Letters in the Editor's Mailbag.

Byline: The Register-Guard

Here's what 'billion' means

I don't think most Americans can comprehend what a billion actually means.

These politicians throw this figure, $87 billion for Iraq, around like it was peanuts. To provide an example that nearly everyone can understand: one billion minutes ago, a man called Jesus Christ was walking this earth.

ROBERT THIMSEN

Eugene

Refuse to sign petitions

We are getting more and more concerned.

A month ago, the Church Women United expressed alarm at the possibility of House Bill 2152 being referred to the voters. As the time for the petition deadline grows closer and we hear of the professionals managing a strong petition signing campaign, we can only plead with thinking voters to consider the ramifications of such an action.

The Register-Guard has consistently covered the human services, seniors and the school programs that will be adversely impacted. Somehow, the severity of it has not translated into our understanding.

I realize this will have a negative financial impact on all of us, but how else do we pay for services, other than by taxes? As women of faith, Church Women United, as well as Ecumenical Ministries of Oregon, ask that voters respectfully refuse to sign the petitions for the initiative and retain the carefully planned compromise of the Legislature.

ALICE DUGAN, President

Church Women United

Eugene

Warming theory is a gold mine

On Sept. 29, President Vladimir Putin was expected to sign the Kyoto global warming treaty. Instead, he said, "If it warms up two or three degrees, it's not terrible." Indeed, during the medieval warm period, our ancestors enjoyed temperature two degrees higher than now. Andrei Illarionov, Putin's key economic advisor stated: "The Kyoto protocol will stymie economic growth. It will doom Russia to poverty, weakness and backwardness." And his most influential science adviser, Yuri Izrael, declared: "All the scientific evidence seems to support the same general conclusions, that the Kyoto protocol is overly expensive, ineffective and based on bad science." Similar conclusions were the basis of petitions signed by thousand of scholars around the world.

The global warming hypothesis never became an established scientific theory because it does not explain all known facts. If global warming is caused by humans/9 - why was there global cooling in the middle part of the last century? Computer models (based on the hypothesis) predict the fastest warming of the atmosphere, and in the polar regions, while precise measurements by satellites show hardly any warming of the atmosphere, and Antarctica is actually cooling.

The global warming hypothesis would be already dead and buried if it were not a dogma (and a gold mine!) for radical environmentalists, unscrupulous scientists, liberal politicians, U.N. bureaucrats, and sensationalist journalists.

WOJCIECH SZALECKI

Eugene

Tail is wagging the dog

This is regarding the little girl who is disturbed at having to say "under God" while reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. (I have a feeling that her father is the one who is disturbed.)

The result is that this dispute is going to the U.S. Supreme Court for a judgment. Think of the possibility that, because one little girl objects, the great majority of us who believe in a supreme being could be denied acknowledging our gratitude for the wonderful country in which we live.

Since atheists are in a small minority (too bad there aren't a few foxholes around), let them close up their ears. When are we going to stop letting the tail wag the dog?

ANN CRAWLEY

THOMAS F. CRAWLEY

Cottage Grove

Those liberal boogie men

Boo! Look out! Halloween may have come and gone, but there are still boogie men out there. Especially that conservative bugaboo, the liberal media! According to James T. Bryant (letters, Nov. 2), the media are responsible for "the greater danger from the picture of chaos being painted by the liberal media than from the terrorists themselves" Did that bad old liberal media, sitting back in their smoke-filled room plotting to get Shrub, hide the weapons of mass destruction, too?

If only we lived in a world where bullets and bombs didn't kill people, just contrary opinions, we'd have fewer letters to the editor, but they'd all be happy letters. No bad news, and no criticizing the president (unless he is a Democrat).

The spectre of honest media reporting (anathema to the Bush administration) is not what is killing and maiming our young Americans in Iraq. Our troops are dying because our president put them in a bad spot where they will be shot at regularly by people who do not want them in their country. They are dying daily because President Bush used them as his personal pawns in an oil grab thinly disguised behind smoke-and-mirrors jingoism 

Are Americans any safer since the invasion and victory - whoops, I meant continuing victory (since the war that was "mission accomplished" in April is still on)? I was never in danger of weapons of mass destruction, but my neighbors' sons are in danger from Bush and his hubris.

DANETTE LAMSON-HALL

Eugene

Per pupil estimate is inflated

Bob Loomis (letters, Nov. 2) dusted off his indignation and polished up his world-view to enthrall us with facts gleaned from somewhere besides the Oregon Department of Education. His target was the surtax passed by the Legislature. The tax will help stave off a portion of the cuts in services to Oregon's most needy and help our schools avoid more revenue reductions.

