News opinion 2008-08-17 Andanh.com

Adjournment does nothing to help crisis Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:27:08 -0500
The United States is in the midst of an energy crisis - one of the worst since the 1970s - and the American people have spoken loud and clear that Congress should address the issue. Unfortunately the members adjourned for the summer without passing any legislation that could seriously address those concerns. This is really sad, but it is politics as usual in Washington, D.C. There is speculation that the Democratic leadership doesn’t want a broad energy bill prior to the election in order not to embarrass presidential hopeful Barack Obama. Obama has been cool to the idea of both nuclear energy and offshore drilling, both of which have a role to play in any comprehensive energy plan. In recent days Obama has signaled he has modified his position on drilling slightly. If Obama is truly sincere in being more open to the nation of offshore drilling he should add his voice to those who urge Congress to go back into session and address this and other solutions to our energy problems. This lack of action is an outrage. These are people we elected to run our country and deal with problems, yet they adjourned rather than make Obama look bad. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., had introduced the Gas Reduction Act of 2008, which would lift congressional moratoriums on offshore drilling and oil shale development while addressing conservation by providing increased research and development for advanced batteries for plug-in electric ideas and trucks. In order to get bipartisan support for his bill, he omitted drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as well as the nuclear energy, even though he supports both. Playing election year politics with the pocketbooks of American citizens is disgraceful and they should be ashamed of themselves. This is why we urge President Bush to call Congress back into session to give Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev,. and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., another opportunity to do the right thing. In an editorial board meeting Tuesday at the Daily News, Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., who voted against the recess, said Congress should have stayed in session until some type of energy bill was passed. Bunning also noted that there were 12 appropriations bills before Congress, but Democrats refused to even debate them before recessing. Bunning also has introduced a bill that would turn coal into fuel, which has merit. He supports wind energy; believes T. Boone Pickens has some good ideas; and is for nuclear energy 100 percent. At least Sens. McConnell and Bunning are bringing some energy ideas worth consideration to the table and are prepared to discuss them, which can’t be said for the other side of the aisle. The American people deserve better. Shame on the Democratic leadership for adjourning without dealing with a problem that will only get worse the longer it is not addressed.

A clearer picture Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:26:49 -0500
Last week, No Child Left Behind results were released for all school districts in Kentucky. Headlines and news stories, specifically in Bowling Green and Warren County, described schools as having failed or “flunked” national standards. We believe our stakeholders deserve a clearer picture of those test results. NCLB does not measure how well each school or district is performing overall. Instead, NCLB measures the performance and specific subgroups of the student population, such as white, African-Amercian, Hispanic, Limited English Proficiency, free and reduced lunch and students with disabilities. The minimal goal for proficiency is the same for all subgroups, and schools and districts must meet 100 percent of their goals or they “fail.” The number of goals a school or district must meet is determined by the size and diversity of the district. Therefore, some districts may have as few as seven goals to meet, while others may have as many as 25. Only seven school districts in the commonwealth of Kentucky had more than 20 goals to meet. Bowling Green Independent and Warren County were among those seven, and both districts met at least 94 percent of those goals, which might be considered an “A” by classroom standards but is labeled an “F” by NCLB standards. It is also worth noting that each state establishes its own assessment system and target goals. In Kentucky, the goal for proficiency jumped significantly from last year to this year, and that bar will continue to be raised at an accelerated rate each subsequent year. Test scores use a narrow snapshot of a school or district’s progress. We use scores to celebrate accomplishments, evaluate practices and support each other’s efforts to provide services, but numbers are not the goals we have for our children. Each student has their own strengths, challenges, learning styles and aspirations. We work to celebrate every student’s strengths, overcome their challenges, accommodate their learning styles and encourage their aspirations. Our goal for students is to receive the best education possible, not a single test score in the spring. In Bowling Green and Warren County, approximately 3,000 faculty and staff will work diligently and hold themselves to high standards of accountability. In this, we have neither failed nor flunked. Quite the contrary, we offer high level of instruction, which provides students a path to lifelong learning and success. We are committed to providing a quality education to each and every student in Bowling Green and Warren County and are proud of the accomplishments of both school districts. We applaud the efforts of our students, teachers, staff, parents, Board of Education members and citizens. Your continued support of our local school districts is vital and very much appreciated. Editor’s note: Tinius is superintendent of Bowling Green Independent Schools and Brown is superintendent Warren County Public Schools.

