Plans to remake Amtrak have been introduced in Congress, and in their current form they threaten the long-term survival of national passenger rail service in the United States.Amtrak critics are correct when they say the 30-year-old venture has failed to turn a profit, but they neglect to mention a couple of important details. No industrialized […]

AUSTIN, Texas – The congressional report by the committees on intelligence about Sept. 11 partially made public last week reminds me of the recent investigation into the crash of the Columbia shuttle – months of effort to reconfirm the obvious.In the case of the Columbia, we knew from the beginning a piece of insulation had […]

The moment I walked into the office this morning, Maria at the front desk pulled out the column I wrote when Kobe Bryant was arrested on allegations of sexual assault.The lead: “No way in hell.”Maria likes to torture me.It has been a couple weeks since the charges were officially filed. A couple weeks since the […]

We have been concerned about the Norway Opera House for some time. Those worries only got worse on July 3 when the building was named one of the seven most endangered properties in Maine by a preservation group.News from last week is hopeful.The Opera House is under contract to be bought. We don’t know who […]

The killing of Saddam Hussein’s sons occasioned another farrago of propaganda from the War Party.The deed done, we heard, pro-Saddam “guerillas” would stop murdering American occupation troops. The “guerillas” immediately murdered three boys from the Army’s storied 101st Airborne.It was propaganda of the moment to justify the war at hand. Over the years, however, a […]

Bob Hope has died.Just two months after a grateful nation celebrated Hope’s 100th birthday, the entertainer died from pneumonia in Toluca Lake, Calif.Born Leslie Townes Hope May 29, 1903, in Eltham, England, the master comedian went on to appear in more than 80 films, 475 television programs and more than 1,000 radio shows. He successfully […]

Poor Democrats! They’ve been driven so mad by George W. Bush that on a day of unambiguously good news – when Odai and Qusai Hussein were killed by U.S. forces – one normally sensible Senate aide moaned to me that “they’re using Odai and Qusai to bury the real news!”The news in question? That top […]

William H. Pryor, the attorney general from Alabama, should not be confirmed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit. The matter will be decided by the Senate, and we urge Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins to reject Pryor’s nomination.A split Senate Judiciary Committee, voting along party lines 10-9, has sent […]

Peace on the Korean Peninsula is fragile and has been for half a century.The armistice that ended large-scale hostilities 50 years ago today left a house divided. A free, capitalistic and democratic South Korea faces in North Korea an oppressed, totalitarian dictatorship.Led by the same family since 1947, North Korea is an unstable, dangerous country. […]

Bangor Daily News, July 18The challenge of reforming Maine’s creaky tax system is made apparent by the trouble the Baldacci administration and lawmakers are having as they try to find an alternative to the ballot initiative from the Maine Municipal Association. The governor, like the MMA, has the basics right. But he errs if he […]