Appearing each Saturday," All Thumbs "is The Benton County Daily Record's take on the people, events and issues deserving a "thumbs up "for a noteworthy accomplishment or good deed or a "thumbs down "for magnificent failure or just general stupidity.
Thumbs up to congressional approval last week of a bill that would prohibit discrimination by health insurers and employers based on information obtained through genetic testing.
As this law indicates, ours is a rapidly changing world. The laws must change with it.
Thumbs down to the continued rise of gasoline prices, in Arkansas and around the country. The statewide average for a gallon of regular gasoline climbed past $ 3. 50 last week, while the national average reached $ 3. 623 - a new record.
Some analysts think prices have reached their peak for 2008. We'll wait and see - while hoping for the best.
Thumbs up to Republican presidential nominee-inwaiting John McCain for recently coming out in support of a federal Shield Law for reporters.
"The Shield Law is frankly a license to do harm, perhaps serious harm, but it is also a license to do good," McCain told an annual meeting of the Associated Press.
In a society built largely on the free flow of information, the potential for good must be promoted and protected.
Thumbs down to the conflict between Carroll Electric and residents of several subdivisions bordered by West Drive in Rogers, where Carroll is planning to install a set of aboveground power lines. The residents would prefer that those lines be buried.
We don't expect any of the parties in this dispute to come away completely satisfied. But here's hoping a compromise of some kind can be reached.
Thumbs down to the tax statements recently mailed by Benton County Tax Collector Greg Hoggatt, which Tax Assessor Bill Moutray has described as incomplete. In a letter last week, Moutray pointed out what some taxpayers had no doubt already discovered - that the statements were missing some key pieces of information.
The letter read, in part: "Items that are missing on the tax statements are: no legal description of real estate; no mention of real or personal property; no homestead credits. Plus the year ought to be 2007 … not 2008."
Hoggatt and Moutray differ on whose fault this was - but it sounds to us like Hoggatt's office needs a proofreader, at the very least.
Thumbs up to the arrival last week of the first wave of tax-rebate checks, issued as part of the government's economic-stimulus package. We hope they help.
We also hope the president and Congress don't stop there in looking for ways to address the current economic downturn.
Thumbs up to Mike Huckabee for his observation that Barack Obama's former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, can't afford for Obama to be elected president.
"Jeremiah Wright needs for Obama to lose so he can justify his anger, his hostile bitterness against the United States of America," the former Arkansas governor and recent GOP presidential candidate recently opined.
Who knows if Huckabee's read is accurate. But who knows anything about Wright and his antics ?
Huckabee's theory makes as much sense as anything else we've heard.
Thumbs down to Bryant resident Jeannie Burlsworth for accusing Attorney General Dustin McDaniel of having "another political agenda"after McDaniel rejected a proposed initiated act meant to cut state services to illegal aliens.
The attorney general can't reject proposed initiatives based on their merits. Rather, his office is charged with vetting initiatives to make sure they aren't written in a way that might confuse or mislead voters.
McDaniel has said the problem with this act is its language. There seems no reason to think - or allege - otherwise.
Thumbs down to political candidates, at the local, state and national levels, who run as agents of change without going to the trouble of describing what changes need to be made.
We're all for change, when it's change for the better - and very often, where government is concerned, almost any change would be for the better.
But to simply repeat the word "change"as a mantra is to take voters for fools.
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