McCain-Lieberman wouldn’t be a good ticket Sat, 16 Aug 2008 21:26:49 -0500
A vice-presidential pick is always important, but John McCain confronts a starkly existential choice this year. Is he running as a Republican or chiefly as a bipartisan deal-maker? Does he have a reasonable shot at victory, or face desperately long odds? Does he want a traditional administration - with the option of running for re-election - or something completely different? The answers will go a long way to determining whether McCain picks Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman as his running mate. McCain has left the door open to picking a pro-choice veep candidate, and the pro-choice former Homeland Security Secretary and Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge and Lieberman are reportedly on his short list. Selecting Ridge, who is at least a Republican, would be a more cautious choice, but also a foolish one. Whatever help he might give in Pennsylvania would be overwhelmed by the disappointment of the evangelical voters who have of late been rallying around McCain. Although Lieberman is more heterodox than Ridge, he makes more sense -- if McCain is willing to follow through on the radical logic of his selection. Despite being an independent, Lieberman still caucuses with the Democrats in the Senate and has a standard liberal voting record. In 2007, Lieberman and his fellow Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd - sometimes talked about as a vice-presidential possibility for Barack Obama - had identical 70 percent ratings from the liberal Americans for Democratic Action. Ordinarily, his selection would mean GOP civil war. Never in recent memory has a national ticket had a candidate so at odds with the ticket’s party. In 1840, the Whigs put an estranged Democrat, John Tyler, on the ticket with William Harrison - a clever expedient they regretted when Harrison died and Tyler governed as an unreconstructed Democrat the rest of his term. To placate Republicans and maximize the political impact of his selection, Lieberman would have to join the ticket as part of a McCain pledge to serve just one term. Both McCain and Lieberman would promise not to run for president in 2012, removing any possibility of Lieberman becoming a successor or putting his imprint on the Republican Party. Their administration would be above electoral politics, a high-minded exercise in competent governance and bipartisan compromise. To assuage Republican fears of a Harrison/Tyler scenario, Lieberman would have to pledge, if he were to ascend to the presidency, to appoint constitutionalist judges and honor McCain’s domestic priorities. The possibility of a one-term pledge is actively bruited around McCain headquarters. The thinking is that there is no more dramatic way to augment his standing as a different kind of a politician and capture the public’s frustration with politics as usual. (Realistically, at age 76, McCain might not want to run for re-election anyway.) Lieberman is the natural complement for a one-term pledge. He is a politician with no aspirations in the GOP, with little future in his own caucus, and with a long record of bipartisan cooperation. If McCain decides the only possible path to victory is a risk-taking, unconventional one, Lieberman is his man. The ticket would be the American equivalent of Israel’s centrist Kadima party. It would represent the Republican Party’s acquiescence to its exile in 2008, although perhaps for only four years and not as far into the outer darkness as if Obama wins. The executive branch would at least be led by two hawks on the war who would check the worst excesses of the Reid-Pelosi Congress. If they were elected. And there’s no guarantee of that. A McCain-Lieberman ticket might have an unbecoming pleading quality - please, we’re not really Republicans, so let us in for just 1,461 days. The ticket would make McCain, the experienced hand, the steward of a campaign verging on the gimmicky. Finally, how could Lieberman follow McCain’s domestic priorities when McCain himself doesn’t always seem to know what those are? McCain-Lieberman is a more desperate move than McCain should feel compelled to make right now. But check back after Denver.

EMS emergency Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:17:00 EST
One of the possibilities that Possibility City should not entertain is that budget cuts, higher fuel prices, and turf and mission skirmishes could lead to longer emergency response times for citizens throughout Jefferson County.

Justice or 'just us' Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:18:00 EST
Last week saw two notable smackdowns in the ongoing grudge match that should be headlined, "Bush administration vs. accountability."

Louisville's housing market Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:20:00 EST
The pop of housing bubbles in large coastal and other booming markets, combined with an associated financial crisis, have led to a daily blitz of negative reports in the national media. The rise in local mortgage foreclosures over the past few years, combined with the recent decline in new home construction, has contributed to a gloomy portrait in the Louisville media as well.

Terror's campaign Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:21:00 EST
Four years ago, while working as a senior adviser in NATO's headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, I got an up-close look at the way al-Qaida's best minds see Western elections. On March 11, 2004, Spain was rocked by perhaps the bloodiest terrorist attack in Europe since World War II, as bombs ripped apart commuter trains in Madrid, leaving nearly 2,000 Spaniards dead or injured -- three days before the country went to the polls.

Keeping the pedal to the metal Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:22:00 EST
My car swills gas, downing shot after shot of rich red petrol. It rumbles rudely at stoplights, scaring the Prius drivers around me. Its flinty suspension -- stiff and unyielding as a tax-department bureaucrat -- pounds my middle-aged back on rough roads. After collecting a relatively minor speeding ticket a couple of summers back, I grappled briefly with car existentialism. "Aren't you a little old to be doing this?" the Dallas cop asked after he caught me with my foot in second gear like some over-amped teen-ager.

