Rail, electric cars are pork by another name
To the editor:
Wednesday's commentaries by Robert Samuelson (on high-speed trains) and Charles Lane (on electric cars) were spot on.
The high-speed trains and electric cars being pushed by the politicians and industry special interests are pure pork. Along with green energy projects, they will cost hundreds of billions of dollars. But none of them can even come close to breaking even economically.
The only justifications for these boondoggles are to line the pockets of their developers and fill congressional campaign coffers. Let's hope the new conservative majority in Congress has enough sense to resist these so-called "investments."
Tom Keller
Henderson
Drug laws
To the editor:
So Proposition 19 lost in California, keeping marijuana prohibition alive and sick. Ironic that this sensible progress in ending the failed drug war was defeated just a few days after your newspaper published hard scientific facts that indeed it is "legal alcohol" that is the most harmful drug of all; more dangerous than heroin and crack cocaine.
Marijuana was deemed so innocuous and relatively safe that it hardly registered in the clinical studies.
What a great victory for the outlaw growers, dealers and drug cartels. I sincerely hope the ignorant public in California gets what they voted for: more tax dollars wasted on prisons; no regulated marijuana sales tax revenue; more decapitated corpses along the Mexican border; endless drug cartel violence, kidnappings and murders; and yet another generation of young people labeled as criminals, along with the ruined lives brought about by marijuana prohibition.
J. Collier
Henderson
Scare tactics
To the editor:
It's ironic that Harry Reid says "Nevada chose hope over fear" when fear is exactly what he used to win this election. Fear that a freshman senator could actually have the power to do away with Social Security, the Department of Education, the Veterans Administration, etc.
I hope that people who let these tactics sway their vote will not regret it.
Ed Feldman
Henderson
Classy Harry
To the editor:
Harry Reid is a class act, a gentleman and senator.
Sharron Angle can now pull in her claws and take them home with her. She ran the most nasty campaign I have seen in years.
I want to congratulate the state voters on their choice. Woman up, Sharron Angle, and try to be a class act.
Linda Millard
Las Vegas
Opt out
To the editor:
Now that the election is over and the Republicans have taken control of the House, I wonder how many of you who voted for them would be willing to give up your Social Security and Medicare if there was an opt-out option put into effect. After all, if you voted for the candidate/party that promised to "get government out of your lives," wouldn't that be the right thing to do?
The savings could then be used to "pay down the debt," another thing you were promised and voted for. All in all, that should be a win/win situation for you.
I don't think I'll be holding my breath waiting for that to happen anytime soon, though.
Camilla Wright
Henderson
Insurance lapse
To the editor:
Several recent letters to the editor have mentioned the ongoing problems with the Nevada DMV's insurance verification process.
I was an agency co-owner with one of the nation's major auto and property insurers until I sold my interest to a business partner and retired in late 2008.
Several years ago, the DMV installed a new computer system that was touted to be able to detect as little as a one-day lapse in insurance coverage for an auto registered in Nevada. The request for insurance verification that the auto owner received was worded in a manner that might lead one to believe that his insurer had reported to the state that his coverage had lapsed or did not exist.
In a normal year, we dealt with approximately 100 of these requests. But in 2008, from January until I retired in late November, my agency had dealt with in excess of 300 of these requests. In excess of 90 percent of these requests were bogus, and the insured indeed had coverage on the auto in question. The most common reason for these notices was an error in the vehicle identification number.
It must be completely coincidental that the number of DMV verification requests increased threefold at the exact time we became aware that the state of Nevada faced a critical shortfall in revenues. I cannot believe that officials at the DMV calculated that a certain percentage of motorists receiving such a notice would assume that it was correct and simply pay the $250 fine to reinstate the auto's registration.
Our elected officials and their appointed, lickspittle, bureaucratic lackeys would never lie to their constituents, would they?
Bob Glover
Las Vegas
