Shutter postal services on Saturday

The U.S. Postal Service is seriously contemplating closing several district offices and offering "early-out" retirement packages to veteran employees. While the latter has merit -- it was accomplished several years ago utilizing the 70 formula: age plus years in service -- the former appears to be a move that an overburdened Starbucks would institute. Rather than shuttering a handful of district offices, eliminate Saturday delivery and close all post offices, sub-stations and satellite stations on Saturday.

Suspending Saturday delivery would be most cost-effective, because the need for T-6's (those carriers who substitute for the regulars on days off) would be nonexistent.

Closing district offices is a mere shell game employed by those who wallow in satisfaction that they did something. Darkening the Postal Service on Saturdays will bring real, not imagined, results. Those pressing electric bills and slew of fliers can certainly wait for Monday.

Edd McDermott

Sun City

Obama is as bad as Bush

I did not think that it would be possible to have a president as bad as George W. Bush, but Obama comes close. His Afghanistan fiasco shows that his 10 years at the foot of an ignorant preacher were not wasted.

I will always remember President Dwight D. Eisenhower's warning: Beware of the industrial military complex; we need guerrilla fighters, not multimillion-dollar tanks and billion-dollar food makers for the troops there. Obama should ask the Russians how their mini-war worked out against the militant peasants.

We need to help our own people in states like, let's say, California.

I can hardly wait to be able soon to choose between the two charismatic giants and movers and shakers such as Obama and Sarah Palin in the next election.

Emil Hurtik

Temecula

What you can learn from the Internet

Every now and then, Paul Jacobs outdoes himself ("Putting notions to rest," July 5). He recently wrote that Internet users only go to sites that suit their outlook, because they don't want to see viewpoints that oppose their own. Then he goes on to tell us that he learned that bankruptcy law does not apply to U.S. states. He learned that from the Internet.

He goes further to point out that columnist Phil Strickland claimed that the cost per taxpaying family to support illegal immigrants is $1,200. Again Paul ventured onto the Internet to learn, from anti-illegal immigrant sites, that the actual cost is $1,183. Not satisfied with that, he's still looking for the "right" amount.

To finish with a flourish, Mr. Jacobs quotes Charlton Heston from the movie "Soylent Green." Mr. Heston said a lot of things in a lot of movies, including, "Get your hands off me, you damn dirty ape!" (I got that from the Internet).

That is about as relevant to Mr. Jacobs' support of illegal immigration as any quote from any other Charlton Heston movie.

Hal Schillinger

Murrieta

Jacobs' column: Ay caramba!

I open my Sunday paper to find a holiday edition with coupons. Revelation! What other goodies await inside? Ah-ha, the gift that keeps on giving. Paul Jacobs' (the political pundit pinata) column, "Putting notions to rest" July 5, deriding fellow columnist Phil Strickland. It is "cleverly" disguised as an opposing viewpoint piece.

His lead-in is a patronizing view of what newspaper journalism has over the Internet.

He then launches into his tirade on Phil's view that illegal immigration is a partial contributing cost factor to California's economic dilemma.

Paul acknowledges the Internet is a source of information. I agree and urge readers to search out and draw their own conclusions. Studies abound.

Proposition 187 was not ruled unconstitutional because of Pyler v. Doe.

Cost per taxpayer for illegal aliens is $1,200 or $1,183 times 20 million. Do the math. Even in Washington lexicon, it amounts to serious money.

He also notes a Congressional Budget office report that states the amount of money spent for services to illegal immigrants is a small percentage compared with what is spent on residents. Paul is obviously in self-denial.

Yea, verily, and ay caramba, Paul, I say unto thee, forsooth journalistic objectivity, quo vadis.

Charles Brickell

Menifee