Drilling not answer on oil
If you listen to the disinformation coming from Bush and Republicans, you may think that soaring oil prices can be remedied by more drilling, and you would be wrong.
According to the "experts" while oil supplies may be "tight," U.S. demand is down, and current price escalations are being driven by speculators on Wall Street at the largely unregulated New York Mercantile Exchange, or NYMEX. Rather than blame environmentalists and liberals, the real culprits here are greedy Wall Street hedge fund managers and speculators who are "betting" that oil prices will continue to rise.
Industry insiders indicate the price of oil would fluctuate between $50 and $75 per barrel if it were not for the influence of NYMEX traders. In January 2007, oil was selling at $50 a barrel, and by August it was at $75.
Compounding this rise in oil pricing from Wall Street speculators is the steep fall in the dollar's value, the traditional currency for trading oil (for now). A weak dollar means higher oil prices, and the falling dollar accompanied by greedy Wall Street speculators is expected to drive oil prices up to $200 per barrel, or higher, by fall. More drilling won't change this!
The solution to our problem was laid out back in the 1970s when Jimmy Carter tried to promote renewable energy research. What derailed this was the election of Ronald Reagan, whose allegiance to the oil-gas-coal industries resulted in eliminating all federal incentive programs and funding into alternative energy research.
Had our government continued funding renewable energy research and incentive programs for the past 30 years, and pushed for conservation and better fuel mileage, Americans would not be paying more than $4 a gallon for gas or dying for Iraqi oil, and America would still be a rising world-class economic power.
Richard Averett
Otego
Much same on slavery, abortion
With as much thought I've given to the subject of reproductive rights, I have never really tried to understand the sheer societal polarization this issue, among few others in our history, creates.
Actually, I don't think we've had something so fester in our national conscience since our slave days, when we similarly struggled with concept of personhood. Only then, we legally saw Negroes as one-third a person. But the same divisive quality that had then, reproductive rights have today _ that stubborn insistence, for both subjective personal desires and political considerations, to deny obvious human life.
Only the means differ. That era justified the practice by a comparison to simians. Ours does it granting it no more humanity than, say, an appendix. Another similarity between times is the idea of life as property _ owned by a master then and a woman now; to be sold or aborted.
But as much as the periods share an institutional degradation of life, there seems to be one significant difference to them. As far as I can tell, there was no social engineering objective to slavery compared to reproductive rights, simply because this is what eugenics is basically about. And improving the race through selective breeding is an idea Margaret Sanger never stopped believing in. Personally, I doubt she would have pushed as hard for birth control had it not been a successful avenue to eugenics. "Before eugenicists and others, who are laboring for racial betterment, can succeed, they must first clear the way for birth control. Like the advocates of birth control, the eugenicists are seeking to assist the race towards the elimination of the unfit," she wrote.
As America's social and political conscience had to eventually resolve the issue of "personhood" toward the Negroes, so it must with the unborn.
Robert Olejarz
Sidney
Super working against town
Why isn't Springfield's Comprehensive Plan done?
Attend a meeting, you'll see how, despite excellent efforts of one member to find common ground and move ahead, our town supervisor made repeated deliberate efforts to sabotage the proceedings.
He kept promising he'd "shut up," but wouldn't keep his promise. He failed to suggest anything positive, argued with and interrupted the town's hired consultant, who was knowledgeable and experienced at this job. He clearly had his mind made up regarding several issues, particularly land use (zoning).
This group surveyed town residents last winter, and 74 percent wanted to preserve the rural nature of the town, while 71.6 percent said we needed zoning. The supervisor refused to consider any wording that included the term "zoning" even when told we already have a form of zoning along the lake called "local law." At one point the co-chair said, "this isn't about what I want or you (the supervisor) wants, it's about what the town wants." Mr. Armstrong's reply, "no, not really." This comment says it all.
I would hope that those who sit on the Comprehensive Plan Committee, planning board and town board continue to do what is best for the entire town, in light of the survey, and ignore the distraction of someone working against town goals.
The survey is reflective of what we have told the town we want in a comprehensive plan. The town has spoken through this study, at a great financial cost to the town, one in which Mr. Armstrong voted in favor of, at an earlier meeting. Despite what the town wants, he will decide to vote it down anyway, wasting town time and money. When a person runs for a spot as a town official, he should put his constituents first, to represent the town's interests.
Maureen Culbert
East Springfield
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