Excerpts from recent editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
June 29
Houston Chronicle, on the punitive damages paid to oil-spill victims:
After almost 20 years of legal battles over the Exxon Valdez oil spill, the Supreme Court last week slashed the punitive damages imposed on Exxon Mobil to $500 million from $2.5 billion.
In a 5-3 ruling, the justices limited the amount of punitive damages to the amount of actual damages. Justice David H. Souter cited studies showing that under federal maritime law, punitive damages were on average equivalent to actual damages in cases where the damage was not deliberate or malicious.
The problem was that the court was not drawing on any previous court rulings (because none exist) when it arrived at this arbitrary decision. It's what conservatives call "judicial activism" when so-called liberal judges do it. ...
Whether the damages were excessive is questionable: Exxon was originally assessed $5 billion in punitive damages, which at that time, 1994, amounted to about one year of Exxon's profits, The Washington Post reported. The $2.5 billion figure was arrived at in December 2007. By then, Exxon's annual earnings were $40.6 billion. Calling Exxon's conduct "worse than negligent but less than malicious," the court slashed that award by 80 percent, to $507.5 million. That's worth about four days of Exxon's profits as of last quarter and gives an average of about $15,000 to each of the more than 32,000 plaintiffs fishermen, cannery workers and Alaska natives.
When the Exxon Valdez ran aground on a reef in March 1989, it spilled nearly 11 million gallons of oil into Prince William Sound, the worst recorded spill in North America. It fouled almost 1,300 miles of Alaska coastline, wiped out hundreds of thousands of birds and marine animals and damaged or destroyed the livelihoods of more than 32,000 residents. The captain, a known alcoholic, had been drinking and was not on the bridge at the time of the grounding. ...
Exxon is a business, and it functions like a business. The Supreme Court, however, strayed from its function in arriving at this arbitrary decision with no basis in the law, and that's everybody's business.
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June 30
Vindicator, Youngstown, Ohio, on the firing of eight federal prosecutors:
It is unlikely anyone will be prosecuted for the violations of civil service laws in the hiring of career lawyers in the U.S. Justice Department, but that does not diminish the seriousness of what occurred.
An internal investigation of the hiring practices, triggered by last years political firing of eight federal prosecutors, lays out in shocking detail how the Justice Department under President Bush went beyond past practice in establishing a litmus test for securing employment. The test was based on a simple proposition: Liberals need not apply. ...
Indeed, U.S. attorneys are political appointees and work at the will of the president. ...
But what the Bush administration has done, not only with the firings of the eight last year, but in the screening of applicants for civil service positions is set a new standard for politicizing hirings at Justice.
In so doing, decision-makers deprived the nation of some of the best and the brightest young legal minds in the country. ...
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June 28
Journal-Advocate, Sterling, Colo., on the U.S. Supreme Court's Second Amendment ruling:
... For the first time, the court's decision established that Second Amendment has two parts: the right of a free state to organize a militia, and the right of the citizens to possess firearms. Used properly, a gun is a tool _ no different from a shovel or a lug wrench. If used improperly, a gun is a violent weapon. That is when the rules of society and the justice system take over.
The fact that four judges didn't recognize the right to own a gun is equally disturbing. What makes the majority decision work, though, is that it does allow for certain limitations (such as background checks) by state governments _ just not outright bans.
The fact is that the Constitution works for the gun owner as well as the pure pacifist _ if we let it. The Supreme Court affirmed that with their decision.
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June 27.
Chicago Sun-Times, on the Supreme Court and the second amendment:
(The) landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision gutting a Washington, D.C., handgun ban can best be viewed, from Chicago's perspective, as a tax on Chicago citizens.
A tax to be paid in blood and money.
Because of the court's ruling, Chicago residents, in the not too distant future, likely will be able to buy handguns and keep them in their homes for the first time in more than 25 years.
That new freedom will come at a high cost for our citizens.
Today, Chicago effectively bans its residents from privately possessing handguns _ a law in effect since the early 1980s _ and that's not going to change anytime soon.
First, there will be reams of litigation, with Chicago taxpayers footing part of the hefty bill. ...
Unless the makeup of the Supreme Court changes, the city will almost certainly lose, and more guns will flood into Chicago as a result.
Gun advocates will rejoice, saying it evens the playing field.
Bad guys can get guns whenever they want, those advocates argue.
Now, law-abiding homeowners can keep them at bay with a handy .357 in the nightstand. ...
Handy for self-defense.
Also handy for blowing a spouse's brains out during a knock-down, drag-out fight.
Or for blowing your own brains out, when life becomes too much to bear.
Or accidentally shooting yourself as you go downstairs to check out a suspicious noise.
Which of those scenarios is more realistic in everyday life?
The court's decision will only, in the end, help criminals, by putting more guns out into society.
