Anchorage Daily News

Election of Obama is the final step for our entitlement culture

Are there any conservatives still living in this country? President Bush claims to be one, yet, has inflated the federal bureaucracy by a staggering 47 percent since 2001. John McCain's candidacy, like a ship without a rudder, will do no better. With possibly the exception of Ron Paul, not one congressman or senator has consistently spoken out and voted against the atrocities being performed by our elected "leaders" on America and its people.

Why have our "leaders" not arrested any of the thieves of Wall Street responsible for the financial crisis? I guess we call that professional courtesy.

Over the decades we've become a society of entitlement. We don't ask ourselves anymore, "What can I do for my country?" Instead, we whine; "What can my country (government) do for me?" Naturally, the evolution of such ideology leads to where we are now. We have allowed our politicians to pilfer the national treasury and now they want control of our banks. Where does it end?

It ends with a smiling socialist being elected president. It ends with Barack Hussein Obama and his liberal thugs in Washington conspiring to destroy this great land and the principles it was founded upon -- the U.S. Constitution.

The current political ether in this country is profoundly disturbing. Well, America, you wanted "CHANGE." You got it.

-- George Tyukos

Anchorage

Earth supports only what it can

The root cause of global warming, deforestation, starvation, pollution and related issues is human overpopulation. At the first Earth Day, 1970, the population was not yet 4 billion. It hit 5 billion in 1988 with barely a mention. There's a biological "overshoot" indicating that populations, if unchecked, grow beyond the carrying capacities of their environments. A ravaged environment then causes a population to crash.

Governments have generally been failures at dealing with problems even when those problems have been carefully explained to governmental leaders. A good example is global warming.

It would be a kindness to take a moment to think of one's obligations toward one's descendents.

-- Marti Bradley

Anchorage

Oil companies dodge possible loss

With the price of oil below the sustainable level of the state budget, we're in trouble. If you haven't spent your $1,200 energy rebate, will you please send it back to the state?

The good news is that gas prices have only fallen 30 cents. I was worried that the oil companies wouldn't make their record profits this quarter. Whew, they dodged a close one!

-- Jack McKeever

Anchorage

CEO greed has gone too far

I am so tired of reading articles or hearing on radio or TV about CEOs making mega-millions of dollars, with stock options or other compensations from corporations whether they succeed or fail. This is, without a doubt, absolutely nauseating.

Individuals selfishly taking mega-millions for their efforts while the average fellow human being or family are working their behinds off, trying to make a living or an existence is unconscionable.

America, what is happening to this great country of ours!

-- Dick Sanchis

Anchorage

Where's outrage over gas prices?

Could someone please explain to me why we are paying so much for a gallon of gasoline? The price of a barrel of oil is LESS than it was a year ago and we continue to pay over $1 MORE per gallon than we were a year ago.

Prices rocketed up daily in response to elevated costs for a barrel of crude, but the cost for crude has come down nearly 50 percent since July and yet the prices at the pump have come down less than 20 percent from their high.

It defies any logic that I can see, but our elected officials are quiet on the issue. They seem to be far more concerned about being re-elected than doing the job they were elected for in the first place. I would expect consumers to be outraged at this price gouging, but that clearly is not the case. What am I missing?

-- Eric Carl

Eagle River

Palin downplays global warming

As a retired polar bear biologist, I disagree with Gov. Palin, who says the threatened listing was based on highly speculative and uncertain climate and ice modeling. The listing was based on conservative sea ice loss projections from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the world leader in analyzing and reporting on global warming. Nearly all climate, ice and polar bear experts along with Palin's own director of the Fish and Game marine mammal program and two state biologists with Arctic and marine mammal experience agree that a threatened listing is justified.

Palin has downplayed the significance of humans causing global warming, in contrast to the IPCC, which concluded that odds were better than 90 percent that humans caused the current warming.

She states that Alaska's Beaufort Sea polar bear population is stable. Animal condition and cub recruitment are declining as sea ice decreases. Other signs of instability include a shift toward land-based denning, abandonment of areas with high rates of ice degradation, and starved and cannibalized bears. Polar bear scientists agree that the Beaufort Sea population is not doing well.

-- Jack Lentfer

Homer

At least Palin's doing something

Radical feminism is a debauchery. They're reversing the roles. Now instead of men being overbearing and demeaning, it's the radical feminists.

Sarah Palin is a blow to their egos. She has a family, is pro-life and conservative in her beliefs. She wears skirts and high heels and, yes, lipstick. She is what many of these ridiculous hypocrites refer to as "domesticated."

In my honest opinion, the radical feminists need to put on their big-girl panties and deal with it. You don't have to vote for McCain! America is a democracy, remember? So use those privileges that you rallied for some odd years ago and vote for Obama.

Just stop bad-mouthing a mother who happens to have gotten further in politics then most of you have. She's out there making a change and you, on the other hand, are on the computer and writing blogs. Stop whining.

-- Natalia Burleson

Anchorage

McCain/Palin wrong way to go

George W. Bush has fallen from grace, his policies are discredited and his administration is deeply distrusted. So, why are many people uneasy ... even paranoid? Could it be the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, or WMDs and preemptive war, or data mining and warrantless wiretap, or extraordinary rendition, secret prisons and torture, or Kyoto and Katrina, or American imperialism and our military-industrial complex, or deregulation and financial collapse, or the religious right and the Republican Party, or Diebold voting machines and stolen elections, or signing statements and the subversion of our Constitution.

This country has been heading in the wrong direction for a long time. Bush neocons are running the McCain-Palin campaign, and Carl Rove protégés are coaching Sarah in Swift Boat tactics and other dirty tricks. The more things change the more they remain the same. A McCain-Palin administration will continue digging us deeper into the hole that George W. Bush has been working on for the last eight years

-- Joe Buckingham

Anchorage

Stevens prosecution plays dirty

Is Ted Stevens getting a fair trial? According to Margaret Simonian the answer to that question is "an absolute yes." She bases her opinion on the fact that Judge Sullivan is carefully reviewing all the claims by the defense and that "Stevens' interests are being carefully protected by his six-figure defense team." She also makes the statement: "This is all normal for a high-stakes corruption trial."

Alaska has recently seen several such trials. To my knowledge, prosecutors never knowingly presented false evidence, sent witnesses away without warning or withheld information that it knew to be favorable to the defense.

I would not call the actions by the prosecutors in the Stevens trial "normal." Unfortunately, they truly have made the trial appear to be a three-ring circus. That should never happen. If it does, the ringmasters need to be gently pushed into the lion's cage.

One can always make the argument that Sen. Stevens is receiving a fair trial based on Judge Sullivan's in-depth review of all the defense motions. However, the multiple transgressions by the prosecutors have eroded confidence in the legal process. And without total confidence in the process, how can we trust the results?

-- John L. Hemmelgarn

Anchorage

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