Winners

1. Long viewed as havens for housewives, it turns out Portland's suburbs are hospitable to the 9 to 5 crowd as well. In its annual survey of the 100 best companies for working moms, Working Mother magazine put three Portland-area firms on its list of employers with good promotion records, child-care options and family leave policies: Wilsonville's Mentor Graphics, Beaverton-based Sequent Computer Systems and Nike.

2. Pot proponents Michael Rose and Todd Olson scored big last week, collecting 95,032 signatures for a ballot measure to overturn the Legislature's new law recriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. In doing so, they set a record, collecting nearly twice as many signatures as necessary in just three weeks.

3.No-growth proponents got a bit of divine help this week when Portland's "water year" ended Oct. 5 with a record 59 inches of rain. Sure, the excess moisture caused mudslides and mold, but it may slow the flood of out-of-staters.

Losers

1. As often happens in politics, truth suffered last week as physician-assisted suicide opponents began airing television advertisements claiming that those who choose to end their own lives with pills will suffer painful, lingering deaths. Even The Oregonian, which pushed the "pills don't work" theory in the first place, has backed off that faulty argument.

2. Oregon's nefarious butter lobby was exposed last week in the Cascade Policy Institute's "Outrageous Law Contest." Joshua Thomas of Aloha wowed judges by tracking down a law requiring restaurant owners to put up signs and notices on menus if they use "butter substitute."

3. U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Furse lost even more credibility last week when she sent out a release boasting about her efforts to restore welfare benefits to legal immigrants "unfairly" taken away in last year's welfare-reform law. What she failed to mention is that she voted for that popular law while running for re-election.