The winners and the losers

Published: Saturday, Oct. 11, 2008 12:00 a.m. MDT
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Winner: Twenty years ago, when the word "terrorist" was synonymous with Libya, it would have been hard to imagine a day when Moammar Gadhafi started making regular payments into a fund to compensate the victims of Pan Am Flight 103 or the bombing of a German disco. And yet, that day arrived this week.

It kind of makes you wonder what will be happening 20 years from now. Payments from al Qaida to compensate 9/11 victims? We're not going to hold our breath.

Loser: They will be considered innocent until proven otherwise, of course, but the mother-and-son team who allegedly were selling prescription drugs to teens from their Cottonwood Heights home are, if guilty, among the lowest of the low. State officials have been waging a war against the misuse of prescription drugs — a problem so bad that Utah now ranks third in the nation for prescription drug deaths. Unauthorized people who sell OxyContin and oxycodone to juveniles — or to anyone, for that matter — deserve the severest penalties possible.

Winner: We still don't like the way Rio Tinto Stadium was financed — especially the way state lawmakers forced responsible-acting officials in Salt Lake County to cough up public money. But there is no denying that the stadium itself is a jewel in the state's sports landscape. Other than some ill-timed sprinklers and concession stands that ran out of items, Thursday's debut game at the stadium was a success. It will take a lot of successful nights, though, as well as construction of the promised hotel and shopping complex nearby, to make up for the public money lost.

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