Researchers at two of the nation’s most esteemed universities, Cal Tech and MIT, have confirmed what many Americans suspected: A significant number – between 4 million and 6 million, it turns out – of votes cast in the 2000 presidential election went uncounted due to faulty voting equipment,… Read More
America’s missile shield passed an important preliminary test high over the Pacific Ocean Saturday. Although the prototype interceptor launched from the Marshall Islands was guided to the incoming mock warhead and away from the accompanying decoy by helpful infrared signals that won’t be replicated by any enemy, this… Read More
A new edition of an annual report of mental-health treatment in prisons across the nation is useful to Maine primarily to show, first, that this state is hardly alone in its struggle to provide appropriate services to the incarcerated. And, second, it provides a sense of the serious… Read More
One of the longest political campaigns in Maine history began March 1, when state Sen. John Nutting of Leeds announced his candidacy for the 2nd Congressional District seat, to be decided November 2002. Since then, a dozen Democrats and Republicans have either joined the race or announced an… Read More
The funny thing about smoke and mirrors is that the smoke eventually clears and the eye adjusts to whatever tricks the mirror plays. Or, in the case of the federal surplus Washington seemed to think would grow forever, the cooling economy collides with huge tax cuts and unrestrained… Read More
It started, early this legislative session, with a modest and sensible request by the state Commission on Governmental Ethics and Elections Practices. Nine candidates in the previous November’s elections had run afoul of Maine’s new Clean Elections Law. Some of the fines the commission were required to impose… Read More
Most people love to hate lawyers. How about all those mean lawyer jokes? For example: What do you do when you see a lawyer buried up to his neck in sand? If you don’t know the answer, you’re not missing anything. President George W. Bush… Read More
Television critics assert that the reason those so-called reality shows – “Survivor” and the like – are so popular is because they give the viewer at home an opportunity to see truly arrogant and obnoxious people in action without having to get too close. Anyone who tuned into… Read More
Worried that their city is fast becoming a prostitution center, Portland police recently staged “Forbidden Pleasures,” a sting operation in which 26 local men who responded to ads for “sensual massage” and tried negotiating prices for sexual favors were busted by undercover officers. The would-be johns are described… Read More
A curious rivalry has developed over the relative merits of our second and third presidents. Thomas Jefferson, the third president, credited with the authorship of the Declaration of Independence and ordering the Louisiana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, has always been listed among the greats. Read More
In better times, President Bush’s nomination of Robert Mueller III as FBI director would be an excellent choice. Mr. Mueller will bring to the job a famously no-nonsense work ethic, an apolitical approach and a history of successful law-enforcement experience; invaluable assets under any circumstances. Read More
In the winter sports department, snowmobiling in Yellowstone National Park has been getting all the attention lately. But around here, Acadia National Park is what counts. The bottom line is that snowmobiling in Acadia will go on as usual this coming winter, but the future remains clouded. Read More
The International Olympic Committee, ready to announce Friday the host of the 2008 summer Games, has a clear set of standards that a host city must meet to win the Games and all international and economic attention that come with them. The cities are judged, for instance, on… Read More
Teen-age boys love to wear caps. They like to put them on in the morning and wear them all day, at school, at work, at meals, and (who knows?) maybe in church. Except for the few who wear them backward, boys keep curling the visor down on the… Read More
Whether it’s direct taxpayer subsidies to sugar growers and mohair shearers or the payments milk processors make to the Northeast Dairy Compact, government-mandated price supports are always deserving of scrutiny and evaluation. Scrutiny and evaluation, yes; spiteful retaliation, no. The Compact among the six New… Read More
On June 13, 1971, The New York Times began publishing a huge trove of top-secret documents disclosing that the U.S. government had systematically misled the American people about the American military intervention in Vietnam. The passing of this 30th anniversary provides a good opportunity to look back at… Read More
Recently completed United Way fund-raising campaigns across the state for the most part grew over last year’s figures but did not grow as much as hoped, making them look a lot like the standard state economic indicators – state revenues, jobs, income, etc. In eastern Maine, the United… Read More
