St. Petersburg Times Online: Opinion

Editorial
Brown-Waite not clean of bad ads
In one of the highest-profile congressional races in the country, Ginny Brown-Waite is trying to unseat 10-year incumbent Karen Thurman in the 5th District, an area that includes all or part of eight counties, including Pasco, Polk, Hernando, Citrus and Sumter.

Editorial
Vote yes on Dali lease
The Salvador Dali Museum is a tremendous asset for the city of St. Petersburg. It holds one of the premier collections of Dali's work and attracts an international audience. More than 200,000 visitors annually flock to the museum, which sits on public, waterfront land leased from the city.

Editorial
Unprepared
Firefighters must have proper training to deal with highrise fires to avoid the situation Clearwater firefighters encountered at Dolphin Cove condominiums.

Letters
Help current veterans before creating more
Re: Bush threatens veto over new pension benefit, Oct. 7.

Columns today
Howard Troxler
Choice for attorney general not so easy
Here is the question for Democrats in Florida's attorney general race:

Robert Trigaux
Outlook bleak for international tourism
Nobody's designed a way yet to tighten the nation's borders against terrorist threats but still lure millions of international tourists to play at Disney World, hit the gulf beaches and visit other travel hot spots in the country.

Jan Glidewell
Tight times may loosen loans, but for naught
I can't claim to have flunked economics because I never took it, and the failure of one competing economic theory (remember trickle-down?) after another shows me I probably didn't miss a lot.

Jan Glidewell
Vietnam Wall Experience
The traveling Vietnam Wall Experience is a three-quarter scale replica of Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. It will be in New Port Richey and open to the public beginning this morning at 9. A closing ceremony will take place at 6 p.m. Sunday.

Christopher Goffard & Tamara Lush
Tampa Uncuffed: Undercover cops suffer a credibility gap
The undercover Tampa police detectives who patrol Tampa Bay Buccaneers and University of South Florida football games are having trouble convincing people that they're really cops.

Gina Vivinetto
Never too soon to see Aerosmith
TAMPA -- Sure, veteran rockers Aerosmith last performed here less than a year ago, but with three decades of hits that include some of rock 'n' roll's most delicious tunes, is it ever too soon to see the band again? That was the sentiment of a sellout crowd of 15,486 Thursday at the St. Pete Times Forum who savored every sassy antic dished out by singer Steven Tyler and his guitar-slinging sidekick Joe Perry.

Perspective
Taking jobs, alienating customers
For weeks Americans have been told that the outsourcing of high-tech jobs is good for our economy. So said Greg Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in a recent report signed by President Bush. So, too, writes Thomas Friedman of the New York Times in articles praising the rise of call centers in India used for everything from making airline reservations and reading medical X-ray films to providing tech support for American computer firms.

Philip Gailey: Democrats fall off campaign finance reform wagon
Well, what do you know. Soft money is back, and it's making hypocrites of all those Democrats who fervently championed the McCain-Feingold campaign reform law, not to mention those Republicans who objected to the law's restrictions on issue advocacy.

Bill Maxwell: Who is for the farm worker?
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is touting legislation to improve the lives of Florida's 300,000-plus farm workers, who endure institutional and systemic injustices each day in our fields and groves and their personal lives.

Robyn E. Blumner: For some defendants, an American gulag
In Bernard Malamud's masterpiece The Fixer, inmate Yakov Bok was subjected to psychological torture in a Soviet gulag through the humiliations of constant shackling and repeated strip searches.