Where bureaucrats are bureaucrats ... and yeast are scared.

When I heard the news that brewers yeast had been chosen by the state of Oregon as its official state microbe, my initial impulse was to cheer – but not too loudly, lest the Floyd County Health Department hear all the shouting and conclude it must henceforth regard all microbes as human pathogens – because of course all human pathogens are microbes — and accordingly, brewers yeast must be outlawed in Floyd County … or barring the ban, subject at the very least to a special handling fee each time it is pitched in the brewhouse.

Not that any of the department's reasoning exists in tangible statute.

Where do I pay?

Meanwhile ...

Oregon Designates Official State Microbe (Lowering the Bar)

... Oregon's official microbe is now Saccharomyces cerevisia, also known as "brewer's yeast." As one witness at the committee hearing put it, "[t]his great little microbe is probably responsible for the civilization of mankind," given that there is some evidence that grain was first domesticated (and fermented with yeast) so humans could get drunk, not so they could feed themselves.

Would Kerry Stemler survive in the principled Oregon habitat?

There, a future-oriented thought. Here, an Eisenhower-era error.

Without light rail, new span across Columbia is history, Oregon governor says, by Andrew Garber (Seattle Times)

The fate of the Interstate 5 bridge between Vancouver and Portland appears to largely rest on whether Washington state agrees to put up $450 million as its share of the cost. The GOP-controlled majority in the state Senate has said it will reject any bridge proposal containing light rail.

OLYMPIA — Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber’s office says a proposed $3.4 billion Columbia River bridge will die if Washington state tries to remove light rail from the project.

“Governor Kitzhaber has been clear from the start: No light rail. No project. No kidding,” Tim Raphael, a spokesman for Kitzhaber, said in a statement released Monday.