For people who believe that one becomes a person at the moment of conception, no level of restrictions or assurances about stem-cell research will overcome their objections to it. President Bush, who is contemplating lifting the current ban on stem-cell research, cannot simply ignore a constituency that helped… Read More
Following up pointed comments by Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, The New York Times last week reported on why private law firms are loath to take capital cases, and in doing so highlighted the need for a moratorium on the death penalty. Justice O’Connor,… Read More
A legislative plan to provide universal health care coverage to Mainers was turned into more of a study toward the end of the recently concluded session, then further scaled back when the availability of research staff was dropped from the bill in the final days. The bill’s meager… Read More
These are difficult times for EnvisioNet. Just a few months ago the technology support company was a star of the Maine economy, a genuine homegrown success story. Now it is in bankruptcy, roughly one-third of its 2,000-person work force is laid off and many who remain have had… Read More
Maine, according to many in southern Maine, is undergoing a crisis in affordable housing. Too many people chasing too few vacant apartments has led to higher rents, strained personal finances and the urgent call for help. This may, at first glance and under a very… Read More
To those in the House truly interested in lessening the undue influence of money on politics, last week’s Supreme Court ruling upholding existing limits on regulated contributions should provide the courage needed to complete what the Senate has begun. By reaffirming that making so-called hard money donations to… Read More
There are at least three benefits of the Robert Wood John Foundation’s announcement last week that it had chosen the Muskie School of Public Service at the University of Southern Maine to administer a grant to improve long-term care services. Thirty communities nationally will receive money to plan… Read More
Below is an excerpt from the document this holiday is about. Two hundred and twenty-five years ago, representatives in the Continental Congress met in Philadelphia and adopted their Declaration of Independence. It expressed frustration and anger with the policies of Great Britain and its king. It argued eloquently… Read More
Political watchdog Common Cause not long ago released a study detailing the $360 million in contributions made by the pharmaceutical industry to politicians over the past five election cycles. It arrived at about the same time Rep. Tom Allen held a press conference showing that Maine seniors could… Read More
Banks, insurance companies and others by now should have sent out their cumulative billions of notices giving consumers the chance to keep their private financial information private, or at least as private as a financial conglomerate allowed to share information within its corporation is required. But for those… Read More
Perhaps you are troubled because you don’t fully understand the recent 1,000-word explanations from your financial institutions, which assure you that worrying about privacy is their job and that you should spend your days enjoying the benefits of allowing them to share your personal information. At least, you… Read More
Given the broad public support for the death penalty, it is reasonable – or at least realistic – to assume that the federal government and the governments of 38 states will continue to execute those convicted of the most heinous crimes. The heart-wrenching testimony presented by convicted and… Read More
When the State House renovation project was first pitched to the public more than three years ago, members of the news media were led through the handsome yet dilapidated old building and shown dangling electrical wires, exposed pipes, crumbling plaster, cracked flooring and cramped offices. The story, printed… Read More
The best Chinese-made dry dock American taxpayer subsidies can buy is now in place at Bath Iron Works and is so laden with flaws and malfunctions that workers there are referring to it – not at all affectionately – as the Yugo. Shipyard officials say the $27-million device… Read More
Five years of debate about what sort of rights should be codified for patients produced opposing documents this summer that differed in such small degree that the public could be excused if it did not show much interest in whether there ought to be limits on… Read More
They are rapidly going by, but there is still time for a word about the lovely blue flower that grows wild and blossoms in June along roadsides and in meadows. Lupine goes to seed upward from the bottom of its flower, a narrow conical cluster… Read More
