• End angioplasty experiment
The distasteful scent of a foregone conclusion hangs over what is sup posed to be a question: Should New Jersey's health commis sioner, Heather Howard, let 12 hospitals do non-emergency coronary angioplasty even though they do not have cardiac surgery programs on site to rescue patients if something goes wrong?

• The celebutante strikes back
Even out of the mouths of babes, sense can emerge.

• Paying for police protection
The new state budget gives the 89 communities that rely on State Police for some or all of their police protection a tough deadline. They have until Dec. 15 to pay the state for the service or to hire some other town's cops to do the job. No more spong ing off the state budget.

• Even politicians have rights
Politicians who violate the public trust get no sympathy here. We think they should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. A bill introduced by Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat, and Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, a Republican, however, suggests that our basic legal system be ignored.

• Setting the bar low
This could be a new definition of the low esteem in which New Jersey officials are held: We, like many we suspect, were pleased, even proud, that when pulled over for speeding, Attorney General Anne Milgram didn't pull rank on the police officer.

• A setback for primary reform
Barack Obama's decision to call for restoration of full voting rights to the members of the Florida and Michigan delegations at the Democratic national convention is what a candidate in his position would be expected to do.

• The AIDS battle at home
The scientists say there has been a mistake: Previous calcula tions that put the number of new AIDS cases in the United States each year at a steady 40,000 were wrong; better methods of pinning down the number put it at 56,300.

• An open space solution
Since 1961, New Jerseyans have consistently voted to make preserv ing open space a top public priority. They did so again last fall, approving a $200 million bond issue to continue to save open land despite the stumbling economy and even as they rejected an initiative to jump- start stem cell research here.

• Newark, a year after mayhem
One year ago, three college students were shot to death and a fourth barely survived a spasm of madness that turned a playground at Mount Vernon School in Newark into a killing field.

• Rutgers sports chief is out of bounds
Everybody loves a win ner. Maybe that ex plains why Robert Mul cahy, the Rutgers athletic czar who figured the public didn't need to know everything about how he ran the sports shop at the state university, is still being applauded for doing a good job. Mulcahy, after all, hired Greg Schiano, the football phenom who coached Rutgers into national rankings.

• A shield law held hostage
Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter is anything but a bleed ing-heart liberal. So what is he doing sponsoring legislation that would protect journalists from having to reveal confidential sources in federal courts? Protecting both the public's and the government's right to know. Just as so-called "shield" laws currently do in the courts of 49 states.

• Rescue at Montclair State
It was the kind of tantrum better suited to a junior high school student council than the student government of an enlightened university. Earlier this year, the Student Government Association of Montclair State University withdrew funding for the school's newspaper, the Montclarion, because the paper questioned the SGA's habit of holding meetings in closed session.

• The back-seat insurer
The Progressive insurance company wants to go along for the ride each time one of its policyholders gets behind the wheel. Progressive's executives aren't going to buckle up whenever one of the cars they insure backs out of the driveway, but they do want to know what happens out on the road.

• Facing 'the rise of the rest'
Despite eulogies for the Doha round of trade talks that col lapsed in Geneva earlier this week, the real news about their de mise isn't the death of world trade, even if discussions about how to regulate it might be on a long hiatus. Nor is about who is to blame for the latest Doha train wreck.

• Protect immigrant detainees
Some 32,000 immigrant detainees are being held in custody around the nation, including here in New Jersey. They are housed in privately run facilities such as one in Elizabeth as well as county jails and in detention centers run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

• Avoid overkill on Net filters
Computer filters are a useful but flawed tool. Even the best have trouble consistently separating the acceptable from the smutty, since often it's context that differentiates the two. Porn sites sometimes slip through, and legitimate sites often get blocked.

• The harm James did his city
"All my life I tried to help the city of Newark become a better place," former Newark Mayor Sharpe James told a federal judge yesterday before he was sentenced to 27 months in federal prison. "I would never do anything to hurt the city of Newark or to hurt the people of Newark," he said.

• Only ideologues need apply
The Bush administration's attempt to transform the Justice Department by using a rigid political litmus test to fill nonpoliti cal jobs was tawdry. It was illegal. And, unfortunately, it was successful.

• Fewer miles, less money
U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Pet ers yesterday announced that Americans drove nearly 10 billion fewer miles in May than they had during the same month in 2007, a decline of more than 3 percent. Good, right? Not entirely.

• Turkey's church-state fracture
Particularly since 9/11, the West has liked to see Turkey as a symbol of what a democratic Islamic country might look like. Lately that ideal seems threatened by clashes between Turkey's secular and Islamist factions that are a sobering reminder that the church-state separation -- in countries where religion has ruled -- is no easy thing.

• Can't bear to wait for stats
Statistics are a key weapon for both sides in the battle over whether New Jersey should allow a bear hunt. Hunt supporters and op ponents alike want up-to-date numbers on bear complaints and the total bruin population to use as ammunition for their policy arguments.

• The mayor's self-serving move
Orange Mayor Eldridge Hawkins Jr., who was elected after his predecessor, Mims Hackett Jr., pleaded guilty to federal bribery charges, vowed things would be different when he took office. But he's getting off to a poor start.

• Jersey's departing mainstay
New Jersey is facing a departure of significance with the announcement that pharmaceuti cal giant Hoffmann-La Roche will move its U.S. headquarters from Nutley to California after it completes its acquisition of the biotechnology firm Genen tech.

• Even an ally needs rebuke
Sen. Barack Obama's highly successful roadshow included a stop in Israel, where he worked hard to persuade skeptical Israelis -- and, perhaps more important, skeptical Jewish voters at home -- that as president he would continue to build "the historic and special relationship between the United States and Israel."

• Address the residency issue
Last year, as president of Orange Township's school board, Monique Van Wells opposed the applica tion of a charter school that wanted to locate in Orange and serve kids from other communities.

• An extraordinary lesson in life
Randy Pausch, the Carnegie Mellon computer science profes sor who delivered "The Last Lecture" of YouTube fame after he was diagnosed with incurable pancreatic cancer, died yesterday as he lived: teaching.

• Youth house reform at last
For years, the Essex County Juvenile Deten tion Center in Newark was an overcrowded hellhole. Children detained for crimes, for minor transgressions or be cause they had no place else to go were sometimes abused and not always given the health care they needed. They were often forced to compete with each other, and the roaches, for a place to sleep.

• Undue undie outrage
Yes, it is unsightly to see young men wearing pants that sag low enough to show half their underwear.

• Give Newark a (coffee) break
Starbucks built its business by recognizing that many people want more than a quick cup of coffee. Many want a coffeehouse experience, a place where they can gather to chat with friends, work on a laptop or even hear poetry.