Government to blame for high fuel prices

Americans are complaining about high fuel prices, and rightly so, but they are blaming the oil companies. Wrong place to look. The government is the biggest problem. Each state requires a different blend of gasoline, so gas from Texas — where there is more fuel — cannot be shipped to Maryland, where there is less. This raises prices in Maryland. There are enough oil and coal reserves in America to last us more than 150 years without the need to import at all, but Congress restricts the use of about 85 percent of our natural resources. Lifting government restrictions on nuclear energy to generate electricity would further bring down fuel costs. Only politicians, not the common man, benefit from the current insanity.

Benjamin Garber

Leesburg

U.N. should lead efforts for disaster relief in the future

Re: “Myanmar shuns aid from U.S. warships; U.N. urges more relief,” May 21

The Myanmar junta should be brought to the World Court for crimes against humanity. We also need to reconsider our disaster response in the face of a new world politics in which humanitarian aid has become politicized.

In situations like this, where a rogue government considers a sham referendum more important than saving its own displaced citizens and blocks disaster managers from entering the country,

the responsibility for humanitarian relief has to be transferred to the United Nations. The cyclone hit a key rice-producing area when rice is already in short supply. Getting fields back into production will be just as important as rebuilding the destroyed villages.

As the onsite coordinator of the 1967 Bihar drought relief effort for USAID that saved 15 million Indians from starvation, I know firsthand that one must have skilled technicians to carry out a major relief effort.

Forty years later, the problem is that too many are still Westerners. We need a skilled local cadre in regions of the world where such disasters strike regularly.

Jim Robinson

Falls Church

Without buyers, slaves wouldn’t have been sold

Re: “Most Americans’ ancestors were against slavery,” From Readers, May 7

According to Joseph P. Carrigan, the U.S. and other countries engaged in the slave trade only because African tribal chiefs were willing to sell their neighbors.

I assume that without that temptation, the kindly slave traders would have simply said “never mind” and headed back home instead of resorting to force to capture any unwilling victims.

It must have been difficult for those chiefs to trek to Europe and the Americas to search for buyers.

After all, using Mr. Carrigan’s logic, how else would the slave traders have known about this cheap labor?

Or maybe those good Christians were merely on a mission to relieve Africa of its excess labor force. 

Demand apparently doesn’t enter into the equation.

No doubt, Mr. Carrigan also believes that the only reason we have a drug problem in the U.S. is because there’s a glut of drugs in Latin America that we’d better buy in order to keep those countries afloat.

I can’t wait for his theories explaining the near disappearance of Native Americans during our country’s westward expansion.

Ralph A. Blessing

Washington

Reusable shopping bags are better in every way

Re: “Think outside the bag,” May 21

It is great to see that The Examiner is including articles on how to recycle the millions of plastic bags consumers use every year.

Here’s another idea: We all have a tote bag or two made of canvas at home, right?

Reuse them.

Unless, of course, you enjoy the adventure of trying to jam 12 tiny plastic bags from your shopping cart into your car trunk and the hassle of unloading them all after you get home and then trying to find a place to recycle them.

Many grocery stores sell great-looking reusable bags that are the same size as the classic large paper bags.

My wife and I love using them. Please reuse what you have, then recycle.

Andrew Buskey

North Bethesda