A moderate proposal
When Edmund Burke said that “circumstances give in reality to every political principle its distinguishing colour and discriminating effect,” he could have been referring to the present set of conditions which beset American politics. For whatever reason, moderating influences that used to exist among the people we elect and pay to represent us have fallen into the abyss. In the places of people such as Alan Cranston, Bill Bagley, Bob Dole, and Leon Panetta we now have clowns like Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, Alan Grayson and Tom Harkin. Notice I did not list any women among the latter four because, by and large, they are the only sane ones left.
At some point, this will change. I know this because other things that never could have happened, actually did: the Giants won three World Series in five years, the improvements to southbound Highway 101 at the 580 cutoff were completed and Lynn Woolsey’s tenure ended in Congress. Proving that there is hope for the world.
Skip Corsini, Shasta
Light up the tree, not yourselves …
In the days following Thanksgiving, many families will begin the festive tradition of lighting their homes and businesses for the holiday season. To ensure that lights bring joy rather than fire, injury or electric shocks, PG&E recommends that customers follow a few simple safety tips:
- Avoid electric hazards. Before climbing ladders to string outdoor lights, check for overhead power lines nearby, especially in trees. Contact can be fatal.
- Prevent fire hazards. Avoid overloading extension cords and wall sockets by limiting the number of light strings you connect. Inspect holiday lights for frayed wires, broken sockets or other signs of wear. Don’t place cords under rugs or furniture where they can overheat. Turn off decorative lights, indoors and outdoors, when leaving home or going to bed.
- Go LED. Light-emitting diodes produce almost no heat, making them safe to touch and greatly reducing the risk of fire. As an added bonus, they consume 75 percent less energy and last up to 25 times longer than incandescent bulbs, helping you save money this holiday season.
Have a happy—and safe—holiday season!
Dave Canny, PG&E
DMV—a model of efficiency until the illegals took over!
Actually, Mrs. Patricia E. Branton, in your apoplectic response [“What Kind of Man Are You? Call Ahead!” Nov. 28] to my letter you failed to notice that I never said a word about “immigrants who follow the channels to become citizens.” I only referred to illegal immigrants who come to America, immediately have anchor babies, swamp our schools with ESL students, send money out of the country, only watch and listen to Spanish-language media instead of learning English, lower everybody’s wages by working for practically nothing, and enriching the 1 percent by keeping unemployment at a high rate. I could go on, but really, how many leaf blowers do we need in this country?
Besides, the only place where humans are indigenous is Africa. So maybe you should go back to wherever your ancestors are from before they came here and slaughtered American Indians. We already have a water crisis in California, but you want more people here?
I always go to AAA, not the DMV, it’s faster and because they don’t have extra hours catering to illegals, who should be deported, not catered to.
Carlo V. Gardin, Fairfax
Oklahoma, where the quakes come shaking down the plain
I’ve just about completed looking into this matter with all the Oklahoma earthquakes preceding the Haiti and Napa earthquakes. Expect to hear more about this just now breaking story about the earthquake biz. You probably also know there are several scientists involved in the various stages of this discovery who have come forward and concluded different things, but I didn’t include all that much scientific stuff. Please feel free to build on this story with the hopes of helping the people in these other regions that are being affected by the resultants of hydraulic fracturing, fracking.
There are currently so many major swarms of earthquakes going on in the Nevada, Oregon, and California region as well as a lot of earthquakes continuing in Oklahoma. Connections to these have been observed by an earthquake blogger and he has most recently come to the assumption that they might be all connected to the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, currently taking place in Oklahoma.
It was that discovery that led the blogger to do some further research into exactly when all of the fracking started and what major earthquakes fracking could also have been responsible for.
Checking back to the year 2009, he discovered that was the year when the Frack Sand Boom started, as well at the year they began regulation of fracking in Oklahoma. Some of the other milestones discovered in the course of his research was that in 2009 a number of fines were levied against hydraulic fracture mines and one mine in particular was found to be operating with water pressure as high as 1,500 pounds psi.
Further checking revealed a huge swarm that began on the final days of the year 2009 on Dec. 30, 2009 at Baja California and continued on into Jan. 1, 2010 with an enormous amount of earthquakes all totaled topping an incredible 500 Richters!
Just this week it was discovered that all of the swarms that were also shaking California and Nevada in August of 2014 had been used as an indication an earthquake could strike California at any minute and today that earthquake is the 6.0 Richters Napa, California earthquake of Aug. 24, 2014. However also preceded by lots more Oklahoma earthquakes!
That was when he realized all of the shaking in Oklahoma circa 2009 not only preceded that huge swarm at Baja California of Dec. 30, 2009 through Jan. 1, 2010, but also came to precede both the Jan. 9, 2010 Eureka earthquake of 7.1 Richters and a few days later on Jan. 12, 2010 the Haiti earthquake.
Both major earthquakes at points situated along the edges of the North American tectonic plate and both following very significant movements of the bedrock underneath the state of Oklahoma due to what was then largely unregulated hydraulic fracturing.
If it can be proven that all that shaking at Oklahoma did transmit to those other shaky places nearby, then exactly how liable should Oklahoma be for damages and deaths since there were upwards of 220,000 deaths in the Haiti earthquake. Perhaps Oklahoma should be made to stop all of their fracking until all the shaking can stop, and safer methods can be implemented. Otherwise it would seem Oklahoma could very well be found to be responsible for the next big California earthquake.
Les Brown, Marin
