News Overheard last night at a prohibition-themed Southeast Portland bar: "Ugh, like, I don't even know anyone who reads the Wall Street Journal."This is why: "Portland: The New Utopia."Rarely has the sentiment been stated so bluntly. This latest over-the-top travel piece ran in the WSJ's "concierge" column. "You don't have to be a microbrew-obsessed, flannel-clad cyclist to enjoy" Portland, the sub-headline ...   More

News  Lewis & Clark law school professor James Huffman certainly had a counter-intuitive take on campaign finance in The Wall Street Journal this morning.Huffman, the unsuccessful Republican candidate in last year's U.S. Senate contest in Oregon, writes in an opinion piece that he once believed public disclosure of political contributions was a good thing. Now he doesn't.Huffman writes that his ...   More

News  While we wait for tonight's Trail Blazers game and the start of March Madness (as momentary distractions from the increasingly alarming news from Japan), this morning's Wall Street Journal offers this piece that ties the Blazers to the latest trend in college basketball.Namely, the three-goggles fad pioneered by Blazers Rudy Fernandez and Patty Mills. Given the Blazers' most recent run of lousy ...   More

News Today's Wall Street Journal highlighted a fact Clackamas County probably would prefer went unpublicized: it took the county 274 days after the end of fiscal 2009 to publish an audited financial statement. That time period of about nine months, for those not champing at the bit to read such documents, is a very long stretch. Municipal bond investors, who provide money to the county, want current, ...   More

News A tantalizing headline topped the front page of this weekend's edition of the Wall Street Journal: "U.S. in Vast Insider Trading Probe." Insider trading is the practice of using material, non-public information to trade stocks. For example, if an employee of a widget company learns his firm plans to buy a competitor, he might tell a friend to buy up tens of thousands of shares of the competitor's ...   More

News Today's Wall Street Journal editorial page (never a big fan of taxes) unloads on the after-effects of Measures 66 and 67—the personal and corporate tax increases Oregon voters passed in January. Here's the Journal's take: The Wall Street Journal Editorial December 21, 2010 Oregon raised its income tax on the richest 2% of its residents last year to fix its budget hole, but now ...   More

News Even though the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas has been raging for days—introducing a flood of smartphones, tablets, underwater 3d cameras and Wi-Fi capable toilet seats (kidding about the last part but honestly, I wouldn't put it past anyone)—it seems the biggest news has occurred outside the booths and convention halls. Late last week, Verizon sent out some poorly color-corrected ...   More

News  Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page (never a big fan of taxes) unloadson the after-effects of Measures 66 and 67—the personal and corporate tax increases Oregon voters passed in January.Here’s the Journal’s take:The Wall Street JournalEditorialDecember 21, 2010Oregon raised its income tax on the richest 2% of its residents last year to fix ...   More

News  Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page (never a big fan of taxes) unloadson the after-effects of Measures 66 and 67—the personal and corporate tax increases Oregon voters passed in January.Here’s the Journal’s take:The Wall Street JournalEditorialDecember 21, 2010Oregon raised its income tax on the richest 2% of its residents last year to fix ...   More

News If you have a couple minutes to kill this morning at work, there's an interesting read for college football fans in the Wall Street Journal. The Journal clocked how long it takes Oregon and other top-ranked football schools between plays on offense. And the paper found the Ducks, heading into this week's game against USC, aren't the fastest-operating team with an average time between plays of about ...   More