The Wall Street Journal today reveals yet another reasonwhy federal legislation is needed to beef up food safety in this country: the Nestle USA plant in Virginia had a history over the past five years of refusing to let Food and Drug Administration inspectors view their records on consumer complaints, pest control and other safety issues.

That would be the same plant that produced the Toll House cookie dough implicated in an outbreak of illness cause by E. coli. Food companies aren't obliged to show their records to inspectors. Some do, others don't.

The so-overdue bill to give the FDA the authority it should have had from the start -- as well as step up inspections and allow the FDA to issue recalls -- recently won the unanimous support of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, but Republicans (heeding the complaints of the food and agribusiness industries) have been weakening it all along the way.

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

The Times editorial page today points out that General Motors' bankruptcy filing is a chance to make a formal, forceful break with a history of inferior workmanship and design that has tattered its reputation. The public is willing to forgive a car company for its financial failings, but only if it makes cars people want to buy.

We also weigh in on the murder of Dr. George Tiller, which is being used by pro-choice groups as an opportunity to bash abortion opponents -- suggesting that the responsibility for his death is shared by the entire pro-life movement. Some arguments from anti-abortion groups are thinly veiled incitements to violence, but "it's unfair to ask abortion activists to muffle their message because it might inspire an unbalanced individual to commit an atrocity."

Finally, we note that the election of Mauricio Funes as president of El Salvador, who represents a party that was once a Marxist guerrilla group that fought for 12 years against U.S.-backed governments, isn't quite the grim news for American interests that it may appear. Funes is an admirer of President Barack Obama who has stocked his cabinet with economic pragmatists.

On the Op-Ed page, columnist Jonah Goldberg says the hubbub over Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's statements about her superior wisdom as a Latina gives liberals the chance to have that dialogue on race they're always saying they want to begin -- yet they're running away from the issue as fast as they can.

Robert Satloff, executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, gives President Obama some tips about what to say and do during his Middle Eastern trip. Such as: Don't fall for the illusion that there's such thing as the "Muslim world," and focus instead on practical country-by-country strategies.

Finally, Gina M. Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, bemoans the Schwarzenegger administration's proposal to shut down a small state agency -- the Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment -- that costs next to nothing to run but that has made dramatic strides in protecting Californians from dangerous chemicals.

Thomas Starr King, looking for bus fare (Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP)

Federal support was vital to keep General Motors running, the Times editorial board notes today, but the government and its taxpayers should not become the long-term owners of the automaker:

[J]ust as taxpayers are reluctant investors, GM would be far better off with no government ownership. There are just too many conflicts between what the country's political leaders want to accomplish and GM's need to make a profit. The feds' support has been crucial to keeping GM running while it struggles to reorganize along the lines demanded by the Obama administration. But once it gets through this process, the best thing the administration can do for the company is to sell it to someone else.

The board applauds President Obama's time-out on road-building in national forests and calls for more steps to preserve and maintain the forests, including chipping away at a backlog of deferred maintenance. And as the terrorist group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia turns 45, the board observes that U.S. efforts have made a difference in Colombia, though the South American nation is still short of a clear turning point.

On the other side of the fold, Jack Cheevers bemoans the imminent ousting of a statue of Thomas Starr King from the U.S. Capitol, to be replaced by a sculpture of Ronald Reagan. King was a charismatic San Francisco minister who helped keep California in the Union in the days before the Civil War, and his contributions deserve to be remembered, Cheevers writes. And Donald Kirk, author of two books on Korean issues, warns that the Proliferation Security Initiative, intended to monitor and possibly blockade shipments of war-related materiel to and from rogue nations, would not be enough to curb the actions of North Korea.

Photo of Thomas Starr King statue by Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP

The Times editorial board gives a qualified "no" today to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposal to sell some of the state's real estate. The idea might be worth considering, the editorial board concludes, but it's not going to help with the state's current financial crisis. It would take years to complete Schwarzenegger's proposed sales of such iconic properties as San Quentin and the Memorial Coliseum, which would have to go for bargain prices in today's market, anyway.

