AP News, August 15th, 2007
Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
Aug. 12
The (Nashville) Tennessean, on maintenance of infrastructure:
One of the greatest tragedies about the catastrophic bridge collapse in Minneapolis Aug. 1 is that it took a major calamity to jolt the nation's attention to the importance of maintaining its infrastructure.
Rather than find people to blame, the collapse should spur a renewed commitment to a steady, mindful maintenance of infrastructure, such as highways and bridges, with sufficient funding and oversight at both the federal and state levels. ...
... More than any other strategy for maintaining infrastructure, the nation needs the old-fashioned strategy of common sense for the common good. And common sense on this issue means a solid system for inspections, well-trained personnel to handle such oversight and all the resources those officials need to do their jobs properly. It also means recognition that normal wear and tear over time takes a toll on a bridge. Once a bridge is built, its story has just begun.
Fortunately, some reasoned, constructive responses to the issue of the nation's infrastructure are percolating in Washington, where some healthy debate ought to lead to good legislation. ...
... The Minneapolis tragedy never should have happened. But the focus at this point shouldn't be so much on what was done wrong but on what can be done right.
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On the Net:
http://www.tennessean.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID2007708120357
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Aug. 13
The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, on immigration legislation:
... The Bush administration has announced a crackdown on illegals in the workplace, a coalition of Senate Republicans wants more border control money, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., wants to hand out 12 million green cards, and dozens of states and municipalities are writing their own immigration laws. The failure of Congress to enact reform has touched off a free-for-all of partial remedies, or, worse, bad ideas. ...
The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that states passed 171 immigration bills during the first six months of 2007, on pace to double last year's total. Immigration law, which was supposed to be the exclusive province of the federal government, has become a patchwork of disparate local rules and uneven enforcement.
Congress will try again to pass reforms when it returns next month. If it fails again, the states will continue to fill the void, and not fill it very well.
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On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/yr94ev
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Aug. 10
Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, on the home run record:
Major League Baseball is paying the price for decades of lax or nonexistent enforcement of a reasonable rule against steroid use by its players.
The sport's premier record _ lifetime home runs _ was held by Hank Aaron for 33 years, and has been broken by a player who by any reasonable reading of his career statistics and his physical development, used some form of steroids to enhance his performance.
And as a result, when San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds hit home run No. 756 off Washington Nationals left-hander Mike Bacsik Tuesday, more fans yawned or booed than cheered. ...
Much of America is simply turned off by what they view as cheating, especially a kind of cheating that sets a dangerous example for young athletes.
While Bonds consistently denies having ever taken steroids, there is apparently some grand jury testimony and a small stack of books that say otherwise. ...
The message of Barry Bonds' success is that baseball _ and every other sport _ must do more to police and stamp out the use of dangerous performance-enhancing drugs.
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On the Net:
http://www.vindy.com/content/opinion/editorial/345858382615086.php
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Aug. 12.
The Buffalo (N.Y.) News, on the federal wiretapping program:
Six years after the trauma of Sept. 11, ... it's fair to expect that our federal representatives would have figured out how to balance their legitimate fears with some passing concern for the Constitution, in particular the standards of privacy, due process and oversight. Evidently not.
Acting with efficiency rarely seen in Washington, Democrats and Republicans colluded on a bill that allows the administration, on its own authority, to monitor e-mails and telephone calls between Americans and foreign addresses, as long as the "target" of the surveillance is the party outside the country. It's a cavalier use of legislative power, especially given the record of this administration. ...
So why would a Congress under Democratic control trust a president whose assurances about the prudent use of power have never proven reliable? Here's why: They were afraid. Enough Democrats were worried about being labeled soft on terrorism that, in the hours before the August recess, they allowed the administration to bully them into granting excessive and unnecessary power. ...
The only saving grace is that the law, meant as a stopgap, will expire in six months. That gives Congress and the president more than enough time to negotiate a better law _ one that meets the country's legitimate needs for protection while providing adequate supervision and restricting the obvious potential for abuse. If they're interested in doing that.
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On the Net:
http://www.buffalonews.com
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Aug. 14
The Star-Ledger, Newark, N.J., on Karl Rove's resignation:
At the end of the month, Karl Rove will pack up the family pictures and mementos that have decorated his White House office for the past 6 1/2 years and head back to Texas. He's calling it a career. We have the names of a few reliable movers we'd like to give him. They'll make sure he's out of town by the 31st.
