Should San Diegans pay a staggering $4.5 billion for the privilege of drinking treated sewage water from their faucets? City Attorney Mike Aguirre believes they should. What's more, he hopes to persuade federal regulators to require San Diego to adopt his enormously costly and wildly unpopular toilet-to-tap program.

For Barrio Logan, eight years of problems stemming from the city's winter homeless shelter are enough. No other neighborhood wants the winter shelter, either. Not the Navy. Not Balboa Park, although it already serves as a gathering place for quite a few homeless.

The hugely important federal education reform law, No Child Left Behind, has been controversial from the beginning. As such, it has always been in need of strong shepherding through the political process. Luckily, it has that. The law has a watchful and resolute protector in U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spelling.