Op-Ed (opinion editorial)

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    L.A. Times - Opinion Blog

  • From the top: Q&A with LAPD Chief-designate Charlie Beck

    Paul Thornton
    6 Nov 2009 | 4:46 pm
    Charlie Beck, chief-designate of the Los Angeles Police Department, visited with reporters, editors and members of The Times' editorial board Wednesday, the day after Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced his nomination of Beck as the next LAPD chief. In some areas, Beck distinguished himself (though cordially so) from former Chief William J. Bratton, pointing out that his method of effecting change by focusing on rank-and-file officers differs from his predecessor's emphasis on establishing policy and working with political leaders. Beck expressed support for greater transparency in…

  • In today's pages: Coverage for abortions and the real story of the Berlin Wall

    Karin Klein
    6 Nov 2009 | 11:56 am
    Public option, shmublic option. If you really want to get people worked up about healthcare reform, start talking about whether it should cover abortions and illegal immigrants. Today, the editorial board tackles both those issues, saying that abortion opponents are looking to "extend federal prohibitions into private pocketbooks. By restricting coverage offered through the exchange, they hope to make abortion coverage so unattractive that insurers eventually stop offering it in the market for individual and small-group policies." Healthcare reform thus should…

  • The mayor and the former chief, sharing air time with bias cuts and belly laughs

    Patt Morrison
    6 Nov 2009 | 7:48 am
    I'd deliberately stopped watching the news late Thursday evening after being overwhelmed by the horror out of Ft. Hood and the daylong tsunami of news in general. Sometimes, you've got to switch brain hemispheres. I thought comedy and fashion would do that for me. So I skipped over to ''Project Runway,'' now with extra added fun in the sighting of L.A. landmarks, inasmuch as this season was shot here. Lo and behold, there on the Lifetime channel was one landmark I didn't expect to see. Beaming bright in the sunshine, on a hillside above the 405 freeway -- yes, that…

  • Broadcasters challenge songwriters' price-setting power

    Jon Healey
    5 Nov 2009 | 5:57 pm
    Federal law gives copyright owners a legal monopoly over public performance of their works, among other uses. But their market power is supposed to be limited by the competition from other copyright owners. Consider the case of songwriters. Paul McCartney can make you pay for the privilege of including "Jet" in your movie, even if it's recorded by Shonen Knife instead of McCartney's Wings. But if you don't like what he charges, you can write your own material or go to another songwriter who demands less.Unless you can't go to someone else. That's the problem TV…

  • Humans are more than 50% water. Do we hate more than half of ourselves?

    Patt Morrison
    5 Nov 2009 | 8:34 am
    This won't take long to spell out. How long it'll take to fix, I don't know. Spinning around the radio dial Wednesday, I alighted on a news story about the water deal reached in Sacramento. The announcer said something to the effect that the deal balances both ''human and environmental'' concerns. What? Stop! When are we going to get it through our still-insufficiently evolved craniums [crania, if you like] that environmental concerns ARE human concerns, that we are only as healthy and as likely to survive as are our fellow species and the land and…
 
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    USATODAY.com - Opinion

  • Our opinions on health care: As medical costs take over government, Dems duck ...

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:22 pm
    As medical costs take over government, Dems duck ... To many critics, President Obama's health reform plan amounts to a "government takeover" of the health care industry. That's a provocative claim, and one that should generate serious head-scratching. Because, as...

  • Our opinions on health care: ... and GOP plan falls short

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:21 pm
    ... and GOP plan falls short There aren't many advantages to being the minority party. But one is the freedom to not stick your neck out while going after your opponent's jugular. House Republicans showed this with their 11th hour...

  • Column: Here's what's wrong with World Series

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:17 pm
    Here's what's wrong with World Series Plain Talk By Al Neuharth, USA TODAY Founder YANKEE STADIUM — It's still our greatest sports spectacular. But the World Series needs some fixing. So do the American and National League playoffs that lead...

  • Column: Our heroes, this day and the year-round

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:16 pm
    Our heroes, this day and the year-round Commentary By James Key One of my favorite songs is Heroes by The Commodores. The inspirational lyrics extol everyday people for their feats and courage. Although the song was released in 1980, its...

  • Opinionline: Election message: Voters want results

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:15 pm
    Election message: Voters want results What people are saying about Tuesday's vote The New York Times, in an editorial: "Tuesday's vote — particularly the election of Republican governors in New Jersey and Virginia — has produced heated predictions about the...
 
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    washingtonpost.com - Editorials

  • What would improve the House health-care bill

    Post
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    MUCH OF the criticism of the health-care measure before the House of Representatives is overwrought. Another part is simply wrong. Unfortunately, that does not mean that this is a good bill. As we have said, it does not do enough to control costs, and it is not funded in a sustainable way. Expanding coverage for the uninsured is imperative, but so, too, is getting the country on a credible fiscal path.

  • Editorial: The Fort Hood tragedy leaves many questions

    Post
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    President Obama was right to warn on Friday, in the aftermath of the horrific Fort Hood, Tex., slayings, "against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts." It will be too easy for some to make that mistake, given the Arab heritage of alleged gunman Nidal Malik Hasan, his reported daily attendance at a Silver Spring mosque during his years in Washington and the anti-Muslim harassment that a relative said he endured in the Army. In fact, the terrible crime of which Maj. Hasan is accused was not the expression of any faith, nor the work of a terrorist organization, but rather, it…

  • Editorial: The race to nowhere on Virginia's roads

    Post
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    THERE WAS a brief round of finger-pointing last month after Rep. James L. Oberstar (Minn.), the Democratic chairman of the House committee that oversees transportation and infrastructure, criticized Virginia for being last among the states in spending federal stimulus dollars on highway projects. In the heat of the state's gubernatorial campaign, Virginia Republicans seized on Mr. Oberstar's pronouncement as evidence that the state's transportation department (under Democratic administration these past eight years) needs reform. In response, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine wrote a letter defending the…

  • Extending the homebuyer tax credit is a mistake

    Post
    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    OFFICIAL unemployment is hovering perilously close to 10 percent, and about a third of the jobless have been out of work for at least six months. Therefore Congress was right on Thursday to extend unemployment benefits, for reasons of social justice and economic stimulus.

  • How much more time for Iranian intransigence?

    Post
    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    IT'S BEEN five weeks since the Obama administration announced that Iran had agreed to ship most of its enriched uranium out of the country in exchange for fuel rods for a research reactor -- a deal that promised to delay Tehran's nuclear program by a year or so. But there have been no shipments; instead, Iran rejected the technical terms proposed by the International Atomic Energy Agency. It is trying to change the deal in a way that would remove the slight benefit it offered to the West. And it is continuing its refusal even to discuss the central demand of the U.N. Security Council, which…
 
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    Boston Globe -- Editorial/Op-ed pages

  • Only 1 solution to water problems: Abolish basement dwellings

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:38 pm
    "Gravity always works, and water finds the lowest level. This problem will never go away until living in basements is eliminated." -- Frederick A. Liberatore

  • We must address attacks on fellow soldiers

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:38 pm
    "Fingers are pointing at a number factors - the alleged shooter's faith, harassment, or post-traumatic stress disorder. Whatever the motive, we as a society must help alleviate the situation." -- Sardar Anees Ahmad

  • At Brandeis, Israel's guilt and innocence on display

    Jeff Jacoby, Globe Staff
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:37 pm
    TO BRANDEIS University last night, South African jurist Richard Goldstone brought his international reputation as a legal scholar, a human rights advocate, and the former chief prosecutor of the United Nations tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. Dore Gold, Israel’s former ambassador to the UN, brought facts and figures, maps and photographs, and audio and video in English, Arabic, ...

  • College presidents are flunking the salary test

    Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:37 pm
    Compensation packages bear no resemblance to the world beneath college presidents. The American Dream is being fogged as parents drown in debt, students spend more time working to pay off campus fees rather than studying, and professors try to feed the brains of students with slashed resources.

