Gas-price silver bullet
I have read that there is no silver bullet to solve our high gas prices. This information is repeated by both political parties as gospel. But there is a silver bullet that could lower the price of gas. It also would reduce oil consumption in the U.S. by 10 percent immediately.
All it takes is political courage. There have been two presidents brave enough and patriotic enough to take such action. The first president was FDR, during World War II. The second president was everyone’s favorite whipping boy, Richard Nixon.
What did they do? They proclaimed a national speed limit. By mandating such action tomorrow, President Bush could achieve numerous positive results.
It is time to see if he and Congress are capable of exercising free will (free of big-oil influence). Prices would drop almost overnight because we would immediately consume far less fuel than we do at present.
Even without presidential and congressional action, we citizens can simply implement individual action ourselves. One can hope, however, that our leaders will truly lead in this case, not whimper about lacking a silver bullet.
Chuck Saxton, Bennett
Government secrecy
Re: “Reporters may take heat for D.C. leaks,” April 30 news story.
According to this story, the Bush administration has considered prosecuting journalists for writing articles it considers harmful to public security.
Why does one man have the authority to classify or declassify information he alone determines affects the security of our nation?
Why can’t a bipartisan panel of, say eight persons, possibly four from the Senate and four House members, judge the extent of secrecy needed for government documents and other information? This panel would have the power to classify and declassify information. These people are proven Americans whose love and patriotism to the country are as proven as Bush’s, and it would end edicts that are definitely dictatorial.
R.C. Cole, Denver
Judas and Jesus
Re: “New insights into Judas?” April 30 guest commentary.
Guest commentator Pamela Eisenbaum states, “The only reason modern Christians believe Judas was motivated by money is because of later Christian stereotypes of Jews.” It is interesting since she does mention the references in the four Gospels about Judas offering to betray Jesus for pay. Those references would seem to be the most obvious place to start when considering modern Christians’ beliefs about Judas and payment for betrayal.
Eisenbaum also states that “the New Testament itself is not consistent about whether Judas received any money for betraying Jesus. The 30 pieces of silver is mentioned in Matthew only.” True, as far as it goes, but simply because the amount of money is not specifically mentioned in each Gospel does not make this particular part of the Gospels inconsistent. What it all comes down to is that Judas was the one apostle who was willing to betray Jesus, and he was offered money to do so. I am not sure why any “modern” view of Jews would cause anyone to decide to go after only one of the apostles, and not the other 11. All of them were Jewish, as was Jesus. Again, it seems to me that any valid Christian view of Judas is – and always has been – based on what is in the New Testament and not on simple individual or group opinions or views, whether “modern” or not.
Monica Van Ness, Aurora
Post’s new Voices
Re: “New faces, fresh Voices,” April 30 Barbara Ellis column.
Once again, your roster of “Colorado” Voices includes a preponderance – 11 out of 16 – from the Front Range. As a former resident of Glenwood Springs, I know that Western Slope water flows uphill toward Denver, but I shudder at your naked slur that intelligence weakens at the Continental Divide. Suggest you be fair and balanced and rename your scribes Mostly Front Range Fellows or Denver- Boulder Denizens.
Michael E. Long, Denver
Carbon dioxide levels
Letter-writer Robert Haywood’s assertion that human activity has little to do with the rise in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere (April 30 Open Forum) is simply incorrect. He states that 143 billion tons of CO2 is produced by natural processes and about 7 billion tons by human activity per year, with the human component accounting for 4.6 percent of the total.
As published in 2001, nature produces about 550 billion metric tons of CO2 in a year and estimated human activities accounts for 28 billion metric tons of CO2 in a year, which comes to 5 percent for the human contribution. The human contribution of CO2 per year is almost the same as what Haywood has stated.
Nature has been holding CO2 in a dynamic equilibrium for many a millennium. Those hundreds of billions of metric tons produced by various processes including ocean outgassing, respiration, and the decay of dead matter is recycled back out of the atmosphere and to the oceans, forming calcium carbonates, and much of the rest is recaptured by photosynthesis in plants. The burning of fossil fuels has created a “human carbon debt” that natural processes can’t compensate for. The result is that the 280 parts per million of CO2 in the air – which has been the norm for the last 10,000 years, based on ice core samples – has increased to 366 parts per million in just the last two centuries. That little 4.6 to 5 percent human carbon debt is making all the difference.
Joe Brandstetter, Parker
The writer is science coordinator for Cherokee Trail High School.
Dealing with immigration
As a society, we should not be opposed to immigration. I love this country and the freedoms and the diversity that we enjoy. I welcome those who want the same. I do, however, speak boldly against those who break the laws intended to protect this great nation and then tell us we need to change the very laws that they have broken. They have proven their disrespect by their very presence.
No “asset” to this country breaks our laws or strains our economy by receiving free health care, schooling and welfare programs.
