Speak Out 2/17/07

Honor, integrity

NUMEROUS CONSTITUENTS and colleagues have suffered the wrath of state Sen. Jason Crowell and House Speaker Rod Jetton. This is our wake-up call. It's time to restore honor, integrity and dignity to the Missouri Legislature.

Private discipline

MY FRIEND Rod Jetton has ruined any chance of him moving up the food chain to become governor. If you have to discipline people within your own party, you do it in private in the party caucus. When you come out in public, it's time to be nice and say good things about everybody in your party. Follow President Reagan's rule, and you'll get further.

Intersection lines

I'M CALLING to congratulate Cape Girardeau for the well-drawn intersection of Mount Auburn Road and Bloomfield Road, but it's appalling that the intersection at Silver Springs Road and Bloomfield is a mess. At that intersection, you cannot tell where you're supposed to turn at the turn lanes. There's no stop line at the intersection. It will be helpful to draw those lines.

Distaste for actions

BRAVO, SOUTHEAST Missourian, for your editorial supporting Scott Lipke and condemning Rod Jetton. I believe what Jetton did to discredit Lipke was for purely political reasons and has nothing to do with Lipke's actions regarding Jessica's law deliberations. Could it be Jetton's client, Jason Crowell, fears a Lipke challenge and had to come up with some way to damage Lipke's reputation? I reside outside Lipke's Missouri House district but within Crowell's Missouri Senate district. I am one Democrat who hopes Lipke will challenge Crowell for that Senate seat so I can take a Republican ballot in the primary election and demonstrate my distaste for the Jetton-Crowell approach to politics.

Spending deficit

IMAGINE THAT: $2.4 trillion in debt. Eight years ago we had a $4 billion surplus. We Democrats love to spend money? Imagine that.

Save our trees

EVERY DAY we hear of global warming. We need to take care of our planet. Our president wants us to cut our forests here in Missouri to help our schools, but will it help our Missouri schools? No. Beware. We have to save our trees. We need our trees for the air we breathe.

State pays for it

MY HEART goes out to single mothers. Where are the fathers? Unless the mother takes the father to court and presses charges, which most are afraid to do or cannot afford to do, the state ends up paying for everything and the father is free to make more babies. Couples who aren't married are having two, three, four or more children, all paid for by us. Why should they get married?

The human effect

TO SAY that the human presence on Earth is not the cause of global warming is false. There have been episodes of warming and cooling on Earth in the past, but there has also been a catalyst. The last major episode of cooling happened a very long time ago and was caused by a huge escalation in photosynthesis that caused a drop in methane, and the earth turned into a frozen snowball. The ice was one mile thick. The current rise in Earth's warming is caused by the rise in carbon-dioxide emissions brought on by our industrialization. Humans spew over 9,000 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into our atmosphere each year. To think that this won't have an effect on atmospheric changes is outrageous.

Windy in Illinois

I CAN'T understand the Southeast Missourian. You've been completely ignoring the wind-turbine generators that have been proposed. There are almost 1,000 being proposed in central Illinois. These generators are huge things. They're supposed to be 500 feet tall. Each one of them is supposed to generate four megawatts of electricity. A plant is being set up to build the towers.

Political player

ANYONE WHO would continue to describe Valerie Plame as a covert agent would be advertising their ignorance. It's been established that her job at the CIA, time in-country and flamboyant lifestyle established that she was anything but covert. She was a political player who used her pull to send her leftist husband to Niger with the sole purpose of undermining the efforts of the president of the United States. Because of this outrage, Plame is a hero and martyr of the left.

Plates stink

MISSOURI LICENSE plates stink. Why can't we have pretty plates like Kentucky and Tennessee? Why don't we have the Missouri mule or the Ozark Mountains or something like that on our plates?

Bigger threat

THE CAPE Girardeau school board doesn't want a preschool next to a pawnshop? There are fast-food drive-throughs that pose a greater threat to our children than a pawnshop.

Blowing in the wind

AS I wet my finger and stick it in the political wind, I feel the anti-war wind blowing stronger. Does that mean I have to follow it? Only hypocrites change with the wind. This country is full of hypocrites. Follow them if you must, but I'll not be with you.

Test the shot

LET ME know in a few years if the shot to prevent cervical cancer really does prevent cancer, then we'll talk about requirements. And let me know if there is any side effect. We'll test it on your daughters first.

Board deadlock

THE CAPE Girardeau school board president should apologize to her fellow board members for her apology for board members' voicing their opinion. That is what they are in office to do, to bring their expertise, knowledge and opinions to the many decisions a school board makes.