Letters

Editor,

"O Come All Ye Faithful” except to downtown Menlo Park where I was Christmas shopping and got a ticket in a loading zone with no posted sign. The yellow paint was so faded, scarred by traffic and covered by yellow leaves that I missed it. Others are being ticketed for the same reason. Is beautiful Menlo so broke that it can’t maintain its infrastructure better with proper signage and a coat of cheap paint? Shop in Palo Alto where we know how to "deck the halls.”

Vic Befera

Palo Alto

Left behind video game

Editor,

I think it is a shame that this game was even conceived (Michelle Durand’s column "Don’t be left behind this holiday” in the Dec. 14 edition of the Daily Journal. I think we (Christians) are going backwards in our thinking instead of going forward. It sounds like the Crusades and the Inquisition all over again. Isn’t there any saner way to teach and share our beliefs?

Jackie Thompson

Pacifica

Freedom to choose

Editor,

I can’t believe that anyone would oppose a woman’s right to decide what happens with her body. I find it despicable that someone would want to prevent a woman from exerting her natural rights to choose whether or not to have a child. People always argue that the fetus within the womb is a life, but until the third trimester, it is nothing but an extension of the woman’s body. As if this wasn’t appalling enough, these anti-freedom activists argue against a minor’s right to proceed with an abortion of her own choice. They believe that abortions will be prevented when parents are allowed to decide the fate of the girl’s life. This just means that more underage girls will be trapped with children to complicate their maturing lives. If this is truly the land of freedom, then this shouldn’t even be an issue.

Will Dupen

Half Moon Bay

A real Christmas

Editor,

Christmas is a celebration of the birth of our savior Jesus Christ who opens the door to heaven for all those who believe in him. Let’s give each soon-to-be-born the same opportunity by eliminating abortion. If the soon-to-be-born are not wanted, place them for adoption. Jesus could be our savior by accepting him. The aborted in a sense, could have been saviors by possibly being doctors, scientists, firemen, etc.

All should have the opportunity to celebrate Christmas.

Louie Garibaldi

Redwood City

Inconvenient truth

Editor,

Ferris Lewald’s uninformed and intellectually vacuous response to my letter of Nov. 28 just goes to show how well free speech is working in this country. However, experience, actual knowledge and facts will prove that, what he may call an inconvenient truth, is the real thing. The logic which Ferris speaks of may be a reality for those "global cooling” advocates such as himself, but I prefer to base my beliefs in hard "cold” facts such as those found in Al Gore’s "An Inconvenient Truth.”

Though he may not believe in this global warming epidemic, why doesn’t he try explaining to himself where the majority of the outer edge of Greenland went in the past 10 years? Or why Polar bears are drowning in record numbers due to the lack of North Pole ice mass.

Before I heard of Al Gore’s research on global warming in his book An Inconvenient Truth, I too thought that this idea of excessive earth warming was a hoax to sell a new type of car, but now armed with the unrefutable truth, my views have changed.

Wake up Ferris, get off that carnival ride and join the real world. We may not be on an immediate path to global death in the next few years, but the facts are that left unchecked we will have a serious problem. The time to act is now.

And as for that one gallon of gas converting to 10 pounds of carbon dioxide, I do apologize for my mistake. In fact, through the chemical reactions with gases in the atmosphere, it can be turned into 19.3 pounds of carbon dioxide. I thank Kelly D. Moran for backing up this statement and explaining the physics. You can also see this explained on www.terrapass.com/terrablog/posts/2006/03/how-to-turn-6-pounds-of-gasoline-into-20-pounds-of-carbon-d.html.

Enrique A. Daza

San Mateo