Letters to the Editor
thorin01
Published Letters: 196 Editor's Choice: 30
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Interesting Approach to Get Around Miller ….
[Read the article: Citing Google, pornographer claims orgies are bigger than apple pie]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I actually kind of like this idea. It potentially provides an objective test for Miller. How many searches in a given area are for pornographic material?
The prosecution argues that the community ‘hates’ porn and the defense counters with direct evidence that X% of all web searches conducted by that community relate to pornographic material. It demonstrates that elements of the community are open to porn and adult material.
I don’t know how effective it will prove to be but it is a novel approach.
There is a reason so much of the web is devoted to adult content.
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Absentee Ballots for Congress
[Read the article: McCain has missed the most votes of any senator]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seriously, it is riduculous in the modern era, with current communication technology, to require legislators to be present for votes. It's stupid. All it does is give a ready excuse for certaim members to skip out on certain votes by claiming to have a 'scheduling conflict'.
And don't give me any gump about 'floot debates' we all that in this day and age those are merely for show. Its been decades since any vote has been changed by an impassioned speech on the floor. They know how they are going to vote,usually days if not weeks in advance,they have staffs that keep them informed (and do most of the detail work anyway).
Members of Congress should be able to registar their vote from anywhere via the interent or even over the bloody phone.
It's time for Congress to move out of the 18th century.
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No Short Term Fixes …
[Read the article: More fun with reverse globalization]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My company is betting a lot on being able to pull manufacturing away from the foreign subsidiaries of our parent company. I can tell you from a practical standpoint it’s not as easy as it sounds. Yes transportation prices are going up and the declining dollar makes exporting to the US more expensive but there are many factors mitigating any rapid shift to US based manufacturing.
1 – Cost of investment. The US manufacturing base is anemic. Enormous investment in equipment, plant capacity etc etc will be required to bring American manufacturing back to what it was in 50s and 60s. Rising material and transportation costs do not yet offset those investment costs.
2 – Suppliers still overseas. Even if we shift finished goods manufacturing to the US most raw materials and component parts will still need to be purchased from overseas negating most of the cost savings. Some of the component manufacturing can be shifted to US but that brings us back to point one. And key raw material (particularly metals like copper) will still have to be imported.
Don’t expect a sudden resurgence in domestic manufacturing. It will take years to build back even a fraction of what we lost of the last 30 years. And even if some of it does come back, don’t expect prices to drop anytime soon.
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They Journalists ...
[Read the article: Bad ethanol economics]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Because they could not pass math class.
Sorry, had to be said.
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China's Already hinted ...
[Read the article: More fun with reverse globalization]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That they will not be subsidizing gas for much longer. That's going to make things interesting. One of the reasons China holds such a large 'soveriegn wealth fund' is because they trap much of those dollars in trade at the border to prevent they're economy from going into the hyper inflation trap that many emerging economies experience.
Dropping the gas subsidy and letting the price of gas rise will 1) raise prices and decrease the dollars people have available to buy which leads to 2) China being force to let more dollars into the economy to maintain current standard of living which leads to 3) inflation as money supplies go up.
They're going to have to walk a fine line to keep inflation at bay and I'm not certain how much longer they can do it and float the US at the same time.
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The Personal Automobile Must Die
[Read the article: The Barack Obama of automobiles?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The Personal Automobile is the greatest legacy of the carbon economy. But they also represent an enormous amount of raw materials, from metals, ceramics, plastics (more carbon) and the enormous manufacturing and support base they require not to mention roads and parking lots. And that’s all on top of the fuel (currently oil) it takes to run them. Even if we eliminate the fuel part all of those other impacts still exist.
We would be better off investing in mass transit systems and finding ways to get people out of the individual automobile. We need to find ways to move people out the suburbs and ex-burbs (or whatever they’re calling them) and back into cities where more efficient/less resource intensive transportation systems can be used.
Yes, I get that it means changing our lifestyles and making real sacrifices, but we are out of options that don’t impose a cost. Saving the environment and ourselves will require ALL of society to pay a price. It requires long term sustained investment by government and the private sector. It requires leaders who are honest with us about what it take to save ourselves and a public willing to listen (yes I know we're doomed).
We’ve spent 100+ years building a system to support 1-person 1-auto, we can’t sustain that system in face global warming and resource shortages (well beyond just oil).
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Why Does McCain Lie?
[Read the article: McCain plays dumb]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]“Why would McCain appear on national television and say something he knows to be false? Given his emphasis, especially lately, on honesty in the campaign, why take the risk by lying like this?”
Because he knows the MSM will protect him from himself. Russert was one of the very few journalists who actually confronted Politicians with their own words (even sacred cows like McCain). The vast majority do not.
McCain’s ‘base’ in media has let him flip-flop and mumble his way through issue after issue.
One of the reasons I think the Obama campaign has stumbled a bit in the last couple of weeks is because they did not anticipate just how far the media will go in defending McCain and how rapidly they would turn on him.