Editorials from around Pennsylvania

At least two of Northwest Airlines pilots won't have to worry about crew scheduling now that the government has clipped their wings after they flew 150 miles past their destination.

The Federal Aviation Administration has revoked the licenses of pilots Timothy Cheney of Gig Harbor, Wash., the captain, and Richard Cole of Salem, Ore., the first officer, after the pair told investigators they were working on their personal laptop computers on flight-crew scheduling while flying a jet with 144 passengers from San Diego to Minneapolis.

The jet was out of radio communications with air traffic controllers for 91 minutes, despite repeated efforts to contact the pilots. The pilots said they weren't listening to the radio or watching flight displays as the plane was on autopilot.

That's totally unacceptable, and the FAA is right to move to revoke their licenses, saying their actions were a dereliction and disregard of their duties.

Not only do such actions pose a potential danger to the passengers and crew, imagine what could have happened if our nation had a situation like the Sept. 11 attacks, in which it is not known how many jets had been hijacked by terrorists. The failure to communicate could have precipitated drastic action.

As it was, National Guard fighter jets were put on alert because of the failure to reach the Northwest jet for an extended period.

Fortunately, a flight attendant used the intercom to get the pilots to resume paying attention to flying the plane after they failed to take steps to prepare to land.

The pilots may not have intended to do anything wrong, but becoming so distracted for such an extended period should permanently keep them out of the cockpit. That will serve as a warning to others to make sure their attention is on the plane when they are in the pilots' seats.

-Altoona Mirror.

FOLLOW THE MONEY

Pennsylvania continues to be the perfect laboratory to test Michael Kinsley's theory of political scandal: The scandal isn't what's illegal; it's what's legal.

The Times-Tribune of Scranton recently took a look at the campaign finance funds of state Sen. Robert Mellow, the leader of Senate Democrats, since Jan. 1, 2000. It counted 533 checks for more than $188,000 written to "cash" from Mellow's campaign committee. That an average of around $352.72 per check.

To put that into perspective, that $188,000 represents about 6.5 percent of the more than $2.9 million campaign committee disbursed from Jan. 1, 2000, to Oct. 19, 2009. That's $6.50 for every $100 the committee spent for which there is no paper trail.

And it's all perfectly legal, according to Mellow and state officials.

The Associated Press reported that although Pennsylvania's campaign finance law requires that campaign finance reports to the state include the date and recipient of each expenditure, along with their purpose, state officials who regulate campaign financing told the newspaper that they typically do not treat small individual payments as violations.

Mellow cited a random 2006 audit carried out by a Harrisburg firm that studied six months of spending by his campaign committee. State officials said it raised no concerns about the practice.

This is incredible - anywhere but Pennsylvania, which has a campaign finance law that gives new meaning to the word "loophole."

It's certainly impossible to imagine this happening in the business world. What company would allow employees to use 6.5 percent of its revenue and not have them account for how the money was spent? Yet under Pennsylvania's campaign finance law, at least the way in which it is interpreted now, it's perfectly legal

Mellow contends "Every dime of it has been spent properly," and we'll take him at his word.

However, there is something seriously wrong with a campaign finance law that allows this much money to be unaccounted for. Some states, including California and New York, allow cash payments of $100 or less. However, they also require that all recipients be identified.

Given all the political scandals in Harrisburg, campaign finance reform would be a start toward establishing a much-needed level of trust between elected officials and the electorate.

-Beaver County Times.

DON'T PANIC OVER FLU SHOTS

It wasn't exactly like the food riot scene in the sci-fi classic "Soylent Green."

But when police had to be summoned to a drive-through flu shot clinic at a church in New Freedom to calm some people who had grown impatient with the wait, the situation hinted at the scene in which large numbers of people run amok trying to obtain a vital commodity.

Southern York County Regional Police Chief James Childs - an imposing figure at 6-foot-8 - went to the scene at St. John Evangelical Lutheran Church to calm people down. He reported, "I think the problem was more people came out than expected."

Indeed. In sleepy little New Freedom, the line snaked through the borough streets. More than 400 people lined up. When a car broke down in the line, causing a backup, people became frustrated and angry, believing that others were cutting in line ahead of them. Chief Childs said he had to warn one man that his angry, belligerent and profane behavior might lead to a citation if he didn't calm down.

The situation had the potential to get ugly. Thankfully, Chief Childs was able to calm things down.

But it does illustrate the current panic surrounding flu shots, particularly vaccinations that offer immunity to the H1N1 virus, which causes the swine flu.

The widely held belief is that there is a shortage of flu vaccine. That's not precisely the case. The problem is in the distribution. The urgency behind producing H1N1 vaccine led to delays in production of seasonal flu vaccine, said Joanne Sullivan, nursing supervisor for the York City Health Bureau. There may be a temporary shortage, but vaccine will be available once production catches up to demand.

At this point, it's not a catastrophe. We are not in the midst of a civilization-threatening pandemic. We are not even in the prime time for flu season.

Everybody just needs to calm down a little.

There's just not a lot we can do about it right now.

Yes, there are problems with how we manufacture vaccine in this country, a process that hasn't changed in years despite huge advances in technology. Compounding that is the fact that pharmaceutical companies invest much more money into drugs that can generate maximum profits than vaccines necessary to ensuring public health.

Those are issues that should be addressed in the near future. And the current problems should be considered a learning experience to improve such systems in the future - a sort of "dry run" for when a pandemic becomes a true state of emergency.

And the scene in New Freedom leaves us a bit concerned about how people will react in such a worst-case scenario.

For now, we can all just have some patience. If you want the vaccine, you should be able to get it. It just may take a little time.

-York Daily Record/Sunday News.