The board applauds Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Christine Varney's pledge to hold big business to a tougher antitrust standard than the previous administration did, and points to the European Commission's fine on Intel as an example of how such standards might play out. As for former Vice President Dick Cheney and former Cuban President Fidel Castro, both of whom have been busily talking up the policies of yesterday while trying to forestall the progress of new administrations, the advice goes more like: You worked hard, now take a break. Spend more time with your family. And for heaven's sake, quiet, already.

On the other side of the fold, author Lisa Sweetingham, a Manny Ramirez fan brought up short by his suspension for violating baseball's drug rules, reviews the reasons why so many athletes -- and so many others -- have taken hormones and "accessory" medications. And environmental activist Bill McKibben writes that the combined might of environment groups is still too small to push faster government action on global warming. That, he says, will take grassroots action of the type his 350.org group is promoting.

Illustration by Patrick O'Connor for the Times

Or at least, that's how it seems to me. After meeting with the angry attorneys general of Connecticut, Illinois and Missouri, Craigslist has decided to end its "erotic services" ad section and replace it with an "adult services" section. Ostensibly this new feature is for adults who don't want to do erotic things. You know, they'll be hooking up to do the Sunday crossword puzzle together.

Craigslist's new policy comes in the wake of the death of a masseuse in a Boston hotel room and an assault on another woman in Rhode Island; the 23-year-old medical school student charged in the murder allegedly had responded to the victims' ads on the site.

New ads will cost $10 and will be manually approved by Craigslist before being posted. How this will prevent a "masseuse" from posting an ad and meeting a strange man in a hotel for, let's say, an innocent back rub isn't clear to me. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says he'll be watching to see the change really does eliminate prostitution and pornography, so we'll see.

According to cnn.com, last year Craigslist added some safeguards to the erotic services section, including requiring a verified credit card number and a phone number from people participating in the world's biggest brothel. The changes still relied on Craigslist users to police the site, however, which wasn't enough for Cook County (Ill.) Sheriff Tom Dart, who sued Craigslist in March for facilitating prostitution. The company has argued that the changes it made last year were successful, reducing the amount of illegal services being advertised and making it easier for police to enforce vice laws. It also has argued that Craigslist users are responsible for fewer violent crimes than, say, readers of newspaper classifieds. Besides, its executives said, the federal Communications Decency Act immunized it from liability because it acted as a conduit for information posted by its users. By actively reviewing the adult ads submitted to its site, the company may be putting its immunity in jeopardy.

Help me out here. Will this change really make a difference in Craigslist's ads? Or is something better than nothing?

Paging Laura Chick.

I know, she's already got her hands full as the inspector general for the $50 billion or so in federal stimulus money coming to California.

But as she quoted someone to me in my Q and A column earlier, ''If you're not indignant, you're not paying attention.''

So pay attention, and see what you think:

My Sacramento colleague Evan Halper writes that every time any of us buys a gallon of gas, we pay nearly a penny and a half into an environmental fund intended to help small companies clean up their messy energy footprint. The mess is from service stations' underground storage tanks leaking fuel into the groundwater,

Rather than let these small businesses go broke cleaning it up, the state set up a fund 20 years ago to help the little gas-station guys and gals clean up after themselves.  

So how has that been working? Well, of the nearly $2.5 billion collected over two decades, nearly a half-billion has gone to homey little businesses such as ... Exxon. And Shell. And 7-Eleven, which has more gas pumps than, to use my great-grandfather's phrase, Carter has liver pills. It seems from Evan Halper's story that the big guys have shoved into line with their big mitts outstretched, and they've gotten the big checks.

That made me think of something I heard last year, when I was writing about DNA and the one-drop rule during Barack Obama's run for the White House. A DNA specialist told me offhandedly about a multi-millionaire businessman, a successful Caucasian guy who decided for fun to have his DNA tested. He found something he hadn't known -- that he had a fraction of native American blood. Not much, but it was the minimum amount required to claim native American status and glom onto a chunk of money set aside to encourage struggling young native American-owned businesses, not thriving businesses run by white guys who had gone most of their lives without a clue as to their small piece of aboriginal American heritage. And glom onto it he did.

