PUBLIC FORUM.

Left-wing bias?

Re ``AP challenges Reid fund use'' (Oct. 17):

So much for the right-wing canard that the media have a left-wing bias: Harry Reid's land deal is in the newspaper and all over TV news, while not a word is whispered about House Speaker Dennis Hastert's brazen land deal that netted him $2 million in pure personal profit. Hastert came into office two decades ago with a net worth of less than $300,000 and he's now worth $6 million.

He bought land in Illinois three years ago, inserted a $207 million appropriation bill during a closed-door congressional budget conference to build a freeway adjacent to his new land, then gleefully sold it just five months later for $2 million. Yeah, you can do that when all three branches of your government are controlled by a one-party monopoly.

-- Bob Deluca

Calabasas

Supporting Prop. 89

Re ``No on Proposition 89'' (Oct. 18):

The editorial against Proposition 89 reminds me of St. Augustine's preconversion plea: ``Make me chaste but not yet.'' Conceding that California's political system is nakedly corrupt, with special interests buying access and favors, the Daily News then repeats the propaganda line being put out by those special interests to defeat 89.

Voters should read the carefully reasoned analyses offered by the League of Women Voters, California Common Cause, California Church Impact and California AARP, all supporting 89, before swallowing the special interests' misleading protests. The special interests that largely own Sacramento hate 89. The good-government organizations trying to restore democracy support it.

-- William H. Forthman

Northridge

It's about votes

Proposition 83, if passed, is going to require sex offenders to wear a GPS device on an ankle for life. Outside of California, that seems to present a problem. Is the released sex offender required to stay in California for the rest of his or her life? If yes, it seems like a serious constitutional question arises. If not, who is going to apprehend the violator of the California law in Kansas?

Do we send a posse, or ask Kansas to get him? Since Kansas doesn't have a law like ours, how does that work? Lastly, did the ``tough-on-crime'' politicians get too busy counting the votes they'd win for this ``legislation'' to investigate any further than ``it sounds good to me?''

-- Bob Driscoll

Woodland Hills

Draconian law

Re ``Yes on Jessica's Law'' (Our Opinions, Oct. 11):

While FBI statistics reveal that child molesters actually have the lowest recidivism rate of any criminals except murderers (contrary to the initiative's claims), do we really want to uproot and permanently exile anyone from living within an effective minimum of five blocks from most parks and all K-12 schools, statewide, because he or she was even just once convicted of a decidedly nonviolent misdemeanor -- indecent exposure, for example? Even if the person has been an upright, law-abiding citizen ever since?

According to the legislative analyst, this law would do that. Proposition 83 draconianly overreaches. Vote no.

-- Harvey Pearson

Los Feliz

What is in question

Re ``Don't waste another day on LAUSD fight'' (Their Opinions, (Oct. 16):

There is no doubt that we all want the best education for our children, but how to provide that education is what is in question. To think it unreasonable to question the state Assembly's passage of Assembly Bill 1381 is to question our competence as voters.

What is it about the word ``elected'' that eludes Antonio Villaraigosa and Fabian Nunez? After all, they are elected officials, and I don't know of anyone trying to pass a bill in the state Legislature robbing them of their authority. Perhaps they'd have a different response to the ongoing debate if they were in the same position.

-- Donna Connolly

Van Nuys

Iraqi casualties

Re ``Great job, George'' and ``Iraq body count'' (Your Opinions, Oct 15):

A few minutes on search-site reference areas reveals that the death rate in Iraq in 2005 was 5.49 per 1,000 population per year. Comparing this with rate of 5.55 per 1,000, in Iran, where the populace is similar, but without war, one can assume that the Iraq rate does not include war-related deaths.

Now, if we calculate the number of nonwar deaths over the 4 1/3 years of the war to date for the Iraq population of 26.1 million, we get 620,400 nonwar deaths, which is within the range quoted in the article. Even if the total deaths were (600+150) thousands this would give war deaths of 129,600 which seems to correspond to many other published numbers!

-- Warren Thompson

West Hills

The Web conspiracies

With numerous anti-war congressional candidates surfacing, some specifically 9-11 Truth candidates, Web denizens are watching for another false-flag attack to justify the planned invasion of Iran before the election. The left has been expecting the Bush regime to detonate a radiation weapon in the harbor at Charleston or Galveston.

Now the right predicts coalition commandos will sink the carrier Enterprise in the Persian Gulf, using Russian or Chinese missiles to kill 5,000 of our own troops. Either attack will, of course, be blamed on Iran. Our bombs and missiles are all ready to be launched. All that remains is for the intelligence community to come up with the pretext for another undeclared war.

-- William O. West

Reseda

Downhill road

Since the opening of the railroad crossing north of Nordhoff Avenue, Mason Avenue is like a freeway in the morning and afternoon. Potholes are thick and only get patched once in a while. No chance of getting paved.

Street cleaning stops at Saticoy Street, and when I called Dennis Zine's office, I was told that to get street-cleaning signs put up, I would have to get a petition signed by everyone north of Saticoy. But at the same time, they were putting up street-cleaning signs in Pacoima and Arleta. I have lived on Mason Avenue, north of Saticoy, for 43 years and have really seen our street go downhill with no relief in sight.

-- James G. Jones 

Winnetka

He has something

Re ``Media out of touch with common folks'' (Their Opinions, Oct. 16):

I agree with Bill O'Reilly. He doesn't have media cred. He has media crud.

-- Hal Rothberg

Calabasas

Not asking much

I was all ready to vote for Schwarzenegger in the next election until I read in the paper that he vetoed a bill that would have required pet store owners to supply the animals with fresh drinking water every day and a clean place to sleep. Is that asking too much?

-- Marjorie Eisenberg

West Hills

And his dad, too

Thank you, Daily News, for your endorsement of Jerry Brown for attorney general. He and his father, Pat Brown, have done a lot for the average people and veterans of California.

-- Jerry Piro

Sun Valley

Just a click away

I'd like to offer my congratulations to the brilliant and wonderful individual who invented the ``mute'' control on television sets.

Just press a button, and off goes the noise of the political plethora of TV commercials now dominating our airwaves until election time. That person should get the Nobel Prize.

-- Earl D. Horwitz

North Hills