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Re: “Obama doesn’t keep his word,” From Readers, July 1
Politicians make and break promises. John McCain proposed an energy plan to build 45 new nuclear reactors, but it is estimated that a single reactor costs upward of $12 billion.
When will Sen. McCain tell the taxpayers where he will get the $540 billion?
In contrast, Barack Obama decided to accept private funds as opposed to public funds, which saves taxpayers millions of dollars in addition to being a democratic process.
I would rather have Sen. Obama break his public funds promise before he’s elected president, rather than have Sen. McCain wait until he is elected to tell us where he will get funds for his nuclear energy plan.
Cargill Kelly
ACLU is a principled defender of civil liberties
Re: “ACLU failing in defense of civil liberties at a vital time,” June 30
I don’t agree with the American Civil Liberties Union on everything. But Melanie Scarborough couldn’t be more wrong when she asserts that the ACLU is “failing us” in protecting our civil liberties by “defending the least defensible.”
The ACLU correctly realizes that it’s often in the least defensible cases, involving some of the least sympathetic individuals, that our rights are most at stake because precedents can be set that negatively affect the freedom of all Americans.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute is currently working with the ACLU on a case that illustrates this point.
A provision in the housing rescue bill being debated in the Senate would mandate a fingerprint registry for a broad swath of employees in the currently unpopular mortgage industry.
But the ACLU realizes that fingerprinting employees who have not been convicted or even suspected of a crime puts us on a road to a surveillance society. So it has joined a coalition with CEI and other groups such as the American Conservative Union to oppose this provision, showing what a principled defender of liberties the ACLU is.
Director, Center for
Entrepreneurship
Competitive Enterprise Institute
If ID is nonsense, then we should ban its source
Re: “ID is ‘Intellectual Dishonesty,’” From Readers, July 2
David Persuitte writes that intelligent design, being “otherwise known as ‘intellectual dishonesty’ and ‘intellectual defeatism,’ ” has been “repeatedly refuted by evolutionary scientists” and “is a crock” of “falsehoods and nonsense.”
Hey, why such understatement, David? Don’t wimp out on us. Why don’t you take the next logical step: Agitate to get fnformation theory banned from all electrical engineering classrooms for violation of separation of church and state. After all, ID is based on the results of information theory, which its proponents persist in citing. So the victory of “evolutionary scientists” will not be complete until people no longer learn it.
Full disclosure of my bias: I used to teach information theory to graduate students and now am applying it in my workplace.
Talivaldis Ivars Smits
Cheverly
Add the ‘missing link’ to list of scientific frauds
Re: “Scientific fraud is more common than you think,” Other Voices, June 27
I found the commentary on scientific fraud interesting and, sadly, quite believable. An important factor not commonly shared in the public forum (and apparently not in our public schools) is the absolute necessity that scientists interpret their findings with skill and integrity. Otherwise, deception and fraud result.
An excellent example is the depiction of the “missing link” that is prominently displayed in science textbooks and in some of America’s most prestigious museums. The drawing is deceptive because it implies that scientists have discovered an evolutionary link between apes and humans.
However, despite the thousands of fossils discovered to date, no such link has ever been found. And the scientific community’s evolutionary enthusiasts never seem to explicitly state this extremely important fact.
County’s foreclosure plan targets responsible owners
Re: “Fairfax OKs steps to fight foreclosures,” July 1
Fairfax Board Chairman Gerry Connolly plans to reroute housing funds into “unchartered territory” and use an “undetermined infusion of money” (read: extra taxes) next year. The foreclosure crisis is more complex than what a bunch of localized bureaucrats can set right. Almost all the bank-owned properties for sale in the county are controlled by just a handful of REO agents with the right connections.
Most buyers are unable to purchase these properties unless they agree to be represented by the listing agents, who buy the properties themselves and then put them back on the market for a quick profit. County officials should look into this burgeoning scam rather than make quixotic plans to use one hardworking taxpayer’s money to fund another’s residence.
No one helped me buy my moderately priced house. I did not take a home equity loan and then walk away from my mortgage, which I am struggling to pay, so why should I now finance this harebrained scheme?
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