Arguments against landfill are tired

Mr. Price, in his recent letter, brings back the same tired argument that the Gregory Canyon Landfill is dangerous (Letters, May 8). However, what has once again been proven by a plethora of environmental geologists, engineers and advocates is that his and his group's motives have nothing to do with protecting drinking water. They are concerned with protecting big-business profits.

The landfill will be sited on Highway 76, about a mile from the Pala Casino. The fact is that the tribe, which contributes tens of thousands of dollars to political campaigns, does not want to share the road with the trash trucks that will be using the landfill, nor does the tribe want to pay for its fair share of improvements to 76.

Government studies show that the casinos along that route generate 10 times as much traffic as the landfill, and the landfill owners have committed to pay for improvements to the road to make it safer and to provide land for it to be widened.

The casino owners and their well-paid lackeys would rather spend their profits on a campaign of deceit than to help provide for the safety of their patrons.

Linda Cooper

Bonsall

Landfill will be safest in the state

Well, they're at it again. The NIMBY fight over the much-needed Gregory Canyon landfill continues to hide behind the cloak of "clean water activists."

They did it during Proposition B, until the public realized that supporters calling themselves "San Diegans for Clean Drinking Water" were nothing more than the Pala Tribe of Mission Indians, who own a casino near where the voter-approved Gregory Canyon landfill will be built. And once again, they and their supporters like Hershell Price are shamelessly using scare tactics to achieve their goal of blocking the construction of the much-needed landfill (Letters, May 8).

The San Diego County Department of Environmental Health certified the environmental impact report for the landfill, and it will be the safest, most environmentally protective landfill ever built in the state of California. Are we to believe those who seek only to protect their profits, or years of environmental studies that have produced a landfill that exceeds even California's strict environmental laws?

Please, Mr. Price, the county environmentalists and engineering teams have spent enough time and taxpayer dollars proving you wrong. It's time for you to stop the lies.

Jacqueline McFarland

Fallbrook

Landfill solution to waste problem

A local newspaper article, "San Diego finds Miramar Landfill is filling far too quickly" (http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050209/news_1n9recycle.html) demonstrated that we need to recycle more. But recycling alone will not solve the city's nor the county's long-term landfill capacity problems. A recent letter by Hershell Price states that we have plenty of landfill space; yet several local studies have come to a different conclusion (Letters, May 8).

The Miramar landfill could run out of space as early as 2012. At that point, the only existing alternatives will be rapidly filling landfills in the South Bay and East County.

The county's need for a new landfill has grown since voters approved North County's Gregory Canyon landfill in 1994 and again. But special interests opposed to Gregory Canyon have continued their delaying tactics, first with a multimillion-dollar campaign for a ridiculous ballot initiative, then with frivolous lawsuits seeking further delays in opening this badly needed landfill.

Now more than ever, these delay tactics should stop, and the will of San Diego County voters should be carried out to provide an environmentally sound, financially secure solution to our growing waste-disposal problem.

Ted Felecitti

Carlsbad

The CIA lies

Pelosi says the CIA is lying, and the Republicans are outraged. Help me understand this: The CIA overthrew the Mossadegh government and lied about it for decades. The CIA overthrew the Allende government and lied about it for years. Likewise, they interfered in Nicaragua, Cuba, Venezuela, El Salvador and who knows where else, and lied about it.

Don't clandestine and covert operations, a major responsibility of the CIA, by definition involve deceit? When Panetta says the CIA doesn't lie, he is lying!

Obama, fire Panetta.

Douglas Hunter

Vista

More nonsense about homosexuality

All people, whatever their sexual equipment and/or orientation, are conceived and born by the same identical processes. This is also true of the rest of the primates, and, I suspect, most of the other mammals. To claim, as does Frank Lancelotti ("Opinions, not facts, on homosexuality," Letters, May 15), that this is false simply shows the ridiculous extent to which he will go to peddle his prejudice.

He speaks of the "natural union of heterosexuals" as the only way that produces conception and birth of a child. This is, of course, utter nonsense. Any two sexually mature individuals, whatever their sexual orientation, can produce the same outcome as long as they have the appropriate sexual equipment.

Lancelotti's excursion into the functioning of the brain is a wildly nonfunctional journey. He starts correctly enough: the tabula rasa at inception and the recording and integrating of experience. But as with instincts, this has nothing to do with sexual orientation. One does not "learn" to be gay or straight. One observes the norms and quirks of society and tries to exist happily and safely with, or in spite of, them.

David Horwitz

Vista

City Council and the budget

I sent the following to the City Council: "Council members: Good leaders lead by example. Before cutting essential city services, please consider cuts in city workers' salaries and benefits â€"â€" starting with yours. The state of California is on the verge of bankruptcy because of outrageous retirement benefits, excessive salaries and other benefits, along with irresponsible spending in general. Please do not follow the pitiful example of our state government."

I am requesting that the North County Times publish the salary and retirement information of at least city management personnel and possibly all city employees. After all, we are paying for those salaries and benefits.

John Dowell

Oceanside

Don't allow county fairgrounds to be sold

Stay out of my yard, Arnold! We San Diegans cannot let the Del Mar Fairgrounds be sold.

The fair is a wonderful family event. My children grew up attending the fair every year since they were in strollers. They now show their animals through Future Farmers of America, camping there each year.

