Limits

Here is an excerpt of an editorial from the Philadelphia Daily News, which was published Thursday.SOME people don't believe that New Jersey Gov. Christine Whitman dropped out of the U.S. Senate race, in which she was heavily favored, just because of the money it would take to run.She must have been promised a post in a Republican administration, they say, or maybe there are other personal reasons.But the reason Ms. Whitman gave at her surprise announcement on Tuesday makes sense to us. She would have needed some $15 million for the race.

With the rate of development in South Carroll slowing to its lowest levels in recent years, the county commissioners are considering whether to ease controls on the number of homes that can be built there.At issue is the growth-control ordinance passed by the commissioners last year, which limits new residential units countywide to about 1,000 units each year for the next six years.The law gives the commissioners power to direct development to areas where schools, roads and public services are adequate and restrict it in areas without them.

WASHINGTON -- A wit once said the State Department is like tundra in that anything you do to it improves it. That is the way reformers regard existing campaign finance practices. They say this even after two decades of reforms have made matters worse, which proves there is no Everest of evidence too large to be ignored by reformers.They began 25 years ago by limiting the amount of spending by candidates and the size of "hard money" contributions made directly to candidates. The Supreme Court declared most expenditure limits (those on congressional candidates)

Maryland's recreational and charter-boat fishermen probably can look forward to an uninterrupted rockfish season this year from late April through November, and fisheries biologists are hopeful that size limits and dates can be standardized for several years to come.Dr. Robert Bachman, chief of fisheries for the Department of Natural Resources, said yesterday the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission unanimously approved extended seasons and creel limits for rockfish. However, he said, the state legislature still must approve the changes.

WASHINGTON -- The media are missing a scandal because the media are the scandal. They are complicit with the portion of the political class currently attempting to impose on the public, in the name of campaign finance reform, speech restrictions of the sort from which the media are immune.But the rationale for this immunity, as explained by the Supreme Court in the First Amendment case most cherished by the media, refutes the argument for the campaign reforms most of the media favor.The Senate is currently debating the McCain-Feingold bill to ban "soft money" contributions to political parties.

MY HUSBAND was packing for a three-week business trip to the other side of the world, and my bottom lip would have been trembling with tears if if my jaw had not been clenched in resentment.His trips always put me in that twilight between sadness and anger, and he knows it. He was defensive as he packed."This is my job," he said, needlessly reminding me."I know," I said. "But it would never be my job."He was confused by what I said, and I let it go. It was not the right time for a sociological lecture from me. My husband, my friend and my backup driver were leaving, and I didn't want to spoil the bittersweet goodbyes.

Dick returns to his San Francisco hotel room one day and finds his $1,100 leather jacket missing.Jane checks into a Denver hotel, realizes she's running late, and rushes back out to dinner, leaving her $2,000 watch on a bedside table instead of placing it in a hotel safe.The jacket vanishes. The watch goes missing. What, if anything, do these hotels owe Dick and Jane? If he's lucky, Dick gets $250. Jane, however, is probably out of luck altogether.These are hypothetical cases. But they point toward some underappreciated rules of thumb when it comes to American hotels and a traveler's possessions.

The Lima (Ohio) News said in an editorial Wednesday:ASUPREME Court decision last week is being hailed as a victory for people who are infected by the HIV virus that causes AIDS. But the 5-4 decision, stating that HIV is a disability covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act, is another in an endless string of federal "civil rights" expansions that undermine our individual freedoms and personal choices.When the ADA was being debated in Congress, supporters emphasized it was limited in scope, and was needed mainly to assure access to public facilities by handicapped people.

THE HORSESHOE crab is a natural wonder, dating back a half-billion years, with a marvelous biological clock that dramatically changes its vision between night and day.The creature's appearance is a sign of spring along Delaware Bay, where the olive-brown arthropods mate and lay an abundance of eggs in the sand on large stretches of beaches.Those eggs, in turn, attract a million migrating birds, who fatten up on the rich food before continuing to the Arctic.It's a cycle of nature that is repeated each year.

IMAGINE A PLACE where the economy is based on preserving incredible natural beauty and supplying some of the world's tastiest food.Imagine a place where the people voluntarily limit how much they take from their environment and where the number of vehicles is strictly controlled.Imagine further that almost no new homes can be built -- and when one is, it goes affordably to working members of the community, rather than to millionaires seeking summer places.With limits, limits, limits -- on everything from how rich you can get, to picking wildflowers and smoking in the forests -- such a place sounds downright un-American.

