Letters to the Editor
Jeffrey P. Harrison
Published Letters: 354 Editor's Choice: 39
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Shrub the follower
[Read the article: Bush, following and flip-flopping, takes a stand on gas prices]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Cancelling the environmental regulations on gas formulation will not allow the oil cos to make more money. It will, however, allow them to get gas to the pump. New formulation requirements for desiel and gasoline are costing the oil cos time and money. And the consumers are going to pay for it. And since we haven't built new refining capacity in 20-30 years, we are heavily dependent to foreign refining capacity who are probably more focused on ordinary gas for the rest of the world and less focused on the fancy schmancy gas for the US.
Everybody wants to be environmentally friendly but no one seems actually willing to pay the price for it.
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what is the big deal?
[Read the article: Oh, say can you care?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]For a 40 year old version of the national anthem that is everything about language and nothing about language, I have two words for you: Jimi Hendrix.
If we played Mr. Hendrix's version for several days in a row, these anal retentive types would probably tighten up so much that all the other parts of the body would start floating and would demonstrate why the asshole is always in charge. And then maybe they'd have an apoplectic fit and then we'd have a chance to get someone with two brains to rub together in office.
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The wrong nostrum
[Read the article: Rising gas prices? Bring 'em on]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Part of the reason why we are where we are is because of persistent government intervention. Leave the situation alone, don't try to bring the prices down and watch the sudden surge of high gas milage cars suddenly appear. All without the benefit of CAFE. It happened back in the 70s except not for the US car makers. They couldn't handle the one two punch of CAFE and pollution controls (which always results in lower gas milage). The only thing that CAFE got you was a flimsey car.
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Do women want....
[Read the article: Do women want a sex-drive drug?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]As a male, I'm afraid that when I read the tag line all I could think of was: What do women want? Who the hell knows? In groups, they're like trying to herd cats... : )
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Who gets blamed? Not Shrub
[Read the article: Who gets blamed for Enron?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Why is it that we seem to want to blame someone besides the guilty for things? There's the woman who put the coffee in her crotch and blamed McDonald's. She made someone else responsible for her actions. Here in St. Louis someone slipped on an icy sidewalk and sued the homeowner. There was nothing wrong with the sidewalk (which is the responsibility of the city anyway) but because the homeowner had shoveled it the court decided that the homeowner was responsible since if it were snow covered, the individual would know to be careful but, since it had been shoveled he had no need to watch where he was walking. This could go on ad nauseum.
Now Mr. Leonard is trying to pin the tail on an elephant for the shennanigans of Messers Lay, Skilling et al. How about we blame this immense scam on the perpetrators and not try to shift it to people who weren't actually involved.
Mr. Leonard would also like to blame "deregulation" for Enron and the other spectacular business failures. Sadly, the levels of regulation have continued to skyrocket despite a few high profile bits of deregulation (like airline pricing no longer being set by the CAB; this didn't prevent most of the rest of the regulation of the airline industry from remaining in place). Also sadly, liberals on both sides of the aisle have proposed and continue to propose egregious rules and regulations that frequently bear little, if any, relationship to reality. Most rules and regulations are put in place to do a favor for campaign contributors, or in increase the government's tax take, or to hurt some industry more or less than others - usually for reasons that have nothing to do with governance.
So, Clinton or Shrub? Neither. Messers Lay, Skilling et al may have done their deeds slightly differently in a different regulatory environment but the result would have been the same.