too good to keep down, and so with the important caution that we are not expert in these matters, just for kicks we'll compare some of OnPoint's financial data with that of three other Oregon-based credit unions that readers have mentioned: Unitus here in Portland, First Tech in Beaverton, and Oregon Community down in Eugene.

One number that we've been tracking for OnPoint has been its ratio of delinquent loans (two months or more) to total loans -- the higher the number, the worse the portfolio from a delinquency standpoint. Here are the percentages for all four of the credit unions in that department:

Another ratio that we've been watching at OnPoint is delinquent loans to net worth. Here are the percentages for the whole group on that score:

The side-by-side reviews turned up one curiosity: Not all of the credit unions are accounting for the industry's deposit insurance troubles in exactly the same way. OnPoint and Oregon Community both showed millions in "stabilization expenses" for the first time this year on their third quarter financial reports, whereas First Tech and Unitus had been showing that expense since the first quarter of the year.

Finally, let's take a gander at the year-to-date net income (loss) figures for the group over the first three quarters. Although given their varying sizes, we're likely talking apples and oranges, the trends are probably worth comparing:

You wanted comparisons? Well, there you have some, folks. Obviously, of the group, Oregon Community has got the biggest delinquent loan problems, is reporting its delinquencies more conservatively than the other three, or both. Relatively speaking, First Tech appears to paint the rosiest picture of the four.

If this sort of discussion makes you want to hunt around through the credit unions' financial reports yourself, just head over here and get started. Once you have the identification number of the institution you're looking for, lots of data can be gleaned here.

Handing out tax money to get people to buy cars was nothing more than robbing from our children to postpone the inevitable for the auto industry. But it was easy to sell: just make it a "green" program. Conserving energy! Stopping global warming! Saving the polar bears! And the flock of sheep we've become as a nation says, "Baaaaaa."

Not only did "cash for clunkers" enable gas-guzzler motorists to buy new gas guzzlers, but the program was also rife with fraud. Much like the first-time homebuyer handouts, which are now going to be made permanent and extended to existing homeowners who want a new house. Just keep printing dollars, America. Party on.

Economists, ya gotta love 'em. "That suggests the recession will likely end sometime in the third or fourth quarter of 2009, he said." Nothing like "predicting" the third quarter, five weeks after it's over. I predict that the Yankees will make it to the World Series.

Tri-Met's dismantling of urban core "frequent" bus service draws a big question mark here.

Tenth most toxic area in the land, second worst in the West only to Los Angeles. [Via the O.]

After three years of stonewalling, the City of Portland is actually proposing that the two officers involved in the senseless killing of James Chasse be suspended for a couple of weeks. Apparently the reason is going to be failing to get him to the hospital, not for literally beating the living daylights out of him and lying repeatedly about what happened.

This admission of wrongdoing comes as the family of the victim prepares for a March trial in a lawsuit that seems likely to cost the taxpayers millions.

The news that Commissioner Dan Saltzman is showing some spine after a decade of slumber on the City Council is making headlines, but the fact that it has taken the city three years to get to this point is quite telling. If the police here mistreat you, justice will be delayed at best, and more likely denied.

Of course, the police union is "disgusted" that even relatively mild discipline is being proposed. That goes along well with its other character, "disgusting."

"Hotlips Pizza in Portland, Ore., where sustainability is second only to extra cheese."

Today marks the 70th anniversary of the first retirement under the Social Security pension system. It was a woman named Ida May Fuller, and she filed her claim in Rutland, Vermont. She got her first check a few months later, for $22.54.

The new system worked out pretty well for Ida May. According to this source, she worked only three years under Social Security and paid only $24.75 into the system, but she lived to be 100 and wound up collecting $22,888.92 by the time she passed away. [Via Jim Maule.]

They'll sure be crowing on conservative talk radio today. "One-term President," "worm has turned," "mandate," yada yada yada.

I will say, though: It's become apparent that last year, many people in the middle were voting against George Bush more than they were voting for the Democratic Party. And if Obama knows what's good for him, he had better make hay with his majorities on Capitol Hill, PDQ.

