Courier-Post, Cherry Hill, N.J., on people cited repeatedly for driving while intoxicated: Judges must send drunken drivers who do not change their ways to prison for long terms.

No matter how many times they're arrested; no matter how many times their licenses are suspended or they are forced into substance abuse programs, some people will just never stop drinking and driving.

With these people, the only thing to do is to put them in prison for a long time, long enough to make sure they never put the rest of us at risk again.

This month, a man died and his wife and daughter were seriously injured because a habitual drunken driver got behind the wheel again. ...

Judges in the United States need to start handing down the kinds of prison sentences -- 10 years, 20 years, even life -- that fit for people who clearly won't change their ways and stop drinking and driving.

They need to be punished for flouting the law, but more so, the rest of us need to be protected

License suspensions, short stays in jail, rehab programs and community service just aren't cutting it for some of these offenders.

Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader, on a reforestation initiative:

Only God can make a tree.

But 2,000 workers, earning $18.75 an hour, could make a forest from the barren wastelands left by the coal industry in Central Appalachia.

This vision of reforesting a region and replenishing watersheds, while reviving local economies and creating sources of renewable energy, is not pie in the sky.

It's a near "shovel ready" plan developed by scientists at the University of Kentucky and Virginia Tech and by government reclamation experts who have mud on their boots from 30 years of inspecting strip mines.

All that stands between their vision and reality: $422 million.

This is a worthy mission that deserves support from Congress, the Obama administration, state governments and the coal industry.

The Appalachian Regional Reforestation Initiative is also a perfect fit for President Barack Obama's vision of retooling the economy by developing renewable energy to achieve energy independence and reverse global warming.

In the process, green jobs would be created in a region that desperately needs any kind of jobs. ...

Chicago Tribune, on the war in Afghanistan:

Gen. Stanley McChrystal recently delivered a 66-page report filled with blunt warnings and a fresh strategy to win the war in Afghanistan. That report, disclosed by The Washington Post, is a bracing read: The insurgent threat -- and violence in the country -- is growing. Afghan forces are weak and outnumbered. More resources -- including more American troops -- must be sent, or NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could lose the war. ...

President Barack Obama seems to be trying to buy time for this decision on a big hike in troop levels. But he doesn't have a lot of time. Large numbers of troops can't be deployed overnight. And McChrystal says the next 12 months are crucial.

His report is sure to provoke a vigorous debate, with some Americans eager to scramble more soldiers, and others insistent that enough is enough.

Whatever Obama's decision, the stakes are immense. Afghanistan isn't some far-off spat with few implications for the U.S. and other societies. ... The U.S. and NATO badly need to win this war. That is not just a military challenge, but a human one as well. ...

(Sept. 30, 2009)