It sounds like something of the same is happening here. Money that the author of the law creating the fund says he meant especially for small businesses is being vacuumed up by big energy firms with the big lawyers and the big accountants and the big lobbying firms and the big campaign contributions to make the law and lawmakers serve them, and not the other way around. These are the same companies, Evan Halper writes, that fight gas taxes -- which are used primarily for the road projects that sustain demand for the companies' gasoline. The small companies don't have that kind of money; they're supposed to be able instead to look to lawmakers to even the playing field, in this and in other matters affecting small businesses.

So, in the face of behavior like this, is it any wonder people have so little faith in some of the lawmakers who seem to pay only lip service to the ''little guy'' who pays them?           

No one was surprised when it turned out the majority of 19 banks undergoing "stress tests" needed more money. While the editorial board is sorry about their stress, it also says we need a few more rules here before the federal government shells about billions more in rescue funding.

Companies whose solvency is implicitly guaranteed by the government don't have to pay as much for the money they borrow to fund their operations, giving them a competitive advantage, and they're more cavalier about risk. So they have a strong incentive to become so complex and interconnected that the government will be compelled to bail them out if they stumble again.

Our relief that the flu unfairly named for pigs looks much less deadly than first suspected should not stop the government from instituing some common-sense policy changes that will help slow the spread of such disease in the future. the board says, such as requiring employers to provide paid sick time to every employee so that people in contagious phases of illness will stay home. And the board takes a moment to envy the French who not only eat more brie, drink more wine, stay slimmer and work less, but also get more shut-eye. At least, that's what we think they meant when they said they sleep more.

On the other side of the fold, a pediatrician and a professor of education urge voters not to approve Proposition 1D, which would cut funds for pediatric medical care and preschool for the youngest Californians. Former Times columnist Mike Downey mourns the loss of L.A.'s collective baseball happiness this season after Manny Ramirez was suspended for 50 games, discipline for taking a banned female fertility drug.

He apologized to everybody in Southern California except the octomom, the topless Miss USA contestant, Steve Lopez and the dude with the cello.

And Kapil Komireddi, an Indian writer whgo specializes in South Asian affairs calls on the U.S. government to safeguard Pakistant's nuclear weapons arsenal as well as offer the country humanitarian aid.

Credit: Lisa Benson / Washington Post Writers Group

Harsh words for former and current Republicans in today's Letters to the editor.

First, La Verne's Mitchell Harris slams Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter for switching to the Democratic party.  He writes:

Sen. Arlen Specter is becoming a Democrat because he can only win reelection as a Democrat.

Wow. Talk about raw moral courage. Remember John F. Kennedy's book, "Profiles in Courage"? It was about senators Kennedy admired because they did what they thought was right -- no matter the cost. Maybe somebody should send a copy to Specter.

Most of the Democrats I know are Democrats because they agree with the positions of the Democratic Party. Not Specter. Belief, conviction, ideals be damned. His party affiliation is based strictly on whatever advances his political power.

At least he's honest (or stupid) enough to admit he's unprincipled.

The Times also heard from dozens of readers who disliked the pairing, on Tuesday's Opinion pages, of pieces by conservatives Jonah Goldberg and James Kirchick.  David Salahi, of Laguna Niguel, offers a typical sentiment:

Tuesday on the Op-Ed page, James Kirchick castigates President Obama for his "obsequious behavior" and Jonah Goldberg takes him to task for his "arrogance" and "hubris."

I never could understand the thinking of the far right. Now I'm beginning to wonder if they understand their own thinking.

In any case, Kirchick gets it wrong when he lambastes Obama for apologizing to countries around the world. The U.S. has a lot of apologizing to do for our numerous offenses under the Bush administration, including waging an unwarranted war and torture.

Obama needs to make a clear break with the blustering unilateralism of the previous administration to regain the support of other countries.

