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For tomorrow: There's a frost warning out for tonight so we might as well wrap up the regular baseball season. For Major League Baseball, attendance overall this year dropped 6.5 percent.  The great recession is being blamed for the overall loss and probably contributed to the Orioles 3.3 percent decline. Bad baseball explains the Nationals' 22.8 percent slide.

Here in the Roanoke Valley, though, stats on attendance fared better for the debut season of the Salem Red Sox. During the off season, fans are sure to debate whether to keep the controversial tarps or remove them.

They don't bother us. How about you?

Carbon monoxide poisoning can occur in any home.  Homeowners are wise to install detectors, just like they install smoke detectors. With luck, you will never need them, but they are a smart precaution.

Renters, however, are in a tougher spot. Many landlords do not install carbon monoxide detectors, leaving people at risk.

Sen John Edwards, who represents much of the New River Valley, sponsored a bill last year to require detectors in multi-family residential properties and hotels. It passed the senate with unanimous support but was bottled up in a House of Delegates committee.

In light of a carbon monoxide poisoning incident in multi-family housing in Christiansburg on Monday, we are writing an NRV Current editorial for Sunday urging the General Assembly to again take up the issue next year. If it won't require detectors statewide, it should at least empower localities to mandate them in their building code.

Happy Blasphemy Day!

Blasphemy Day marks the anniversary of a Danish Newspapers' publishing a dozen editorial cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad. The ensuing outrage, riots and threats of violence marked a low point for free expression in the world. Even in America, where free speech is our most precious right, most newspapers were afraid to publish the cartoons.

So today people around the world will get a little blasphemous, reminding everyone that no topic should be off limits for discussion just because it is "sacred" to some believers. Whether or not one thinks blasphemous speech is bad or evil in some way, we should all agree that people have a right to utter it without harm in a free society.

Below is one of my favorite (not terribly) blasphemous jokes. Because it involves golf. It's too long for the blasphemy contest sponsored by the Center for Free Inquiry.

A threesome walks up to the first tee.  It's a short par four.  Most people lay up to the right in the fairway, but the big hitters can go for the green if they can carry it 250 yards over the lake.

The first player pulls out his driver and aims for the green.  Whack!  His ball flies true, but splashes into the water 20 yards short.  He curses and stomps toward the lake.  When he gets to the edge, he raises his wedge in  his arms and the waters part before him.  He walks to his ball and chips it out of the mud onto the green.

The second player also aims for the green. He nails his drive.  It looks like it's going to carry but comes up a yard short.  He curses, strides toward the lake and doesn't even slow down when he gets to the water, walking across its surface.  He reaches his ball, pulls out his lob wedge, and swings into the water, flopping it to two feet.

The last player squints toward the green, lines up his shot and swings.  He hits a worm-burner.  It flies low , barely a few feet above the surface of the lake.  Just as it's about to hit the water, a turtle surfaces.  The ball bounces off the turtle's back harder than any cart path.  It flies forward, bound to carry over the green by many yards.  Then a dove swoops down.  The ball hits the bird and abruptly drops onto the putting surface.  It rolls forward and does a 360 around the cup. Just as it appears ready to lip out, a gust of wind pushes it back into the hole. Ace.

The other two players, having watched all this transpire from the green, shake their heads. Moses turns to Jesus and says, "I hate playing with your father."

Tax amnesty offers a rare opportunity

People and businesses owing back taxes can clean their record and help the state.

In the coming weeks, Virginia tax cheats have a chance to pay off their debt without penalty. Gov. Tim Kaine this week announced a tax-amnesty program from Oct. 7 to Dec. 5. It is smart policy and a chance for scofflaws to make good.

Read more.

An SOS on Social Security

The retirement system's expected deficit is no cause for panic among older Americans. It is an alarm, though, sounding for the future.

A lot of older workers who have lost their jobs during the recession have found that, for them, laid off as good as means retired. Employers favor younger, cheaper hires.

So, instead of a few more years earning career-peak wages, workers at least 62 years old -- the minimum age for drawing Social Security -- have been going from jobs to the unemployment line to filing for benefits.

Read more.

Bringing new ideas and people downtown

Douglas C. Waters

Waters is the interim president for Downtown Roanoke Inc.

In recent weeks, Downtown Roanoke has expressed to city council and the public our support for continued planning and economic analysis for the Elmwood Park amphitheater project. We believe that a well-designed and well-managed amphitheater in that location can be a powerful economic engine for the region overall, not just the downtown.

Read more.

Today's letters to the editor deal with several politicians, grilling in South Roanoke and more.

This is not a dream... not a dream. We are using your brain's electrical system as a receiver. We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference. You are receiving this broadcast as a dream. We are transmitting from the year one, nine, nine, nine. You are receiving this broadcast in order to alter the events you are seeing. Our technology has not developed a transmitter strong enough to reach your conscious state of awareness, but this is not a dream. You are seeing what is actually occurring for the purpose of causality violation.

What do you dream of today?

When Congress approved the federal stimulus package, the Obama administration promised Americans they would be able to monitor how it spent the $787 billion it contained.  The new era of transparency never really took off as the recovery.gov Web site was, honestly, pathetic.

On Monday, the administration rebooted the site with a new interface and better access to information.  I haven't had time to play with it too deeply, but it certainly appears to be an improvement, though perhaps not as much as I'd hoped. The interactive map, for example, is clunky beyond words. What have they got against embedding data in a google map?

Check it out and see where your children's and grandchildren's taxes are going.

President Obama just won't stay out of the nation's classrooms. Now he says kids need to stay in school longer each day and go to school more days each year. He's obviously not trying to win class president.

For later this week, we'll write that it is worth looking at changing the school day. But that the federal government -- not known for its generosity with education -- would need to step up with the substantial funds needed to do this.