  • The cost of not enacting health care reform

    Linda J. Bilmes and Rosemarie Day
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:36 pm
    The premature death of thousands of Americans can be translated into monetary terms using the economic "value of a statistical life." If we conservatively use only half of the government figure, or $3.5 million, it suggests that the annual cost to the US economy of 40,000 deaths is about $140 billion.
 
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    SFGate: Chronicle Op-Ed

  • Tax woes latest drag on Dellums' reputation

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    It seems that Mayor Ron Dellums' personal finances are as disastrous as those of the city he was elected to lead. Dellums and his wife owe more than $239,000 in federal income taxes from 2005 to 2007, according to the Internal Revenue Service, which put a...

  • Presented By:

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am

  • Letters to the editor: Time to fix Prop. 13?

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    State spending has increased 133 percent from $56 billion in 1998 to $131 billion in 2008, while over that same period California's population increased by only about 10 percent, and Arthur I. Blaustein ("The voters' folly - Prop. 13," Insight, Nov. 1) has...

  • Mayors adrift: Newsom's Hawaiian vacation

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Gavin Newsom's abrupt withdrawal from the governor's race gave him an opportunity to show his recommitment to the job he was elected to do in San Francisco. Instead, he took off for Hawaii. He departed without even telling his staff, leaving them to spin the...

  • Horror and mystery

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    The horror of the mass slaying in Fort Hood, Texas, was compounded by the paradoxical strangeness of the circumstances. The alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Hasan, was a psychiatrist who was assigned to help soldiers deal with the mental trauma of warfare. He...
 
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    Opinion

  • Predators: Keeping kids safe

    Times-Union
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    How do we keep our children safe? Those eternal fears of all parents were brought to the surface recently when Somer Renee Thompson was killed in Orange Park. In some neighborhoods, children aren't allowed outside alone, as if they are on house arrest. Yet, as parents, you can't and shouldn't do everything for your child. That balancing act is the subject of today's comments from members of our E-Mail Interactive Group. To join, send an e-mail to: carol.boone@jacksonville.com.read more

  • Smoking: Cessation programs can work

    Times-Union
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    I'm writing in response to the editorial, "Secondhand smoke: New study, same message." The Florida Academy of Family Physicians represents 4,000 family physicians, residents in training and medical students. Family physicians are the first line of defense in helping their patients quit smoking. We've known for years that smoking is harmful, not only to the smokers' health, but it also negatively affects the health of the public. Family members, coworkers, friends or anyone else who comes in contact with the tobacco smoke can be adversely affected.read more

  • Letters from readers

    Times-Union
    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    PLASTIC BAGS Valuable and safe Contrary to a recent letter in The Florida Times-Union, plastic bags and other common plastic wraps are made from a type of plastic known as polyethylene that does not require the use of softening agents, such as phthalates. Polyethylene bags and wraps are considered valuable materials that are widely collected for recycling by many large grocers and retailers, such as Wal-Mart.read more

  • Pay czar: An abuse of power

    Amanda Winkle
    5 Nov 2009 | 9:41 pm
    No one faults the Obama administration for wanting to slash the pay of wealthy executives running large companies that received federal bailouts.But Kenneth R. Feinberg actually is doing it — and that’s deeply troubling, for several reasons.Feinberg is officially the Treasury Department’s special master for executive compensation. In common terms, he’s the government’s  pay czar. And his power is unprecedented.Granted, it is disturbing that some of the nation’s financial giants were continuing to pass out giant bonuses while they lost money.read more

  • Military strategy: How to win in Afghanistan

    Times-Union
    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    October is now recorded as the bloodiest month on record for U.S. casualties since the start of the war in Afghanistan. Terrorist attacks are up and the Taliban is reasserting itself. It is time for American strategy to change. As a new U.S. senator and a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I traveled to Afghanistan to talk with Gen. Stanley McChrystal to hear, in person, his rationale for increasing U.S. troop levels and expanding the military's mission.read more
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    baltimoresun.com - Commentary

  • Fort Hood shooting: a murderous society's latest outrage

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:46 pm
    We are uncomfortable in confronting randomness in our lives. When something terrible happens we search for "explanations" in the same way that primitive people did when puzzled by the complexity of the universe. Why does one person kill another, or 13 others? The fact that murder has always been a routine phenomenon of human existence does not dispel the horror that it implies, or our desire to reassure ourselves that we are not likely to die this way if only we can understand the "motive" for such acts.

  • For young Obama voters, thrill is gone

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    L ast year, Barack Obama inspired legions of young people to become politically involved. Hordes of students in high school, college and graduate school knocked on doors and set up Facebook pages to garner support for a candidate who offered a fresh viewpoint, welcomed by our generation. The rallying cries of hope and change banded us together, making it cool to wear Barack Obama T-shirts and order Barack O-Bombs at the bar. But now, a year later, it seems this first foray into the reality of politics has doused the fire of my generation's idealism with a bucket of cold water.

  • Not the first president to break promises

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    "The doer is always conscienceless; no one has a conscience except the spectator." - Goethe

  • A change Md. needs

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Women statewide and rural residents stand to benefit greatly from health care reform Women and rural residents stand to benefit from health care reform

  • For young Obama voters, the thrill is gone

    5 Nov 2009 | 10:43 am
    Last year, Barack Obama inspired legions of young people to become politically involved. Hordes of students in high school, college and graduate school knocked on doors and set up Facebook pages to garner support for a candidate who offered a fresh viewpoint, welcomed by our generation. The rallying cries of hope and change banded us together, making it cool to wear Barack Obama T-shirts and order Barack O-Bombs at the bar. But now, a year later, it seems this first foray into the reality of politics has doused the fire of my generation's idealism with a bucket of cold water.
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    MiamiHerald.com: Opinion

  • Regulating the financial market

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm
    Below are excerpts from AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka's recent testimony before the House Financial Services Committee:<p/>Our members were not invited to Wall Street's party but we have paid for it with devastated pension funds, lost jobs, and public bailouts of private sector losses. Our goal is a financial system that is transparent, accountable and stable, that is the servant of the real economy rather than its master.

  • Where's the outrage?

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm
    Where's the outrage?<p/>What sort of headline is Army doctor blamed in base rampage to describe the worst attack ever on a military installation in this country?

  • Juanita's Cinema Paradiso in Birn

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm
    There's little I can add to the big news about the secret kept for decades by Juanita Castro: Her valiant collaboration with the CIA to save from imprisonment and execution the democrats of the domestic opposition whom her brothers Fidel and Ra&uacute;l crushed with such virulence. Her memoirs and statements testify to her private crusade.

  • Don't drop tests for high-school students

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm
    As a 23-year high-school teacher in the Broward County school system, I am appalled at the new policy of the School Board to allow students to be exempt from taking their midterm or final exams if they have an A or B average. In today's highly competitive global economy we should be making our curricula more rigorous, not less.

  • Mindless violence

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:00 pm
    Gen. George Casey, the Army chief of staff, spoke for a lot of Americans Friday when he described the shooting spree that left 13 people dead at Fort Hood, Texas, as a ``kick in the gut.''
 
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    The Oregonian Editors

  • Lowell Thomas awards announced

    Therese Bottomly, The Oregonian
    28 Oct 2009 | 4:25 pm
    A staff writer and staff photographer took a first place award and a second in the annual Lowell Thomas Travel Journalism Competition.

  • Anderson named publisher of The Oregonian

    Richard Read, The Oregonian
    26 Oct 2009 | 9:02 am
    N. Christian Anderson III, former Publisher and CEO of The Orange County (CA) Register, has been named publisher of The Oregonian in Portland, Or.

  • What ever happened to David Reinhard?

    Therese Bottomly, The Oregonian
    25 Oct 2009 | 3:49 pm
    Formerly a columnist for The Oregonian, David Reinhard is now a lobbyist. He writes about the transformation in Sunday Opinion.

  • Volunteer theme in comics left-wing bias?

    Therese Bottomly, The Oregonian
    24 Oct 2009 | 3:16 pm
    What prompted the spate of comic strips featuring a volunteerism theme?

  • Crossword clue puzzles reader

    Therese Bottomly, The Oregonian
    22 Oct 2009 | 1:13 pm
    Did Wednesday's crossword clue misstate the actress in a classic movie?
 
