Letters to the Editor
curmudgeon2
Published Letters: 414 Editor's Choice: 64
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To Zame
[Read the article: The speech Hillary should give]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, lots of nations with "weapons of mass destruction" hate us. We don't invade them, mainly because they don't have lots of oil. Once upon a time Saddam was our man, and Cheney and Rumsfeld gave him the ingredients for some of his WMD. We supported him in his invasion of Iran, who had had the temerity to kick out our man, the Shah. So Saddam lost faith in us after the First Gulf War and started making nice with the Russians and French. Now that was not acceptable behavior to our Big Texas Oil guys, or Bush's other buddies, the Saudis. So they hoked up this "War Against Terrorism" in order to seize the oil.
Since no one can get elected without Big Oil money plus well laundered Saudi money, all these pols need to be very careful about what they say. It's about Oil, Oil, and Oil.
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Saddam at the Hague
[Read the article: The speech Hillary should give]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]She might also, if she had the guts, say that Saddam should have been tried at the Hague, where lots of other war criminals have stood trial. Of course Cheney, Rumsfeld, and other top officials would have been implicated in his crimes, so he was tried "by his own people" and quickly dispatched. Hillary needs Big Oil money just like the rest of them.
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Girl Scout cookies and hydrogenated oil
[Read the article: Iraqi women's rights, evil Girl Scouts and more]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]They still contain hydrogenated oil, and if you eat several you will get more than the half gram of trans-fat that the Feds conveniently allow to be called zero. If a product says hydrogenated , don't buy it. Very simple.
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Flying sucks
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My wife was a stewardess (AKA flight attendant or whatever is PC) in the early '60's to earn some money before she went to Harvard Graduate School. She flew during the transition from piston-prop to jet. She did a lot of time on DC-6's, and also on the early jets on an Anchorage-Miami run. Later she learned to fly light single engine planes. I am an instrument-rated private pilot with 1600 hours. In other words we (used to) like aviation.
Now we fly occasionally mainly for vacation. The flying experience is so dreadful that it seriously inhibits our wish to travel. One of the other letter writers pointed out that he would be willing to pay extra for a little more seat room, but not the outrageous amount for first class. So would we. I, and many others, would probably happily pay 10% more for 10% more leg room. I think RyanAir has seats with more or less pitch, and will sell more pitch for more money. Seems like a good idea.
One of the things that the big turbofan engines has permitted is to increase the payload at the expense of speed. The early 707's were over 50 knots faster than a 767, for example. Boeing decided to reduce the speed of the new 787 in order to get more payload, and a little more fuel economy. So we have to spend more time in a plane that has been designed to pack as much weight into a small space as possible. We are cargo.
The huge increases in fuel cost in the next decades will probably reduce flying, but will also call for designs that can pack even more of us sardines int the smallest space possible.
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Letters from Belusconi
[Read the article: Rove: You'll all see Bush's wisdom eventually]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There's s story going around that Bush (Cheney?) got Belusconi have his intelligence people steal Niger letterheads from the embassy. These were then used in the fabrication of the phony Niger-yellowcake connection. This is wisdom?
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Harvard Grad School
[Read the article: Ask the pilot]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well, very few, if any, stewardesses went to Harvard. Pointing out that it can be done might give others incentive. Schools used to like applicants with varied backgrounds, instead of the cookie cutter system that is used at present. I went to MIT after escaping from the California Penal System. So a stewardess went to Harvard and married an escapee from the penal system. Better story, huh?
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HSA's will solve all
[Read the article: Costly contraceptive ruling]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Insurance should only be to prevent medical catastrophe. It is much less expensive for people to cover their own run-of-the-mill expenses (like birth control and Viagra). Eliminates lots of clerk jobs at both the insurance company and at the doctors and hospitals. There are more clerks in the medical business now than health professionals. A family $5000 major med is only about $200 a month. When I was in business I provided a $5000 major med for every employee and I also put $5000 into their HSA account each year. That cost me much less than a standard "low deductible" plan. And in effect it was a zero deductible. The bullshit about employees having to negotiate with the providers is a red herring. Blue Cross was our insurance company and our employees got their negotiated cost. These plans would eliminate all the arguments about using insurance for social control. Of course it would eliminate lots of fun for the religious conservatives and the liberals who would lose something to argue about.
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Chaotic climate
[Read the article: Bad news from a balmy winter]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I just finished reading "Climate Change in Prehistory" and "Plows. Plagues, and Petroleum". The most recent 10,000 years (The Holocene) has been the only period in the last 2.5 million years in which agriculture has been possible. If the earth reverts to its normal behavior the climate will again become too chaotic for agriculture. However, since modern man appeared about 150,000 years ago, the climate was a chaotic ice age for most of that time. We are well adapted for living near the glaciers, there just won't be too many of us. But technology might come to our rescue. We can spray black dust on the glaciers and melt them, and have lots of nukes for heat.