Democrats wouldn’t vote for spending cuts. Republicans wouldn’t vote for higher taxes or even closing tax loopholes. But we have maintained from the start that it would take a combination of tax revenue and spending cuts to make a meaningful difference in combating the nation’s massive federal debt. Just such a plan emerged Tuesday when […]
Our View
Posted inOur View
Strapping the storage memory of our brains
It is as many of us have feared: having facts at our fingertips is reducing our ability to store them in our heads. Call it the Googlization of our brains. A study published last week shows that accessing information on the web is reconfiguring our personal memory banks, meaning we are retaining fewer facts, according […]
advertisement
Posted inOur View
Speculation runs rampant on gun running
Crisis replaces crisis in the flow of American news. One day it’s the national debt, the next day the Roger Clemens trial. The week before it was the all-consuming Casey Anthony case. That’s why many Americans may have lost sight of a story that broke two months ago. That is when CBS News first reported […]
Posted inOur View
A look back at the week’s news
It’s been said over and over, by thousands and thousands, that when a dog goes bad, it’s not the dog’s fault. It’s a people problem. Nowhere is that more true than in Manchester, where the 30-year-old owner of a 120-pound pit bull advised his family to keep the dog locked behind a closed door because […]
Posted inOur View
Time to restore some sanity to Auburn Council
They say life is 10 percent about what happens to you and 90 percent about how you react. The same goes for governments: Bad things invariably happen; it’s how elected leaders respond to them that counts. By this measure, the City of Auburn has been ill-served by the current council, and it’s a relief to […]
Posted inOur View
Maine voters deserve proof elections stolen
Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster should stop talking about stolen elections until he can prove it has actually happened. Otherwise, it’s starting to sound as if Webster simply doesn’t want young people to vote. A coalition of groups last week kicked off efforts to restore Maine’s 38-year-old same-day voter registration law. Despite a nearly total […]
Posted inOur View
Jeter got a bargain on 3,000th base hit
It was one of those made-for-TV moments. Not only did New York Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter get his 3,000 base hit, but the young man who retrieved the home run shot returned the ball to the future Hall of Fame hitter. The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the ball would have been worth upwards […]
Posted inOur View
State needs better rules for selling property
Gov. Paul LePage should order an immediate investigation into how state property was sold for less than 40 percent of its assessed value to a state official. Fortunately for taxpayers, Attorney General William Schneider last week voided the sale, pointing out that state law forbids such obvious conflicts of interest. LePage has since suspended all […]
Posted inOur View
Americans need a long-term plan, not federal default
The United States has never defaulted on its national debt, so nobody can really say what will happen if we do. But there are enough respected people, from economists to Wall Street managers, warning that the consequences will be grave enough that we should all hope not to find out. The worst-case scenario shows interest […]
Posted inOur View
A revived river revives L-A and beyond
It starts with a group of kids swinging off a rope on a hot summer day and splashing into the cooling waters of a passing river. Somewhere downstream a couple picnics on the bank, watching a pair of mallards swimming along. Just offshore, a trio of fishermen float along pulling smallmouth bass from the water, […]