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    OrlandoSentinel.com - Opinion

  • 11/7: Letters to the Editor

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Climate change a ployfor U.S. to sign treaty

  • 11/7

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    It seems like Nike and Michael Jordan would have enough money and not mess up a school shoe contract. Jordan should skip a round of golf and foot the whole bill out of his pocket. I wouldn't put a son in a negative light.

  • Our take on: Senseless tragedies

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Senseless tragedies

  • New Voices: Teens can change lives with heartfelt volunteering

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Jacqueline was the epitome of a young girl, full of life and energy. Butterflies covered her bedroom walls, a pink comforter adorned her canopy bed, and coloring books were scattered around her room. Her light-as-a-feather figure gracefully captured her free spirit as she often danced around her Barbie playhouse.

  • Moderation, thy name is not Amend. 4

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    It's the quiet before the storm at city hall. Commissioners take their seats, scanning a packed chamber full of anxious citizens. Rows of signs punctuate the crowds' sentiments: "Say No to Big Box Developers" and "Vote for the People."
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    SacBee -- Editorials

  • Editorial: New life, and lesson, for Elk Grove parks

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    A recent example in the city of Elk Grove illustrates California's tax dilemma. Elk Grove residents, like residents across the state, have faced cuts in their neighborhood parks. In June, 6,000 residents in the older, central area of the city and northern newer neighborhoods received ballots to raise a $79 annual fee to maintain parks. They roundly rejected it. So the board was forced to approve reductions that began July 1: less watering, less frequent lawn-mowing and graffiti removal, closure of some restrooms. People began to notice dying grass, overgrown weeds, more graffiti. So residents…

  • Editorial: Business as usual backed on charter

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    You'd think that a city that's grown from 66,000 in 1920 to nearly 500,000 today might want to reconsider its nearly 90-year-old city manager form of government. But when Sacramento's Charter Review Committee, after seven months of work, presented its final report on the structure of city government to the City Council on Tuesday, it was clear that the committee likes things in Sacramento just the way they are, thank you. The committee likes having an unelected city manager serve as the chief executive officer of the city, directing all city departments and making policy and annual budget…

  • Letters to the Editor: Darrell Steinberg, Kings arena, judicial nominees, patriotism

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Steinberg diagnosed by reader Re "Water plan has local goodie" (Page A1, Nov. 4): That Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg would even earmark $10 million for a tolerance center to be constructed during today's economic crisis shows the depth of his Congenital Spending Syndrome, and his divorce from reality. It's nice that Steinberg wants to help his fellow human beings get along, but please do it without everyone else's money. As was recently said by a fellow Democrat: "Stop. Just stop spending. Just stop!" – John Chase, Rocklin 'Steinberg just doesn't get it' Re "Water plan has…

  • Editorial: A step forward on homelessness

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    For those who think there is no hope for the homeless, that government programs and private charities can't make fundamental change in homeless people's lives, Rebecca Hahn, Wesley Colter, and Sheffine Houghton offer proof that they can and do. Hahn is a single mom and recovering drug addict, Houghton was a neglected former foster child with no place to live and Colter is an ex-con who dealt drugs and used them. All were able to turn their lives around, and they credit the myriad programs offered for the homeless in Sacramento for their transformation. The three told their moving personal…

  • Editorial: Placerville growth not limited to thrift shops

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    It's easy to dismiss Placerville's decision to slap a 45-day moratorium on opening or relocating thrift stores as just another sign of the harsh economic times. The El Dorado County town's council voted for the restrictions after three new thrift stores opened in the last year, with two others in the planning stage. The final straw prompting the moratorium could serve to symbolize the plight of not just Placerville, but the nation. As Cathy Locke reported in an article in Thursday's Bee, an existing thrift store wanted to move into the long-vacant building that for three decades had been the…
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    Star-Telegram.com: Editorials

  • Gov. Rick Perry wisely exhibits restraint in not speaking about public option

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:39 pm
    Gov. Rick Perry is wisely holding his anti-Washington ardor in check by not ruling out the state’s participation in a proposed government-run health insurance plan.Several congressional versions of reform proposals would provide a government-backed alternative to private insurance. A Senate plan would allow states to decline to participate on behalf of their residents.Perry, who has turned railing against the federal government into an art form, has cranked up the volume in recent months because a Democrat occupies the White House and because he is running for re-election against Sen.

  • Fort Hood shows there is no 'Army of One’

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:04 pm
    A tragedy as stunning as Thursday’s mass killings at Fort Hood evokes extreme emotions.Perspective is difficult — but absolutely necessary to understanding what happened and its implications.The rush of information after 13 people were shot to death at the U.S. Army base was at once extensive, incomplete and occasionally wrong.Military officials believe Maj. Nidal Hasan, a 39-year-old Army psychiatrist, fired a handgun in a center where about 300 soldiers were waiting to get vaccinations and eye tests as they prepared to deploy overseas.A female police officer is credited with…

  • Laptops weren’t the problem on Flight 188, senator

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:13 pm
    Sen. Byron Dorgan, chairman of the Senate aviation subcommittee, said Tuesday that he intends to file a bill that will ban laptops in airplane cockpits. If he does, it would be a quintessential federal overreaction to the now-infamous incident involving the two Northwest Flight 188 pilots who were out of communication with the ground for 91 minutes as they overshot their destination by 140 miles.Blaming the laptops is akin to blaming the car and not the driver for running over the neighbor’s mailbox. Two years ago, the Federal Aviation Administration approved and the airlines began…

  • Burgess’ stunt with the 1,990-page House healthcare bill falls flat

    4 Nov 2009 | 7:03 pm
    U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville, attempted a bit of political theater this week. The result, unfortunately, reflected a loose grip on reality and ham-handed constituent service.Burgess helpfully brought copies of the 1,990-page House health-reform bill (H.R. 3962) to the North Richland Hills library, undoubtedly to impress his district by the sheer heft of the legislation. He delivered it Tuesday and encouraged everyone to read the bill and contact him with their concerns before the vote — which, at the time Burgess was hand-delivering the tome, was anticipated today.

  • Texas taxpayers could get dinged by tuition plan’s financial woes

    3 Nov 2009 | 5:29 pm
    The Legislature had a good idea in 1995 when it approved a bill declaring "an urgent public necessity to assist young Texans in obtaining a higher education." It established a prepaid higher education program through which parents, grandparents or other interested parties could set up savings accounts and guarantee that, when the time came, students’ tuition and fees would be paid at "the institution that best meets their individual needs."Texas voters agreed, and in 1997 they adopted a constitutional amendment that put the state’s full faith and credit behind the tuition-payment…
 
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    Arkansas Online stories: Opinion and Letters*

  • EDITORIALS Two ton of fan mail

    <StaffMember: The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette>
    7 Nov 2009 | 2:14 am
    IS IT just us or have the letter writers been taking their vitamins lately? And not the chewable Flintstone kind, either. But the big-boy, adult vitamins that taste nasty and come with calcium, fish oil and high-octane caffeine.

  • COLUMNISTS The myth of ’08 demolished

    <StaffMember: Charles Krauthammer>
    7 Nov 2009 | 2:13 am
    Sure, Election Day 2009 will scare moderate Democrats and make passage of Obamacare more difficult. Sure, it makes it easier for resurgent Republicans to raise money and recruit candidates for 2010.

  • Get smart

    CHICAGO TRIBUNE
    7 Nov 2009 | 2:12 am
    Baby Einstein videos were marketed with a promise many parents found irresistible : Park your kid in front of the television, and let us make him or her, if not a genius, then at least above average.

  • LETTERS

    7 Nov 2009 | 2:12 am
    Significant reform lacking At the height of the Halloween season, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Kimberley Strassel, had a scary thought: Maybe all this talk about the public option is designed to set up a bogeyman so all the conversation will be about it and not all the other terrible details of this monstrous bit of legislation.

