LETTERS: NCT, Dec. 30, 2008

By Readers of the North County Times | Tuesday, December 30, 2008 12:10 AM PST ∞

Waiting for answers about 9/11

A lot of people are not aware that three buildings fell to the ground in virtually their own footprint on 9/11/01. Building 7, a 47-story skyscraper, also collapsed that day. Larry Silverstein is now suing for billions of dollars for Building 7. ...

What happened to the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) that day? The FBI said they identified all the alleged hijackers through their fingerprints, but there were no bodies at the Pentagon. The line-up we all saw of the alleged hijackers came 24 hours after 9/11. I want the tapes and pictures from the Pentagon, the black boxes from the four airlines and the two six-ton titanium and steel engines they claim burned up at the Pentagon.

Joseph Best

Oceanside

Time to stop denying global warming

Jack Cargile said on Dec. 23 that Antarctica has been cooling for 40 years "in complete defiance of the man-made theory of global warming." He asks how global warming can affect only the Northern Hemisphere. The letter's tone seems to completely reject the science of global warming. Let's look at these thoughts.

Point One: It is true that the majority of Antarctica has been cooling for the last 40 years –– by a small amount. Recent analysis suggests this is due to the hole in the ozone which has changed air circulation patterns, causing the cooling. This is consistent with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change model, which predicts small changes in Antarctica.

Point Two: Antarctica is not the entire Southern Hemisphere! A quick look at an IPCC map of the world (http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/syr/ar4_syr_spm.pdf, p. 4) shows that –– except for Antarctica –– all of that hemisphere is warming, too (but not as much as the Northern Hemisphere).

Point Three: Global warming is a general, long-term trend, therefore no specific local weather would refute the science. The warming will shortly be affecting our lives in dramatic ways, starting with food shortages. It is time to stop denying and start mitigating and adapting to the problem.

Richard Allen

Carlsbad

Westfield can't handle competition

Re: "Westfield sues O'side to stop shopping center," Dec. 24: Obviously, Westfield is not pro-military, or they would understand that service members stationed at Camp Pendleton have to go all the way to Carlsbad to go to a mall. At least Oceanside is accommodating the military's desire for local off-base shopping needs.

Also, Westfield clearly needs to get out of the mall business if it cannot handle the competition of a mall in the next town over. This is what the free enterprise system is all about. Deal with it!

John McCready

Oceanside

Improve water quality before raising rates

One of my sons gave me a water tester to use when my wife and I go dry camping in the boondocks.

I tested the water that comes from my Oceanside water tap and the machine found it to be just above potable. I then tested water obtained from a water vendor, found outside many a supermarket. It was close to being distilled-water quality.

Thought: Why not improve the city water quality before boosting rates? Maybe there will be fewer complaints.

Clyde Martin

Oceanside

Hang in there, NCT

After reading several newspapers across country, I realize how fortunate we are to have the North County Times. It bothers me that people are complaining about cuts to articles, or upset that they are using smaller spaces for comics, etc.

Perhaps some people do not realize how important "classified" is to the life of the newspaper. With the economy suffering, people are not spending money on classified advertising, at least not as much as they did in the past. Therefore, the paper must make painful decisions about cuts.

Newspapers are folding across the nation. It may sound like I am an employee of the NCT, but I do not work for the paper. I am just an avid fan of the local paper, and a ravenous reader.

Please know that some of your subscribers are sensitive to your problems. NCT, hang in there. You have an ardent fan who understands the tough decisions you have to make in these troubled times.

Agnes May (Jo)

Goddard

Oceanside

Language fluid enough for equality

The English language is not static. Ours is the quintessential polyglot, one that borrows context and meaning from every corner of the human universe. It is elastic, fluid and accommodating in ways other modern languages are tragically impaired.

English, for example, has no academy to define officially accepted words and spellings, as do the French, Germans, Spanish and Italians. Americans regularly acknowledge "neologisms" or words coined routinely in medicine, technology and slang –– as foreign wordsˇoften used in immigrant communities grow into common usage, enriching each of us for their nuances, flavors and subtle distinctions.

We all want to understand each other more clearly, yet in this morphed culture of "social inclusion," can domestic partnerships really be the exact equivalent to marriage? Is margarine really the same as butter, or Asti Spumante the same as champagne? Is a "marriage rite" the same as a "right to marriage"?

Just as no single definition is intrinsically superior to another and no human relationship is exactly identical to another, the definition of marriage is fully occupied and is unique. For domestic partnerships, though, there is plenty of room remaining in our language for equality. Find one, or make one.

Jack Wilhelm

Escondido

Israel must return to prewar borders

Israel continues to occupy and murder the Palestinian people. Israel needs to return to the 1967 borders so that peace can return. No country wants to be occupied and controlled by another foreign country.

If the situation were reversed and the Palestinians were occupying Israel, think of the outrage that would be coming from the Jewish people. The present Israeli occupation is illegal and opposed by the vast majority as voted on by the UnitedNations.

Only the U.S. veto power has kept this illegal occupation alive. Israel ... needs to be forced back to its 1967 border with the people of Palestine.

Daniel Lynch

Vista

Stop Israeli attack on Gaza Strip!

My fellow Americans, how can we allow Israel to attack the Palestinians? Who among us thinks this is OK?

If anyone answers yes, then we must investigate their bias. Perhaps they are getting wealthy from it (military-industrial complex), perhaps they are working with or supporting the Project for the New American Century, or perhaps they are sociopaths.

For no one of fair mind and heart could think these attacks are justified or justifiable. They are inhumane and reflect a lack of adherence to civilized modes of operation. They are wrong and they are cruel, and in this life or the next, those who support Israel's efforts here will pay for their crimes and/or indifference.

