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Letters to the editor
Think first
This morning I read yet another comment about how “…rich people don’t pay taxes…” and how it is the middle class that carries the country on its backs. Anyone who has driven through Mission along Roe has certainly seen the diatribe of yard signs bashing the current administration. What exists in some people to limit their offering to complaints? Why do we stop short of solution? Answer – anyone can complain. And some do it better than others.
Before we go to the polls in November and vote against McCain rather than for the Democratic nominee, ask yourself if you are among the “perpetual complainers” or those who really want to see solutions brought to the table. And don’t confuse a protest vote with a solution.
Here are a couple of things for you “complainers” to consider: Why don’t we have a federal “consumption tax” instead of the antiquated income tax that so many people complain is unfair to the poor and favors the rich? And as for the person on Roe who clutters his yard and lowers the property values of his neighbors’ homes, ask yourself if he, and those like him, have once considered that he can complain about the war, without legal prosecution, because someone fought and died so that he could?
Before you bite the hand that feeds you, use the brain that you were given to think about what it is that you are really saying.
Jeff Delaney
Prairie Village
Add more power
I am for adding more available power to our electric grid. The coal plant legislation should be supported and passed. The new electric plant will incorporate scrubbers and new technology to remove pollutants from the burnt coal and will be a clean air plant. They also have leases signed and plan to build a huge wind farm, which is great.
The combination of a viable and very low emission electric plant along with much-needed transmission lines will make the wind farm viable.
Let’s not stick our head in the sand and put off much-needed capacity improvements that not only allow us to continue our low-energy-cost lives but also pass a positive financial environment on to our children of this great Midwestern state of Kansas.
Jim Anderson
Overland Park
Other hazards
with coal plants
I want to thank Steve Rose for his Memo “A matter of life and death,” but also to somewhat disagree.
The “health” issues associated with carbon dioxide emissions are confusing. We exhale carbon dioxide with every breath, and it is not a direct health hazard like mercury and other poisons emitted by coal-fired power plants.
But there is great danger to life and health from global climate disruption. Virtually every national-level science organization is warning that we need to make considerable reductions in CO2 emissions and their effects on climate.
The legislators are reacting to misplaced feelings from Western Kansas that the economic benefits outweigh these longer-term dangers. It’s not just the leadership local legislators are reacting to, and the issue is complex.
We must make clear the difference of scale and importance of risks for climate change. The potential for drastic growing climate changes (even desertification severely affecting crops), and potential extinction of 70 percent of all living species are great risks to Kansans’ health, but a very different meaning from the ordinary balancing act legislators must grapple with.
Gordon Elliott
Overland Park
Get rid of the Electoral College
After seeing my candidate win the popular vote of the people in the year 2000 and still lose the election due to the Electoral College leads me to believe the whole system is flawed from beginning to end.
Your vote and my vote don’t count as long as we have the Electoral College. Get rid of the Electoral College by November or I may not vote.
J.E. Hart
Overland Park
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This morning I read yet another comment about how “…rich people don’t pay taxes…” and how it is the middle class that carries the country on its backs. Anyone who has driven through Mission along Roe has certainly seen the diatribe of yard signs bashing the current administration. What exists in some people to limit their offering to complaints? Why do we stop short of solution? Answer – anyone can complain. And some do it better than others.
Before we go to the polls in November and vote against McCain rather than for the Democratic nominee, ask yourself if you are among the “perpetual complainers” or those who really want to see solutions brought to the table. And don’t confuse a protest vote with a solution.
Here are a couple of things for you “complainers” to consider: Why don’t we have a federal “consumption tax” instead of the antiquated income tax that so many people complain is unfair to the poor and favors the rich? And as for the person on Roe who clutters his yard and lowers the property values of his neighbors’ homes, ask yourself if he, and those like him, have once considered that he can complain about the war, without legal prosecution, because someone fought and died so that he could?
Before you bite the hand that feeds you, use the brain that you were given to think about what it is that you are really saying.
Jeff Delaney
Prairie Village
Add more power
I am for adding more available power to our electric grid. The coal plant legislation should be supported and passed. The new electric plant will incorporate scrubbers and new technology to remove pollutants from the burnt coal and will be a clean air plant. They also have leases signed and plan to build a huge wind farm, which is great.
The combination of a viable and very low emission electric plant along with much-needed transmission lines will make the wind farm viable.
Let’s not stick our head in the sand and put off much-needed capacity improvements that not only allow us to continue our low-energy-cost lives but also pass a positive financial environment on to our children of this great Midwestern state of Kansas.
Jim Anderson
Overland Park
Other hazards
with coal plants
I want to thank Steve Rose for his Memo “A matter of life and death,” but also to somewhat disagree.
The “health” issues associated with carbon dioxide emissions are confusing. We exhale carbon dioxide with every breath, and it is not a direct health hazard like mercury and other poisons emitted by coal-fired power plants.
But there is great danger to life and health from global climate disruption. Virtually every national-level science organization is warning that we need to make considerable reductions in CO2 emissions and their effects on climate.
The legislators are reacting to misplaced feelings from Western Kansas that the economic benefits outweigh these longer-term dangers. It’s not just the leadership local legislators are reacting to, and the issue is complex.
We must make clear the difference of scale and importance of risks for climate change. The potential for drastic growing climate changes (even desertification severely affecting crops), and potential extinction of 70 percent of all living species are great risks to Kansans’ health, but a very different meaning from the ordinary balancing act legislators must grapple with.
Gordon Elliott
Overland Park
Get rid of the Electoral College
After seeing my candidate win the popular vote of the people in the year 2000 and still lose the election due to the Electoral College leads me to believe the whole system is flawed from beginning to end.
Your vote and my vote don’t count as long as we have the Electoral College. Get rid of the Electoral College by November or I may not vote.
J.E. Hart
Overland Park