Nuclear Option

RE SENS. McCain and Lieberman promoting nuclear power in the global-warming amendment they plan to add to the Senate energy plan: Although the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is an important goal, giving more than $5 billion in government subsidies to nuclear power is not the best way to solve this problem. Nuclear technology is expensive, and nuclear waste remains lethal for generations. Re-introducing this long-abandoned option will not be the most efficient way to combat global warming.

BY LIMITING our "nuclear option," President Obama has made us safer. Yesterday in Prague, Obama and Russian president Dmitri Medvedev signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that will cut each country's nuclear warheads by a third - reducing stockpiles to their lowest levels since the baby boomers were ducking and covering under their desks during civil-defense alerts. But even more important was Obama's announcement earlier this week pledging that the United States will not use nuclear weapons against a country that doesn't have them.

For months, Sen. Trent Lott pulled a list of names from his pocket and told anyone who listened that he had the votes to trigger the "nuclear option" - the change in the Senate's rules that would ease the way for President Bush's judicial nominees. At the same time, the Mississippi Republican worked quietly to avert it. Lott was not among the 14 senators who signed the pact on Monday that forestalled a Senate showdown over Democratic filibusters of some of President Bush's judicial nominees.

Albert Einstein was reported to have said, about the atom bomb, that "everything has changed, except the way we think. " The news is full of perfect illustrations of this now that the possibility of abolishing nuclear weapons is getting serious consideration. Secretary of Defense Caspar W. Weinberger says that if we give up the nuclear option we will have to have a buildup and dependency on conventional weapons. Unless we of the peace movement nail this nonsense for what it is, effectively and quickly, the public will as usual believe whatever it hears.

The nomination of conservative Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr. unified Senate Democrats and liberal groups, who quickly girded for what could be the most divisive battle of the Bush presidency. Supporters and opponents of Alito are expected to soon launch advertising campaigns intended to sway voters - and pressure senators. The liberal People for the American Way said yesterday that it "will mobilize its 750,000 members and activists to wage a massive national effort to defeat Alito's nomination.

President Reagan's willingness to give up the U.S. strategic nuclear deterrent over the coming decade in exchange for a similar Soviet pledge contrasts sharply with the Pentagon's longstanding contention that atomic weapons are necessary to counter the Warsaw Pact's superior conventional forces. The Air Force's brand-new MX missiles and B-1 bombers and the Navy's Trident submarines, operational since 1982, are the backbone of the administration's record $1.5 trillion defense buildup.

AT A RECENT meeting with the Daily News editorial board, Gov. Rendell read one of his favorite lists of items, one that includes such diverse items as helicopters, dental floss, dry cleaning, candy, caskets, gold bullion and sunburn ointment. The connection among these disparate things? They are among the many items exempt from taxation in Pennsylvania. Don't look for obvious logic Pennsylvania's tax policy is too often based on the power of lobbyists and their money rather than coherent strategy.

In a portentous, tension-filled session, the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday voted along party lines to approve two of President Bush's nominations for federal appeals courts, setting the stage for a potentially historic confrontation over the right to filibuster. Republicans are threatening to end filibusters as they are used to block judicial nominees - the so-called nuclear option - and Democrats said they would respond by using parliamentary tactics to tie up Senate business.

THE "nuclear option" to end filibusters on judgeships is dangerous to flowers and other living things. This option would provide radical power to one party, enabling them to appoint Supreme Court justices who favor corporate interests. Laws that protect the environment and our privacy are at great risk. We must make our senators aware with a loud voice that this is un-American. Laurie Grant, Philadelphia Congress has no right to claim absolute power over the judicial branch.

WHEN YOU say in your April 20 editorial that the cardinals "opted to continue the Euro-(and American) centric fight against modern Western culture," you are showing an ignorance of the trends in the Roman Catholic Church. It is in the emerging nations of Africa and Asia where the church has dynamic growth that it is most conservative. It is in the weakening "Euro-(and American) centric" areas where some are calling for change. Don't kid yourself by presuming that even most American Catholics are looking for dramatic change.

