Back to....THIS?

Rested and refreshed after a week in sunny Cabo San Lucas, which is, as I understand it, Spanish for the Patron Saint of "Have I got a Timeshare for YOU, Gringo!"  We were even approached after dinner in a restaurant by one of Mexico's used-car-salesman-turned-timeshare-moguls.  My wife went livid on him, offering to serve his entrails to the next sports-fishing boat as chum.  And I believe that she is entirely capable of exactly that.  But I now have a deeper understanding of why so many Mexicans wish to abandon their little corner of Paradise in order to sleep 12-deep in a garage in Woodburn:  the garage is doubtlessly more sanitary than CSL:   I was tempted to let a stray feral cat lick the glass and flatware, just to get it a bit cleaner..

So, we return to yet another Sam Adams "Astroglide-the-taxpayer" scenario, this one as reported in Sunday's Orego-I mean, Birdcage Liner.  Seems Slammin' Sammy likes to backdoor funds as well as friends:  diverting $360,000 from Portland's already Brobdingnagian water-and-sewer charges to offer scholarships to PCC students to help prepare them for City Hall jobs.....A closer look at the funding stol.., I mean, redistributed from ratepayers reveals that only 1/3 of said $360,000 will actually be doled out to worthy scholars:  the remaining $240,000 of "liquid assets," if you will, would provide THREE new gubmint jobs to oversee the distribution of said wealth.  For those of you who attended Portland Public Schools, that equates to one Department Head at $160,000 per year, and two grunts at $40,000 per year each; said grunts doing their typical 98% of the actual workload while being allowed to hear about the DH's luncheon meetings with His Samness, the President of PCC, and various other local luminaries.
And you wonder why Lars Larson calls this town "Moscow-on-the-Willamette."

By the way, you may have noticed that water and sewer rates for Portland have risen 80% over the past nine years, and with the prospect of an additional $500,000,000 being "invested" in a Federally-mandated "upgrade" to the Bull Run watershed in order to solve a non-existent bacterial infection problem. there looms an additional 80% increase in rates.  And you thought the Feds only cared about oil spills.  That "cure" should drive the cost of our tap water into the range of Evian or Dasani.  I personally plan to install a quasi-lawful pump in the creek which flows through my property but which is apparently excluded from the usual riparian rights given water-adjacent property owners.  The City has no problems charging me a "watershed maintenance fee," however, even though not one of their maintainers has ever set foot on my property.  That is probably a good thing, though, as he/she would be as welcome as a BATFE agent at a skinhead campout in Idaho.  "Hey, Buck!  Let's get our AK-47's and play blow the tail off the Narc!"

So, once again, yet another Socialist program is to be, if you will pardon the expression, Sam,  crammed down the taxpayers' throats by the myopic spendthrift heirarchy at City Hall.  let's all spread that wealth around.  Well, YOU get to spread YOUR wealth around, the city officials will still be hanging on to theirs, rest assured.  At least we're not building a bridge to nowhe....no, really?  TWO bridges?  OK, so at least we won't expand Tracula past SoWat to Lake Osw...you're kidding, right?

Maybe Mexico ain't so bad, after all.