By preserving from development hundreds of thousands of forested acres, the state and Maine land-owners have helped protect a way of life here that embraces logging and recreation, solitude and open spaces. In addition to state donations, the money that has allowed for the purchase of development rights… Read More
Frances Wilson Peabody lived out the final weeks of her long and productive life as though she was 38, not 98. In June alone, she attended the Portland Pride Parade, festooned in a pink feather boa, as well as the Peabody House Board of Trustees’ annual retreat. Read More
The difference between AIDS-HIV as a prologue to death or a manageable chronic disease is about $8 billion a year, according to Kofi Annan, the secretary-general of the United Nations. At a special session of the U.N.’s general assembly Monday, he properly urged the developed world to stop… Read More
Until now, Maine’s experience with public-private partnerships gone bad – tax breaks, loans, subsidies and other incentives that turn into layoffs and plant closings – has largely been the result of dealings with large out-of-state corporations. Whether the corporation in question makes shoes, paper or ships, the lesson… Read More
A story last week from California describing how the top executives of the bankrupt Pacific Gas & Electric Co. would be allowed to receive $17.5 million in bonuses as incentives to stay is a reminder of an important truism of business: You have to pay for talent, even… Read More
The Bush Justice Department may be correct that the federal lawsuit launched against the tobacco industry by the Clinton Justice Department is too weak to win, making a settlement the only realistic resolution. If so – and that remains to be proven – the Bush team must now… Read More
Getting from Bangor to the coast during the summer can be difficult and time-consuming. The question before a study group today is whether it is easier to get there without driving. The state Department of Transportation wants to find out whether trains or buses would be popular choices… Read More
One of the few authorities on North Korea has arrived in Maine to spend the summer at his place on Islesford. Three weeks ago, Selig Harrison, a newspaper correspondent-turned-scholar, was in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang. His long talks with leaders of the reclusive communist government have given… Read More
A safe and ready blood supply is essential in modern medicine, but it costs money. The American Red Cross doesn’t pay donors, but it incurs heavy expenses as virtually the sole supplier of blood to the hospitals of New England. Costs include recruiting donors, screening them, drawing the… Read More
Advocates of a bill to expand Medicaid coverage for adults without children, cancer patients, working-class children and to clinics may be disappointed that their bill, LD 1303, was pared back in a compromise struck between its sponsor, House Speaker Michael Saxl, and Gov. Angus King. They shouldn’t be. Read More
There’s an up side and a down side about grease. On the up side, it tastes good. That’s why so many folks love french fries and hamburgers and sweet and sour pork, fried chicken and fried clams and all the rest of the fast food menu. Read More
Twenty-five years ago insurance companies argued against covering prenatal and delivery services, based in part on the argument that pregnancy wasn’t an illness. It took recognition that health coverage was about more than paying for the treatment of illness – the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978 also… Read More
Three years of extensive debate and negotiation over a tiny (but expensive) fraction of the pollution coming out of FPL’s Wyman Station power plant resulted in May in a compromise FPL, environmentalists and state regulators say they are happy to support. A final vote on the issue by… Read More
President Bush demonstrated admirable humanitarian inclinations and considerable political instincts by declaring the end of bombing exercises on Vieques in 2003. The president is absolutely correct that the 9,500 Americans on this tiny Puerto Rican island have shouldered far more than their fair share of the burden of… Read More
Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden recently released documents showing that the oil industry in the mid-1990s was looking for ways to cut production at refineries and increase profits. It takes about four years to build a large refinery, so the industry’s activity then is of importance to gas and… Read More
It is by now so widely accepted that the decade of the 1990s was the longest economic expansion in the nation’s history that any suggestion it wasn’t seems absurd. Yet a new study out of Northeastern University offers solid evidence that when it comes to the real payoff… Read More
No one would be surprised if legislators, looking at a budget vote that included $60 million in new taxes, had an eye on the next election, wondering how their support for such a budget would look to voters. The simplest explanation is the most accurate in this case:… Read More