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June 29
The (Nashville) Tennessean, on offshore drilling:
Just when the nation is developing momentum in seeking alternatives to burning oil, President Bush has proposed reversing course on one of the most important, long-standing environmental policies on energy.
He wants Congress to lift a moratorium on offshore drilling.
That's a shortsighted approach to the nation's energy policy. It is also a flat-out wrong approach environmentally. The nation is being squeezed by fuel prices, but that is no cause to forsake its own sound environmental protections as though it were a fix to a long-term problem. ...
The nation needs to hear about a sound, long-term energy policy that will continue to wean the nation off oil and toward alternative fuel sources.
The president has also called for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which would be an environmental mistake as grave today as before. But it's important to remember that politicians bear no more guilt on the demand for oil than the U.S. consumer. The gluttony for oil comes at a price, but the environment should not have to pay it.
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July 1
The Palm Beach (Fla.) Post, on Florida farmers and the tomato scare:
Florida farmers have lost millions in sales since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers about a salmonella outbreak in tomatoes. But federal inspectors have found no evidence of contamination in Florida. The crops have tested clean, and only one of the nation's 700 cases of salmonella illness has been reported in Florida - and that was a man from the southwest part of the state who ate a raw tomato in New York.
Agriculture Commissioner Charles Bronson is right to believe that the state must protect its farmers from taking losses because of problems elsewhere. For openers, Mr. Bronson wants to improve the accuracy of produce labels. Many vegetables and fruits are shipped across borders and state lines, and then repacked with labels that don't indicate the place of origin. Tomatoes that are marked "Florida" aren't always from Florida; in fact, they might not even be from the United States, since exports from Mexico are increasing.
Florida has been a leader in produce labeling and a model for the federal country-of-origin labeling law that will take effect in October. The FDA continues to lag behind, however, with no reliable program to track the fruits and vegetables from the fields to Americans' tables. ...
Consumers deserve to know where their food comes from, and Florida farmers don't deserve to suffer for other growers' mistakes. Improved labeling would help.
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June 29
Chicago Tribune, on North Korea:
It's rare for happy video footage to come out of North Korea, but the other day, it happened. Camera crews were on hand Friday as authorities set off charges at the Yongbyon nuclear reactor, instantly reducing the cooling tower to a heap of rubble.
That was the visual payoff for years of arduous and often exasperating negotiations with Kim Jong Il's regime. Dramatic though the explosion was, it signifies only one step on a journey that may never reach its intended destination.
Not so long ago, things were proceeding in a very different direction, marked by Pyongyang's detonation of a nuclear device in October 2006. Now we can see progress, however modest. The Bush administration deserves credit for pushing ahead with a task that is as crucial as it is demanding.
The cooling tower's destruction came shortly after North Korea kept a commitment by turning over a 60-page report detailing its production of plutonium, which can be used for nuclear weapons. It didn't provide some vital information, such as a full inventory of Pyongyang's nuclear arsenal and an account of whether it has supplied nuclear technology to Syria. Also missing was an account of its uranium enrichment program.
Maybe those facts can be extracted in time from North Korea. Still, it's important to note what has been accomplished, and not just what remains to be done. Even before the cooling tower imploded, the North Koreans had largely disabled the reactor and disgorged thousands of pages of records from it. It looks as though they are out of the business of producing plutonium _ which means they will have no additional supplies to use in weapons or to sell. ...
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June 30
The New York Times, on health coverage:
While politicians have been debating endlessly over the best ways to reform the American health care system, the plight of American patients has rapidly worsened. A new national survey found that an alarming 20 percent of the population, some 59 million people in all, either delayed or did without needed medical care last year, a huge increase from the 36 million people who delayed or did not seek care in 2003.
As expected, people who have no health insurance there are some 47 million of them were most likely to make that difficult choice. But insured people also chose to go without care in ever-larger numbers.
According to the survey, the main reason is soaring medical costs, which have outstripped the modest growth in wages in recent years. High costs are deterring not only the uninsured from seeking care, but also many insured people who are struggling with higher deductibles, co-payments and other out-of-pocket expenses as their employers or health plans shift more of the cost burden to them. ...
Champions of so-called "consumer-directed health care" might argue that the market is working - people are wisely delaying or forgoing care of low marginal value. But it is disturbing that unmet medical needs increased the most for people in poor or only fair health - those most likely to get even sicker if they don't get treatment.
The new survey further strengthens the case for universal coverage, with moderate cost-sharing provisions. All Americans should be able to get medical care when they need it.
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On the Net:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/30/opinion/30mon2.html?_r1&orefslogin
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July 2
Dagens Nyheter, Stockholm, Sweden, on Zimbabwe:
The tone against (Zimbabwe's President Robert) Mugabe has hardened and the criticism is coming from an increasing number of directions. But that doesn't appear to be enough. Enough African leaders still support Zimbabwe's dictator to keep him from falling.
One of them is Omar Bongo, president in Gabon. He tells British newspaper The Telegraph that Robert Mugabe is a hero and that the West has acted clumsily.
