Time to clean house
Thursday, July 17, 2008 12:45 AM PDT
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E-mail this articleJuly 17 Letters to the Editor
Time to clean house
Information received in recent weeks has many wondering what is going on within our federal government and the news media. With nearly all of our country’s oil reserves now “off limits” and Congress digging in to prevent recovery of any of it, we hear very little from the media about the real issues.
Every day we see on the news at least a dozen or more stories about the price of fuel, along with video of some poor chap paying the bill. Not a single driver has any doubts what the price is and there is scant little need for the video. Surely there are a few news persons who are aware of these facts or at least they know where they could get the information.
We now read in obscure publications about oil fields in Montana and North Dakota that are at least twice as big as all of the Middle East combined. And we also read that G.W. Bush directed Congress to prepare the necessary legislation to recover this oil in 2006. To date, little or nothing has been done in this regard, with the exception of making it more unavailable.
This kind of information is what all U.S. citizens need to know about and it seems to me that it’s the media’s job to inform them. Instead, it appears that the media are in bed with the politicians and we are suffering the consequences. As I’ve said before, a good house cleaning is in order.
Allan Schwindt
Silver Lake
People will prevail
Gov. Ted Kulongoski, Reps. David Wu, Peter De Fazio and Darlene Hooley, and Oregon Secretary of State Bill Bradbury, among others, have serious concerns about the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s insufficient final environmental impact statement for the proposed LNG terminal and pipeline at Bradwood on the Columbia River. Serious omissions and vague references dot the report.
FERC has turned a deaf ear to all these inquiries, as well as the public’s outcry. Even the National Park Service has found fault with FERC’s environmental review, calling it faulty and demanding a new analysis of the impact to the Columbia River by the proposed LNG terminal and pipeline. NorthernStar, the project developer, has supplied FERC with volumes of information about the project. Of course, this information is slanted in the company’s favor and omits well-documented scientific and technical information documenting why the terminal and pipeline should not be approved.
FERC seems to be basing its decision only on evidence supplied by the company and ignoring the thousands of pages of evidence submitted by the public. We, the people of this beautiful state of Oregon, will prevail and defeat this and the other LNG projects through perseverance and the law.
Lori Durheim
Astoria
Hoyle was no authority on evolution
Ben Souther’s July 13 letter takes issue with Lorena Birk not accepting Sir Fred Hoyle’s authority regarding evolution. Souther is in error in saying that Sir Fred won a Nobel prize. He did not. He was a great astronomer, but that does not make him an authority on evolution.
When Stephen Hawking and others came up with the concept of an expanding universe, Hoyle and a very few others objected, believing in a “steady-state” universe that never expanded or contracted. It was Hoyle who coined the term “big bang,” but in derision. With more evidence, including some developed by Hoyle himself, the scientific community now overwhelmingly accepts the expanding universe.
It is true that Hoyle did not believe in evolution. But the assumptions in his statistical arguments were erroneous — now widely known as “Hoyle’s Fallacy.” No real evolutionist has ever claimed that bacteria could turn into humans by any process. Evolution occurs by a series of small steps, not from a junkyard into a 747. As an alternative, Hoyle believed that life on earth happened because it was seeded from alien microorganisms arriving on comets from other parts of the universe.
One must be cautious in thinking that someone who knows a great deal in one subject can be considered an authority on other subjects.
Larry Turner
Kelso
Lowering the speed limit
Why is the first answer for some to any crisis a demand for a law to be passed to make other people do what they think is morally correct? Hardly anyone obeyed the original 55 mph speed limit. Can the editor of The Daily News honestly claim he did? I know for a fact that almost all of the speeding tickets on my own driving record happened before the current 70 mph limit.
If you personally want to save money on gas, move over into the right lane and drive 55 mph to your heart’s content. When gas prices get high enough, maybe I will, too. Until then, let the market decide how much and how fast we drive.
I, for one, do not think Americans driving 55 mph is going to lower the growing worldwide demand for petroleum. There is no birthright to cheap gas in this country. Environmentalists have been calling for higher fuel prices to force people to cut back on their driving for years. So why, when it happens and actually seems to be working, is it a crisis?
Steven Dick
Castle Rock
One candidate gets it
I am writing to voice my support for Michael Delavar for Congress. He is the only congressional candidate who understands that inflation is caused by the government’s money-pumping system called the Federal Reserve.
Michael will work to return the U.S. to a constitutional system of sound money and oppose unconstitutional spending that encourages inflation. Michael will also work to eliminate the wasting of U.S. taxpayer money on foreign aid and end the free military service we provide for Japan, Germany and Korea, as well as others. These countries can well afford to protect themselves; 50 years of military aid to them is enough.
Please, let’s bring back the Constitution to the people of America.
Eric Child
Ariel
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