Article doesn't belong in NCT

Re: "Police: S.C. man charged with having sex with horse," July 30: What a disgusting article! If you have no better stories than this to fill up the newspaper, then it should be a smaller paper.

We have to monitor TV, the Internet and now our regional newspaper to protect our children from garbage.

Please, clean up your act!

Nancy Jones

Carlsbad

Headed for the scrap heap

When Governor Schwarzenegger stated he wouldn't raise taxes during the budget crises, he was stating he wouldn't ask his millionaire buddies to help solve the mess many created. He then proceeded to slash every program that would affect the poor to get the budget passed.

The rich can buy their way out of any problem. The poor never had the power to conspire and seriously screw anyone unless they use a weapon and only get used by the rich and powerful. The middle class of our nation is headed for the scrap heap with middle-class jobs being outsourced by technology and low-wage foreign nations. The wealth they have left is being stolen by con men destroying their pension funds.

Only the rich have the money to keep our state and nation running properly; however, they also have the means to hire lawyers and CPAs to avoid paying taxes.

So here we are: The rich avoid taxes; the poor don't owe any taxes; and the middle class is buried in debt. The middle class is so worried the poor will get something they don't deserve, the middle class votes for Republican con men who couldn't care less about their problems.

Is this what our founders had in mind?

Joe Martin

Oceanside

Personal freedoms forfeited

A 1,018-page health care bill promises comprehensive quality care. Instead it delivers tax increases covering less than half of the badly understated costs, and comprehensive bureaucratic subservience.

Obama achieves "public option" domination through private plan taxes and penalties, and "public option" subsidies including uncompetitive regulations and printed money. The private health insurance industry flickers dimly as employers avoid taxes, penalties and imperious regulations, while accepting proffered subsidies. Of course, Congress exempts itself from any unpleasantness with statutory access to remaining luxurious private policies.

For the vast majority, the emerging single-payer socialized insurance means cradle-to-grave subservience. Autonomous, anonymous federal careerists write regulations interpreting congressional intent to incorporate ideas considered too sensitive for public debate.

The roadblocks encountered with building permits, car registrations, education grants and loans and the IRS become perpetual and pervasive for health issues. Doctors and nurses join private sector professionals such as education financial aid directors and CPAs, who often serve as federal agents instead of client advocates.

The most important consequence becomes personal freedom forfeitures. Worthwhile health care initiatives locate meaningful dialogue, diagnosis, advocacy and problem solving with families, nurses and doctors; not with lawyers, insurance agents and bureaucrats. Such approaches are not contemplated.

Howard Sharpell

San Marcos

What a circus!

"All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players." William Shakespeare wrote these insightful and perspicacious words years ago. Napoleon Bonaparte put it this way: "Kings and pawns, emperors and fools."

As I survey the social landscape before me, I see small-minded, mediocre and morally bankrupt actors playing the parts of corporate executives and career politicians, in it for money, power and ego gratification, rushing about smartly and acting as if they know what they're doing: the blind leading the blind. Many are just bumbling through their lines on this temporal stage, disseminating fake and fabricated information and figures that have no basis in truth or reality and leaving vast numbers of hurt people in their wicked wakes.

It is dangerously unfortunate that we have not with us this day, in our time of supreme need, a few truly great leaders, statesmen and honorable captains of industry like Washington, Lincoln, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Franklin, et al. The exploding orgy of corruption and evil before us is like a thousand writhing sharks, roiling and heaving the societal waters in a frantic and desperate attempt to get their ill-gotten share of chum.

Gary Walker

Escondido

Arabs hold key to Mideast peace

Phil Acosta, William Dreu, Daniel and Patricia Lynch, Mel Crawford, Eric Parish and Chris Pulse: they're all a real draw to the tourism in Vista, aren't they? I always thought Fallbrook was the hot spot.

In regards to Phil Acosta's letter "Israel's Death Machine," July 19: … White phosphorus was used in civilian areas during the war with Hamas. Why did Hamas decide to hide in homes and schools? Because they are cowards! Using the homes forgrenade practice?

Please, Phil … anyone with half a brain knows and has known the U.N. is almost as anti-Semitic as he is. As long as the Middle East practices Sharia law, there will be no peace. Or maybe those in Gaza could stop shooting rockets at Israeli civilians? Why would we invade Israel? It is a dry, nondescript desert the size of Rhode Island. Israelis have a right to the land the Palestinians ran them out of. Perhaps other Arab nations could help the Palestinians?

Oh, wait â€"â€" their "brothers" all kicked them out. Jordan even killed tens of thousands. Why? Phil's letters are garbage. Take them out with the trash.

Brandon Webb

Carlsbad

Why wasn't Palin vetted like Sotomayor?

Re: "Sotomayor sidesteps abortion, guns queries," July 16: I find it ironic that Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee grilled Judge Sonia Sotomayor as if she were an al-Qaida operative, even though she has more experience on the bench than any of the current Supreme Court justices.