The location and atmosphere of the fairgrounds and racetrack have no rival. One can spend the day at the fairgrounds, well into midnight, and feel safe. What other fair can claim the same? This is a precious commodity that San Diegans need to fight for.

Go to the fair this year and see for yourself.

Tammy Russell

Fallbrook

Don't forget meaning of Memorial Day

As you enjoy a three-day weekend, the Santa Margarita Chapter, Daughters of the American Revolution, encourages you to remember the reason for this federal holiday. It isn't to enjoy picnics, but to remember those men and women who have lost their lives while serving in the Armed Forces of our country. Fly your flag at half-staff from sun-up until noon. Participate in the National Moment of Remembrance at noon (3 p.m. EST). Remind your young children what Memorial Day really means.

Freedom is not free. It was, and is still today, paid for with the lives of American men and women. God Bless America and those who gave their all.

Wanda Prosser

Vista

Torture violates laws of God, man

Dick Cheney is finding it very difficult to justify his embrace of torture, of turning to the "dark side." The latest Republican ploy is to point the finger at others, like a child trying to justify a lapse of judgment by saying, "All the kids do it."

His latest interview points the finger at George W. Bush. And before that, at Nancy Pelosi and the Congressional Committee on Intelligence. As if there were any "intelligence" in the decision to use hard measures.

Those of us who have followed U.S. behavior in other nations know that torture is no stranger to the CIA. Testimony in front of the Church Committee in the mid-1970s brought out the undisputed fact that the U.S. not only looked the other way as torture took place in Latin American countries like Chile and Argentina, we taught it under a well-funded program, both in-country and at the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.

Torture violates the laws of God and of man. It must be stopped. Files must be made public and those involved brought to judgment. To quote FDR, "It is not necessary to be cruel to be tough."

Dolores Welty

Encinitas

The County Board's misconduct

It took four e-mails, four months and a letter in the North County Times to get Supervisor Pam Slater-Price to respond to my question: "How much money had been spent conducting a lawsuit challenging the legality of medical marijuana?" which shows me their attitude on the voters' right to request public information.

John Weil, chief of staff for Slater-Price, finally replied on Feb. 2: "Computer files show that county counsel spent $4,871.75 on the medical marijuana case thus far." My own attorney estimates that it would cost approximately $250,000 minimum to take any issue to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In light of the current financial situation, it seems to me to be criminal to use taxpayers' money to pursue this issue to overturn a state law while the County Board of Supervisors maintains a $10 million "slush fund," which members use to ensure they are re-elected.

When will the voters wake up and remove Bill Horn, Dianne Jacobs and Pam Slater-Price from office for misuse of public funds?

Tired of corruption in government, want an end to misuse of public funds and elected officials who ignore your wishes? Use the power voters have and do something about it!

Gerald Reaster

Escondido

Cruelty aboard sports boats

I found the letter by Melissa Seidl on May 14 interesting as it applies to the cruelty taking place, daily, aboard our local sports boats. I ran these boats for 12 years and could not stand for my crewmen to "slab out" the bait fish by cutting off their sides for slab or strip bait.

This process was done by holding the head down and filleting the sides to include the tail on one side and the other without. … This was done mostly to mackerel.

I forbade my crewmen to do this unless the fish was first killed. … Of course, they thought I was nuts. Too bad! My way or stay on the dock. One time, I watched the skipper of a dive boat twist the tail off a lobster and toss the body overboard to crawl around till it died. Another time, my second captain pinned down a bat ray and sliced off the wings. It was tossed overboard and the fish around the boat attacked it as it sank to the bottom. …

No excuse for any of these activities, as far as I am concerned.

Hollis Rhine

Fallbrook

Don't bet on your retirement

These truths are self-evident â€"â€" but some of you won't want to hear them. The subject is "real" money (or savings) versus "investment" money (or savings). When a worker earns money by his own efforts, whether on the farm, in the office or on the assembly line, and he saves some of it for retirement, whether it be in a bank or in the old sock â€"â€" that's "real" money!

When someone chooses to invest his money in the stock market â€"â€" he is making a bet â€"â€" that is, he is hoping his money will grow in value based upon the "sweat" of others. If he and his employer place money in a 401(k) (i.e., the "market") and it grows, it's the result of a winning bet. The winnings are not "real" because they weren't earned by his own efforts, but on someone else's efforts.

Conversely, if the stock market tanks, and he loses his paper profits, it's the result of a bad bet. He's merely losing money he hadn't earned in the first place. What this country needs is an adequate retirement system, not dependent upon the stock market, but upon a viable, nationwide retirement plan for everyone. …

Robert Green

Fallbrook

A Guantanamo Bay solution

We know President Obama is planning to close Guantanamo Bay prison, where some of the world's worst terrorists are being held. However, he has not come up with a plan as to where to put them. One solution could be to use the foreign exchange student program as a model, and place each Gitmo terrorist guy with a loony American Civil Liberties Union guy. Move them right into their home, a match made in heaven.

This will keep the ACLU (guy) too busy dodging feces, urine and spittle to allow time for him to promote his liberal agenda. A word of caution to the ACLU guy: Keep your bedroom door locked at night.

Ron Logue

Oceanside