Snow Fooling About The Past Week.

[December 21st, 2005] WINNERS

TV weathermen and women got to regale us "Storm Team" style with all the vagaries among snow, sleet and freezing rain. Conclusions from hours of coverage: Stay inside when it's cold, living east of I-205 sucks in the winter, and once-a-year crummy weather leaves us all looking like idiots when we drive in the snow.

After ignoring enviros for much of his term, Gov. Ted Kulongoski has started tossing them bones. Fresh off recommending Oregon adopt California's strict vehicle-emission standards, the guv busted out a proposal to make the state's coastline an environmental sanctuary. Wonder if he's nervous about ex-Gov. John Kitzhaber, getting cozy with the greenies while Kitz mulls a political comeback.

Tired of the debate over same-sex marriage? Now we've got one over same-sex schools. That's right: The latest proposal to save North Portland's Jefferson High School includes the back-to-the-future notion of setting up one school for girls and another for boys.

LOSERS

The Oregon Public Utility Commission body-slammed the City of Portland and Portland General Electric customers by approving Enron's plan to distribute PGE stock to Enron's creditors. Although state law requires a "net benefit" when regulated utilities change hands, only Enron and PGE management benefit from this deal.

After pleading guilty to burglary and pornography charges in Washington County, panty thief Sung Koo Kim will face at least four more years in prison for stealing thousands of pairs of underwear. That comes on top of a four-year sentence from Yamhill County, and with other prosecutions still to come elsewhere.

Natural-foods proponents rave about the nutritional benefits of milk that doesn't undergo Louis Pasteur's heat zapper. But 17 raw-milk chuggers in Oregon and Washington discovered the risks that come with their quest for health last week after they ingested E. coli-infested milk from Dee Creek Farm in Vancouver.

The Portland Art Museum is suing Ann Beha Architects, which has worked on three museum projects in the past decade. The museum alleges in a $1.5 million lawsuit that there were cost overruns in the new Mark Building. Boston-based Beha denies those charges.