In performing our quarterly checkup of the financials of OnPoint Community Credit Union -- a Portland institution that we watch as a gauge of the local economy -- we picked up on some news that shows the disturbing state of money institutions nationwide: On OnPoint's third quarter profit and loss statement, it took a $3,557,068 hit for an "NCUSIF Stabilization Expense." This charge appears to be of a similar nature to the much larger loss that OnPoint took in the last quarter of 2008, all attributable to the shaky condition of the national credit union deposit insurance system. Since that system has had to bail out a few large "commercial" credit unions that got into serious trouble about a year ago, all members of the insurance pool have had to show losses on their books, and this time around, pay special premiums announced in late September.

And that's not the end of it -- the insurance folks have warned:

Further credit losses are expected for the corporates, and insurance losses will rise, but NCUA is not giving specific estimates for 2010 and beyond, largely because such information may lead to credit unions having to recognize them when they are stated.

OnPoint currently shows an asset with a book value of $20,093,864 called its "NCUSIF Deposit." This past spring, the book value of that class of asset was suddenly slashed by nearly 67 percent to account for the "commercial" credit union failures up to that point. The big profit that the OnPoint brass had bragged about on their shiny annual report was turned into a loss overnight. One has to wonder whether something bad like that may happen again, not just locally, but throughout the credit union system.

Aside from that alarming news, at least on paper, OnPoint appears to have muddled through the quarter without too much further slippage from where it's been left after the freefall of a year ago. Still, the picture on delinquent debt isn't pretty:

Over on the profit and loss side, after taking the special deposit insurance hit into account, OnPoint's year-to-date net income through the quarter ended September 30 was $21,965,019, up 34.51% from the year-to-date figures in the same quarter last year ($16,329,466). For the third quarter alone, however, net income was $3,378,247, down 45.42% from last year's $6,189,580. In the third quarter of 2009, deposits fell from $2,411,602,745 to $2,373,916,394 -- a 1.56% decrease -- after two straight quarters of increases. Deposits a year earlier were $2,221,206,727, however, and thus for the 12-month period ended September 30, deposits were up 6.88%.

It's time for another week of trying to figure out American pro football. Two weeks into our charity underdog pool, we have 11 players with points -- more than half the participants. And they'll be poring over this list of underdogs (in caps) to see which one can win its game outright, without the benefit of the point spread. The spread is relevant only in that it determines how many points the pool players get if they're right:

14 CAROLINA at New Orleans
10.5 MIAMI at New England
10.5 TAMPA BAY vs. Green Bay
10 DETROIT at Seattle
10 WASHINGTON at Atlanta
9 HOUSTON at Indianapolis
6.5 KANSAS CITY at Jacksonville
5.5 TENNESSEE at San Francisco
3.5 SAN DIEGO at NY Giants
3 ARIZONA at Chicago
3 CINCINNATI vs. Baltimore
3 DALLAS at Philadelphia
3 DENVER vs. Pittsburgh

On the administrative side, the charitable contribution that we'll be making when the playoffs are over now totals $420, which will be divvied up $300 for first, $75 for second, and $45 for third. And bragging rights among our players? Priceless.

Even if you're not formally playing, you may have an opinion about which of the 'dogs is this week's best bet. Don't be shy, now.

In our recent check of our property tax bill, we noticed that a Portland parks tax that was there in previous years was gone. But we should have known -- it will back again soon. Zsa Zsa says they may borrow up to another $150 million if the voters let them.

I remember the last time we voted in a bond and accompanying tax for parks. It was supposed to be for maintenance, but they used it for new capital projects.

I wish we would take the millions that the city is putting aside to run a superfluous streetcar system, dedicate it to the parks, and leave the property taxes where they are. But hey, I guess I'm just not enough "for the children."

Meanwhile, they've come up with yet another plan to turn Washington High School into a community center for the long-suffering Buckman neighborhood. You guessed it -- condos! I wish I were kidding.

Close off some of the ramps so that people can't get on or off it. Can you say "brain trust"?

Oregon Health and Sciences University may be falling apart financially -- it suddenly lost another chief financial officer on Friday, just as we were all drifting off into a weekend-long, sports- and holiday-induced coma -- but at least some of the docs are still doing great stuff. Check out this fellow. I'm not being sarcastic -- his is a cool story, indeed. There's even an internet chat room angle.