  • Elephant chomp

    <StaffMember: Mike Masterson>
    7 Nov 2009 | 2:11 am
    Every town would be wise borrow the page from Springdale’s play book that explains how to proactively enforce city codes.
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    The Buffalo News: Buffalo News Editorials

  • A reform for health insurers

    6 Nov 2009 | 3:58 am
    Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo last week unveiled his latest reform of an industry in need of supervision. This time, following his upending of the college loan scam, he has targeted health insurers.

  • Fighting pneumonia

    5 Nov 2009 | 6:52 pm
    In today's technologically charged environment, it's easy to forget that there are struggling nations still lacking access to the most basic health care — and that many of the world's children are suffering, as a result.

  • States should decide usage laws

    5 Nov 2009 | 4:23 am
    At last, some common sense about medical marijuana, and from the federal government, no less. Unlike its interventionist predecessor, the Obama administration has decided to be conservative about this controversial issue, and leave state business to the states.

  • Approve the shield law

    4 Nov 2009 | 6:57 pm
    After a few weeks of confusion and apprehension about counterproductive revisions, the White House, Congress and the news media have agreed to a federal shield law that balances the legitimate and constitutional needs of both journalists and the courts. The bill is now ready for consideration by the Senate Judiciary Committee, which should promptly approve it.

  • Smoking laws saving lives

    4 Nov 2009 | 9:00 am
    Where there's smoke, there are heart attacks.
 
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    Courant.com - Editorials

  • The Supreme Court Agrees With Diocese?

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    According to the Nov. 3 story "Court Rejects Diocese Appeal" [CTNow], the U.S. Supreme Court has decided not to hear the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport's appeal of a state court decision to make public more than 12,000 pages of sexual abuse files involving clergy.

  • What Drove Fort Hood Killer?

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    The gunman who killed 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas is, at the moment, an enigma. It's unclear what his motives were for Thursday's murderous spree, or whether he acted on his own. But one thing is clear: There's no reason to foster distrust of all Muslims because of one man's horrific crime.

  • Railroad Museum Attack Inexplicable

    6 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    MESSED UP • Historic Willimantic train museum trashed by vandals This is as heartbreaking as it is infuriating. Vandals — "village idiots" may be more accurate, or simply "criminals" — broke into the Connecticut Eastern Railroad Museum in Willimantic on Tuesday and wreaked havoc. They smashed windows — many of them historic and hard to replace — on the museum's roundhouse, a locomotive and elsewhere. They broke into the museum gift shop and trashed it, and committed other senseless acts of destruction. A museum official said the damage may cost more than $100,000…

  • Ned Lamont: A Candidate For Governor?

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    Ned Lamont's formation Wednesday of a committee to explore a run for governor next year could profoundly change the dynamics of that race.

  • Bronx Bombers Rule Once More

    5 Nov 2009 | 9:00 pm
    WORLD SERIES • Confident New Yorkers dispatch Phillies in six games Baseball hit the reset button. The New York Yankees are back on top.
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    Editorials

  • Editorial: Flaws in water deal make bond hard to swallow

    <p class="Byline">Mercury News Editorial
    6 Nov 2009 | 7:34 pm
    California's comprehensive water package may go down in history as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's greatest bipartisan accomplishment.

  • Editorial: Good work by San Jose police but review still needed

    <p class="Byline">Mercury News Editorial
    5 Nov 2009 | 5:27 pm
    The horror of a Halloween night gang attack on two middle school students, leaving one gravely injured, had barely sunk in when the San Jose Police Department announced suspects were in custody.

  • Editorial: San Jose pension board must get real on rate of return

    <p class="Byline">Mercury News Editorial
    4 Nov 2009 | 7:24 pm
    The board in charge of San Jose's police and firefighter pensions today will decide what rate of return on investments to use in its projections.

  • Editorial: San Jose budget requires sacrifices

    <p class="Byline">Mercury News Editorial
    3 Nov 2009 | 6:59 pm
    Last spring, San Jose employees cried foul when Mayor Chuck Reed finally outlined what they needed to do to help balance the budget by June 30 with minimal layoffs: zero raises across the board.

  • Editorial: We recommend:

    <p class="Byline">Mercury News Editorial
    2 Nov 2009 | 6:00 pm
    These are our recommendations for local elections today.School districtsMeasure C, parcel tax primarily to keep class sizes small in Santa Clara Unified School District: Vote yesMeasure G, parcel tax primarily for teacher salaries in Fremont Union High School District: Vote yesCupertino City
 
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    FresnoBee.com: Opinion

  • EDITORIAL: City, Grizzlies can both win

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    An expert on the nation's sports industry has confirmed what we've known about the rent that the Fresno Grizzlies pay to use the city-owned Chukchansi Park. It is one of the highest stadium rents in Triple-A baseball and the Grizzlies operate in the industry's most economically challenged market. Read comments

  • EDITORIAL: Thumbs up, thumbs down

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Thumbs up to 100 years of historic photos by Claude C. "Pop" Laval. Pop Laval was a commercial photographer who took more than 100,000 pictures, aerial photos and films of Fresno from 1911 until his death in 1966. The Pop Laval Foundation will celebrate with a fundraiser tonight, the Party of the Century at 5:30 tonight at the "Big Tent," River View Shopping Center at Friant and Fort Washington roads. Details are available by calling 433-9536. Read comments

  • EDITORIAL: Auditor's credibility now falls to first in the position

    6 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    The performance of Fresno's first independent police auditor will largely determine whether the city's experiment with this controversial office makes it a permanent part of city operations. Mayor Ashley Swearengin knew the importance of the first police auditor, which is why she moved carefully in making the selection. Read comments

  • EDITORIAL: Approval of water bills means progress can begin

    4 Nov 2009 | 4:08 pm
    We had our doubts over whether a polarized California Legislature could pass a much-needed package of bills to meet the water needs of 38 million residents. But early Wednesday morning, lawmakers approved landmark legislation to improve the state’s broken water system. Read comments

  • EDITORIAL: Open enrollment time reveals health-care flaws

    4 Nov 2009 | 7:16 am
    This is the time of the year when workers covered by employer-sponsored health insurance select their coverage and find out how much their premiums will increase. They are not getting good news. In the San Joaquin Valley, premium increases will be about 10-15%, according to a Bee story. Read comments
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    Arizona Daily Star

  • Progress reports should add line about teachers

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    We know a girl who recently brought home a school progress report. Along with the usual grades for reading, writing and arithmetic, the sheet gave the child's attendance for the first quarter, which showed she missed no days of school.

  • State leaders must act fast to avoid Titanic-like disaster

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    While the Titanic is often used as a metaphor to illustrate an unexpected disaster, the truth is that the Titanic sank because of a lethal combination of poor decisions and actions taken over a long period. It was far more complex than just a ship "unexpectedly" hitting the ice.

  • Views vary on Giving Tree

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    The letter to the editor "Many nonprofits serve Tucson well" was credited to the wrong author on Friday. The correct letters and authors follow.

  • Daily Fitz Fix 11/07/2009

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm

  • Letters to the editor

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    Rosemont copper is also pushing fear
 
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    Akron Beacon Journal

  • Protection money

    Barack Obama pledged during the presidential campaign, and once he arrived in the Oval Office, to invest heavily in the restoration of the Great Lakes. Now he has delivered, signing legislation last week that almost doubles federal funding for the worthy cause. The moment hardly won much attention. Still, the investment amounts to signal advance for the larger region and the country.

  • Wrong number

    The Summit County Board of Elections found out the hard way Tuesday that it had picked the wrong place to save money. Summit was the only county in the state to experience widespread difficulties on Election Day. The reason? Not enough ballots were ordered. When turnout surged in several suburban communities, most notably Tallmadge, election officials scrambled to print and photocopy extra ballots. There is no way of knowing how many voters turned around and went home.

  • Discovered in the neighborhood

    Police have found 11 bodies so far in and around the house where Anthony Sowell lived on Imperial Avenue in East Cleveland. The bodies, all black females, are in various stages of decomposition, seven with cords around their necks. The victims had been in the house at least three weeks and some perhaps since 2005, when the former U.S. Marine moved in after 15 years in prison for rape.

