Letters to the Editor for Sunday, Aug. 27, 2017

Trump right to blame both sides

President Trump is right in his condemnation of all sides in the Charlottesville fiasco. This type of protest is nothing new. As usual it is being touted and used by the political left to gain personal favor and to get President Trump. But, it will not work because he is right in saying all sides were responsible and he will not back down. There was more than enough violence to go around. That plus the police being ordered by the mayor to stand down added to the fray and was probably part of the plan as well. Isn’t it ironic that the leader of the fiasco is the same guy who was the leader of the occupation of Wall Street. Make no mistake this was all a setup and preplanned and there will be more violent protests to come. Tearing down statutes will not change history and the act of doing so should be condemned. A war between the states happened once before and unless law and order is put in place to stop this behavior it could, God forbid, happen again.

Kelly Madigan

Carson City

Trump won battle of Charlottesville

Owing to the superficiality and vacillation of our mainstream media, Donald Trump has won the battle of Charlottesville, Va., hands down.

The media make no effort to focus on the left’s activists. Was it because the counter-protesters were boring? Or was it because the media were afraid to show the left has warts? We’ll never know. In the meantime the president can claim that the left misbehaved as well. His base is thrilled to see him thumb his nose at big business, and the radical right has got more positive publicity from this event than it could have ever hoped to see.

The president never hesitates to flaunt what he calls, “fake news.” He does this to distract us, because he knows well it’s not the fake news media we’ve got to fear, but the weak news media.

Michael Goldeen

Carson City

Can we stop with Reefer Madness?

Hey Supervisors, get on with it already…

Can we just stop with all this Reefer Madness nonsense? Retail recreational marijuana sales opponents aren’t saving anyone, especially not our poor, vulnerable children. They are just advocating an outdated, overly conservative course of action that completely denies the legal right of these businesses to operate in Carson City. Some of these opponents I know, some I don’t. Guy Farmer reminds me of an old athlete who just doesn’t know when it’s time to retire. Mr. Farmer’s 1950’s “Father Knows Best” rhetoric is so tired and worn out, it’s laughable. The grumpy old curmudgeon bit gets old. Bob Thomas figured it out, maybe you should too.

The economic bottom line is simply this: where the free market fails to provide the goods and services consumers want, the black market will fill the void. Denying regulated professional businesses the opportunity to replace the illegal suppliers of marijuana in our communities is insane! Based on what my kids have told me over the years, illegal drug dealing and use in our schools is alive and well thank you very much, so all this political grandstanding is doing nothing to address the issue of underage drug use in our communities. For those jurisdictions that insist on denying legalized recreational marijuana sales, maybe a bill draft this next legislative session is in order denying them access to the State’s Rainy Day and Education funding accounts since they are unwilling to do their part to support those budgets.

Patrick Anderson

Carson City

Renewable energy doesn’t have cost benefits

Regarding his column in the Appeal “Renewable energy has cost benefits,” Chas Macquarie falsely equates tax credits – deductions taken by productive taxpaying energy firms – with taxpayer-funded subsidies gifted to an otherwise unprofitable renewables industry.

Renewable energy “cost benefits” are coming right out of your pocket. What Macquarie left unsaid is that the renewable energy industry exists largely to serve believers in global warming theology.

In November 2009 a leak of approximately 1,000 email messages from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit (CRU) revealed that the much-vaunted consensus of climate scientists was falsifying their data to keep receiving taxpayer-funded environmental grant money. And, no, these leaks were never discredited.

Note that all of Al Gore’s most consequential “Inconvenient Truth” predictions have proven false. Note also that climate change’s most prominent thought leaders, including Al Gore, travel in pollution-spewing jets, ride in chauffeured limos, and live in energy-gobbling mansions. Their inspirational message to the gullible eco-warrior masses: Don’t live like us.

Lois Bock

Minden

Is bottled water really worth it?

Bottled Water: Is it really worth it? You decide.

Our country runs on plastic. Plastic is convenient and functional.

However, this is about bottled water. We buy it, drink it, and discard the bottle. Regrettably, many of these bottles “reside” where they don’t belong, in the countryside.

We have almost “free” wonderful drinking water available from the nearest faucet. If your water “tastes funny,” buy a filter! If you are a bottled water aficionado, the money saved by purchasing a reusable water bottle and a water filter will surprise you.

Here are a few things to ponder:

• Americans use about 50 billion plastic water bottles a year.

• Manufacturing plastic bottles for one year in the U.S. uses more than 17 million barrels of oil, NOT including the oil used to transport to market.

• The energy wasted producing bottled water for a year would power 190,000 homes, equates to enough fuel for 1.3 million cars.

• Consuming the recommended 8 glasses of water per day, per person, using bottled water costs in excess of $130 per person per year, if the bottled water is purchased by the case from a discount store, using Carson City tap water rates (single-family residential) costs in excess of 32 cents per person per year!

• The American recycle rate for plastic is about 23 percent which means 38 billion plastic water bottles per year are trash or found on the ground.

Water is an absolute necessity for life, bottled water is not.

Robert Bastien

Carson City

Silver Dollar Car Show was a classic

We attended the Silver Dollar Car Classic show a few weeks ago, and wanted to say how much we enjoy this car show. It’s just the right size, in a gorgeous setting, with beautiful cars and wonderful people. It’s our favorite car show of the year, and we’ve attended for many years. We live just south of Yosemite, so it’s a 6 hour drive each way. Of course, we usually head up to Reno after the wonderful lunch on Sunday, but they have nothing on this show.

We arrive on Thursday and attend the local show and shine that evening. Then on Friday we meet in the parking lot for lots of cars, music and dance. Saturday brings a pancake breakfast, beautiful cars and oldies music all day. Then on Sunday there’s another breakfast, a poker run with our cars, and a wonderful lunch and awards.

Thank you again for a wonderful weekend.

Ed & Nancy Buck

1969 Chevelle Malibu convertible

Kaepernick made his own choice

Correct me if I’m wrong. Colin Kaepernick signed a multi-year contract with the San Francisco 49ers. In that contract he approved a bail-out at his option after two years. He exercised the option! His reasons are not important. What is important is the fact he chose to take the chance to be unemployed in the NFL.

It is difficult to understand the reason all of the bleeding hearts think they have an obligation to demonstrate in front of the NFL offices on behalf of this player.

Literally, they should all get a life. In the real world when one errs they don’t get a do-over. Too bad Kaepernick didn’t learn that at UNR. He must have been out that day.

Joseph B. Allegretti

Carson City