Letters to the Editor
barleymash
Published Letters: 30 Editor's Choice: 7
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To Scientology v. Christianity Anonymous
[Read the article: Scientology fails to delete crazy Tom Cruise video]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You're positing that Christianity deserves more respect than Scientology because it's — and I LOVE this — "trust based on past performance." Yet you suggest the religion's performance should NOT be judged at all on what we perceive to be "past performance" — e.g. the Spanish Inquisition, etc. That was some other guys pretending to be Christians.
That's kind of adorable.
There are PLENTY of differences between Christianity and Scientology. For instance, so far Scientology has the lowest body count of any major religion. And the lowest child molestation rate. But things are looking up. The Germans are persecuting them, so it looks like they may someday take their place among the great religions of the world.
Again, I think Scientology is goofy. But is it GOOFIER than its competitors? No. It's just more RECENTLY goofy.
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The polarity has shifted
[Read the article: "It almost seems like everything sort of leads back to Iran"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Once upon a time the White House would feed talking points to Faux News. But the president has become so incoherent that Faux News has to feed the talking points to HIM.
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Compelled to Profit
[Read the article: Jay Rockefeller's unintentionally revealing comments]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bush "compelled" the telecoms? Then why were they able to unilaterally suspend their eavesdropping when the Feds were late with their payments? Clearly, we've taken the measure of the telecoms' patriotism, and it's only long enough to reach their bottom line.
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May you raise their standards
[Read the article: A farewell note]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I was thinking the same thing as Lynx. Your standards have been consistently higher than Politico's. I hope you help them raise the bar.
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Maybe hire an underemployed carpenter
[Read the article: What will YOU do with your fiscal stimulus check?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]…to help me make some cosmetic home repairs. Or, depending on airfares, maybe we'll spend it in New Orleans — a town that could use some fiscal stimulus.
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Off to a great start
[Read the article: Say it ain't so, David Paterson]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I think Paterson made a brilliant move in defusing the story immediately. Look at the sleaze potential: a nearly unknown African American governor rides to higher office on the tide of a sex scandal. But HE has a sex scandal in his past, too! Bwaahaaahaaahaa! Oh, yeah. His political opponents would seize on a tale marital infidelity like pure GOLD if they could release it at the right moment. But Paterson deftly turned it into a non-issue. Smart man. Very smart. I think he's off to a terrific start.
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If she's not a terrorist, who is?
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If the justice system failed Briana Waters and she really WAS nowhere near the campus on the night of the arson, then there's a problem with the trial judge, the jury, or Waters' attorneys. But if she WAS standing lookout that night, then she participated in the destruction of property with the intention of intimidation to achieve an ideological objective. That's literally textbook terrorism. So she's a violin teacher. So what? So she's a white mother and homemaker. So what? She helped burn down a building in order to terrorize a company into changing its practices. She belongs in jail. The tone of your headline suggests the Feds misused anti-terrorism laws to jail someone innocent of terroristic activity. But the man-bites-dog facet of this story is that an accused terrorist wants to be exempted from anti-terrorism laws because her cause is noble. Every terrorist thinks his cause is noble. The Feds didn't "exploit" the law (actually, they did — exploit doesn't mean what many people think it means); they "applied" the law.
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Reply to Amity on "who's a terrorist?"
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]How do you arrive at that interpretation? The stated, and indicated, goal of most criminal activism of this sort is to stop the activities that the activists wish to see an end to.
Someone already replied very articulately, but I'll respond as well. The ideological objective she was trying to achieve was getting Toby Bradshaw to stop participating in genetic research for the timber industry. Clearly, they weren't stupid enough to believe that burning down his lab would somehow destroy his knowledge and disable his ability to do genetic research. This isn't a 1970s James Bond movie. Researchers don't keep all their "life's work" in isolated file cabinets. Briana and her friends were sending a message. They were trying to intimidate Bradshaw by destroying property associated with him. That's terrorism.
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Researchers don't keep all their "life's work" in isolated file cabinets.
[Read the article: Is Briana Waters a terrorist?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Heh. I have to question the intelligence of any research department — corporate, scholarly or governmental — that would keep all of its research in a place where it could be completely wiped out by one fire. I really don't think that's likely. There are secure database backup facilities all over the U.S. that charge substantial amounts to keep that from happening. But then gain, this guy wasn't working on nuclear weapons. He was working on tree DNA. I'm betting there was a backup disk somewhere.