  • Election fallout

    Dan Gilbert and his partners at Penn National Gaming knew exactly what they were doing. They crafted a casino gambling proposal that played to voters desiring job creation and economic development in urban cores. Then, they pressed the message relentlessly, easily outpacing the money spent by the presidential campaigns in the state last year. Is there an Ohioan who hasn't heard the pledge of 34,000 jobs and keeping the money here?

  • Election fallout (part 2)

    On Tuesday, voters returned to the Akron Board of Education the lone incumbent on the ballot, Jason Haas, along with three new faces. Haas' return to join his colleagues, the Rev. Curtis Walker and Amy Reeves Grom, is important, ensuring that when board member Kirt Conrad vacates his seat, as he intends to do early in 2010 to take a job appointment in Stark County, the district will have no fewer than three members on a board of seven who have acquired some experience and a measure of confidence in guiding a large school system.
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    Opinion Blog

  • Saturday's Quiz

    The Post-Standard Editorial Board
    7 Nov 2009 | 2:02 am
    John Berry/The Post-Standard 8. TRUE OR FALSE: Stephanie Miner informs her fellow Common Councilors that because of the looming budget crisis, her first act as mayor will be to cut their salaries. 1. In a historic election on Tuesday, Stephanie...

  • Voting Concerns

    Readers' Page
    7 Nov 2009 | 2:00 am
    Dick Blume / The Post-Standard ELECTION INSPECTOR Lee Campion shows Ann Pia how to insert paper ballet into counting machine at the Clay town offices Tuesday. Voters raise questions about privacy, efficiency Six questions about the new voting system To...

  • It's time for Crouse, Community hospitals to join forces

    The Post-Standard Editorial Board
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:02 am
    Post-Standard file photos COMMUNITY GENERAL Hospital (top) and Crouse Hospital in Syracuse are considering a merger. From recent history, you might assume Syracuse’s four hospitals are so embedded that any thought they might collaborate or, heaven forbid, merge is...

  • What an asterisk as Le Moyne beats Syracuse

    The Post-Standard Editorial Board
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:01 am
    If the glass was at least half-empty for the Syracuse Orange Tuesday, it overflowed for the Le Moyne Dolphins as they scored a shocking win over the nationally ranked SU basketball team this week. The exhibition game may not count...

  • Monserrate serves with conviction

    The Post-Standard Editorial Board
    6 Nov 2009 | 2:01 am
    Freshman state Sen. Hiram Monserrate, D-Queens, is in trouble. Earlier this month, he was convicted of assaulting his girlfriend. He could get a year in jail at his sentencing. So far, his legal bills have exceeded half-a-million dollars. His supporters...
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    toledoblade.com Opinions

  • Kirk - Fort Hood

  • Shameful turnout at the polls

    Toledo has taken a bold step forward by electing Mike Bell, an independent with a 2-to-1 disadvantage in campaign funds, to the office of strong mayor of Toledo. Voters who took a chance for change by voting for Mr. Bell should be proud of themselves. They have shown for the first time in recent memory that the Democratic political machine that has controlled our destiny for years can be overcome and defeated. Toledo voters should be ashamed of the low turnout at the polls. One year ago, Toledo and Lucas County helped to elect President Obama in a landslide. Where were all these fired-up…

  • Strickland's wake-up call

    Gov. Ted Strickland should pay close attention to Tuesday's national election results because, to paraphrase a familiar saying, there but for the grace of the election calendar goes he. If Governor Strickland had been facing off against likely Republican candidate John Kasich now instead of in 12 months, he might very well have fallen victim to the national anti-incumbent trend that played out in the election this week. In heavily Democratic New Jersey, incumbent Gov. Jon Corzine was rejected by voters in favor of Republican Chris Christie. Outspent by $12 million, Mr. Christie was able to…

  • Funding the lakes agenda

    YOU had to look and listen closely for any hint of fanfare, but federal funding to back a comprehensive program to restore and protect the Great Lakes has now been secured. The $475 million approved by Congress is a financial commitment to combat invasive species, habitat loss, climate change impact, and threats to water quality in the lakes. The money was included in a must-pass federal spending bill with money that has provisions to keep the government operating until the end of December. The broad, bipartisan coalition of governmental, industry and nonprofit groups, which created an…

  • Renowned museum must remain distinctive

    By DON BACIGALUPI THOSE of us who work in art museums are surrounded every day by great examples of human achievement from virtually every period and culture on the planet. Over time, you might think that we would tire of these treasures and begin to take them for granted. Nothing could be further from the truth. Instead, we are constantly inspired and challenged by great works of art and are thrilled to share them with all who visit. But the question becomes, "During these times of economic hardship, how can we continue to make the art come alive for everyone who enters our doors?" As I take…
 
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    Tribune-Review Opinion

  • Hefty price for U.S. debt

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    John B. Taylor served as an economic adviser to Presidents Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, presidential candidate Bob Dole and the Congressional Budget Office. From 2001 to 2005, he was undersecretary of the Treasury for International Affairs, where he was responsible for U.S. policies in international finance.

  • TARP truths

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    The Treasury Department's hastily implemented $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program has been troubling from its outset. Now, much of what's troubling about TARP is confirmed by none other than Neil Barofsky, TARP's own special inspector general.

  • Obama propaganda: Cut it out

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    As more documents related to an Aug. 10 National Endowment for the Arts conference call surface, the more upset taxpayers should be about public dollars paying for White House propaganda that blurs the line between campaigning and governing.

  • Saturday Essay: Confounded cats

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    My three pampered cats, lulled comfortably into inactivity by the welfare state of pet ownership, were supposed to spare me some expense during these challenging financial times by at least keeping our common abode mouse-free.

  • For whom the bell tolls

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    For the Blue Dogs, Tuesday was a fire bell in the night.
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    The Australian | Opinion

  • When your robots do the fighting

    6 Nov 2009 | 7:46 am
    Will the use of drones in warfare make the world a safer place or will it lead us to lose track of the morals of armed conflict? 

  • Held hostage by the rush to be tough

    6 Nov 2009 | 7:38 am
    Knee-jerk reactions to a small increase in asylum-seekers in boats do nothing to solve the long-term problem, writes Mike Steketee

  • PM's strategy risks a backlash

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    WHILE Penny Wong and Ian Macfarlane have been in a cone of silence on climate change as they engage in "good faith" emissions trading negotiations, the climate sceptics and opponents of an ETS have been trumpeting their arguments with a megaphone.

  • It's a market, but in jungle camouflage

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    A new breed of international financier is arising from carbon trading, writews Giles Parkinson 

  • Rudd role vital to G20 emergence

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    THE Prime Minister has received strong validation for his international policy.
 
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    Comment from Times Online

  • Too witty for words. I should quit on a high

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    Warren Buffett’s $44 billion ($£loads) purchase of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway company was the best news I have heard all year. At last: a railway served by trains where EVERY carriage is a Buffett carriage.

  • Let’s target our ire on the things that matter

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    I once worked for a man who got angry in all the wrong places. Commit some awful, indefensible cock-up and he’d sigh and shoo you away. But forget to double-space your printout or leave coffee-cup rings on a desk and, quite randomly, you could detonate a cluster bomb of his wrath.

  • At last, someone to stick up for the underfrog

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    We are the Millwall supporters of conservation. No one likes us, we don’t care. I used these words to celebrate the launch of a new conservation charity called Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC). I have the somewhat unexpected honour to be a patron of this organisation not for my expertise in herpetology, but for my natural sympathy with the underfrog.

  • Here’s one way MPs can redeem themselves

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    Two big anxieties hang like dark clouds over the voters’ minds this November. Neither has anything to do with party politics. One is Afghanistan, the other the collapse of confidence in Parliament. The first, the Afghan war, is raw, ominous and impossible to ignore. Events this week give it a cruel new urgency.

  • The flame that was snuffed out by freedom

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    For ten years before 1989 I was in the habit of visiting Eastern Europe to support the fragile underground educational networks there. I would meet my contacts on street corners at prearranged times, to be taken by tram to some smoke-filled room in an outlying apartment, where a group of whispering “students” had gathered to meet me.
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    Haaretz.com - Opinion

  • Yes to work and no to welfare

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:49 pm
    The media responded to the annual report on poverty, released this week, with disappointment. The expectation was for an incisive report, which would prove just how severe the situation had become and show how the cruel state continues to abuse its poor citizens and push them further down below the poverty line. But we received a different report, a much more moderate one. And so it was buried in the inside pages of the newspapers, because where there is no drama, there is no headline. ...

