WINNERS & LOSERS

[August 6th, 2003] WINNERS

Sen. Ron Wyden scored a rare Democratic direct hit on the Bush administration, embarrassing the Dubyas by revealing a simultaneously ludicrous and terrifying Pentagon plan to take anonymous bets on terrorist acts. Wyden's exposé of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's plan to set up an online terror casino (all in the name of "research," of course) sparked international outcry and led to the resignation of Adm. John Poindexter, the Reaganoid creep responsible.

Portland's primadonna cops will get a shot at kicking ass and taking names on national television when Fox's only-slightly repetitive show COPS rolls into town this month. Besides neighborhood officers, the COPS crew will tail gang-enforcement and auto-theft agents, as well as...TriMet officers? "Ma'am, place the bus pass on the ground and step away slowly!"

Beer drinkers and brewers were feeling hoppier last week after the Oregon House Revenue Committee amputated a $24 million beer-tax bill from a larger tax package. The disembodied beer tax is less likely to survive, thereby preserving Oregon's status as one of the nation's last havens for low-tax brew.

LOSERS

Just when you thought Lance Armstrong's big Tour de Freedomland win exorcised Nike's Kobe Bryant hangover, Tiger Woods opens his mouth. The golf superstar, never before known to utter even a mildly controversial word about anything, laid the blame for recent poor form on the new Swoosh model he's using.

Last week was yet another bad one for our friends the fish. Endangered suckers are once again dying in the Klamath, while a new report found that farm-raised salmon--the kind most of us eat--contain five times more harmful PCBs than their wild kin. Not to worry, though--the government and fish-farm industry say there's no cause for alarm.

Vocational Village, Portland's alternative trade school for difficult students, got jumped for its lunch money last week when it became the first school outside of New Jersey labeled "persistently dangerous" under the No Child Left Behind Act. School supporters haven't cried uncle yet, though--they say the high rate of expulsions which earned the school its dubious title have made the school a safer place.