Oil companies don't deserve tax breaks

Alternative energy is the only way—don't tie our future to the bandit kings of oil, either foreign or domestic. Wind, solar, hydro. The oil industry should be up on SEC charges for stock manipulation. Exxon had a stock buy back, then reduced its production by 15 percent, and oil soared. Meanwhile, oil companies were given tax breaks to do exploration and drilling on leases that they already have, but they've failed to do that.

Repeal their tax break and and tax them fair back taxes. Republicans say taxing will make oil prices soar, but if that were true, why didn't oil prices plummet when they got the tax breaks? Seems a little two-faced, doesn't it?

We need rail project to ease recession

Now flip-flopping mayoral candidate Ann Kobayashi says we can't afford rail because we're in a recession. Truth is that mounting job losses make the train vital for us.

The rail project will employ 4,700 construction workers, starting next year, and also 11,000 local suppliers, engineers, architects and others. Moreover, no construction project a fifth as large is on the horizon.

In addition, this project will bring $900 million in federal dollars; more money than 700,000 tourists each staying a week. Thus, while we're keeping locals working, we're making up for the tourism drop. Plus we'll save nearly $300 million a year in future transportation costs, including lost time in traffic.

So rail is no “;make-work”; project, but something we need now. On the other hand, pull the plug on rail and Hawaii might crash faster than you can say Herbert Hoover. If you own a business, or work for one, vote yes for rail and Mayor Mufi Hannemann on Nov. 4.

Pelosi's not the only ditz in Washington

Thomas Stuart's Oct. 2 letter to the editor applies the pejorative adjective “;ditzy”; to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, which seems to be a typical putdown of a female. The dictionary says ditzy (ditsy) means “;eccentric or scatterbrained,”; which perhaps can also be applied to President Bush. If so, does this mean, in Stuart's own words, that Bush's performance is “;sharply reducing”; men's (and Republicans'?) “;leadership opportunities for decades to come”;?

Also, just so Stuart knows, here is a report from UPI dated Oct. 1: President Bush said he signed into law a bill that provided emergency supplemental appropriations for disaster relief, and fully funded the departments of Defense, Homeland Security and Veterans Affairs. The bill also allowed government operations to continue through March 6, 2009, for projects “;not otherwise covered in the full-year bills.”; The government fiscal year 2009 began on Oct. 1.

Giving taxpayer money to fat cats is criminal

Here we go again. Our president is telling us that our country is not safe. This time it's our economy that is being threatened by, well, it's not the terrorists this time. It's the fat cats and billionaire friends of George Bush. But they would have us first believe that everything is OK (remember the president told us the economy was strong just a few weeks ago). Now we are supposed to hand $700 billion to the same people who caused this problem.

We need to hear from the experts, not political appointees tied to the industries that brought us to the brink of disaster because of greed. If there is a lesson to be learned, we need only look to the Japanese economy, which went through a similar crisis 20 years ago. Government intervention was the cause of further grief and suffering and they have never fully recovered.

Throwing a ton of money at the people who profited from this country's demise is not only wrong, it's a crime.

Natatorium is perfect for beach volleyball

With the United States in possession of both the men's and women's Olympic gold medals in beach volleyball, wouldn't it be wise and a better use of an existing stadium to fill the Waikiki natatorium with sand and create the most picturesque and historical Olympic volleyball site in the world?

Computers eat up lots of energy, too

Everyone from government to the nonprofits tell us to “;go online,”; “;go to www ...”; and turn on your computer, do it the easy way.

Turning on the computer is like switching on a 75-watt bulb.

So what? What's 75 watts? Multiply 75 watts by 240 million home computers in our land and you're using 18 trillion watts, with most of the energy generated from oil we haven't got!