Print edition for December 16, 2006

Editorial: House leadership fails: Congress plays by its own set of rules. Once Foley resigned and was out from under congressional authority, the ethics committee found no one left who had clearly violated House rules.

No Platter left in the Platters: Derek David holds the note, a little flat, but impossibly long and amplified a little too loudly, so it beats out over the audience like a rubber jackhammer. When he pauses for breath and the next syllable, two older ladies in the middle row of seating stand up and start clapping, glaring at their male companions until they, too, rise.

Lowest bid not always the best: Controversy, it seems, is at times synonymous with Clark County contracts.

Letter: Premise behind smoke debate is nothing new: All business owners, big or small, naturally seek to maximize their clientele, and exercising a personal choice to disallow smoking in their business premises would likely be detrimental to this effort. When few, if any, business owners can afford to opt for a smoking ban for their business premises, there are no smoke-free business premises for the consumer to pick from, either.

Editorial: Process lacks protections: The Associated Press reports that the policy change was elicited in part by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that overturned the Bush administration's 2005 changes to rules that had banned most logging in roadless areas of national forests. The court said that Bush's rule changes lacked the environmental assessment required under the National Environmental Policy Act.

FLASHPOINT for Dec 1 , 2006: If you want a microcosm of what's wrong with the Family Court system, look no further than the wild scene in Judge Cheryl Moss' courtroom this week. I'm sure TV stations will keep playing that videotape of Geoffrey Wells attacking bailiffs. But that is the less frightening videotape of Wells and of Moss to emerge from that courtroom. This is the same place where Moss last year showed sympathy for a cursing Wells - he is a Marine, after all, Moss seemed to chuckle - during a battle for custody of his children, one of whom killed himself with an ...

Letter: Top educators are rare in administration: I would classify others as good old boys better suited as members of clown alley of a three-ring circus. They were more interested in status, power, prestige and monetary rewards of their position. In my opinion they lacked a true understanding of quality education and teaching; for the most part they never were real educators even as classroom teachers.

Editorial: Fatigue syndrome all too real: A writer for the Sacramento Bee newspaper listed some of the pejorative terms that have been used to cast doubt on, make a mockery of or reprove this illness: yuppie flu. A hypochondriac's excuse. A drain on the Social Security disability system.

Letter: Praise for those who finished marathon: Based on Mr. West's comments about the last person to finish the marathon, it is clear he has never attempted to complete a marathon. Not everybody is in the marathon to run the "race."

Have faith, there's a match: If any Jewish woman should be able to find a good Jewish man, you'd think it would be Sidra Shapiro, a Las Vegas genetics counselor.