Letters to the Editor
Xanthro
Published Letters: 522 Editor's Choice: 47
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Peak Oil
[Read the article: The not-so-final word on peak oil]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]People really need to understand how the oil industry works. Of course oil will peak at some point, but that doesn't mean oil will be scarce after the peak. It may be, or it may not be.
Oil Reserves are NOT the amount of oil in a country, it's the amount of oil that can be profitably produced at current rates with that company's technology. That's why you see oil fields changing hands and the listed oil reserve go up.
Oil resources represents the amount of oil found, much of which cannot currently be economically extracted.
As the price of oil goes up, more oil resources become profitable and reserves go up. The US and Canada have by far the most oil resources in the World, in additional to exceedingly large oil reserves.
What peak oil will mean is greatly increased cost of oil based products, gas, plastics, petrochemicals and such. It doesn't mean the disappearance of said items.
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NOW
[Read the article: Fatherhood funds neglect moms?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Perhaps NOW doesn't understand that the Federal Government spends over 6 BILLION per year on programs that have the word WOMEN in them.
Women, Infants, Children for example. Where's the outrage to call this PIC?
It hurts feminism when a group complains about the word father in a 50 million dollar program while ignoring the word women in 6 billion dollars.
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Inform the authorities
[Read the article: My dad threatened to shoot us all and chop us into pieces]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Really, inform the police he's driving without a license, and is mentally unstable enough to threaten to kill and chop up his own children.
Then, have nothing more to do with the man ever.
Don't pay his bills or arrange his medical treatment or have his tractor fixed, or even answer his phone calls.
He's an abuser and you have no obligation to be abused.
The fact that you are biologically related does not matter, you don't like him, nor can you stand his company, so simply cut all ties and move on with your life. Nor should you allow yourself even the slightest bit of guilt, you have gone far beyond what is deemed appropriate in order to help him, and you've received nothing on his part.
You and your brothers and sisters owe it to each other to spend that energy on someone who loves them and you all love in return. Your father is not in that category.
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Nicknames unique?
[Read the article: Salon's new letters registration policy]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]What happens when someone uses a well known nickname of another poster?
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75% is a huge improvement
[Read the article: The 75 percent solution]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For quite some time, no Iraqi soldiers showed up on time and ready. Entire units would simply disappear.
Reading the headline I expected to read that 75% of the soldiers are not reporting for duty, not that 75% are actually showing up.
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Buy the firearms you want
[Read the article: I'm almost 21. Should I buy some guns?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Plenty of people collect firearms, and in fact, two of those in your family are highly sought after by collectors. The Krag has a wide following and are exceedingly collectible.
In fact, if I were you, I'd apply for a Class 3 C&R federal firearm license. The C&R stands for Curios and Relics, it's a license specifically for those who collect guns for there historical and artistic value.
Most of the firearms that people collect are in working order, but are hardly ever fired.
Firearms are fascinating, the mechanism on your family's Krag is unique and the workmanship is fascinating. Don't let others tell you want you can and cannot collect, nor that someone understanding the beauty in a firearm is any different than the beauty find in other objects of art. It's the same, and there is no reason to be apologetic about collecting.
With luck, you'll have more than a Mini-14, a shotgun and a pistol, like other collectors, you may find enjoyment in collecting even small differences in the same firearm, and ensuring that these pieces of history are well kept and preserved for future generations.
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Firearms and the punishment of others
[Read the article: White House and guns: Stay the course]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's seems that only firearms cause some people arrive at the highly illogical conclusion for of punishing others for the crimes on another.
Someone used a firearm to murder 30 people, and some people then want to punish people not in any way remotely involved in this henious act.
It would be as if people called for restriction on homesexual intercourse arguing that it contributed to AIDS an the deaths of hundreds of thousands. It makes no sense.
No law is ever going to stop firearm violence just as no law is ever going to stop murder.
Trying to punish people who have no connection to the crime is not justice, it's tyranny.
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Anything but a Gun
[Read the article: White House and guns: Stay the course]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]"it is indisputable that today's deranged killer wouldn't have been able to murder as many at Virginia Tech with ANY other weapon but a gun."
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Not only is that conclusion disputable, it is demonstrably wrong. The largest mass murders have always been and will always be done by arson.
If some deranged person wants to maximize the number of deaths in a dormitory, using a firearm is not close to the best weapon.
Instruments that can and do cause large numbers of deaths are commonly available to anyone in the United States and few require any training to cause mass deaths.
Are we supposed outlaw pool cleaning supplies because someone can easily create a cheap version of chlorine gas, or outlaw automobiles because a gallon of Gas contains the explosive equal to 5 sticks of dynamite?
Had this murderer simply taken a gallon of gas and poor it down the hallways of the dormitory at night and ignited it, more people would be dead.
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Second Amendment
[Read the article: White House and guns: Stay the course]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Americans do not have an individual right to keep and bear arms. It's a collective right for the maintenance of militias. Any law that doesn't impinge on this collective right is constitutional.
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You will not find one single legal scholar or opinion stating this to be true in the first one hundred years of American history.
In fact, during the debate of the Bill of Rights, a change to the 2nd Amendment specically refering to collective defense was defeated.
It's take a twisted logic to conclude that "the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" somehow means something other than the people.