Loomis plowed new ground with two pronouncements that I cannot let slide. The first asked if "anyone realized" taxpayers here fork over $10,000 per year for K-12 students. Next, he claimed we were ranked "lower than most states" on our test scores. Nope.

ODE's reports a $5,263 per pupil allotment for the 2003-04 year. Were you to add all of the city levies, monies for new buildings, grants awarded to us, it may reach above $7,000. I guess if you charge us for sidewalk use, it could top $10,000.

The test score jab is harder to take. Even with the terrible cuts sustained by our schools, we consistently score above state and national averages in math, reading, science and writing. Each year, they consistently go up. Checking the ODE's, Oregon Report Card on the Web (www.ode.state.or.us/), you can break down the facts. While you're there, check page 40 of the 2001-02 edition. It shows how teachers' average salaries in the state have gone from $32,300 to $46,033 in the years from 1990 to 2002. Adjusted for inflation, the total increase amounts to 1.7 percent, a real dollar increase of $539. Impressive, huh?

JOSEPH H. ALSUP, Principal

Crest Drive Elementary

Eugene

Don't abandon returning troops

As Veterans Day approaches, I am haunted by a foreboding I just can't shake. Our soldiers in Iraq are experiencing things human beings were not meant to feel. If we learned anything from the Vietnam War, it was that these soldiers will all return changed and that many will return psychologically and emotionally damaged.

We are already hearing reports that the stateside military medical facilities are unprepared and underfunded. Will we be prepared for treating up to 150,000 returning troops suffering from post-traumatic stress? And, with the high levels of depleted uranium all over Iraq, will we be prepared to care for the myriad medical problems that will arise over the next several decades?

On this Veterans Day, write a letter to your representatives in Washington demanding that laws be passed guaranteeing these soldiers will not be abandoned. Anyone who puts themselves in harm's way to protect our freedom should never again have to struggle for basic human needs for themselves and their families - affordable housing, enough to eat and proper health care.

Every member of Congress has a pension that guarantees him or her these basic needs and much more for the rest of their lives. Don't you think the men and women they send to fight should have the same consideration? If you display a sign that reads "Support Our Troops," here's something real we can accomplish.

CAROL HORNE

Eugene

Parkway just smoke and mirrors

Will taxpayers ever get the straight scoop on the proposed West Eugene Parkway? Voters were told, "the money is there," and "it's planned and ready to go." Now we learn that this past spring the Federal Highway Administration(FHWA) determined that the parkway wasn't ready to go: It would not adequately solve traffic congestion problems and the federal money might not be there (Register-Guard, Oct. 18).

Why were voters misled by some leaders during the November 2001 advisory vote? Why is the news that the FHWA was about to kill the parkway project last spring just coming out now? Why weren't we told? What else is the Oregon Department of Transportation and Mayor Jim Torrey withholding from taxpayers?

ODOT needs to come clean about how much the parkway would really cost citizens of Lane County, what other projects would suffer and whether the parkway would work. The parkway is still a shell game. ODOT can't cover up the fact that it's the people of Lane County who would end up paying for an expensive, ineffective and ill-conceived project.

Our bridges are falling apart and a new PeaceHealth hospital would require taxpayers to invest nearly $100 million in transportation infrastructure around the I-5/Belt Line area. We can't afford to build the parkway, too. The money isn't there.

The West Eugene Parkway isn't really planned and ready to go. It's all smoke and mirrors!

ROB HANDY

Eugene

LETTERS LOG

Letters received in past week: 164

Letters published: 57

What's on readers' minds: The Bush administration's Iraq policy was the hottest Mailbag topic during the past week. We received 17 letters about Iraq, most of them focusing on the president's request for $87 billion in funding and the increasing number of deadly attacks on U.S. forces, including the Nov. 2 downing of an Army transport helicopter that claimed 16 lives. We also received 12 letters on the effort to refer the Oregon Legislature's recent tax increase to a special election ballot in February. Other popular topics include the secrecy surrounding CIA Director George Tenet's Oct. 29 speech to university presidents at the University of Oregon; the Healthy Forests Initiative; an Oct. 19 commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by local political scientist M. Reza Behnam; the contest for the Democratic nomination for president; the University of Oregon's decision to locate a new basketball arena at Howe Field and James T. Bryant's letter alleging that the "liberal media" have distorted news from Iraq.