Perhaps it’s a combination of higher gas prices, the inescapable truth that America cannot drill its way to energy independence and the growing disconnect between SUV marketing and reality, but Congress finally seems poised this year to strengthen fuel-efficiency standards for those popular and oversized vehicles. Read More
The announced addition last week of Atlantic Coast Airlines regional jet service from Bangor to Boston is not just a nice change from the old turboprops that shuttle between the cities now to a quieter, smoother ride. The new flights will result in approximately 30 minutes less travel… Read More
It has been 30 years since the United States last conducted a top-to-bottom review of federal ocean policy. That review, the work of the Stratton Commission, was important in that it proved the strength of public opinion regarding ocean protection and stimulated better management practices. Read More
The harder President Bush tries to sell his missile shield to NATO allies, the more skeptical European leaders become. Contrary to the spin offered by the White House, this is not the result of anti-American bias or of Old World cynicism, but of the administration’s failure to acknowledge… Read More
Maine has persuaded plenty of people from around the country to come and relax here. A recent statewide report on meeting and convention centers suggests that it could do a lot more to encourage them to work here – or at least hold meetings, listen to speeches, develop… Read More
The revised bill to restrict the use of mandatory overtime to fill the nursing shortage is one of the better examples of thoughtful compromise likely to come out of the Legislature this session. Rather than merely object to the original proposal and threaten veto, Gov. King laid out… Read More
Unless you see the magazine Editor & Publisher, you probably have not heard of a significant First Amendment issue involving the leading American Indian newspaper. The newspaper, a weekly called Indian Country Today, has been trying for a year and a half to get its… Read More
President Bush’s offer this week to further study climate change rather than do something about it looks a lot like President Bush’s offer made in 1990 to study climate change. The difference between the son’s offer and the father’s, however, is that a decade ago there was legitimate… Read More
In trying to both expand Medicare and keep it affordable, Congress has before it one of the toughest tasks it will face this year. It could start with a simple but useful change, introduced by Rep. John Baldacci and several other House members last week, that would offer… Read More
Legislators have two ways of looking at the effect of Maine’s investment in research and development during the last four years. They can examine the important work being done in, for instance, the fields of medicine, the environment, biotechnology and engineering. Or they can look at R&D’s effect… Read More
Sen. Zell Miller, a Democrat from Georgia, became nationally famous last month for not becoming a Republican (though he sometimes votes like one) when Sen. Jim Jeffords left the GOP and handed the Senate to Democrats. Worse for the GOP, Sen. Miller has provided his party with a… Read More
Boosters call it the Sunrise County, but sometimes must wonder whether the sun is coming up or going down on Washington County. It needs a good lift – or, rather, it needs some help in giving itself a good lift. Already, its residents have done a lot on… Read More
In the spectacle of Timothy McVeigh misusing the justice system, the media and the public’s attention until his death, President George Bush offered one of the more insightful comments yesterday. “For the survivors of the crime and for the families of the dead,” the president said, “the pain… Read More
With enactment of the Part I current services budget a week ago, the Legislature left itself with a scant $1.8 million General Fund balance to pay for roughly $64 million in commitments already made to the Part II budget for new and expanded programs. This leaves lawmakers in… Read More
The Army Corps of Engineers has placed before President Bush a choice of supporting relaxed environmental standards that the corps wants or the opinion of four federal agencies. He should review last year’s Pentagon assessment of the Corps and side with the agencies. The Corps… Read More
The switch from a bill to create a single-payer health care system in Maine to a broad study on the issue was compromise enough to get it through both legislative houses and it should be enough to persuade Gov. King to sign it. Sign it, and contribute to… Read More
Maine’s fingerprinting law for school staff started off badly with administrative problems, ran smack into angry teachers who would rather lose their jobs than submit to the new law, then found rejection in the House and faces a similar snub in the Senate. Lawmakers need to step back… Read More
