Some great entries this year – the Trojan Bunny from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail, a great corn on the cob entry, an expansion of the Cars animated series including Toe-mater, and a wonderful hunk of cheese driven by some mice, and a nice corn dog.
Here’s a nice walk through the pits
Tillamook is known for it’s cheese factory and dairy industry – but the Tillamook County Fair also has quirky local fun: pig n’ ford races.
Ask the average Portlander, and they will tell you that the rich should be paying for all the free government services they want. They proved this multiple times by passing a Homeless 1.5% income tax on taxable income over $125,000. They did it again by passing a Preschool for tax in which income over $125,000 is taxed at rate of 1.5% and an additional 1.5% (3% total) on income over $250,000. This makes Portland the 2nd highest tax rate city in the country at 14.69%.
“Good!” say many of the local reddit and forum communities. Eat the rich! Well – it turns out the rich don’t just sit around to be eaten – they leave. Despite claims this could NEVER happen, it is happening. Portland has seen 3 straight years of population decline since 2021. And who is leaving? Overwhelmingly it is the higher earners.
This isn’t academic or speculation – it’s been happening for 3 years straight with no signs of stopping.
The average income of households moving out of Multnomah County was nearly $105,000 a year in 2022, according to newly released tax data. That’s up by more than a third from 2020.
Among those moving into the county, the average household income was about $74,000 – up just 8% compared to 2020.
That disparity may help explain why Multnomah County’s population has declined this decade, reversing rapid growth in the early 2010s.
WWeek
While the activist groups are cheering this heavy tax for ‘rich’ people – actual government and economic leaders are sounding serious alarm bells for years now. Portland economists are even calling it an economic ‘doom loop‘. This trend first frightened state economists, and now we’re seeing basic services like ODOT so badly defunded that they are laying off hundreds and may not be able to make even essential safety work on roads and bridges. Additionally, 36 counties are facing major budget cuts.
It’s a sadly common failure of Oregon government leadership. Portland has gone from the 2nd fastest growing city, to one of the 6th fastest shrinking major US cities.
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AI PDX has become a pretty popular group for folks working with AI systems in Portland. Check out their calendar for upcoming events.
Want to leave your mark on Portland?
Buy a brick with your name on it for Pioneer Square ($150), or get a park bench dedicated to you or someone you love ($1500/bench).
An amazing site is ALERTOregon which hosts a lot of statewide cameras and even includes links to ODOT road cameras too.
Recently PGE is now publicly hosting wildfire detection cameras it has in the Pacific Northwest. For good or ill, it is one of the reasons we no longer need those old-school fire towers.
In what continues to be multiple waves of layoffs, Intel in Oregon has laid off at least 5,400 jobs since August and estimates are there are now less than 18,000 Oregon Intel employees. That’s a loss of just at 25% of Intel Oregon employees (based on the estimates) in 6 months.
This comes when Oregon’s job situation is lagging nationally and facing steep headwinds. Because Intel is the state’s largest tech employer, and many other local tech firms have left or are also downsizing, it means a lot of these employees are predicted to leave Oregon and cause serious economic repercussions for the local area. This has already alarmed local leaders that are now expecting a quickly eroding tax base.
Even worse, Oregon itself is facing a continuingly downward employment trend. Oregon reported a net 4,300 job losses in June 2025, up more than double the 2,100 jobs lost in May. The only sector in Oregon that grew was 900 jobs in heath care fields.
This is even more pronounced in the Portland area which is now in a multi-year decline. The Portland metro area saw the biggest declines in the whole state with 7,500 jobs lost in May and employment is down about 14,000 since last year. Unemployment has also risen dramatically – it was 3.6% in May 2024 but is now 4.6% in May 2025 – a trend that is expected to get worse for the foreseeable future.
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Donating household items to St Vincent DePaul, Goodwill or other groups is good, but they don’t come pick up furnature. It turns out the Vietnam Veterans of America will send a truck out to help pick up donations.
I’ve never used them nor can vouch for how good they are, but this could be an option if you have an estate you need to clean out.
There’s a lot of strange people in the Portland activist culture. Portland is increasingly seeing more and more radical and violent elements becoming influential at public rallies, protests, and labor events. Yet nobody in the local media seems interested in looking deeper. When they do, many times they find disturbing facts.
This isn’t academic, these leaders appear from nowhere and are doing lots of damage. One example is the recent teachers union strikes which turned into a complete disaster for the teachers. The union leadership, after pushing strong pro-Palestinian messaging during the negotiations and holding loud public demonstration protests, later found out the offers they had been given by the state were – in fact – the best deals they could negotiate. The activist leadership used the teacher’s union as a public platform for their personal pro-Palestinian rhetoric. It was a huge loss and embarrassment for the union – yet none of the leaders apologized.
At least a few people seem to be digging in. Here’s an article on Olivia Katbi present at rallies for the nurses union. Even a cursory review brings up some serious questions.
I sure hope our local news can start digging in to find the money and the network these folks use, because radical activism seems to be growing in Portland as was witnessed by 115 straight nights of violent rioting and looting in Portland during Covid.