What may, in the long-term, be a prudent business decision by Poland Spring leaves us with a bad taste in our mouths.The water bottler has proposed a settlement in an Illinois class action suit this week for a little more than $12 million. The suit alleges that Poland Spring water does not come from a […]

Drivers are beginning to demand economic and social justice. Unbridled competition, coupled with no wage protection for its drivers, has sent the truckload segment of the trucking industry into a death spiral. While the public wants, and has every right to expect, safe highways and a reliable transportation system, drivers, under pressure to deliver quickly […]

Going it alone has gotten up and left, maybe.Signals from Washington suggest President Bush is changing course on Iraq. The administration is showing signs of ceding some control to the United Nations as a way to attract international aid for securing and rebuilding the country.The move to seek a Security Council resolution expanding the U.N. […]

The United States is not a Christian nation. It seems sensible to begin there, since it’s the crux of the dispute.Yes, the men who invented the nation were mostly Christians. Yes, too, Christianity is the nation’s majority religion.But the point is, this is not a theocracy, not a nation where the rulings of holy men […]

Antibiotics should not be used as growth promoters in livestock.The drugs are routinely added to animal feed to make livestock grow faster and healthier, and administered preventatively. The problem, however, goes well beyond agriculture and industry standards.The use of more and more antibiotics in healthy animals causes germs to mutate and become drug-resistant. The new […]

During a two-day special session in August lawmakers corrected a major shortcoming left over from their initial sojourn to Augusta. Hard work and hard negotiations paid off, primarily in the form of an important package of bonds that will now be voted on in November.Voters will be presented with three bond questions, totaling $89.4 million: […]

More depressing news just in from the “It’s Even Worse Than You Thought Department” – this time involving teacher quality in America’s most desperate schools.We’ve always known that affluent suburban school districts have much better teachers than do urban districts nearby. The suburbs typically spend far more per pupil on schools, and this translates into […]

We support the governor’s tax amnesty plan. It gives people one get-out-of-trouble-free card and could provide a small windfall to the state as delinquent tax payments flood in.The state expects to collect about $14 million of the almost $200 million in known tax debt. The estimated revenue could increase if more people take advantage of […]

Justifications have been popping up like dandelions in spring to explain why gas prices have spiked in the last two weeks. They’re like the Energizer Bunny, they keep going and going and going and going.We can’t help but think somebody’s getting rich off our $1.78 a gallon. We know it’s not local station owners. They […]

ABIQUIU, N.M. – The winds have come up again this afternoon the way they bullied their way in here yesterday – insistent, frazzled and untethered to human will.They slap around the leaves on the big cottonwood trees and bend the cosmos flower stalks into long parabolas that ache to touch the ground just beyond their […]