Letters to the Editor
Lynx
Published Letters: 1595 Editor's Choice: 126
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Where'll they put the planes?
[Read the article: You are now free to pollute about the country]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Over the next 20 years, more than 27,000 new aircraft will take flight, and the number of air travelers will double to 9 billion during the same period
As Ask the Pilot has noted, the skies are so crowded now that delays and scheduling problems are rampant. Where are all these extra flights going to fit?
Trains require huge investments in infrastructure to connect America and improve the rail lines to the standards of high-speed rail. Included in these investments are the "Right of way" issues that slow many trains down even on tracks that can support higher speeds. The funds for these investments would not be unreasonable, but are opposed by many politicians (mainly republicans) who cry that Amtrak and the train system shouldn't be subsidised.
However, these same politicians have no problem subsidising the airlines (public airports, bankruptcy bailouts, government contracts and more), the oil companies (the most recent spending bill tried to stop the oil company handouts, but were successfully lobbied against. These handouts continue despite oil companies racking up record profits year after year.) and the auto industry (public highways, local roads, road maintenance including plowing, traffic control systems, etc...)
You want better train service? Call your congresspeople and point this out to them. Call your local paper. Bring it up whenever you can. Until this changes, you won't see trains as a viable alternative.
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Ah, Shooter
[Read the article: The National Review mind]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It is amusing to me that your credibility is so low that when I see you post something like that, my first response is to assume that you've written it yourself on your own little blog, making it up of whole cloth. Whether you did or not is of little importance, I just ignore it in the end anyway. I did want to mention my amusement at your pig-headed insistance at displaying your ignorance here.
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No, No Heffalump! (Elephantman)
[Read the article: The National Review mind]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]as your urbane, civilized readership calls me
The urbane, civilized readership calls you Heffalump. Since all your ideas are deranged fantasy it seems fitting. The crass readership that you've pissed off with your selective reading and pronouncements about "the far left" or just "the left" call you "Elephantdung".
Since you do have a reading disability, I'll direct you to the books of A.A. Milne to discover the reference. Then again, since your reading disability causes you to read anything and come away only with what you'd decided in advance, I'm not sure that'll help.
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Athiests
[Read the article: Amma's cosmic squeeze]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]From reading the article, I'm starting to think the inclusion of the lines
It's a great question, one that today's increasingly arrogant atheists have yet to answer. If humans are nothing more than neurologically programmed DNA machines, why not run sacred applications that bring happiness and meaning and active compassion?
were included simply to increase comments on an otherwise lackluster piece.
I don't really care if you want to believe in some fantasy, it only bothers me when your fantasy begins to affect me, for example if you're a government offical. The largest problem comes from organized religion, the condition where others take advantage of flaws in your "sacred applications" for personal gain. By your analogy, priests, reverands and gurus are like hackers.
The most amusing part is that you've answered your question later in the body of this article.
Q: [W]hy not run sacred applications that bring happiness and meaning and active compassion?
A: [H]er ranks swell with members of the RSS and VHP, nationalist organizations that have been accused of, among other things, helping foment the bloody Gujarat riots in 2002.
A: [T]he Amma scene as a competitive, back-biting and self-righteous culture where volunteers are encouraged to work beyond the point of exhaustion in order to please Mother.
A: Lakshmi left the organization partly because she "realized that seva might be short for slave labor."
A: I heard one story of a woman who offered a priceless heirloom to Amma, only to see it reappear hours later in the shop.
A: But self-realization is the opposite of magic -- it's the most mundane thing in their world. It's always right there right on the end of your nose. These gurus have people looking everywhere but the tip of their nose.
And in addition to all this is a willing disconnect from reality. This disconnect plays a large part in why American is in such a disasterous state today. Too many people screaming that their god is the only way and that the rest of us must adhere to it. Gay Marriage, Abortion Rights, even the freedom to follow your own religion instead of following a state sponsored school prayer.
I'm an athiest, always have been. I don't think I'm especially arrogant about it, certainly not when compared to the arrogance of the religious screamers. I think you think the athiests are arrogant becuase you think they're telling you you're wrong. Some may be, the rest just want you to look at evidence or to leave them alone and stop arrogantly saying that tradition must be right. The world is trending away from religion, this is why the fervently religious are getting louder and louder, they know they're "losing".
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Sunblock is a total scam
[Read the article: Are veils bad for your health?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Yeah! And they faked the moon landings too! And Elvis is working in a warehouse in Iowa, Climate Change is entirely natural and vaccines don't work, the speed of light can be broken and the Earth is totally flat.
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Military Expierience
[Read the article: Rudy and Romney: Artful dodgers]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The point isn't whether or not these individuals had military experience. It is that they both did their damndest to avoid it and are now gung-ho about sending others to fight. Clinton had an entirely legitimate exemption as a college student. More importantly, and even if he had been a draft dodger like these fools, he was not eager to bring his country to war. War was a LAST resort after diplomacy had failed. These republicans think it is all fun and games as long as they and theirs don't have to actually risk anything.