Category Archives: Letters-to-the-Editor

Mark Twain got his start this way.

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This Week’s WTF?!

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ABQjournal Opinion: Letters to the Editor
Sell the Subarus, Save Planet

I’VE HAD IT! If you think humans are directly responsible for global warming— which we aren’t— I have a great solution: Sell your car and ride a pony to work and sell your house and live in a tent.

That way you will be doing your part while those of us who don’t believe we are responsible for global warming can keep driving our SUVs and live in warm houses. This way, global emissions will be cut and we’ll all be happy!

Come on “activists,” really do your part and sell those polluting Subarus and live in a tent. Let’s do it for the children.

CHARLES PAEZ
Albuquerque”

For the past eight years, AmeriCo has been ruled by a coalition of self-serving biznizmen and gaggle of idiots. I’m not sure which Mr. Paez is. mjh

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Hear! Hear!

ABQjournal Opinion: Letters to the Editor

Look Back to 2002 For Vile Advertising

    EXCUSE ME all you politicians objecting to the Gen. David Petraeus ad. Did any of you object to one of the most vile ads of all time— Georgia Sen. Max Cleland, a triple amputee Vietnam veteran, whose opponent in a 2002 campaign ad placed his photo between images of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein?

    PEG BRINEY
    Roswell
   
It’s Not Unpatriotic To Oppose the War

    WHILE I personally don’t agree with the “betray us” ad, I find it laughable that the Republicans are so outraged and injured by it. This is the exact same tactic that was used to smear one of their own in 2000, Sen. John McCain— a Vietnam POW— and also Sen. John Kerry in 2004— both decorated veterans!

    Calling into question the patriotism of good, decent, patriotic Americans simply because they want to end the slaughter of our young men and women is reprehensible. Yet the Republicans continue to self-righteously accuse anyone who does not blindly and mindlessly agree with this president’s hysteria of being unpatriotic. I think their outrage comes more from the fact that this extreme left organization has taken a page straight from the Republican National Committee’s play book of dirty politics and used it brilliantly. Getting a taste of their own bitter medicine has left Republicans reeling. They don’t like it, but since they perfected the art, perhaps they should get used to it. …

    But with organizations like MoveOn.org now willing to mix-it-up with them, this election cycle promises to leave no mud pie left unthrown.

    YVONNE HAWPE
    Albuquerque

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This Week’s WTF?!

ABQjournal Business: Letters to Outlook

Of course, we’re not taxed enough

    Further proof that people in government have lost their minds is the unapologetic call for a plastics tax by a Santa Fe city councilor.

    Yeah, like we’re not being taxed enough as it is.

    I don’t when it happened, but there’s been a complete takeover of government in this state by a bunch of bossy, busybody, (and to use the old Saturday Night Live term) anal-retentive environmentalists who worry over what we eat, what we wear, what we drive, what we smoke, and what we think.

    Using the phony crisis of environmental warming and the new green idiocy, we’re being forced to jump through every conceivable hoop these fools dream up. Couldn’t they get together and buy a life so they could get out of ours?

    About the only solution I see is a state law that demands that for every tax anybody raises, an equal amount be cut from government spending and from taxes to curtail this continually growing socialist monster that’s eating its way into our lives.

    Either that or the people in New Mexico are so stupid they deserve to have every dollar and every freedom they have taken away from them.

    Clyde J. Aragon
    Albuquerque

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This Week’s WTF?!

ABQjournal Opinion: Letters to the Editor

Liberals Change Rules

DEMONSTRATORS are kept 170 yards from President Bush and the ACLU, a Journal editorial and others protest concerning freedom of speech.

If memory serves me correctly, back in the 1990s, Bill Clinton came to town. Demonstrators were not even allowed on the same streets that Clinton would travel. There was no outcry from ACLU, the Journal or other liberal cry babies.

Why? Perhaps it was because Clinton is a liberal and they have different rules. Liberal, thy name is hypocrite. The name of the morning newspaper is most appropriately the “Albuquerque Hypocrite.”

DAVID BERND
Albuquerque

Does Bernd vaguely recall whether all demonstrators were treated equally? Does he have a copy of a Clinton manual on protecting the ego of the prez?

Vague recollections do not counter photos of the “good” demonstrators practically in Duhbya’s lap while the “bad” demonstrators are out of sight. (At least they aren’t in pens, anymore.)

Remember: Clinton and Raygun are the pairing, whether talking to conservatives or liberals. Fans of each swoon while enemies seethe. The incomparable Duhbya is in an unprecedented class by himself. (Thank Gawd!) mjh

Letters-to-the-Editor

No Voter Left Behind

As we try to fix the madness that could result in primaries at the Winter Solstice, I think past voting should be a factor. For example, in which states is the highest percentage of eligible voters registered? Of registered voters, which states had the highest percentage participation in the previous presidential election? Aren’t those states full of good citizens? Let’s reward participation (and punish lack of it): If you want a voice in the primaries *next* time, then vote *this* time.

I would further propose 5 sets of primaries with 10 states in each.

Finally, let’s experiment in the primaries with instant runoffs (you vote for your first, second and third choice) and a “none of the above” option (abstaining, if you prefer). I’d love to see the totals for “none of the above” in any election. mjh

A race to the start | Dallas Morning News by Carl P. Leubsdorf

“This might be the last gasp of the current system,” says veteran Democratic activist Mark Siegel. “The question is: What are the parties going to do about it?”

To do something, they’d have to start by spring. Republicans set their rules four years ahead, so next September’s Republican National Convention would have to approve any 2012 changes. The Democrats can wait, but, ultimately, both parties have to agree.

In the first sign that something might actually happen, a top Republican rules expert said this week that GOP officials hope to push approval next year of the so-called Delaware plan. It divides the states into four groups by size and schedules primaries and caucuses at one-month intervals, starting in early March with the smallest ones and ending with the 12 biggest, including Texas.