Iraq’s sudden decision to halt oil exports Monday in protest of tighter United Nations sanctions jolted crude oil prices sharply upward. The other OPEC nations, gathering in Vienna for a meeting on production quotas, promptly announce they’ll pump more to make up the 2 million barrel daily difference,… Read More
Straying into the philosophical last year over a Georgetown development ordinance, the Maine Supreme Judicial Court averred “there is simply no way to quantify ‘natural beauty,'” an outlook poets may deny but that city planners must accept. The ruling applies to Bangor as well, a Superior Court justice… Read More
Following a heavy eight-year Clinton administration investment in Middle East peace that went belly-up, it is understandable that the new foreign-policy team in Washington would take a low-profile approach. This is not just a matter of the Bush administration being contrary, but of it wisely not wanting to… Read More
Imagine you’re standing in a long, slow-moving line at the post office, bank or supermarket and some self-important lout elbows to the front, taking cuts and demanding immediate service. Then imagine the postal worker, teller or cashier, instead of firmly directing the boor to the back of the… Read More
Navigation has gone high-tech. A gadget that can tune in on the Global Positioning System (GPS) and use satellites to tell your latitude and longitude is getting cheaper and better. It used to cost thousands of dollars, but hand-held models now sell for less than $200. Until last… Read More
Thirty-four years ago the Supreme Court informed states that they could not force out-of-state sellers to collect and send them sales taxes. Since then, states have looked for ways to get the lost revenue from these purchases, a problem that grew worse when Internet sales joined catalogs and… Read More
Four years ago, Congress offered marketing incentives to entice drug manufacturers to conduct studies on the effects of drugs on children. A report from the Food and Drug Administration in May concludes both that the program has been effective in some areas and could be easily improved in… Read More
Following the Supreme Court decision Tuesday that the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is, duh, in Maine, many indignant New Hampshire workers continue to grumble about not getting anything for the income tax they pay here. On Thursday, a New Hampshire woman whose boat capsized in a border region pond… Read More
The concept of a third international border crossing between Calais and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, goes back to the 1970s. The current effort began in the late ’80s when the two neighboring communities began discussing the project and made formal requests to their respective state and provincial transportation… Read More
Maine lawmakers certainly made budgeting simpler last week by approving just the first part of the state’s two-part biennial budget. But even as they spent down the state’s savings account, eviscerated its technology fund for students and created a larger funding gap for the next legislature, they left… Read More
The guilty verdicts returned by a New York federal jury against the four alleged members of the Osama bin Laden terrorist network involved in the bombing of two U.S. embassies in East Africa represent a remarkable achievement in international law enforcement. The FBI and federal prosecutors in particular… Read More
Department of Human Services Commissioner Kevin Concannon is correct in asserting that a comprehensive report on the death in January of foster child Logan Marr cannot, at this time, be made public. Members of the Legislature’s Health and Human Services Committee also are correct for refusing to meet… Read More
Dec. 7, 1941 was so long ago that most folks who will be seeing the new motion picture “Pearl Harbor” were not even born then. Many of them will learn about the facts of the Japanese attack from the Disney version, and that’s a shame. The “facts” are… Read More
It would be uncharitable to gloat about yesterday’s Supreme Court opinion confirming that the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard is indeed in Maine and not, as New Hampshire has insisted for what seems like decades, one state over. But if gloating is out, it might be fair to point out… Read More
Maine has an abundance of experience with the centerpiece of the federal education reform bill passed last week in the House and soon to be passed in the Senate. State-wide testing to determine what students are learning has become an essential measure of student progress here and an… Read More
Maine’s public libraries are caught up in a flurry of expansion and improvement, financed as usual by a combination of taxpayers’ money, foundation grants and private contributions. The Blue Hill Public Library, for example, is in the midst of an expansion that will double its… Read More
It has been 22 years since the worst nuclear accident in American history, the partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island reactor in Pennsylvania. And it’s been 15 years since fires and explosions wrecked the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine and spewed deadly radioactive material over much… Read More