That's not the attitude that most Republicans have about Rove. To them, he remains the political Merlin who got George W. Bush into the Texas governor's mansion and then the White House. In the process, he forged a new Republican majority and held it together for six challenging years. ...
Others _ and count us among them _ have a different take on Rove. He was a political Svengali who twice deceived the nation into believing Bush belonged in the White House.
In 2000, Bush was a "compassionate conservative" who would be a uniter, not a divider. ... In the 2004 re-election campaign, Bush was the wartime president whom the country needed. ...
Rove leaves Washington a much more acrimonious place than when he arrived in January 2001. Winning elections and retaining power have always been Washington priorities. Rove made them the only priorities, and in the process he did the seemingly impossible _ he poisoned the public's perceptions of government and politicians even more. ...
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On the Net:
http://www.nj.com
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Aug. 13
The Columbian, Vancouver, Wash., on home loans:
While many factors contribute to the health of the housing market or the strength of the economy, it's clear that the subprime lending splurge is coming home to roost.
Subprime lending is the practice of lending money to people who typically would not qualify for a loan. ...
The results are now becoming clear:
_ The typically wild roller-coaster stock market has suffered an even rougher ride recently. ...
_ The housing market has grown stagnant, with fewer potential buyers able to borrow money or afford prices that had become inflated.
_ Subprime lending houses have closed or experienced layoffs across the country. ...
"Saturday Night Live," perhaps, said it best in a 2006 skit, producing a mock commercial for a self-help book titled, "Don't Buy Stuff You Cannot Afford."
It's a simple premise, yet it's one that has been ignored by overeager borrowers and, in particular, overzealous lenders. The irresponsible actions on both sides have fostered a financial environment, enabled by inattentive government agencies, that has damaged the economy and promises to deliver an invoice that all Americans eventually will have to pay. ...
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On the Net:
http://www.columbian.com
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Daily News, Bowling Green, K.Y., on raising the gas tax:
A proposal by Democrats in the U.S. House of Representatives to raise the federal gasoline tax to repair bridges comes at a bad time. ...
While we agree that a lot of our bridges are in need of repair, we would submit that there are other, more responsible ways to repair them than by raising taxes....
With financial markets tumbling dramatically in recent days as a result of the subprime lending mess, the economy doesn't need the added risk of a tax increase. ...
President Bush spoke against raising the federal gasoline tax, saying the transportation committee needs to look at how they prioritize funds. ...
We agree with Bush. It seems that for too long, members on the transportation committee have been able to cherry-pick what projects were good for them. This approach, we are sure, doesn't always focus on the highest infrastructure priorities.
The bottom line is that we as Americans are taxed too much, and we don't need this one added on _ particularly at a time when we are having a subprime meltdown. ...
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On the Net:
http://www.bgdailynews.com
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Aug. 12
Chicago Tribune, on text messages:
When disaster strikes, as in the recent Minnesota bridge collapse, people all over the country reach for their cell phones. The calls surging to and from the disaster site bring a predictable effect: They swamp the local cell towers. Many calls fail to connect. People get frustrated, because part of the allure of the cell phone is its promise of instantaneous communication.
There may be some technical steps that companies can take to make such service more reliable in such situations. But as wireless analyst David Chamberlain told the Tribune after the Minnesota tragedy: No network can handle every call when traffic spikes at levels two or three times beyond normal. "The public should just expect" cell phone calls to be blocked, he said. "It's going to happen. If I'm ever in a situation where my calls don't go through, I'll just send a text message. That will get through."
How so? Because text messages don't require as much network capacity and travel on separate channels from voice calls. That's good to know. ...
Parents who may have comforted themselves with the thought that they could always reach a teen by phone now face the prospect that it's likely such conversations won't happen: The cell system will be overloaded. That's why parents and grandparents need to do something they probably don't want to do: Learn to send text messages. ...
Text messages don't replace the sound of hearing the voice of someone you love, safe on the other end of the line. But amid a deluge of calls and panic, a quick and affirmative response to a message _ R U OK? _ is just as thrilling.
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On the Net:
http://tinyurl.com/26dotc
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Aug. 11
Asahi Shimbun, Tokyo, Japan, on greenhouse gas emissions:
Japan is unlikely to make good on its promise to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions under the Kyoto Protocol unless it takes further action, a government interim report said Friday.