WASHINGTON - - Already facing public and political ire for their gold-plated pay packages, top executives at the seven companies that have received the most bailout money soon will see their compensation slashed under a plan to be announced as early as today by the Obama administration. The 25 highest-paid executives at the companies would have their salaries and cash bonuses cut by an average of about 90 percent from what they received last year, according to people familiar with the decision.

More than a quarter-century ago, the governors of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, along with the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, agreed to a partnership to restore the Chesapeake Bay. Since then, the federal role in that partnership has been helpful but all too limited, with states left to do much of the heavy regulatory lifting on their own. That looks to be changing, and none too soon, given the Chesapeake Bay's compromised...

When the Ravens open the preseason against the Washington Redskins tonight, fans at M&T Bank Stadium will welcome a new defensive coordinator, another highly touted first-round draft pick and perhaps a different quarterback. Last season, it was Joe Cool who led the Ravens to the AFC championship game. But at this year's training camp, Fiery Flacco has surprisingly surfaced at times. One day after not reading the defense properly, Flacco walked to the sideline and threw down his helmet in frustration.

A bill intended to help speed construction of lower-priced homes in Howard County by exempting them from some growth-control restraints might be tabled or delayed further, according to its prime sponsor. The measure, supported by a chorus of affordable-housing advocates at the council's public hearing Dec. 15, has run into criticism from two County Council members. Fulton Republican Greg Fox and Ellicott City Democrat Courtney Watson worry that by exempting lower-priced homes from the county's complex housing allocation system, the bill could open the door to further erosion of growth limits.

Maryland plans to limit the blue crab catch again next year in hopes of replenishing the Chesapeake Bay's crustaceans, state officials announced yesterday. But they also said they're tweaking the catch rules in an effort to spread the economic pain more evenly among the state's watermen. The proposed restrictions, drafted in cooperation with Virginia officials, are aimed at maintaining a 34 percent reduction in the catch of female crabs for a second year so they can reproduce. To protect female crabs, Maryland's Department of Natural Resources plans to set daily limits on how many watermen can catch, and to ban catching females altogether for periods in the spring and fall.

No Limits: The Will to Succeed By Michael Phelps with Alan Abrahamson Simon and Schuster / 240 pages / $26 As the Beijing Olympics grow smaller and smaller in our rearview mirrors, you might want to ask yourself these questions before you pick up Michael Phelps' autobiography, No Limits, which comes out this week: What is there left to say about Phelps' phenomenal performance in Beijing that hasn't already been said? And if there is anything left to be said, how can it be told in a way that is more than just a quickie, post-Olympics update that rehashes his life story and weaves it into a first-person narrative?

O'Malley open to changing campaign contribution rules Gov. Martin O'Malley indicated yesterday that he would be open to raising campaign contribution limits and possibly closing a campaign-finance loophole that allows big donors to avoid the limits. Under state law, an individual or business may give no more than $4,000 to a candidate during a four-year election cycle and no more than $10,000 total in that period. Some donors have gotten around those regulations by giving through separate but related limited-liability companies.

Maryland natural resources officials proposed new crabbing rules yesterday that were not as strict as watermen had feared, but will disproportionately hurt crabbers on the Lower Eastern Shore. The state is proposing to close the blue crab season for harvesting females Oct. 23 - about seven weeks early. That's the time of year that many Lower Shore watermen have enjoyed big catches because females are migrating down the Chesapeake Bay to spawn. It's also a busy time for the state's remaining crab-picking houses, which buy much of the female crab meat and pack it for shipping around the country.

Imagine letting perfect strangers order you around, mess with your head and demand that you do stupid, demeaning things just so they can laugh at you. After a while, even the most compliant souls would likely rebel. But not Rebecca Nagle, a sweet-faced, 21-year-old senior at the Maryland Institute College of Art, who's given new meaning to the phrase video on demand. If you go Rebecca Nagel's Fifteen Minutes starts Sunday and runs through April 11 at the Bunting Center, 1401 Mount Royal Ave. Hours are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Saturday; noon to 5 p.m. Sunday.

As he signed into law legislation requiring the first increase in fuel-efficiency standards in three decades, President Bush waxed on so enthusiastically Wednesday about federal mandates to curb the greenhouse gases that contribute to global climate warming he sounded like a convert to the cause. Alas, it was a feint. Within hours, the Bush administration used the new fuel-efficiency standards as an excuse to deny California, Maryland and more than a dozen other states the authority to set limits on tailpipe emissions.