• Common sense on severance
Public outrage over bloated severance packages awarded to some school administrators prompted the state Education Department this summer to set new rules allowing it to veto future golden parachutes.

• More money and mistrust
Once again Gov. Jon Corzine has opened his checkbook to solve a personal problem, and once again he's left the public wondering whether he's hiding something.

• Enough grousing about tolls
Here's a succinct message for those whining about the toll increases on the Turnpike and the Parkway: Get over it.

• Where terror must be fought
The first job of President-elect Barack Oba ma's new foreign policy-national security team is to confront the fact that Pakistan is ground zero in the war ahead on Islamist terrorism. Indeed, the war may be won or lost in that chaotic country.

• A stimulus plan that will pay
As most of the nation's governors and its president- and vice president-elect meet in Philadelphia today to talk about the economic crisis, they seem to be in agreement on at least one big piece of a stimulus program.

• Ask the right questions about a Horizon switch ...
There is uneasiness in some circles about what will happen if the not-for-profit Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield, New Jersey's largest health insurer, converts to a for-profit company as planned.

• ... and about ailing hospitals
In recent weeks, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield has had particularly contentious negotiations with several hospitals in its managed care network.

• Grown-ups and the gas tax
The minority Republicans in the state Senate had half a point the other day when they blasted Gov. Jon Corzine for selling a boatload of back-loaded bonds for transportation projects.

• Nothing to fall back on
The grasshoppers never learn.

• Strength in volunteering
One of the most striking moments at the Republican conven tion this summer came when a parade of speakers, most prominently Rudy Giuliani, ridiculed Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama as a "community organizer."

• Pack it in and save
Some die-hard smokers have kept on puffing despite the risk of cancer and heart disease, wrinkles and yellow teeth, despite the laws that force them out into the cold if they want to smoke at work -- or just about anyplace else.

• No public jobs for pols
Before he was convicted on corruption charges last week, former state senator Wayne Bryant employed a variant on the "everyone does it" defense. The Camden County Democrat argued that he was far from the only Trenton politician to have a public job with convenient hours.

• A detente with the Clintons
Both as candidate and as president-elect, Barack Obama has stressed his intention to reach out to the opposition in a bid to end the bitter partisan wrangling in Washington.

• The American way of giving thanks
Thanksgiving has from the beginning been the most American of all holidays, and its roots are as simple as they are deep.

• Painful lesson in Nebraska
Last week Nebraska's legislature finally patched a gaping hole in a law that was supposed to prevent infant deaths by allowing distressed women to leave their newborns at hospitals.

• Openness on investments
Trust is a commodity in extremely short supply these days, especially in the financial markets. As it becomes increasingly obvi ous that the Wall Street know-it-alls really didn't know what they were doing, the idea that anybody should be willing to blindly ac cept what money managers say is, well, quaint.

• Obama's economic signal
To his credit, President- elect Barack Obama has acted swiftly -- perhaps earlier than he would have preferred -- to at least partially fill the economic void in Washington created by a lame-duck national administration at a critical moment.

• Business gets a boost
The list of good things that James E. McGreevey did as governor is short. At the top is this: He resigned.

• Retire this pension plan
No one has ever accused Jon Corzine of being a master of timing, but he outdid himself on Thursday.

• Retire this pension plan
No one has ever accused Jon Corzine of being a master of timing, but he outdid himself on Thursday.

• Cutting off college presidents
More than 100 college presidents, at least three from New Jersey, have signed a petition calling for a reasoned, national debate about lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18.

• Cutting off college presidents
More than 100 college presidents, at least three from New Jersey, have signed a petition calling for a reasoned, national debate about lowering the legal drinking age from 21 to 18.

• At sixes and sevens on a Big Three bailout
To bail out or not to bail out -- that is the question. Whether'tis wiser to pour federal cash into the Big Three auto companies or leave them to the mercies of the bankruptcy courts.

• The decade of disaster that began in Dallas
Some great dates in history live longer in a nation's institutional memory than do others. Today, Nov. 22, is one of them.

• Failed leadership at Rutgers University
The scandals in the Rutgers University athletic department revolve around big-money contracts -- up to $2 million a year -- for the football coach, Greg Schiano, who has limped to a 5-5 record so far this year, after a less- than-$2-million-worthy 1-5 start.