Commentary, editorials and opinion, opinions

Editorial
The climate for building new nuclear power plants in the United States hasn't been this good for decades. The Bush administration is solidly behind them. Some prominent foes have changed sides, embracing uranium-derived electricity as the best available answer to global warming.

By DALE McFEATTERS
This past week has been "war on terror" week in the nation's capital, with President Bush holding almost daily events highlighting progress in GWOT, the global war on terror now having its own acronym.

It was almost like old-home week.

By JOSE DE LA ISLA
A prominent Hispanic Republican businessman in this city was among Latino, black, Vietnamese, Chinese and Asian Indian realtors invited to a trade-association retreat. The invitees to the largely Republican gathering were there to add ethnic diversity to the meeting.

When immigration came up as a topic for discussion, the visitors found their opinions mostly drowned out.

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Mexico's highest electoral court has unanimously declared Felipe Calderon the winner of that country's disputed presidential election, and that should be the end of it.

The court found some irregularities in the July 2 balloting, but nothing significant enough to warrant throwing out Calderon's half-a-percent victory, a conclusion supported by foreign observers.

By CLIFFORD D. MAY
Five years after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Americans have not been slaughtered a second time on U.S. soil. That is no small achievement. It has come about not because our enemies have been merciful or because they consider our behavior improved.

By JOHN HALL
Thursday's appearance here by Mohammad Khatami, the former president of Iran, is being billed as another diversion to allow the Iranians time to build more nukes and missiles. But Khatami is an interesting fellow and maybe he deserves a listen.

He is a cleric who seems to have some pull with the educated Iranians who are trying to keep it together under the iron rule of the mullahs.

By REG HENRY
I wish I had a nickel for every time I have heard people like me (i.e., supposedly unpatriotic ingrates) reminded that "we are at war." I would buy my critics a set of medals from the wars they never went to or a set of history books about wars they don't remember.

What do these guys mean when they say "we are at war"? What they really mean is that they want anyone who expresses doubt about the war in Iraq, in particular, to shut up.

"We are at war" translates into "you can't argue with the commander in chief when we are at war," which, conveniently for him, won't ever end.

My problem is that I am not personally at war, but the peace in my time is not about appeasement.

Editorial
By now, few Americans expect bold new initiatives from the White House (or Congress) on global warming. As a result, state and local efforts provide a rare source of hope. Two recent announcements suggest that helpful developments may be on the way.

The first came this summer, when California Gov.

By MARTIN SCHRAM
It is time for some straight talk about the latest incendiary missiles the U.S. high command is launching at the enemy _ politically-loaded phrases such as "cut-and-run."

Also a very different weapon of mass derision that paints Iraq war critics with memories of those who thought Adolf Hitler could be "appeased."

"Cut-and-run" is a hard-hitting warning that probably is accurate when aimed at those urging a total withdrawal from Iraq.

An editorial / By Dale McFeatters
Every election cycle, politicians, political scientists and reporters vie to characterize a type of voter who epitomizes a vital swing bloc.

Perhaps it got most specific in 1970 when the book "The Real Majority" identified that cycle's critical voter as a 47-year-old machinist's wife living in Dayton, Ohio.

Others _ Middle America, Silent Americans, Reagan Democrats _ were more broad.