  • Operation Immunize Israel

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:48 pm
    The government and the man heading it are doing a good thing by vaccinating the population against viruses in Operation Immunize Israel - and not only against swine flu, which is by no means the greatest threat to our public health. There are graver menaces at our doorstep. ...

  • Preserve the attorney general's role

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:46 pm
    Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman's proposal to deprive the attorney general of the jurisdiction to act as head of the state prosecution is unbecoming. The problem is not, as many believe, the "perfunctory" manner in which the idea was formulated, or the fact that the proper homework was not done to prepare for such a far-reaching step. On the contrary, one is overcome with the suspicion that the plan was thoroughly weighed right down to the last detail, and that it found favor with its advocates precisely because of its sinister content. ...

  • Come home safely, Bibi

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:44 pm
    One day a few decades back, the Haaretz editorial board was summoned to a background briefing by then defense minister Moshe Dayan. Instead of global issues, the participants focused on the day's headlines: Syria had acquired Scud missiles with half-ton warheads. Dayan, who pooh-poohed such trivialities, looked at us with scorn and set us at ease by explaining that the Scud was a highly inaccurate weapon. "They'll aim at the General Staff HQ and hit Marcus' house," he said. "And that is not what will win the war for them." But in 1991, 39 Scuds were fired into Israel from Iraq, and the whole…

  • The worst show in town

    5 Nov 2009 | 5:42 pm
    When a show is received with booing from the crowd and is torn to bits by the critics, it is brought down, taken off the screen. This way at least some expenses are saved and the disappointment of all those affected - from the management to the actors, all the way to the general public - is expedited. But what can be done when the theater's building itself turns out to be both a fiasco at the bank and with the critics? Is there any power in the world that can remove it from the stage and replace it with something else? ...
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    Editorial and Opinion | The Times of India

  • What's the big idea?

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    India bars foreign journalists from covering the Dalai Lama's Arunachal visit.

  • All Energy Is Consciousness

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    Truth can be likened to a pyramid from its pinnacle, the highest expression of truth radiates, while its broad base gives strength and stability.

  • Power Of Now

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    At this moment, is there anything lacking? Nirvana is right here now before our eyes. This place is the lotus land. This body now is the Buddha.

  • It's just a diplomatic gesture

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    India bars foreign journalists from covering the Dalai Lama's Arunachal visit.

  • Confucius Says A Lot

    6 Nov 2009 | 10:30 am
    Learning French once offered clear advantages to anyone aspiring to an international career.
 
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    The Hindu - Opinion

  • VVIP security

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    It is heartening to know that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has sent a letter expressing regret to the family of Sumit Verma, who died because he was denied timely medical help owing to traffic restrictions during Dr. Singh’s visit to ...

  • Broadening conservation

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Heritage conservation practices improved worldwide after the International Centre for the Study of the Preservation and Restoration of Cultural Property (Iccrom) was established with Unesco’s assistance in 1959. The inter-governmental ...

  • Corrections and clarifications

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    * * It’s Justice Markandey Katju, and not Justice Markandeya Katju as mentioned in “Enforcing the rule strictly” (Editorial, November 6, 2009). * * The last paragraph of a report “Judge withdraws from Reliance ...

  • Politics and the Praetorian Guard

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Public response to the exposure of “paid news” and coverage packages has been huge. There is anger and anguish over what the media have done and persist in doing.

  • Congress blinks first

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    In political, as in most forms of bargaining, the party with the higher stakes will blink first. With each day that was added to the delay in government formation in Maharashtra, the Congress began to realise it was losing much and gaining ...
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    The Australian | Opinion

  • When your robots do the fighting

    6 Nov 2009 | 7:46 am
    Will the use of drones in warfare make the world a safer place or will it lead us to lose track of the morals of armed conflict? 

  • Held hostage by the rush to be tough

    6 Nov 2009 | 7:38 am
    Knee-jerk reactions to a small increase in asylum-seekers in boats do nothing to solve the long-term problem, writes Mike Steketee

  • PM's strategy risks a backlash

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    WHILE Penny Wong and Ian Macfarlane have been in a cone of silence on climate change as they engage in "good faith" emissions trading negotiations, the climate sceptics and opponents of an ETS have been trumpeting their arguments with a megaphone.

  • It's a market, but in jungle camouflage

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    A new breed of international financier is arising from carbon trading, writews Giles Parkinson 

  • Rudd role vital to G20 emergence

    6 Nov 2009 | 5:00 am
    THE Prime Minister has received strong validation for his international policy.
  • add this feed to my.Alltop
    Comment from Times Online

  • Too witty for words. I should quit on a high

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    Warren Buffett’s $44 billion ($£loads) purchase of the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railway company was the best news I have heard all year. At last: a railway served by trains where EVERY carriage is a Buffett carriage.

  • Let’s target our ire on the things that matter

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    I once worked for a man who got angry in all the wrong places. Commit some awful, indefensible cock-up and he’d sigh and shoo you away. But forget to double-space your printout or leave coffee-cup rings on a desk and, quite randomly, you could detonate a cluster bomb of his wrath.

  • At last, someone to stick up for the underfrog

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    We are the Millwall supporters of conservation. No one likes us, we don’t care. I used these words to celebrate the launch of a new conservation charity called Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC). I have the somewhat unexpected honour to be a patron of this organisation not for my expertise in herpetology, but for my natural sympathy with the underfrog.

  • Here’s one way MPs can redeem themselves

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    Two big anxieties hang like dark clouds over the voters’ minds this November. Neither has anything to do with party politics. One is Afghanistan, the other the collapse of confidence in Parliament. The first, the Afghan war, is raw, ominous and impossible to ignore. Events this week give it a cruel new urgency.

  • The flame that was snuffed out by freedom

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:01 pm
    For ten years before 1989 I was in the habit of visiting Eastern Europe to support the fragile underground educational networks there. I would meet my contacts on street corners at prearranged times, to be taken by tram to some smoke-filled room in an outlying apartment, where a group of whispering “students” had gathered to meet me.
 
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    The Independent - Opinion RSS Feed

  • Andrew Grice: Cameron is raising great expectations that may lead to a very bleak House

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    On the eve of Guy Fawkes Day, David Cameron produced a typically impressive firework display as he explained his new policy on Europe at a press conference.

  • Christina Patterson: Why negative thinking makes the world better

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    Some years ago, I went on a "positivity" course. My sister had died, my father had died, and I'd had cancer, and a broken heart, and I wasn't, quite frankly, feeling that cheerful. Perhaps, I thought, I could brainwash myself into feeling a bit better.

  • Mary Wakefield: Sex education classes are the last thing young children need

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    Such a charming little story I heard this week, told me by a friend who is governor of her local school. We were standing outside Sainsbury's, wondering where the car was parked, when The Twelve Days of Christmas started up in the forecourt. My friend sighed; gave her head a sad little shake. "What?" I asked. Well, she said, as a treat for the younger pupils, two officials from the local NHS trust had arrived to sing a song for them during the class that used to be sex education and is now PSHE (personal, social and health education). It was a jolly song, chosen with the festive season in…

  • Paul Flynn MP: Yes we should pull out... nothing will ever change

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    President Karzai should start his war on corruption by investigating his own family's new riches and links to the drug trade. This is unlikely. Gordon Brown is pulling on rubber levers. Nothing will change. Corruption has been the lubricant of Afghan political and business life for centuries. This is another mission impossible that will be as successful as the hope in 2006 that not a bullet would be fired in our Helmand mission.