Looking back, not in anger, at Falls Fountain Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:17:00 EST
If the Louisville Falls Fountain did nothing else, it provided a wonderful target for cheap shots. It still does. The thing was so easy to pooh-pooh. The rich, including those who financed this idea, are always easy to caricature.

McCain's opportunity Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:13:00 EST
Last August, John McCain's campaign was a guttering candle, out of money but flush with half-baked ideas that were unlikely to be improved by further baking. Anyway, to have many ideas is to have too many for a campaign's concluding sprint, and McCain's revival has not been robust enough to bring him even with Barack Obama.

Remember New Orleans Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:14:00 EST
Three years have passed since Hurricane Katrina lashed the Gulf Coast. The people of New Orleans felt abandoned by their country then. And while they are optimistic about their future, they feel forgotten now.

Energy's silver lining Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:08:00 EST
The price of oil has cut into household budgets and curtailed summer vacation plans. With families forced to choose between a shopping trip or the commute that brings in a salary, consumer spending has declined.

Homeless care system is under siege Sat, 16 Aug 2008 22:18:00 EST
High gasoline prices, soaring utilities, layoffs, foreclosures, food prices rocketing and social service budget cuts. These are the facts of today's economy. Today's headlines have only one outcome: More people without a home.

Readers' views Sun, 17 Aug 2008 09:33 EDT

Torture is a sin

Paul Prather's column in the Herald-Leader's Aug. 9 Faith and Values section was absolutely correct in declaring that if torture isn't a sin, there are no other sins worthy of that label.

However, Christians and religious folk are speaking out, and the Kentucky Council of Churches is among those who have publicly declared their opposition to torture.

Hundreds of religious organizations, denominational groups and ecumenical groups and thousands of individuals across America are saying: No torture, no exceptions.

Suspect in U.S. obesity epidemic Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:05 EDT

More than 33 percent of adults in the United States are overweight or obese.

The incidence of obesity in children and adults has doubled in the last 10 years, but parents are at a loss as to the cause of this problem in their children.

New research has found evidence that soft drinks sweetened with high-fructose corn syrup may contribute to the development of diabetes and obesity, especially in children.

Scientists found that drinks with corn syrup have high levels of reactive compounds that have been shown to have the potential to trigger cell and tissue damage that could cause the disease, which is at epidemic levels. The findings were reported at the 234th national meeting of the American Chemical Society last August.

Let's get that big carbon footprint off our Bluegrass Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:05 EDT

It's going to take more than increased public transportation concepts and voluntary carpooling to solve some of the issues raised by the Brookings Institute's recent conclusion that Lexington has the worst carbon footprint among large U.S. metropolitan areas

So Bluegrass Tomorrow is attempting to address those and other issues with its .InnoVision 2018. project, a comparative analysis of 22 regions similar to the Bluegrass, including most of the Southeastern Conference cities that have a flagship university at their hub.

The study's findings will be presented Sept. 25.

We know that one of the reasons that Lexington has such a negative carbon footprint is that we burn so much coal to generate our energy and power, and there are many cities and regions across the nation that depend on coal as much as we do. But coal is also the reason we have such inexpensive electricity rates, an important economic development incentive.

From chamber's lips to legislature's ear Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:11 EDT

What if all the 13-year-olds in Kentucky knew that they would be able to afford to go to college?

Would it change the way they think about their futures? Could that, in turn, transform Kentucky's economy?

The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, which is all about building wealth, is proposing a way to make college affordable for every qualified applicant.

It's a good idea that deserves consideration by lawmakers and Gov. Steve Beshear for a couple of reasons:

Counting budget chickens before they hatch Sun, 17 Aug 2008 02:05 EDT

FRANKFORT . Remember that assumption the General Assembly made about state workers retiring this year in numbers dwarfing the casts of thousands trumpeted in trailers for 1950s-era movie epics, the assumption that led House budget drafters to say 3,418 of the vacancies should go unfilled so the state would save $85 million and the two-year spending plan would balance?

It was an assumption based on the scheduled Jan. 1, 2009, closing of what is known as the .high-three window,. which has enhanced state workers' retirement benefits for years. Lawmakers assumed all eligible workers would bail this year to maximize their pensions before the old, less-generous rules kicked back in on that date.

Even though the original House numbers were not included in the final budget, the anticipated savings generated by such a mass departure remained a key element in making the budget balance. Or at least appear to balance.

Well, it's time for an update on how well that assumption is working. And the answer is, uh, not so hot.

lip-syncing Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:21 EDT

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