Criminals, by their very definition, are not an asset. How can we trust them to obey any of our other laws? Or should we change them, too? Those entering legally, as did my ancestors, are the assets.
Julie Anne Alexander, Grand Junction
…
If I hear one more smug person say, “My ancestors got here legally,” I may throw up. For much of our history, there was no legal or illegal. They just got here the best way they could, and if they had to lie a little or steal a little, they did. After spending everything they owned on the fare and winding up a long way from home, every immigrant to America was a desperate person. Staying was the goal, whatever it took. Don’t think your ancestors were an exception.
Until the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1881, there were no limits placed on immigration. No one was legal or illegal. In 1882, lunatics and those with infectious diseases were excluded, and in 1917 literacy was required. Only after 1921 were there barriers that created the question of legal or illegal for most people.
Karen Dale, Larkspur
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Let’s cool the emotions and look at the immigration problem simply. Almost everyone is opposed to illegal immigration, yet supports legal immigration. So the only real issues are how do we stop the former, and how do we wish to regulate the latter. Stopping illegal immigration is easy: simply enforce the existing laws against hiring illegals. This would stop the problem at its source, no “Berlin” walls required. All that is needed is the political will to enforce existing laws against the employers.
Brian A. Gregg, Golden
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How many foreign illegals fought the Germans and Japanese to keep them out of the United States and maybe Mexico? This country belongs to the servicemen of World War II and the people who supported us. There is no illegal blood on the beaches of Normandy, or the South Pacific islands or in Italy. So where do they come off demanding rights of citizenship and all the benefits of legal Americans?
We shed our blood and lives for these rights. My kid brother lies buried at Normandy. I served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam, and I shouldn’t have to share my rights with these lawbreakers.
Joseph Sninchak, Aurora
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I am a second-generation American citizen. My father was monolingual German when he started school in 1930. He went on to make the Army his career, fighting in three wars. The U.S. Army was his life and his means of supporting his family. He was a patriot, soldier, husband and father who did his duty, often in foreign lands. There were many years that my mother, brother, sister and I depended on what he could send us from those postings so that we could pay the bills and stay together. There were years when we lived in foreign countries longing for home and being “good soldiers” as my father did his job.
I believe that, given the choice, most people would stay where they understand and speak the language, know the rules, have friends and families. Need drives us to try to make a better life for those we love, just as my father did and his father did before him. We cross oceans and deserts and borders we never would have dreamed of was there not a deep need to do so. Immigrants built this country and their stories are not so different from mine.
I hope that America can look upon today’s immigrants with compassion for the very human need that brought all of us here: a desire for a better life for those we love.
Danielle M. Hoefer, Longmont
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I can’t see where a one-day walkout and purchasing boycott will accomplish very much. It would be more effective if they did it for a year. They might even consider going to Mexico to exercise all their purchasing power. That should give us a pretty good idea of their impact on this country. It would also solve a lot of our problems.
G. Nance, Montrose
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Why aren’t people discussing long- term solutions to the problem of illegal immigration? According to the CIA WorldFactBook online, ongoing concerns in Mexico include “low real wages, underemployment for a large segment of the population, inequitable income distribution, and few advancement opportunities for the largely Amerindian population in the impoverished southern states.”
What would happen if the U.S. focused on reducing immigration from Mexico by helping Mexico become a place where relatively few would want to leave? With the amount of money that would be needed to forcefully keep Mexicans from coming to the U.S. illegally, a great deal could be done. Wouldn’t everyone be better off if we cooperated with Mexico to improve opportunities for education and employment?
This approach might help improve the lot of the poor in both the U.S. and Mexico.
Nancy Stocker, Denver
TO THE POINT
Federal Heights resident Ted May thinks that “The image of the city has been tarnished” by Mayor Dale Sparks’ moonlighting at a raided strip club. I have to ask: What image? Get over yourself, Ted.
David Hakala, Denver
President Bush is defending the outrageous profits of the oil industry because he trusts it to re-invest its windfalls to expand production capabilities. This is like saying bank robbery is OK as long as the bandits promise to stimulate the economy by spending the money.
Ray Yedinak, Highlands Ranch
The legislature is considering forcing the Public Employees Retirement Association pension plan to curtail its cost-of-living increases. Retired teachers once again will get the short end of the stick. Perhaps PERA should borrow from China, like the federal government does, to reduce its unfunded debt.
Phil and Lee DeLeo, Highlands Ranch
The amount of Internet pedophilia and plain pedophilia in this country is alarming. America’s fascination with these perversions is equally alarming. Do we need a new word, “pedophiliaphilia”?
David Price, Arvada
To paraphrase a bumper sticker notable during the 1970s or so, “All in favor of reducing gasoline prices, raise your foot!”
Gregory Iwan, Denver
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