It is designed to keep the nomination fight open until the big states vote, making more states meaningful players and taking away the advantage the best-known, most heavily funded candidates now have. Lesser-known hopefuls would be able to become contenders with strong showings in smaller, less-expensive states.

And it would prevent one of the current system’s biggest dangers, that someone could win a nomination without sufficient scrutiny.

Tom Sansonetti, who headed the GOP’s rules committee when a similar effort was blocked in 2000 by Bush strategist Karl Rove, said he expects the rules panel to discuss the Delaware plan at January’s Republican National Committee meeting.

Letters-to-the-Editor

I found a way to agree with Samuelson

The gist of Robert Samuelson’s message on Global Warming seems to be: We’ve done nothing so far, so let’s not start doing something now! And stop picking on the naysayers!

That last part is hard to take. Mercifully, I don’t recall anything Samuelson has written about Iraq. Did I miss him saying we’ve accomplished nothing in the Middle East, so why start (a war) now? Was he singing in praise of dissent when others of his ilk were raging against the traitors in their midst?

To find a way to agree with Samuelson, I’ve replace “climate change” and “global warming” in this essay with “the War on Terror.” mjh

Robert J. Samuelson – Global WarmingWar on Terror Simplicities – washingtonpost.com

If you missed Newsweek’s story, here’s the gist. A “well-coordinated, well-funded campaign by contrarian scientists, free-market think tanks and industry has created a paralyzing fog of doubt around the War on Terror.” This “denial machine” has obstructed action against the War on Terror and is still “running at full throttle.” The story’s thrust: Discredit the “denial machine,” and the country can start the serious business of fighting the War on Terror. The story was a wonderful read, marred only by its being fundamentally misleading.

The War on Terror debate’s great unmentionable is this: We lack the technology to get from here to there. Just because Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to cut terrorism 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050 doesn’t mean it can happen. At best, we might curb the growth of terrorists.

Consider a 2006 study from the International Energy Agency. Using present policies, it projected that the War on Terror would more than double by 2050; developing countries would account for almost 70 percent of the increase. The IEA then simulated an aggressive, global program in the War on Terror Under this admitted fantasy, the War on Terror in 2050 would still slightly exceed 2003 levels.

Even the fantasy would be a stretch. In the United States, it would take massive regulations, higher energy taxes or both. Democracies don’t easily adopt painful measures in the present to avert possible future problems. Examples abound. Since the 1973 Arab oil embargo, we’ve been on notice to limit dependence on insecure foreign oil. We’ve done little. In 1973, imports were 35 percent of U.S. oil use; in 2006, they were 60 percent. For decades we’ve known of the huge retirement costs of baby boomers. Little has been done. One way or another, our War on Terror is likely to be symbolic, ineffective or both. …

But the overriding reality seems almost un-American: We simply don’t have a solution for this problem of terrorism. As we debate it, journalists should resist the temptation to portray the War on Terror as a morality tale — as Newsweek did — in which anyone who questions its gravity or proposed solutions may be ridiculed as a fool, a crank or an industry stooge. Dissent is, or should be, the lifeblood of a free society.
– – – – –

Samuelson is impressive for how much mendacity he can fit into just one column.  See Mary’s excellent Global Warming Naysayers for a discussion of other areas where we should say, “Robert J Samuelson, J’Accuse”.  

  • Samuelson, sadly, often merits being called out.  Just over a year ago, J’accuse! Distorting reality in “Global Warming’s Real Inconvenient Truth”, which was about a Samuelson OPED that “has factual errors, misleading statements and conclusions, and provides a counterproductive path for thinking about and achieving change for a better future.”
    – – – – –

    [mjh: I feel closest to Samuelson when I read the following.]

    Robert J. Samuelson – Farewell, Comma, He Said – washingtonpost.com

    • other voices

    Point Proved

    ABQjournal Opinion: Letters to the Editor
    NCLB Goes Against Laws of Statistics
    I JUST READ the Journal article providing dire warnings that “most schools fail” because they aren’t meeting the standards set by the Republicans’ fiendishly clever No Child Left Behind Act. Have you really not figured it out or is this just sensationalistic journalism?
    For one thing, the statute should be called the “Repeal the Laws of Statistics Act.” Every year, no matter how well a school does, it has to do better next year or it “fails.” If 100 percent of Sandia High students meet the goals for 2007, then Sandia will “fail” every year after that, even if they do exactly as well each year because they aren’t “improving.” How do you improve from 100 percent?
    The act has 37 measures and if a school misses even one measure, it “fails.” Think about that. A school meets 36 goals, misses one, for an overall percentage of 97.3 percent. That’s an “A” in most grading scales, but under No Child Left Behind the school “fails!” …
    Every year, as more and more schools inevitably “fail” to meet the act’s ridiculous criteria, gullible newspapers like the Journal will tell all their readers “your schools are failing!” Seen as a recruitment strategy for convincing voters to distrust the school system generally and the teachers’ union specifically, the act finally makes a little bit of sense. Cynical, vicious, Karl Rovian sense, that is.
    Enough of this and maybe the voters will eventually be more receptive to spending their tax dollars to subsidize expensive private schools for the rich. Oh, I’m sorry, the Republican label is “school vouchers”— what was I thinking. …
    MIKE DANIELS
    Albuquerque
    http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/letters/587798opinion08-21-07.htm

    ABQjournal Opinion: Speak Up!
    OUR SECRETARY of education has the same old solution to failing schools— deny there is a problem, dumb down the grading, blame the messenger. Another failing grade for the high paid educational bureaucrats.— J.L.P.
    http://www.abqjournal.com/opinion/speak/587799opinion08-21-07.htm