Economic trade may help bring Syria peace
As the conflict in Syria continues, hope that peace negotiations in Switzerland will be able to provide a solution to the crisis is decreasing. The daily revelation of new atrocities, the difficulty...
View ArticleEditorial: Funding the IRS pays off
THE ISSUE:Another deadline for filing our annual income taxes has passed.THE STAKES:Better funding for the IRS would pay off with a more fair sharing of the tax burden. Until the recent revelations...
View ArticleRepublicans holding America's unemployment hostage
The following is from a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial:More than 3.7 million jobless Americans may be learning how it feels to fruitlessly search for work, find meals at a food pantry and skip paying...
View ArticleDiscretion needed for DWI pleas
The quick acquittal in Kerry Kennedy's DWI case earlier this year points to several flaws in the criminal justice system. Mandatory minimum sentences and rigid plea bargain guidelines, particularly in...
View ArticleJo Page: Two days teach lessons of human kindness
My religious observances run the usual Judeo-Christian gamut, with the occasional Hindu celebration involving Ganesha, remover of obstacles, lord of beginnings, thrown in. But there are two days that...
View ArticleMaureen Dowd: Tech giants and a game of drones
It will be tough to go into the big battle against drones without the irrepressible Goose.And Tom Cruise, now 51, will no longer be playing a snot-nosed jockey with a need for speed on the highway to...
View ArticleEditorial: Just do it, Albany County
THE ISSUE:County lawmakers pass a charter commission's work to a committee.THE STAKES:The clock is ticking to get this necessary improvement before voters in November. Leave it to the Albany County...
View ArticleThomas Friedman: Mideast peace losing its edge
At first, the article in The Jerusalem Post last week seemed like the same old, same old: A picture of a ransacked Israel Defense Forces post in the West Bank. Then a quote from Defense Minister Moshe...
View ArticleBring email privacy into the 21st century
The following is from a Philadelphia Inquirer editorial:After a litany of startling revelations about the National Security Agency's bulk collection of email and more, most Americans will be surprised...
View ArticleRaise will lift up N.Y. women
Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy just signed into law a measure that will make his state the first to raise its minimum wage to $10.10, the national standard sought by President Barak Obama and...
View ArticleDiane Cameron: The Easter Bunny deserves its due
Years ago a friend's toddler son was in a progressive nursery school. The school was fiercely non-denominational and so as Easter approached the school told parents they would acknowledge the seasonal...
View ArticleEditorial: Caution on fracking wise
THE ISSUE:The state Health Department's review of fracking is well into its second year.THE STAKES:Such deliberative study is appropriate to ensure the safety of state residents. Eighteen months after...
View ArticleRex Smith: Getting real with casino's local impact
The other day a friend was complaining about the problems that arise when casinos open — the rise in crime and problem gambling, for starters — and grousing that we're plunging forward with casino...
View ArticleCult of firearms incites disobedience
With the arrival this past week of the deadline for registering military style weapons in New York, our gun-carrying comrades appear to be more tightly bound to the code of the gun than to the laws...
View ArticleGE's responsibility for PCBs isn't over
General Electric's recent op-ed in response to the Times Union's "Dredging up the Truth'' article claims "the long debate over what to do about PCBs in the Hudson River ended 12 years ago." To the...
View ArticleCasey Seiler: Suit asks who can 'ConCon'
In the dog years of politics, 2017 might feel like several lifetimes away. But for conservative activist and serial constitutional litigant Bob Schulz, it's right around the corner.The Fort Ann...
View ArticleKathleen Parker: Russian mind knows a Russian mind
Washington The new "agreement" between Russia, the U.S. and our allies is exactly what the former KGB agent ordered.This isn't to say it's not a good "prospect" for ending tensions in Ukraine, as...
View ArticleAlbany's forgotten hero of the Civil War
Albany had mourned many lost sons by the spring of 1864, but the death of Col. Lew Benedict hit especially hard.When his body was sent home from the Louisiana battlefield where he fell, the prominent...
View ArticleEditorials: Long story short
Winter over, debts lingerThe bone-chilling winter nights have finally abated. That's not so for the debts racked up by local organizations that served a surge of homeless people needing shelter on...
View ArticleMaureen Dowd: The sexiest 50-year-old in the world
It's weird to be jealous of your car.But I am.Men look at my car with such naked lust, their eyes devouring the curves and chrome, that I often feel as though I'm intruding on an intimate moment....
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