Yet these same senators insisted that neophyte Sarah Palin, who recently announced abandoning her responsibilities as governor under questionable circumstances, was qualified to run as the GOP's vice-presidential candidate.

If the senators had scrutinized Palin as thoroughly as Sotomayor, the party of Lincoln might not have ended up on life support.

Bunny Landis

Oceanside

Voodoo economics versus real economics

Such horrible howling we're hearing from Congress about the "outrageous cost" of providing health care for America. Congress clamors that the nation is bankrupt, that we are "taxed to death." But of course, these hypocrites already have their gold-plated health care.

Yet we hear precious little about the far more outrageous costs of the Bush war and the Obama war. Why? Because this is "off-budget" voodoo money.

And we've never heard how the Federal Reserve is going to pay for the trillions of bailout dollars to "re-liquefy" the financial system. That's voodoo money, too. It's voodoo economics with electronic money. Inject a little voodoo powder into the monetary pot, stir it with incantations and ferocious velocity, and it'll turn into voluminous "real" money.

It's quackery. Why does Congress use voodoo dollars for Wall Street and wars, but insist on real taxpayer dollars to pay for health care?

War and the Fed are destructive enterprises. They destroy lives, infrastructure and our currency. Investing in health is a creative enterprise that improves lives and increases productivity. Strange that voodoo economic quackery should work for war, but not for health care.

Let's annihilate voodoo economics and deal with fiscal reality. These wars are unnecessary.

J. Howard Crews

Fallbrook

Don't believe everything you read

All the time in the various news media outlets, you will hear and read that there could be serious problems due to earthquakes, global warming, pollution, or any number of subjects designed to startle, disturb and alarm people. It gets printed because it sells, and usually no investigations are done to verify that any of this information is correct.

The people who generate this copy in radical form do it so they will be noticed and paid for it. Political organizations will grab it and twist it even more to advertise themselves and to generate public interest. It becomes political propaganda. This situation is happening right now in our federal and state governments on a variety of subjects.

Instead of believing everything you hear and read on the subjects that interest you, seek to understand them better by further investigation.

Neil Harvey

Bonsall

Who should leave?

More smoke from Jack Strumpf (July 22). Strumpf starts off by telling us how he has been a student of military and world history, and then blows it by telling us that the Japanese were a threat to our freedoms. Since the Japanese had no intention or ability to invade the U.S., I am tired of hearing the ignorant telling me that the Marines protected my freedom.

Let's get one thing clear. I criticize the U.S. and the military because going around the world killing innocent people and destroying their country has no positive benefit to this country. Strumpf and the rest of this jingoistic herd don't care about depleting our resources for endless wars.

I, on the other hand, do, so I think it is they who should leave. Why are we building huge embassies in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan? So at a time when we are drowning in debt, we are spending more on the military in our quest to expand the American empire. The Arab people cared about Iraq, and our invasion increased their hatred toward us, but saying they didn't care about Iraq because their despotic rulers didn't send in their military is just more smoke from Strumpf.

Chris Pulse

Vista

He didn't get right stimulus package?

If President Obama did not get the stimulus package he wanted, why did he sign it? He took an additional three to four days before he signed it. Someone on his staff could have read it and advised him.

But now that his poll numbers are going down, he is trying to blame Congress and the speaker for not giving him a package that would have solved the economic problems the nation is having. Is he looking for a scapegoat?

Robert Ference

Carlsbad

Palin an unwitting Democrat decoy

I think the liberal media front attacked Sarah Palin to make her a cause celebre for Republicans. Now they think she is their hottest prospect over Romney and Giuliani and others who are biding their time. Obviously, the leftists have picked Palin as the one they can beat, and have flushed her into the open. She has leaped onto center stage, leaving better contenders at the stage door.

I liked her at first, but she quickly wore out her sheen and became the queen of sass, even topping Hillary. To be fair to her, McCain, who feared Romney's intellect and Giuliani's popularity, treated her like the cleaning lady instead of a smart governor. But her smartness could not surpass her image of provincial limitation; she is not a national figure. I think the Democrat-media machine saw this and thrust her into the limelight to upstage the best Republicans; and in fishing terms, she bit hook, line and sinker.

Edward Karlson

Oceanside

Prop. A removes checks and balances

Would you vote to repeal Proposition 13 (the people's law), our only protection against excessive property tax? Of course not! Why then would you vote for Rainbow's Proposition A, which repeals your voter entitlements under 95-1?

Those voting rights give the ratepayers the opportunity to approve Rainbow debt in excess of $1 million. If we take away the checks and balances that 95-1 provides, then our debt can be run into the millions of dollars very quickly and the full repayment burden comes from the ratepayer's pocketbooks. We need to retain our checks and balances.

A dollar paid for debt hurts the same as a dollar paid out in taxes. We need both tax (Prop. 13) and debt protection (95-1) to shield us from wasteful government spending.Please join me and vote no on Prop. A and save our voter rights and our pocketbook.

Bud Swanson

Fallbrook