The San Francisco Bay Bridge is back open this morning after a nasty six-day closure, imposed when wind trashed a recent emergency repair job and endangered lives. And apparently another closure of that heavily traveled span will be needed soon.

We Portlanders can be grateful that we live in a place where the bridges are all relatively new and in good repair -- and that we never get strong storms.

He told me, "Jackie, it's not what you know, it's who you know."

After our second week, here are the standings in the charity pro football underdog pool. Gary, our only two-week winner, is in the lead:

There's still a whole lot of football left to play. Next weekend's lines will be posted here tomorrow evening or early Wednesday.

Go with the flow.

The new Sellwood Bridge would have only two lanes of vehicle traffic, but would be fitted with streetcar tracks so the city of Portland can extend streetcar service over the bridge.

Merritt Paulson's spouse, Heather Mahar Paulson, appears to have had her California law license suspended for failure to pay the $125 annual dues for an inactive membership. Her registration status is also listed as "delinquent" in the New York court system's attorney directory.

Is this a vote of confidence in the future of major league soccer? Apparently. A license to practice law isn't exactly like a subscription to Sunset magazine. They don't keep sending you notices begging you to renew.

Last night I was grooving along to one of the many blues CDs that I picked up in a big eBay purchase over the summer. It was Jail by Big Mama Thornton -- a splendid collection of songs recorded live at prison shows. Imagine my surprise when I glanced at the back of the CD case and caught this:

Can any long-time Oregonians out there confirm that there was a "reformatory" in Eugene? Maybe she just played the U of O and thought it was a correctional institution.

You can't make this stuff up: "We help you unravel the complexities of issues tangled in multiple layers of government." Indeed.

Here's an interesting phenomenon taking place in Los Angeles: self-appointed volunteers planting greenery by night on other people's bleak, sterile urban lots.

We need this kind of movement in Portland. Maybe they could show up here one night. [Via Tony Pierce.]

This story has got the right wing up in arms, and it ought to have the left wing pretty riled up, too. One of the reasons that the State of Oregon is broke is that its wonderful Energy Department deliberately low-balled -- and by a hilarious margin -- the cost of the state's reckless energy tax credit program when it was going through the legislature.

Everyone in Salem is denying that there was any willful fraud, except for one guy in the department who has owned up to the truth (a brave soul) and another one who quit the department a long time ago. One of those in the loudest denial is Governor Ted, who's shocked -- shocked! -- at the whole thing. This is the same guy who was stunned at the disgusting revelations about Neil Goldschmidt, to whom he owes his career and to whom he gave all sorts of official powers. There's always something terrible going on right under Ted's nose, and he never seems to notice until it's in the papers. Amazing.

The guv also vetoed a bill that would have fixed the problem. He won't be able to deny that.

A couple of decades ago, I saw a little bit of the state Energy Department from the inside. I was appointed by then-Gov. Barbara Roberts to a Hanford advisory committee. I concluded after a year or so that the whole thing was a charade. My name and time were being used to foster an image of public involvement that was far from the truth. The number 1 priority of the bureaucrats in Salem seemed to be keeping their own jobs, and number 2 was not making too many waves about Hanford, in case they might be looking for a job there themselves some day. There was a grand total of one guy in the place, a geologist, who was a straight shooter. The rest never looked you straight in the eye. I quit.

Salem's an odd burg, and Energy is one of the weirder corners. On this one, even Len Bergstein, another Goldschmidt pal, pops up -- flacking for one of the companies that's milking the taxpayers for all they're worth. This one ought to be a movie, with a scary soundtrack.

You talk about your tourism opportunity going to waste. A highly alert reader just pointed out, on our blog post about the latest wasteful Portland Airport expansion talk, that there's a Bong Street out that way:

People, this is big. We could get travelers from all over the world to come to Portland -- just to have their pictures taken in front of a street sign out there!

When they're not wasting money needlessly expanding the Portland airport, they're wasting money talking about it. Here's a boatload of dough that's been dropped to tell us that, yes, if they build more stuff at PDX, more cars will go out there.

This town is clearly going to plan its way to bankruptcy.