  • Leading article: Murder and integration in America

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:00 pm
    A spell back home should be a time of quiet and safety for soldiers fighting in gruelling foreign wars. Instead, Fort Hood in Texas on Thursday became a place of carnage. The rampage, apparently perpetrated by an army psychiatrist, may be the worst instance of soldier-on-soldier violence in modern US history. The casualty count of 13 dead and 30 wounded would have been shocking enough on the battlefields in Iraq of Afghanistan. In the event, this took place on a base which has already lost some 500 men killed in those two conflicts.
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    Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

  • The many gods of Ilford | Abhinav Ramnarayan

    Abhinav Ramnarayan
    7 Nov 2009 | 3:00 am
    For Hindus in the UK, demand for places of worship outstrips supply. The result is that everyone just has to get on"Was there a swimming pool there as well?" my mate Laurie asked when I told him about the Hindu temple I visited in Ilford. I forgive him his irreverence, because the temple in question is a converted leisure centre – and not the only one in London.With its 13,000 gods (and counting) scattered all around India, Hinduism has traditionally had more than its share of warring factions. Accounts of disagreements between devotees of Shiva and Vishnu, the two major gods, go back to…

  • Are your drugs laws working? Ask a scientist

    Ben Goldacre
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:28 pm
    It's pleasing to see, in the storm of commentary over Professor David Nutt's sacking as the government's chief drugs adviser, that everyone outside politics now recognises the importance of scientific evidence in devising laws. But a strange reasoning twitch has appeared, in the arguments of politicians and rightwing commentators. Science can tell us about the molecules, they say, about their effect on the body and the risks. But policy is separate: a matter for judgment calls on social and ethical issues. Only politicians, they say, can determine the correct way to send out a clear message…

  • The taxman cometh

    Ian Jack
    6 Nov 2009 | 5:26 pm
    In the 60s, the Isle of Man recast itself as an offshore tax haven. How will the Manx 'nation' react now that status is under threat?Of all the ways to think about the Isle of Man – tax haven, motorbike race course, former birching capital of western Europe – the most difficult for the outsider to grasp and accept is the description "nation". How big is the nation? Thirty-three miles long and a maximum of 13 miles wide. What language does the nation speak? Mainly scouse and Mancunian, mixed in with some Scots and Irish. Where does the nation shop? At Marks & Spencer, Thorntons, Boots,…

  • The Berlin Wall kept me apart from my baby son

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:07 pm
    Sigrid Paul had just given birth when the Berlin Wall went up, dividing a city and – in an extraordinary sequence of events – separating her from her baby son. His first five years were in the west, while she was trapped in the east. Lena Corner reportsIn January 1961, Sigrid Paul gave birth to a little boy in a Berlin hospital. Her first child, it was a difficult labour and the baby was whisked away to intensive care. As she lay recovering, Sigrid had no idea that little Torsten, as she had named him, would become inextricably and cruelly caught up in cold-war politics. Eight months…

  • Foundation hospitals: Private patients, public concern

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:06 pm
    Tony Blair's critics once dared to hope Gordon Brown had a plan to stop the slide towards the privatisation of public services. When he declared "the town square is more than a marketplace", it was imagined he had closely scrutinised all questions concerning the proper boundary between the public and the private realm, questions such as how far state hospitals should move towards receiving private patients. Yet late on Thursday – more than two years into the Brown premiership – an open-ended review touching on this very matter was slipped out on the Department for Health website. Its…
 
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    The Economist: Daily columns

  • Tech.view: Fighting fire with fire

    5 Nov 2009 | 11:40 pm
    Wildfires are getting fiercer and more frequentAS WOODLANDS in the warmer parts of the northern hemisphere come to the end of their fire season and their counterparts south of the equator prepare for the worst, people have begun to rethink how best to fight the wildfires, which seem to be getting fiercer and more frequent. With less winter snow on mountains as average temperatures rise, woods in many regions are drying out and becoming ever more vulnerable to fire. The deadliest wildfire in Australia’s history, which scorched a broad swathe of the landscape north-east of Melbourne…

  • Europe.view: An easterner to the front

    5 Nov 2009 | 12:12 am
    Could a former president of Latvia make it as the European Union president?OPTIMISTIC Latvians are thin on the ground these days. The combination of fractious politics and a dismal economic outlook blunts the enthusiasm of even the most cheerfully patriotic soul. All the more reason, therefore, to applaud the announcement that the country’s former president, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, is running for the job of president of the European Union.At first sight, Ms Vike-Freiberga’s chances seem vanishingly slim. And at a second glance they don’t look much fatter. On the plus side, she…

  • Business.view: How to change the system

    3 Nov 2009 | 7:26 am
    In praise of the ideas of Russ AckoffIT IS hard to imagine a less enticing title for a book than “Introduction to Operations Research”. Yet Russ Ackoff, one of the authors of this tome of 1959, who died on October 29th aged 90, did not just help to define a nascent branch of industrial engineering. He wrote 30 other books, becoming one of the most influential management gurus of the 20th century in the process. His ideas about systemic thinking are vitally important today if the world is to come out of the current economic crisis in better shape than it went into it.Today’s…

  • Green.view: Tricks of the trade

    2 Nov 2009 | 8:43 am
    Can the world stop governments from paying for the over-exploitation of fish?OVERFISHING erodes future prosperity by destroying today a resource that could yield benefits indefinitely. Yet it is subsidised by billions of taxpayer dollars, euros and yen. Now a new chance to halt this insanity has emerged in the unlikely form of climate-change negotiations.Landlubbers hand pots of money to fishermen. Rashid Sumaila, a researcher at the University of British Columbia, estimates that in 2003 (the most recent year for which data are available), the world’s fishing subsidies were $25…

  • Art.view: Out from storage

    31 Oct 2009 | 2:08 pm
    A successful Romano sale in Florence proves there are exceptions to recessionary rulesSotheby’s recent four-day sale of the Salvatore and Francesco Romano collection in Florence contained more than 1,800 lots. International interest in the auction was keen, even though there was not a single masterpiece among the antique statues, Old Master paintings, textiles, pieces of furniture or objets d’art. Many foreign dealers and collectors who had come to Italy for the sumptuous and lively Biennale dell’Antiquarioto (which ended on October 4th) crossed the Arno to the Palazzo…
 
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    Home/Opinion

  • Australia wary, not xenophobic

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    Greg Barns ("Rudd's U-turn on refugees a mixed message to Asia", October 27) laces his piece on refugees with pejoratives: Australia is a "closed Anglo-European society", "inhumane and xenophobic" and, for good measure, "a selfish, xenophobic European outpost in Asia". In Barns' view, taking any account of public opinion is to be dismissed as "pandering" and "populist".

  • A liability Obama can ill afford

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    With a loud clang that rent the night air of the remote countryside, we smashed into an unlit road barrier. Guards came scurrying down the hillside, rifles ready. It was just before midnight, not far from the Afghanistan city of Herat. We trembled, but the guards were relieved that we had stopped to pay the road toll, took our money and waved us cheerily on our way.

  • Tourism legislator should take fight for clean air to the streets

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    When Paul Tse Wai-chun, the Legislative Council representative for tourism, was asked about the effect of recent record street-level pollution on tourism, he responded that the government was doing its best to remedy the situation. Really?

  • Tsang's attitude problem

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    That an apparently innocuous policy address should cause such fury is truly beyond belief. Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen probably thought that, by proposing cash coupons for energy-saving light bulbs, he might win some brownie points with his green intentions. But the poorly thought-through policy was fatally flawed when it mandated increases in electricity rates.

  • Unfinished business

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    The recession may have receded, but we still need a new international financial order, writes George Soros.
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    Shanghai Daily: Opinion

  • Why 'comfort foods' make us feel worse

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    MANY people respond to stress by eating sugary or starchy, high-carbohydrate snacks, but sometimes what are intended as "comfort foods" make them feel worse. That's because those snacks often cause nutritional...

  • How China banishes hunger and feeds its 1.3b people

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    "HUNGER?" Wang Yaya, 15, considers its meaning: "I'm craving lunch at 11am, and my stomach is growling in the long queues at KFC." A middle school student in Xinzhou, a small city in Shanxi Province, Wang is puzzled...

