[August 29th, 2007]

WINNERS

How does an illegal immigrant avoid deportation in lefty Portland? Become a labor-union organizer. Just ask José Alfredo Cobián of Molalla , whom a federal judge let return to Mexico voluntarily even though he lied for years about his identity. We’ll see him again someday, in reconquested Oregonia.

Betting that the first pig to the trough gets the most slop, state Rep. Greg MacPherson (D-Lake Oswego) became the first candidate to jump in the state attorney general race—just one day after Attorney General Hardy Myers announced he won’t run in 2008.

Look up in the sky—it’s a jumbo jet-sized $4.7 million tax break for Boeing, courtesy of Gresham’s City Council. Diverting money from the city’s schools, Gresham hopes to convince Boeing to expand its operations, adding 179 jobs. The expansion is no sure thing, but corporate welfare is alive and well.

losers

It would be a low point in any Peeping Tom’s career: getting tackled near the ladies’ latrine at a Clackamas County campground. Campers had Richard Berkey , 63, tied to a tree when the cops showed up. Pretty soon his mug was all over national TV. Which goes to show, “bird”-watching—bada-bing—is best done with binoculars.

First, it was drought. Then, it was price hikes at Wal-Mart. Now, Eastern Oregon’s farmers are suffering a plague of grasshoppers, otherwise known as locusts! Can you make biodiesel out of bug juice?

Call it career suicide by cop: Busted for speed racing, Portland Fire Bureau investigator Harold “Rick” Aragon III jumped off his motorcycle and continued the race on foot, according to the Portland Tribune . But the law won, and now the investigator is condemned to pushing papers. If Aragon was so fast, why do fire rigs never break 30 mph?