Bennett LeBow is Big Tobacco’s worst nightmare. He’s not a crusading class-action lawyer, an outspoken public health official or a courageous research chemist. He’s a financier who owns, among other things, a cigarette company. The Miami-based buyout specialist, a self-described maverick, bought the tiny cigarette… Read More
Long before bargain basement sales and the Indianapolis 500 diluted Memorial Day’s true meaning, there was Gen. John Alexander Logan, a man of the hour destined to change the course of history. Turning grim Civil War battle experiences into something lasting and positive, Gen. Logan… Read More
Gov. King demonstrated admirable energy in his mission to Microsoft Thursday. Although the full result of the emergency flight to urge the Washington-based software superpower to keep faith in Maine’s EnvisioNet is not yet known, it appears he demonstrated admirable powers of persuasion as well. Read More
The surprising success this week of a single-payer health care plan in the Maine House arrived just as a report from U.S. Rep. Tom Allen pointed out that average Maine health costs in traditional fee-for-service plans increased 78 percent in the last five years, 60 percent for HMOs. Read More
When a debate in the Maine House of Representatives is rife with impassioned references to such monstrous tyrants as Hitler and Stalin, one could assume that (a) the very foundations of freedom are imperiled or (b) somebody’s overreacting a bit. In the case of this… Read More
The payback on Maine’s $10 million investment through its Biomedical Research Fund has started to come in, suggesting just how underfunded many of the state’s most important research institutions are. The results are good reason for lawmakers to continue spending on R&D and equally good reason to pay… Read More
In a commencement address delivered Monday at his alma mater, Yale University, President Bush answered a hostile crowd of protesting professors and jeering students with lots of good-natured jabs at himself. Although the “Animal House to the White House” routine wore a bit thin, the self-deprecation approach was… Read More
Ideologically, Sen. Jim Jeffords didn’t switch, the Republican Party did. The announcement by Sen. Jeffords of Vermont yesterday that he reportedly would leave the GOP to become an independent merely highlighted what has long been obvious. Starting in the 1980s and accelerating in the ’90s, both political parties… Read More
Some members of the Maine Legislature would like better health insurance. Who wouldn’t? But their bill to extend members’ benefits has gone nowhere. Under present law, legislators get lifetime health coverage only if they are 62 years old when they leave office. They gave quick… Read More
Your mortgage resides in Iowa, your credit card accumulates debt in Delaware and your small-but-proud mutual fund rides the market in Manhattan. The Maine Legislature is debating how to protect personal information as banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions get into each other’s businesses, but the fact… Read More
The seven-month conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has escalated relentlessly and without mercy. It started with rocks, slingshots and assault rifles, ratcheted up to machine guns, mortars and helicopter gunships and, now, as if to prove there is no threshold of violence too terrible to cross, to… Read More
Vice President Dick Cheney wants to wait until a report is released on improving gas mileage on cars and light trucks due out this summer before deciding whether to ask auto manufacturers if it would be OK to raise standards. But given that gas mileage is now lower… Read More
No one should be surprised that the Bush administration is following a go-it-alone policy in foreign affairs. His national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, whose desk is near the Oval Office and who meets daily with the president, signaled as much more than a year ago. Read More
Vindictive officials, inaccurate answers and archaic practices were just a few of the reasons Congress scolded the Internal Revenue Service a couple of years ago at widely reported hearings. Out of those hearings came the Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998, with a set of… Read More
If the problem of rising prescription drug prices cannot be solved by the pharmaceutical industry or by Congress, the only realistic option left to consumers in need is the states. That’s why a decision Wednesday by the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was so important. While far… Read More
In the experiment of term limits for legislators, Maine has learned, first, that limiting how long a lawmaker can stay in office results in more people bringing more ideas to the State House and, second, that the eight-year limit is too strict, especially for legislators to become fully… Read More