The players in our charity pro football underdog pool have picked these upsets; in order for them to win, the lesser-rated team (in caps) must win its game outright:

13 SAN FRANCISCO at Indianapolis - Sidney
10 CAROLINA at Arizona - Michael W.
10 ATLANTA at New Orleans - Robert, Kevin, Andy
9.5 ST. LOUIS at Detroit - Rick, genop's mom, jmh, Dan, Gordon, Doug
3.5 BUFFALO vs. Houston - George, Annie, genop, Mark
3.5 MIAMI at NY Jets - Hank, Bad Brad
3 MINNESOTA at Green Bay - Gary

Nobody wanted these 'dogs:

17 OAKLAND at San Diego
14 CLEVELAND at Chicago
10 SEATTLE at Dallas
3 DENVER at Baltimore
3 JACKSONVILLE at Tennessee
1 NY GIANTS at Philadelphia

I have no selection from Flynn, Michael K., or Mojo, and so unless they can show that I somehow overlooked a legit communication of their picks, they sit out this week. (The deadline is 11:59 p.m. on Saturday.)

The standings so far are:

7.5 - Gary, George
0 - Everyone else

Enjoy the games, everybody!

The new chief financial officer at OHSU has quit after just two weeks on the job. Apparently it has something to do with family issues, but given all the turnover in management on Pill Hill lately, the situation bears scrutiny. As Muddy Waters used to say, "that's the stuff you gotta watch." The most recent interim CFO can't come back under PERS rules; he's been gone for a couple of months already.

The announcement came on a Friday, no doubt timed so that it could be lost in the weekend, and of course the O's editors were sure to oblige on that score. We'll come back to it on Monday. Go by aerial tram [rim shot]!

The Beaverton City Council has scheduled a meeting for Monday afternoon to finalize the termination of its development negotiations with the Paulson family over a proposed $60 million minor league baseball stadium. Under its preliminary contract with the Paulsons, the city will return Don Mazziotti to the Paulsons' payroll, and they will return to the city its $200,000 deposit.

Steve Janik, attorney for the city in the negotiations, has been traded to Clackamas County for two red light cameras and an assistant district attorney to be named later.

In other action, the council is scheduled to launch a new building code enforcement initiative, with "zero tolerance" for violations of municipal ordinances. City inspectors will visit properties in alphabetical order by owners' names, starting with names beginning in "Big-."

Former State Sen. Vicki Walker, whose paying gig at the state parole board ended before it started (and without a plausible explanation) has landed on her feet in a cushy federal job. It's hard to tell what all she'll be doing, but apparently it entails handing out federal pork to farmers. Her new salary will be $133,170 a year -- the parole position was going to pay $97,020.

The new setup sounds even sketchier than the previous one. I hope she stays out of trouble.

Why is this guy even bothering with this?

Readers with a nostalgic interest in San Francisco, take note: They're closing the former Jack Tar Hotel today, so that they can knock it down for a hospital building.

Our readers have spoken, and the Oden-ometer will not be coming back this season. But since we're hearing a lot of chatter about whether Blazers coach Nate McMillan is really the right man to lead Portland to a pro hoops championship, we've decided to institute a new feature, Rate-a-Nate. Every so often, we'll ask readers how they think Coach is performing this year. 1 is the lowest rating (he's terrible), and 10 is the highest (he's the greatest). We'll average out the picks and post a running rating somewhere on the blog, after we have a decent sample. And we'll crank up a new round of the poll every couple of weeks or so.

So here's our first round on the subject:

UPDATE, 6:02 p.m.: Based on the first 66 responses:

We'll update further later.

UPDATE, 11/1, 1:58 a.m.: Through 85 votes, he's at 5.6. For a more current figure (updated currently), see our upper left sidebar, or click here.

I was thinking of taking down my sidebar about David Wilson, the "Welches" con man, this weekend, when along comes a reader sighting of him last night at West Third and Burnside. He didn't seem too pleased when the reader interrupted his phony sales pitch to tell him about his notoriety on the internet. The reader also suggested, "Let me run in and get my camera, I want your picture," which was an especially sweet way of getting rid of him.

Please, people! Leave the biofuel production to the experts.