America should not support Israel and should demand an immediate cease-fire and end to the invasion and bombing campaign! Will they bomb Iran next and say that Iran struck them, and then pull America into another, larger Middle East war? ...

Justice and truth, not pre-eminence, should prevail, must prevail if we are to prevent WWIII. ... This conflict is much more dangerous, I fear, than it looks on the surface. Please be brave and stop this!

Amanda Bicknell

Oceanside

Illegal immigrants add to adversity

We feel that our political leaders should and must introduce legislation to curtail illegal immigrants from draining our health system –– overcrowding our emergency rooms, receiving free medical and child care at the expense of the American taxpayer!

We must stop illegal immigrants overcrowding our schools and colleges –– again, at the expense of the American taxpayer. English must be the official language of our country –– there should be no "Push ... for Spanish." We must not accommodate the demands of illegal aliens!

Welfare and food stamps should be available only to American citizens –– only to children who are born of American citizens –– not to illegal aliens! Children born to illegal immigrants should not gain automatic U.S. citizenship!

Our current economic crisis creates tremendous hardships on the American people. Illegal immigrants living in our country only add to our adversity. We must not continue to allow illegal aliens to violate our immigration laws. Our congressmen and senators must take legislative steps now to stop the flow of illegal immigrants into our country.

Terry and Ann Kennedy

Escondido

Recession may do what border laws didn't

Re: "Illegal immigrants finding it hard to get work," Dec. 21: Now that we are having nothing but tough times and ... it has made ... an impact on this ... group ... that does not have the right to earn wages and not report this to the IRS, means they are in admission of at least violating two federal laws by not having obtained documents to work and then having earnings they were paid, which the IRS says you must report even when below the amount and not taxable.

And the story said a few are looking at returning to Mexico because they see there's no way for them to break laws by staying here and working because no one is hiring. ...

Maybe this recession will do more than the laws that were passed, to have a big impact to reduce the number that were not supposed to be here or work in the first place.

Greg Kopp

Carlsbad

'Border' documentary available for rent

The outstanding new DVD documentary "Border," that was shown last December at the Escondido Charter High School Theater and in San Diego, is now finally available for rent or purchase at Netflix.com, Blockbuster.com and Amazon.com. I highly recommend it for all of us who live so close to the border and are dealing with illegal immigration in our communities.

This award-winning film contains shocking footage of the massive human and drug smuggling coming from Mexico and the brave Americans trying to stop it. Read more about this important film at www.bordermovie.com.

Let's hope that President Obama takes aggressive steps to secure our border and enforce our immigration laws so we can end this nightmare on both sides of our southern border. We must return to a system of legal immigration. Amnesty for 12 million-20 million illegal aliens will only make things worse. No amnesty!

Julie Quinn

Oceanside

City shouldn't subsidize solar

Re: "City contemplates residential solar power program," Dec. 26: Please, Encinitas City Council, don't burden our state (taxpayers) with subsidies so solar energy can be employed! Solar energy is very costly and does little to reduce the nation's energy independence.

Let us spend our money in these hard economic times on items such as unemployment. Don't fritter away our taxpayer dollars on solar energy, but invest in items such as pollution-free nuclear power like France and other countries and provide energy independence.

I don't think the unemployed walking the streets will admire the costly solar panels.

Bob Sheard

Oceanside

State needs to get real and stop dreaming

Reading the various articles about the budget crisis, I am amazed about some of the comments:

1.) If the car fee/tax had been higher already, that money would have been spent and we would have even more problems to find a way to close the gap.

2.) California is actually broke. What do we expect from the car industry applies here too: a.) Reduce benefits and salaries in addition to other cost reductions. Not only on state level, as most municipalities are broke, too. b.) Close/reduce bloated bureaucracies that do not help to create new jobs. Do not increase costs for any business, including "green" costs. c.) Even sacred cows like schools need to be adjusted to what we can pay for!

Never forget there is never too much money for the bureaucrats. They still consider us to be their taxpaying subjects –– like the old kings.

California has already today the lowest credit rating of all states in the U.S.! We need to get real and stop dreaming. ...

Politicians have to accept the same cure for the state of California as we people in California have to go for. There is no other way than to cut costs. I cannot ask for more pay either.

Why should I pay more tax after my house is "underwater," my job is gone and my 401(k) is down too? Increasing debt is not an option either; interest rates for California are the highest in the country already!

How bad does it have to get before the politicians wake up?

Walter Koenig

Oceanside

Construction at border crossing slow as molasses

Excuse me, but is anyone else not very impressed with the construction schedule for the proposed Otay Mesa Border Crossing Facility? Where's the newsworthiness? The much-needed facility is being heralded in headlines for being complete by 2014! That's five years!

I became even less impressed after checking the construction history for the U.S. Pentagon: 19 months! If something is needed now, let's appropriate the money, build it now and get the goods and people out of the traffic jams and on their way.

If we wait, the new ports of entry will undoubtedly cost us more due to inflation. Build now, and it will have some positive impact on the lagging construction industry, too. This is not an earmark –– more of a justified Homeland Security appropriation and a commerce issue. Bilbray? Issa? Are you listening?

G. Lance Johannsen

Carlsbad

Negative words dominate Palin coverage

The Parade magazine cover of Dec. 28 in the North County Times is unfair to Sarah Palin. Parade always has negative words in close proximity to her picture or article about her. "Worst" dominates her picture on the cover of Parade.

Page Five has four negative words in her article. They are "worst," "tiny," "appalled" and "blip," without a single positive word. When one reads Hillary Clinton's article, there are five positive words and not a single negative word.

Here is what I think: Sarah Palin is compassionate, bright, energetic, patriotic, smart, far-sighted and honest.

The North County Times is grossly and politically unfair.

Bob Lovci

Cardiff