PUBLIC FORUM.

Be very afraid

Re ``Feds try to google Google'' (Jan. 20):

Big Brother is alive and well and bigger than ever, I see! There are far more important issues to deal with this day and age (homelessness, poverty, tension between people of all walks of life, job security, etc.) and our government has to waste its time (and our money) on what people are looking at on the Internet? Yikes! People, for the last time, be afraid, be very afraid! Next thing you know the government will want to know what type of toilet paper we buy. Ridiculous!

- Gina Carter

Studio City

Political job-hunting

Here we have State Sen. Richard Alarcon, City Councilman Alex Padilla and Assemblywoman Cindy Montaez all running for another office while still holding their present office. The net effect is to take away their service to the public for almost a year, including the service of staff members who are working for their bosses' re-election, lest they, too, be out of work when the term limit is fulfilled. This state's term-limits law needs to be revised so that when a term limit is fulfilled, the candidate cannot run for another office for at least a year.

- Frank Jacobs

Sylmar

Fit to be spoofed

Re ``All The News That's Fit To Spoof'' (Viewpoint, Jan. 22):

I've subscribed for at least 15 years, have never written a letter to the editor before, but felt compelled to let you know that I eagerly look for Steve Young's column every Sunday, and enjoy it even more that I did Dave Barry's column. Please keep him around permanently! Thanks for finding him in the first place for us. There will always be plenty of news to spoof!

- Joan Gomes

Simi Valley 

Right to death

Re: ``Suicide law promotes 'new culture of dying''' (Their Opinions, Jan. 20):

In upholding Oregon's assisted suicide law, the Supreme Court reached the right result for the wrong reasons. The law should have been upheld on the grounds of an individual's right to his own life.

The right to life includes and implies the right to commit suicide. To hold otherwise is to deny the right to life at its root. If we have a duty to go on living, despite our better judgment, then our life does not belong to us, and we exist by permission, not by right.

Individuals have a moral right to seek assistance in committing suicide. And if a doctor is willing to assist, based on an objective assessment of his patient's mental and physical state, the law should not stand in his way.

There is no rational basis upon which the government can properly prevent an individual from choosing to end his life. The choice is his because the life is his.

- Thomas A. Bowden

Ayn Rand Institute 

Irvine

Dying death penalty

That California has executed two of its 640 Death Row inmates in recent months does not mean that the state will ever carry out 90 percent of the remaining sentences. Though there is no moratorium officially, the process has bogged down to the point that more than 20 years will pass between acriminal's trial and execution. I believe first-degree murderers deserve to be executed, but with so many exclusions on the books - mental illness, under 18 at the time, inadequate defense and others - the death penalty will eventually be taken off the books.

- Sol Taylor

Sherman Oaks

Worst choice

The Founding Fathers set up our system of checks and balances very carefully. Our current administration seems to think that the executive branch should be essentially unchecked. From his previous rulings, it seems that Judge Samuel Alito shares this view. I believe the worst choice for a justice of the Supreme Court is someone who doesn't believe that the Supreme Court should play a strong role in keeping the executive branch in check. For this reason, I believe that Alito should not be confirmed as our next justice on the Supreme Court.

- James Bernstein

Santa Monica