  • Business Books TOP FIVE USA

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:00 am
    1.TWITTER Power How to add 140-character pops of Twitter power to your social networking efforts for your business and your brand. Joel Comm and Ken Burge | Wiley 2009 | 272 pg. | ISBN: 9780470458426 ...
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    Le Monde diplomatique - English edition

  • Kut Central Prison, Iraq

    Emma LeBlanc
    6 Nov 2009 | 7:06 am
    Kut Central Prison is attached to the main police station in the capital of Wasit province, southern Iraq. Designed to hold 100 people on a temporary, pre-trial basis, the prison now frequently houses up to 250 inmates —sometimes as many as 280 — including women. Convicted murderers on death row are held in the same overcrowded cells as petty thieves. Sayyed Serag, a former inmate, was cleared by US forces of suspected involvement in a Shiite insurgent group. He was moved from an American (...) - 2009/11 / Images

  • Follow us

    6 Nov 2009 | 3:21 am
    We publish all our articles on this site, but, for your convenience, we also make them available in formats and on websites which allow you to follow us automatically LMD by email : Sign up for summaries of each issue of LMD (see Free dispatches top right) Subscribe: Read each complete issue in print, online or digitally Access our archives Visit Diplomatic Channels, our free interactive open (...) - 00

  • Women's untold stories

    Michael Deibert
    5 Nov 2009 | 4:08 am
    The Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasrin, 47, has the European parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, and the Unesco Prize for the Promotion of Tolerance and Non-Violence. Nasrin is an outspoken feminist and secularist, and a stern critic of the role of religion in the oppression of women and the poor. She worked as a physician in Bangladesh's understaffed public hospitals before her exile in Europe and the US in 1994. Since she published her first book Shikore Bipul Khudha (...) - Blog posts / Exclusive

  • The Taliban aren't so tribal

    5 Nov 2009 | 3:37 am
    Patrick Porter talks to George Miller about his article in November's Le Monde diplomatique, “Culture wars in Afghanistan”. He explains that the US has suddenly realised it needs to better understand the Taliban, but has failed to do so. download (MP3, 15.7 Mb) - 2009/11 / Podcasts, 2009/11 - Afghanistan

  • Prometheus unfortunately unbound

    Mona Chollet
    3 Nov 2009 | 7:52 am
    A new book on optimism is really in praise of Prometheus, who stole fire from the Greek gods, and is the model for irresponsible individualism, egocentricity and the cult of growth, whatever its cost to the planetLaurence Shorter, an unemployed consultant, woke up one morning like any other in the summer of 2006 to the noise of his neighbours' Mercedes and BMWs as they left for work. He wondered what was wrong, why he couldn't drag himself out of bed. He turned on the radio and realised that (...) - 2009/11 / Password
 
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    nzherald.co.nz - Opinion

  • John Roughan: A cash card could be just the ticket

    6 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am
    A lobbyist for Infratil phoned last week to suggest the wrangle over transfer tickets for buses and trains in Auckland was worth a closer look. I'd suspected it might be. When sinister corporate forces are said to be confounding a...

  • Paul Thomas: Has our democracy become too big a burden to these tycoons?

    6 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am
    Is there someone in your life for whom you have trouble choosing a Christmas present?For instance, someone who professes not to need or want anything, but would be mightily offended if you took them at their word? Or someone who...

  • Steve Deane: Rebuilt England formidable foe

    6 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am
    The Kiwis will be up against a much stronger England team than the one who capitulated against Australia last week for tomorrow morning's Four Nations final qualifier.England coach Tony Smith has reacted decisively to the shambles...

  • John Armstrong : Hypocritical Hide owes Act an apology

    6 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am
    First Bill English, then Chris Carter and now Rodney Hide. Parliament's unique strain of swine flu has claimed another victim. Another senior politician has been caught with his trotters planted firmly in the trough - the difference...

  • Fran O'Sullivan: Hide's failings like those that brought Peters down

    6 Nov 2009 | 8:00 am
    Act leader Rodney Hide's centre of gravity shifted too far away from his brain once he turned his attention from perk-busting to pork-busting.The politician who made his name by excoriating MPs' perks, and attacking the wastage...
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    The Irish Times - Opinion

  • Tehran faces winter of discontent

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:32 pm
    WORLD VIEW:Iran has to address widespread unrest over the elections and huge economic challenges, writesPATRICK SMYTH

  • A love of reconciliation

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:32 pm
    THINKING ANEW:ONE OF THE key tasks of the Christian church is to live and to preach reconciliation. William Barclay suggests that never once is God said to be reconciled to man; it is man who must be reconciled to God and that’s the difficult part. The tragedy is that the church which is called to be the model of reconciliation is often its contradiction because of a preoccupation with internal matters.

  • This Week They Said

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:32 pm
    I built my house in 1988. Like, why is that a trophy house? I don’t want this kind of crap coming at me. –Pat Kenny’s rebuke to Siptu leader Jack O’Connor, who quipped on Kenny’sFrontlineprogramme that Kenny lived in a “trophy home” which O’Connor suggested should be subject to a special tax.

  • Alleged 'visionaries' brought a parody of faith to Knock

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:32 pm
    Knock is a very special place. It should be full of despair; instead, it is full of a quiet dignity, writesBREDA O'BRIEN

  • An Irishman's Diary

    6 Nov 2009 | 4:32 pm
    IN A roundabout way, Andy Irvine’s hope (Arts page, November 2nd) that the coming “winter of discontent” would see a revival of Woody Guthrie-style protest songs reminded me to go out and buy Bob Dylan’s new album:Christmas in the Heart.
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    TheStar.com - Opinions

  • Berlin Wall's fall inspires us still

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:30 am
    The infamous Berlin Wall didn't "fall" on the night of Nov. 9, 1989. The German people tore it down in pieces, chanting Wir wollen raus! (We want out!) It was an irrepressible festival of freedom that would come to symbolize the eclipse of Soviet communism and the end of the long Cold War, and it would forever change our world. Today, 20 years on, its dismantling inspires us still.

  • Alberta's right turns

    7 Nov 2009 | 12:30 am
    Like Ontario once upon a time, Alberta still boasts a Progressive Conservative dynasty spanning roughly four decades. Now, however, the Alberta Tories are in a tizzy, redolent with self-doubt as voter support tumbles to record lows.

  • Public discussion on guest workers

    5 Nov 2009 | 12:30 am
    Canada prides itself on being a nation of immigrants, but it is fast becoming a clearing house for temporary workers.

  • Creative budget-making

    5 Nov 2009 | 12:30 am
    Worried about piling up more debt charges than their own guidelines would allow, Toronto officials released a capital budget this week that would let the city spend more now while saddling future generations with heavier costs. Right-wing city councillors are predictably upset. But considering the options, this capital budget is quite defensible.

  • Aid priority for Pakistan

    4 Nov 2009 | 12:30 am
    Canada should lend Pakistan a helping hand as it struggles to stabilize its chaotic border region with Afghanistan, which is plagued by Taliban militants who threaten the entire region's stability.
 
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    Content Search Results

  • The BlackBerry stays in the trunk

    Don Martin
    30 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    The red-and-blues flashing in the rear-view mirror put a quick halt to my distracted driving. The suspicious police officer stuck her nose inside the car window, sniffing for a telltale whiff of alcohol.

  • The Vatican's man in Canada

    Father Raymond J. de Souza
    28 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    This week, the diplomatic corps is bidding farewell to Archbishop Luigi Ventura, the apostolic nuncio to Canada for the past eight years and the most influential Catholic in Canada this young century.

  • Light my fire, scratch my back

    Colby Cosh
    26 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    A couple dozen Canadian television reporters, mostly employees of CTV, are being criticized this week for having agreed to accept specially reserved places in the Olympic torch relay for the 2010 Vancouver Games. Yes, these journalists have a conflict of interest. About that, there can be no confusion. The

  • When politics and baseball collide

    David Frum
    23 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    If you had told me 12 years ago that a day would come when I would know who was playing in the American League Champion Series -- much less care -- I'd have laughed aloud.

  • The problem with the Pink Book

    Barbara Kay
    22 Oct 2009 | 5:00 pm
    The Liberal Women's Caucus has released their 40-page Pink Book, Volume III.
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