Failure to find WMDs brings out the babble

In last year's State of the Union address, President Bush talked about actual, specific weapons of mass destruction -- chemical, biological and nuclear -- supposedly possessed by Saddam Hussein, as a pretext for waging war in Iraq. This year, with no actual weapons having been found (and with his own hand-picked weapons inspector, David Kay, having resigned), we hear nothing but gobbledygook! Bush now speaks of "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities," a phrase that is simply astounding in its utter meaninglessness.

When will Americans begin to hold this man to account for his demonstrable lies?

Terrance C. Horton
Kapolei

Rain washes away lousy pothole repairs

Once again city and/or state workers filled in potholes with a shovel full of asphalt and patted them down a couple of times. This process -- usually done by two workers and two or more supervisors -- guarantees that the first 100 or so cars that drive over the repair will get the gunk on their cars. This is usually bad enough, but the rain this week gave those repairs a lifetime of less than one week. Auwe to both state and city transit departments.

Rex Herren
Honolulu

Expanding Barber's could ease traffic

Think of the number of car and truck trips needed to transport a container load of goods and groceries from Honolulu Harbor to outlets in Leeward and Central Oahu before they eventually reach the many homes in that vast area. Multiply that by the number of containers on a ship. Multiply that by the number of ships unloading at Honolulu Harbor. Multiply that by the number of trips each ship makes to Honolulu Harbor every year.

What if these goods and groceries didn't not need to travel on the overloaded highways and could all be directly unloaded at Barber's Point Harbor?

Would we still need to spend a billion dollars and suffer years of inconvenience to build another highway? Can federal funds still be tapped to accelerate the expansion of the overlooked Barber's Point Harbor?

Fellow citizens, urge your lawmakers to answer these questions before they raise our taxes.

Loy Kuo
Honolulu

Clark understands military family's needs

It is quite interesting the way the military so blindly encourages its young men and women to vote Republican and re-elect President Bush. The military says that Republicans will "take care" of the men and women of the armed forces. I am a military wife, and I can tell you that since George W. Bush has been in office things have become so much worse.

Now our young men and women, our sons and daughters, our husbands and wives, are going to Iraq and the gulf for nine months at a time and longer, fighting for oil!

It is time to change leadership. It is time to vote someone in who will really take care of the military. That is why I urge you to take a look at Gen. Wesley Clark (www.clark04.com) and learn about his years of military experience and how he really wants to help the men and women of the armed forces.

In fact, he wants to help the majority of us, the low income, and the middle class. If Clark wins we can have a president with real military experience who cares for the welfare of the majority rather than the greed of the minority.

Nicole dela Vega
Honolulu

Let cockfighters pay for police pay raise

Here's one more suggestion for funding police pay raises: Arrest cockfighters and make them forfeit their property.

Barbara Ikeda
Honolulu