Bigger things going on in the world

We have two trillion-dollar wars, another one coming, a credit crisis, skyrocketing gas prices, no health care, no jobs, forest fires all over the state, floods in the Midwest, earthquakes in China, typhoons in Burma, AIDS in Africa, etc., and you people choose to focus on little, selfish Sergey and his childhood fantasies?

Brian McCall

Eureka Valley

Grasping habeas corpus

What is it about the right of habeas corpus that those conservative justices, i.e., Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Thomas, don’t understand?

According to its special clause in our Constitution, it cannot be suspended except “when in cases of rebellion or invasion, the public safety may require it.” Their professed allegiance to “strict constructionism” is a joke.

Robert Prentiss

San Francisco

Share the burden, PG&E

Here we go again. PG&E decides that a rate increase is necessary just when customers can hardly take another hit to the pocket book. All PG&E says is “the price of natural gas is rising throughout the country and the amount of hydroelectric power is lower than expected,” and we’re supposed to believe them on their word? Where are the numbers? Where are the studies that prove what they claim? Natural gas may be rising “throughout the country” but is it really rising here?

Is it already having an impact on PG&E or are they gaming us again just so they can bring in more money? Why is it that large companies like this always want to hit up the public when times get tough instead of cutting back on waste within their own companies?

I’m sure PG&E executives won’t feel anything because of natural gas prices or lower hydroelectric power production — but we will. Time to share the burden, PG&E.

John Schambre

San Francisco

Postpone metal payments

In light of the growing problem with theft of anything containing copper or other increasingly valuable metals, I offer a potential solution. Require scrap yards to set aside the items that are turned in for their scrap value and withhold payment for a week or so to see if the items were reported stolen.

Sure, it will pose a burden, but nothing too drastic compared with the costs associated with the rising thefts. Many items are sold to scrap yards for a fraction of their real value and the damage done from their removal is creating a real burden for everyone. I doubt the thieves will be willing to wait a week or risk arrest to get their money, and this growing problem can be curtailed.

Tim Donnelly

San Francisco

Sandoval’s move was selfish

Ken Garcia is absolutely correct to say there is no honor in Supervisor Gerardo Sandoval refusing to vote on the Community Justice Center this past Tuesday (“Board adjourns new court idea,” June 13) for the sake of political convenience and not for actual conflicts of interest, as he tried to infer.

What the termed-out supervisor and November candidate for Superior Court judge did for his personal political purposes proves to me and thousands of others that we do not want him to be a judge in our court system. He has proven that he puts his personal career above the duties of his job and his service to the people of San Francisco. Sorry, Mr. Sandoval, but we have too many spineless politicians mucking up the systems and halting progress and killing our quality of life as it is. I’ll be voting for Thomas Mellon for Superior Court judge on Nov. 4.

Jamie Whitaker

San Francisco

Protecting GE’s interests?

God rest his soul, but if NBC can find someone else who is able to give the impression of being knowledgeable, objective and fair while, in fact, existing primarily to protect General Electric’s interests around the world, to the extent that Tim Russert was able to, then that person will also be worth the $10 million or so dollars per year to GE that he was.

Not cynicism, just fact.

Richard Margolin

Hoboken, N.J.

Finish off beautiful display

San Francisco is the first city in the world where rainbow flags have been raised for 25 years. The human society couldn’t create a better flag, because you can’t beat nature. Rainbow flags first saw the light of day during the 1978 San Francisco Pride Parade, and you see hundreds of them on Market Street right now from The Embarcadero all way to Castro Street.

But the Embarcadero tower is still without one, so, is it possible to put a rainbow flag on the Embarcadero tower too, to finish the most beautiful display in the world?Georgy Prodorov

San Francisco

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