The report calls on the business community to develop a voluntary action plan by setting a tough numerical target for each industry. But the energy efficiency of Japanese manufacturing plants has already been improved considerably. The amount of CO2 emissions from the industrial sector in fiscal 2010 is projected to be about 9 percent lower than the level in fiscal 1990. A new incentive is needed to motivate businesses to make efforts to cut emissions even further.
Nuclear power generation has been promoted as a powerful means to prune greenhouse emissions. But inspections needed to allay the public concerns about the earthquake safety of nuclear power plants are bound to lower capacity utilization at plants. An energy policy that depends too much on nuclear power cannot be a reliable cure for the problem of global warming. The government should change its nuclear power-oriented energy policy and focus more on efforts to promote the use of solar power and other alternative energy sources. Consumers also need to contribute by changing their lifestyles.
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On the Net:
http://www.asahi.com/english/index.html
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Aug. 15
The Times, London, on India's 60th anniversary:
... India turns 60 today determined to demonstrate that it is never too late to be young. ...
Twenty years ago, casual travelers would not have found India and Pakistan to be wildly different. Guidebooks listed obvious differences: Muslim Pakistan, Hindu-plus-a-little-bit-of-everything India; democracy stifled in Pakistan, flourishing in India. But they would have felt quite similar; crowded, ramshackle countries with stunning vistas, potholed roads and safe streets. Today the world sees only contrast.
Pakistan's history has been a triumph of experience over hope. Democracy has been cheated, and the great civic virtue of tolerance eroded, by self-perpetuating civil and military elites, alternately sharing and disputing power. Outside this charmless circle are a disempowered and frustrated middle class, and, treated with cavalier contempt, the poor and calamitously illiterate majority. ...
Yet India has its own backlog of failures, a combination of too much government all that red tape and too little government disgraceful neglect of such public goods as education, and an inexplicable indifference to the maintenance of roads, railways and drains. Democracy famously thrives, but accountability is another matter. The contrasts are not quite as clear-cut as appears.
Politically Pakistan is in crisis, yet it is growing at 7 percent, not all that far below India's 9 percent. ...
Indians have embraced globalization with genuine enthusiasm; the country must now embrace free trade. Protectionism is a blast from India's sluggish past that sits ill with its new dynamism. ... Live a little, India: you are only young twice.
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On the Net:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article2260201.ece
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Aug. 14
Diena, Riga, Latvia, on the discovery of the Stasi document-order to kill all deserters:
Eighteen years after the Berlin wall was torn down and several days prior to the 46th anniversary of the wall's construction, researchers at the archive of the former communist eastern Germany secret police _ Stasi _ acknowledged that they have uncovered an order authorizing border guards to shoot anyone who attempted to flee across the border to western Germany.
The precise number of people killed is not known _ it could be from 270 up to 780 _ however, former communist regime leaders and functionaries always denied that border guards had been authorized to shoot deserters. ...
However, researchers do not doubt the document's authenticity and are certain that they have found the first documentary evidence of communist leaders' will "to detain or liquidate" those who attempted to flee, including women and children, as is said in the order issued by Stasi on Oct. 1, 1973...
Though it was not signed, this order is a reminder that not all the crimes of communist regimes have received legal judgment and it is too premature to leave behind this gloomy chapter of history.
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On the Net:
http://www.diena.lv
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Aug. 13
Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, Sweden, on the Bush administration and the Israel-Palestine conflict:
George W. Bush is finally making a belated attempt to try do something about the Israel-Palestine conflict. But his initiatives are bound to take the same road as previous "peace processes" have taken for almost a century...
Sometime this fall, Bush wants to hold a "peace meeting" with the purpose to, in the long run, create a Palestinian state next to Israel. The U.S. has thereby acknowledged that the Middle Eastern formula of the past few years, "the roadmap to peace," has lead to nowhere. ...
But not for all parties involved. Bush only invited those who "recognize Israel's right to exist" to the autumn peace meeting, not key players like Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah, Iran or even Hamas, the Palestinian Islamist party that won the most votes in last year's democratic parliamentary elections. ...
It is of course counterproductive, as counterproductive as it was for a long time when Bush tried to keep Iran outside the power struggle in Iraq. ...
Everything is pointing towards that this plan is deemed to take the same road as previous "roadmaps" and "peace processes."
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On the Net:
http://www.dn.se/
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