 But a few readers liked the Op-Eds, including Mike MacDonald, of North Hills:

Is there a chance the Obama-hugging media can actually see what is going on?

The Obama administration's direction is appallingly anti-American. The apology tour was a disgrace. The appointment of tax evaders was pathetic. The hand in the management change at General Motors was socialism in America. The unbelievable spending will result in skyrocketing taxes for years and years.

Thank you, Times, for the two down-to-earth pieces. Let's get this Obama honeymoon over with. I've got to get back to work. There are taxes to pay.

Clearing the air about trucking, Pontiac's demise, and memories of Vietnam, too.

Photo: President Obama and Sen. Specter on Wednesday.  Credit: Mannie Garcia/Bloomberg News.

Free-marketers like to talk about health-care reform in terms of empowering consumers to spend their dollars in more efficient ways -- for example, by letting them see what different doctors and hospitals charge for the same procedure, and how their results vary. Paying more doesn't guarantee getting better health care; in fact, there may be no relationship at all. Just look at the United States, which spends far more than any other country on health care but still trails in some key indicators.

But the wide variation in the cost of health care also creates opportunities for those willing to travel in search of a better deal. And now, the nation's largest health insurer, WellPoint, is starting to pay their way.

WellPoint is conducting a pilot with Serigraph Inc., a specialty graphics company with operations in Wisconsin, Mexico and Asia, that gives U.S. employees the option to travel to India to have surgery on a non-emergency basis, said WellPoint's Paul McBride, vice president of health care management and services. McBride was speaking at a panel on health-care economics at the Milken Institute's Global Conference today in Beverly Hills. The India option makes sense for Serigraph, McBride said, given that a number of its employees come from that country. The cost of care is about 80% lower, largely because of dramatically lower charges for labor, drugs and medical devices, McBride said. Yet he contended that the results of the care were at least as good.

One conference attendee -- Dr. Sally Andriamiarisoa, vice president of advancement at Riverside Community Health Foundation -- questioned the morality of the arrangement, arguing that the U.S. shouldn't be consuming other countries' scarce health resources. Andiamiarisoa, who is from the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius, said the practice wasn't fair to countries that, to conserve their meager health-care dollars, do much more to promote wellness than the United States does.

But the globalizing health-care industry is already positioning itself to take advantage of the national differences in treatment costs. McBride said Apollo Hospitals, India's largest health-care delivery system, is actively seeking deals with insurers in higher-cost countries to attract patients from overseas. He couldn't say whether Apollo was trying to fill excess capacity or simply increase profit margins.

There has long been a global market for cosmetic surgery, with patients traveling far and wide for deals on liposuction, gastric bypasses and dental work. What's different now, McBride said, is that traveling for medical care is starting to move into mainstream insurance coverage. WellPoint, which is looking to expand its pilot program, is focusing on cardiac and joint-replacement surgeries that require about a two-week hospital stay. The choice to travel will be the patient's, and he or she they won't have to go to India, McBride said; there may be significant savings available from hospitals within the U.S.

Just give me a close-in parking spot for not too much money. A trot to the flight gate that doesn't feel like I'm in a walkathon. And rental cars right across the pickup area from the air terminal? Please, one hardly dreams of such a thing.

JetBlue has decided to stay at Long Beach airport after all, after earlier saying it might cut flights there because the airport hasn't made upgrades on time, including new waiting areas.

Now, I'll admit, I've seen better snack bars, but overall, I wonder if airline executives tend to see things the same way as their customers do.

Long Beach is a treasure for the nostalgic, a funky, tiny terminal where the long-term parking is less than a tenth of a mile from the terminal, and the walk to the gates from the front of the terminal is shorter than many a suburban lot. This place doesn't buzz, it doesn't hum, and it isn't packed with homicidal drivers backed up for a mile. Not to mention it offers the chance to climb the stairs to your plane like you're a 1930s movie star.

The agreement probably means changes are in store for the airport in the not-distant future. That might be a sad day. I'll be the one clinging to her leatherette seat in the tacky portable-building waiting area.

Photo: Mark Lennihan/AP