"PacifiCorp, Oregon's second-largest provider of electricity, has been locked in a battle with ratepayer advocates over a new law that requires the company to reconcile taxes it collects from ratepayers in bills with what it ultimately pays to the government."
My, the Oregonian sure put that politely. How about, "Ratepayers are furious that the utility was collecting money ostensibly to pay taxes and then just pocketing it instead"? Or in other words: Reconcile This!

All part of the old boy code. Expect to see more "politeness" with the Gragg back in town.

This whole scam was unbelievable to me when I first heard about it. I don't understand how it ever even happened, or who thought it would fly. Unbelievable.

Actually, it's not who you know... it's who knows you.

But maybe that's just me.

The scariest thing I have watched in a movie lately, was in the Enron Movie, the Smartest People in the Room.

It was the old black and white, film of the tests they did back in the 50's to try and help explain, I would guess how the Nazi's convinced the German Population in general to commit genocide.

Where I think it was 50% of the people would zap their fellow man to the point of perceived extinction on the other side of the screen to death if told it was the thing to do by a Professor or person in authority.

This was to explain how the management at Enron, convinced thier young energy traders it was OK to do all the things they did that obviously were not ethical and downright vicious toward thier fellow man and society.

There was a good opinion piece in the Oregonian this morning via the New York Times by Paul Krugman titled, Economic InEquality, Wages, Wealth, and Politics.

And curiously another interesting article on page A5 about comments Andrew Young, made about Jews, Korean, and Arab minorities who ran "mom & pop" stores and how much better it was for WalMart to own the stores then these small business people who "ripped" of poor black folk in the hoods. Funny Kari over at Blue Oregon didn't pick up on that one story involving one of the Demo Icons, but chose the "shocking" Lim Scandal instead.

The problem is that all the organizations and the strenght of the middle class have died. As Krugman's article is right on target, we need to connect again with eachother. Those funky neighborhood clubs, like the Odd Fellows, or Masons, yes they were sexist, for the ladies out there, but we through the baby out with the bathwater, and we need the social networks reestablished with socially acceptable norms that connect us to one another, so that who we know is our neighbor and community again, kind of like the blogosphere, but face to face, so we can socialize and have fun working together to make a difference and not leave the decision making to the Sold out Icon's representing WalMart, and "who you know" the authority figure that tells us it is all right to rip off your neighbor.

[Posted as indicated; restored later.]