What rule will they change now? The Phillies aren't the only ones with hitting problems. Baseball's 30 teams put up 72 shutouts through Sunday, a pace that would leave baseball with more shutouts this year than all but two seasons in major-league history. Those were 1968 and 1972, when, as SI.com's Tom Verducci said: "Offense was so putrid baseball changed its rules both times to inject more scoring into the game. " The lords of baseball lowered the mound from 15 to 10 inches in 1969 to counteract overpowering pitchers.

THE NFL OWNERS have put off their billion-dollar cash grab for another day. They and the NFL Players Association have agreed to extend their collective bargaining agreement for 24 hours, ensuring another fun-filled day for reporters waiting outside the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service in Washington, many of them wearing the same clothes as the day before. C'est la guerre. What happened? No one knows and anyone who says he knows is relying on the whispered spin of one side or the other - which really isn't knowledge at all. But we can all guess.

SO NOW, according to your June 17 editorial "Join or Diet," we can add the military to the growing list of people who need to step up and raise the kids of Philadelphia. It's not good enough that we have the liberal mantra of "it takes a village" or the increasingly popular notion that somehow city teachers are responsible for raising these criminals, um, I mean children. Now you want to add the military to this distinguished list of people that only disguises the fact that the parent(s)

BY LIMITING our "nuclear option," President Obama has made us safer. Yesterday in Prague, Obama and Russian president Dmitri Medvedev signed a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) that will cut each country's nuclear warheads by a third - reducing stockpiles to their lowest levels since the baby boomers were ducking and covering under their desks during civil-defense alerts. But even more important was Obama's announcement earlier this week pledging that the United States will not use nuclear weapons against a country that doesn't have them.

AT A RECENT meeting with the Daily News editorial board, Gov. Rendell read one of his favorite lists of items, one that includes such diverse items as helicopters, dental floss, dry cleaning, candy, caskets, gold bullion and sunburn ointment. The connection among these disparate things? They are among the many items exempt from taxation in Pennsylvania. Don't look for obvious logic Pennsylvania's tax policy is too often based on the power of lobbyists and their money rather than coherent strategy.

It's no mystery what Philadelphia's property-tax system ought to be built on: realistic assessments, an ethical and competent staff, and an end to backroom deals for property owners with pull. It is a formula that cities, counties, and states across the country figured out long ago. In Seattle, in Maryland, in Chicago, and in many other places, the setting of accurate property values has been a basic and unremarkable government function for decades. What has been missing in Philadelphia, reform advocates say, is the political will to make necessary changes - to restructure or abolish the Board of Revision of Taxes, the obscure independent agency that sets property values in the city.

Hospitals prepare for emergencies they can't predict. But when the hospital itself needs acute care from taxpayers, New Jersey officials would like a bit of notice. That's the thinking behind a new state law requiring hospitals to file monthly, rather than quarterly, reports on their financial health. State health officials say it's meant to be an "early warning system" for hospitals teetering toward financial failure. Health Commissioner Heather Howard hopes the system prevents phone calls such as the one that arrived on a Friday from hospital officials who said they didn't have enough money for the paychecks due Monday.

According to recent opinion polls, most Iraqis don't believe that we're making things better or safer in their country. What does that say about the legitimacy of prolonged occupation, much less permanent American bases in Iraq? What does it mean for continued American patrols such as the one last November in Haditha, which, we now learn, led to the deaths of a Marine and 24 unarmed civilians? Questions very much like these nagged at my conscience at the height of the Vietnam War, and led, eventually, to the publication of the Pentagon Papers in the summer of 1971, 35 years ago. As a former Marine commander and defense analyst in 1970, I had exclusive access to highly classified defense documents for research purposes.

Oh, God. It's all happening again. The scare-mongering, the dark talk of nuclear bombs handed off to terrorists. The rumblings about "regime change" and popular uprising. The up-tempo war planning done to a chorus of think-tank bravado. The smirky denials from the Pentagon. The acolytes chattering about the President's sense of history. Americans have seen this movie. It is called Operation Iraqi Freedom, and it grinds on bloodily to this day. Now, the camera shifts to Iran.