Anyone voting for Obama should think hard about the implications that will result from an election of this man to president. There is obviously going to be a super majority of Democrats in the House and in the Senate after this election. This will mean there is nothing to stop the Democrats from passing any and all bills and laws of their choice. The Republicans will not be able to even filibuster from the floor to delay passage of these items because of their minority status. It has been tossed around that there are 49-million people without health insurance, which is a tragedy, but can you imagine what it will do to the health care system? It is sometimes difficult to get an appointment or a bed in the hospital now. There has been no mention of building the hospitals and educating all the medical people conducive to accommodating that large a number of new patients. It would be overwhelming to the existing system and take years to accomplish a feat of that magnitude (by either party). Obama has stated that he wants to provide this health care now, not 10 years down the road. ...more

October 24, 2008

Even after nearly 23 years on the job and thousands of cases, Jane Occhiolini remembers her first call to help a victim deal with the aftermath of a horrific event. ...more

September 26, 2008

Several months ago, Chris Wessel, editor of Hernando Today, made the statement that if Ted Rall lied in his columns, he would not continue to print his statements. ...more

September 19, 2008

The University of South Florida football program was hit with tragedy again with the death of former USF linebacker Mike Minus on Monday night. ...more

September 9, 2008

The crash that killed three people Thursday afternoon at Vandenberg Airport was not only incredibly sad, it was awful in its irony. ...more

July 19, 2008

Regarding "Jury Finds For Family In Baby's '03 Death" (front page, June 28): ...more

July 2, 2008

The U.S. Army has released a study that states that leaders in the United States were more concerned with winning the military battle in Iraq than what to do once it was concluded. That's not exactly earth-shattering news, since most of us already know that, but the historical report is interesting because it's the first major report issued by U.S. military criticizing civilian leaders. The study, "On Point II: Transition to the New Campaign" was written by Donald Wright and Col. Timothy R. Reese, along with the Army's Contemporary Operations Study Team, according to a Washington Post article. They say U.S. commanders lacked a realistic vision of what Iraq would look like after that triumph, according to the story. "The transition to a new campaign was not well thought out, planned for, and prepared for before it began," wrote Wright and Reese. "Additionally, the assumptions about the nature of post Saddam Iraq on which the transition was planned proved to be largely incorrect." ...more

June 30, 2008

With her shy and soft-spoken demeanor, 11-year-old Riane Lisnock reminds you of Dorothy from "The Wizard of Oz." ...more

June 15, 2008

To the students of East Bay High School, it sometimes seemed as if tragedy were picking them off this year in ways both randomly cruel and crazily unfair. ...more

June 8, 2008

"Dear American Airlines," by Jonathan Miles (Houghton Mifflin, $22) ...more

June 8, 2008