Here is what I like about art, with key words italicized: people producing something creative and then sharing it with other people.

"I believe that spending $4 billion dollars on a freeway bridge is a huge mistake," says economist Joe Cortright, in his opening statement at today's City Club forum on the Columbia River Crossing. Metro Councilor Rex Burkholder just finished his intro, making the case for the project?in part by referencing the East Bay Bridge in the Bay Area, which was seismically unsound (they're replacing it, but they didn't add any traffic lanes to the new bridge).

Cortright's getting laughs as he hammers home "critical points" like how the bridge could double the rate of sprawl. "Our dysfunctional relationship with Clark County and the rest of the region," Cortright says, is the biggest factor in congestion. There's a 7-to-1 ration of people coming into Portland from Vancouver versus the reverse commute. "This project would increase vehicle miles traveled [VMT] by 40 percent," when the recent governor's report on climate change says we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 75 percent, and reducing VMT "the area in which the State can have the most influence," according to that report.

More debate after the cut.

Paul Stewart was on his cellphone negotiating with the police when Officer Stephanie Rabey shot him in the back of the head without warning last August, police records have confirmed this morning.
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Live from the Rose Garden as the Portland Trail Blazers are preparing for an eventful draft night. If the last few years have taught us anything, it's that the Blazers don't go quietly on draft night.

Not sure where the belle of the ball?GM Kevin Pritchard?is tonight, but it's far far far away from here. You ever see Lawnmower Man? Well that is where Pritchard is right now. He is in a weird digital space, chillaxing with Max Headroom, and avoiding scrubs like myself tugging on his dockers and asking him his thoughts on Kevin Love's jumper.

His jumper sucks and he will be the bust of the draft. But enough on the Beach Boy's nephew, more draft live-blogging after the jump...