The tone from Zimbabwe is _ as usual _ even more shrill. The West can go hang a thousand times, Robert Mugabe's spokesman said...
But who should help a tortured people if not the A.U.?
The U.N.? I don't think so. China on Tuesday said the country might reject a U.S. proposal for a resolution...
What about an E.U. that can 'go hang a thousand times?' Not them either. In practice, the EU have neither the mandate nor many troops to send. ...
What the west can do is to stop camouflaging the shortcomings. Stop the aid. Starve the regime, the police and the military. Give the Zimbabweans the opportunity to force their tyrant off his throne, when nobody else will.
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July 2
The Guardian, London, on Britain's economy:
Sometimes bubbles deflate gently; other times they just go pop. No prizes for guessing which is the case in Britain's housing market. The Nationwide yesterday reported that house prices dropped 0.9 percent in June and were down 6.3 percent from a year ago. As price slides go, this is the fastest since 1992. Nor is it likely to stop; as was (accidentally) revealed in May, even officials working for the housing minister, Caroline Flint, think the market will fall 5 to 10 percent "at best". What does that mean for homeowners? David Miles, who reviewed the mortgage industry for the then chancellor Gordon Brown, estimated last week that by the end of next year 1.2 million people could be in negative equity. Economists may argue that negative equity is a big phrase for what can be a minor thing - negative equity only hurts when one is trying to move house - but anyone who remembers the early 90s might be forgiven an instinctive shudder.
Falling prices are not a bad thing; free-falling prices might be. ... One big debate among economists is just how sensitive consumers and the wider British economy are to the housing market. According to Mr. Miles, a 10 percent fall in house prices this year would wipe 1 percent off GDP - but the crucial caveat he applies is "all else being equal".
Which is rather the point. As Mr. Miles admits, all else is not equal at the moment. Indeed it is fair to say that the British economy is badly out of whack: prices on basics such as food and fuel are soaring, while credit has dried up. Consumers are seeing a squeeze on their standard of living while also fretting about rising joblessness. Just as anxieties about a squeeze on income take the foreground, the housing market will lead many to also worry about their wealth. This does not mean that this drop in house prices is not called for; but its manner could have a serious impact on the wider economy. ...
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On the Net:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/02/economy.gordonbrown
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July 2
The Toronto Star, on the state of Canada:
In its latest report card on the state of the country, the Conference Board of Canada says many of Canada's problems stem from a lack of innovation. If we were a more creative and forward-looking country, it says, we would not be plagued by such problems as longer hospital wait times, the affordability of social programs, and a poor record on the environment and climate change.
We have no argument with the Conference Board's view that we need to be more innovative. Nor do we disagree with its claim that innovation spurs productivity growth, which provides the wherewithal to address other problems. But the standard formula the Conference Board relies on innovation to productivity to wealth creation to problem solving is basically an economic tautology that excludes the non-economic elements that may be part of the equation. It also implicitly assumes that the potential for innovation is limitless. ...
A true index of well-being would also measure other "goods" that are not captured by our market-based GDP per capita. It is true, for example, that health-care wait times are longer in Canada than in the U.S., where an MRI can be had on demand. Is the difference just a sign that the Americans are more innovative or technologically adept than we are, or is it a reflection of the fact that only those with the money or insurance can get an immediate MRI in the U.S.? If you could measure the value to society of universal health care, then the points we would get for our social innovation would offset to a degree the points we lose for having longer wait times.
Yes, we need to be more innovative in Canada. But that applies just as much to how we measure well-being as it does to increasing the GDP.
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On the Net:
http://www.thestar.com/comment/article/451997
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June 28
Jerusalem Post, on the domestic agenda:
The country's industrialists warn of an impending recession, the finance minister does a sharp about-face on key taxation policy, and the cabinet has yet to devote real attention to urgent university reforms despite the imminent danger of the new academic year not opening.
High schools were supposed to teach well into the summer, to compensate for the prolonged strike earlier in the year; but many school districts are blithely ignoring the deal to keep schools open during part of the vacation, turning a written agreement into a farce.
Israel's social workers have been striking for two long months; and for two weeks now the mobile post office has been out of commission. A group of disabled Israelis has been protesting the erosion of their disability and mobility allowances.
These are only selected "highlights." There is much more on the domestic agenda, from the need for community intervention to help prevent youth violence to the issue of salaries and conditions for thousands of local authority workers. And yet it has been difficult to generate sufficient interest in these issues. Even worse, our elected representatives seem unperturbed.
Our sense is that domestic concerns are not high enough on the government's list of priorities to merit appropriate attention. ...
No one doubts that Israel's survival in the Middle East demands a near-obsessive focus on security and foreign policy. Yet addressing the quality of our daily lives is no less important. The domestic agenda might not seem as "glamorous," but it requires an equal level of diligence and creative problem-solving.
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