Letters to the Editor
Morris Sheppard
Published Letters: 90 Editor's Choice: 5
-
Why now?
[Read the article: Genocide: An inconvenient truth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Turkey could close Incirlik Air Base, through which 70 percent of air cargo for U.S. troops in Iraq passes, and refuse to cooperate with Washington on the war.
Maybe that's the point. It would be one way, maybe the only way, to get Bush to ratchet down the war in Iraq. Without the aid and cooperation of Turkey, the war becomes much more difficult, if not impossible.
It's a twofer.
-
Astounding Science Fiction
[Read the article: A bizarre, unsolicited e-mail from Gen. Petraeus' spokesman ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Simply amazing! Not only does this Boylan character appear to be a smarmy, condescending, juvenile, mean spirited prick, but an illiterate smarmy, condescending, juvenile, mean spirited prick.
I guess he's bucking for a promotion.
-
Egypt Steve
[Read the article: Col. Boylan's denial]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Some have said Egypt Steve is a troll. How could this be? Egypt Steve is smarter, better, handsomer, more acute and cleverer than Glenn. Just ask him. Egypt Steve knows the true value and importance of everything, as he will be the first to tell you. How dare Glenn, obsessed simpleton that he is, refuse to follow his sage advice? I have read all of Egypt Steve's many important books and place him emphatically in the pantheon of modern political genius. Glenn must give up on trying to have his own opinion in the face of such an intellectual giant. Why does Glenn hate America?
Besides, Egypt Steve has a pony.
-
Please!
[Read the article: Mind your manners online]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Thank you.
-
The fact is
[Read the article: Just follow the map ]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Unfortunately, the only maps we have in life are outdated and show only the routes we have taken. There is no GPS and by the time we find out where we are, we are no longer there.
That's the beauty part.
-
Go ahead, believe in St. John
[Read the article: Will fate grant John McCain a do-over?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Republicans should nominate McCain. Please.
Gwool thinks "He may be just what we need right now to figure out a way to piece that country back together" but this old, dishonest, right wing war hawk with an anger management problem will only appeal to a third of the nation, if that. "Piece a country together? After embracing Bush and Falwell McCain can hardly piece the tattered remnants of his integrity together.
He may win in NH, but in the end it will be "Say goodnight, John."
-
Hillary's Plan
[Read the article: What Hillary would do tomorrow, if she could]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's nice that Hillary has a plan, I just wish it didn't suck so much. Two of her points, energy assistance and increasing the length of unemployment benefits make social and economic sense. They would be good ideas even if there were no looming recession. Instead of preening about her wonderful plan why doesn't she introduce these as bills in the Senate? She is a Senator, you know.
Unfortunately, her ideas about dealing with the mortgage crises and bursting of the housing bubble are both silly and senseless. What could a $30 billion fund accomplish in the face of a $500 billion problem? Just how would it help "hard-hit communities and distressed homeowners weather the foreclosure crisis?" Does she intend to hand out money to homeowners to make their mortgage payments? Yeah, a lot of good that'll do. The only way this makes any sense is if it is designed to help local governments cover shortfalls resuting from drastically reduced property tax revenues due to the collapse of housing prices.
Proposing a 90 day moratorium on foreclosures is about as reasonable as proposing a 90 day moratorium on selling internet stocks would have been during the dot com bust if 2000. Does she think that there would be any real turnaround in three months which would then make these foreclosures less inevitable? Balderdash! How would she plan to compensate the already damaged lenders for losing three months of ability to even somewhat recoup their losses? This idea is just inane and gives me worries about her financial good sense.
Worse still is her idea of five-year freeze on mortgage interest rates. Aside from being impossible, it would only further tank an already distressed market. At what level would they be frozen? If the level were too high it would do no good and if it were too low it would simply dry up the pool of money available to make new loans and completely shut down the market. Could she possibly mean not allowing adjustable rate loans to reset? Who then compensates for the losses to the holders of the securities that back these loans? How bad does she want the credit crunch to become? Such an action would only serve to make Atrios' "big shitpile" bigger and smellier. I doubt that is what we want.
Let's face it, the housing and mortgage markets are seriously broken and there was a lot of shenanigans resulting from, as usual, lack of regulation and oversight combined with greed on everybody's part, both lenders and buyer/borrowers. People are going to get hurt. A lot of these people will deserve it, and some of them won't. It will be hard to exactly determine who is an innocent bamboozled by manipulators and who is stung by their own cupidity. That's unfortunate, but incurable. Housing prices need to come down somewhere between 25 to 50 percent and it will be painful for many, but in the end it will be a good thing as it will realign an out-of-whack market with reality. There is nothing any politician can do can stop that and the best we can hope for is for reinstating the rules and regs that will prevent a recurrence.
-
I forgot
[Read the article: Kansas O'Flaherty ... Secret Agent]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What was this about again? Why is it here? Huh?
-
Brilliant
[Read the article: Tom the Dancing Bug]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]One of the greatest allegories ever told in comic form. This strip is a classic, at once funny and profound.
Congratulations, Mr. Bolling.
-
A Question
[Read the article: Is Michael Mukasey prioritizing the harassment and imprisonment of journalists?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm curious. Bush and Mukasey have less than a year to continue to damage the nation. Can Risen and the NYT run the clock on this with appeals, etc., the way they did with Judy Miller until John Edwards is AG at which point this would all become moot?