Letters: Another alternative to fossil fuels is renewable hardwood trees

Another alternative to fossil fuels is renewable hardwood trees

A letter in your Friday edition quotes a release from the Center for Naval Analysis saying, among other things, that “our dependence on fossil fuels undermines economic stability …”, whatever that means. Reasonable people, and there are some of us left, ask, “In what way do they undermine economic stability?”

Also, the writer was quick to state that The Southern Alliance for Clean Energy maintains that we have alternatives to fossil fuels, and that is true. There is nuclear power that can be generated here as it is all over Europe, but our president doesn’t want our country to have generating facilities that use of nuclear power while he supports the efforts of Iran to do the same thing.

Another alternative to fossil fuels are the many renewable hardwood trees that we have in our state, live oaks in the south, pin oaks and water oaks all over the state, pecan trees, and many others.

All the generating facilities would have to do is convert their boilers from burning coal to burning wood, but don’t burn pine because it will produce too much environmentally unacceptable smoke and soot.

Good idea, right?

Homer H. Turner, Jr.
Auburn

Time for Alabama citizens to make voices heard in upcoming election

Local and state newspapers are full of letters and editorials concerning the lack of public responsiveness by our state Legislature. During the last two sessions our Legislature thumbed their noses at ethics reform with an attempt to hamstring the Ethics Commission, voted themselves a hefty pay raise including annual pay raises no longer requiring a vote, spent important time in discussing and passing bills for a higher alcohol content in beer and wine yet unable to remove tax from food items and locking down the Senate over gambling.

We can all scream “foul” and write letters demanding change while promising to remember in November. However, these individual screams of disappointment and frustration over the years have resulted in little or no change in Montgomery. The root of most of their shenanigans results from their lack of ethics.

The next 18 months provides a great opportunity for all of Alabama. All legislators and senators, many judges, and countless other elected positions, including the governor and lieutenant governor will be on the ballot in 2010. Between now and then voters should learn about the incumbents’ voting and track record and the candidates’ plans for his term of office. Citizens need to network, share energies and strategies to elect persons who will be responsive to us instead political action committees or themselves. A collective and knowledgeable voice, however organized, is our greatest strength to effect any change.

Citizens wanting to network with other concerned citizens about the need of Legislative ethics reform are invited to Golden Corral restaurant at 2301 Birmingham Highway, Opelika at 5:30 p.m. on June 18. Not a free dinner but the time spent with other concerned citizens may be a start of something.

Frank Dillman
Notasulga

Liberal secularists working toward ridding Christians from free speech

In a column ironically titled “The Sanctity of Life,” Jim Evans mourns the death of late-term abortionist George Tiller, who made his fortune by killing some 60,000 prenatal babies. That’s roughly 5,000 more human individuals than the entire population of Auburn.

Evans assigns a share of blame for Tiller’s murder to Christians who tell the truth about abortion, those who “become convinced that that they are absolutely right in their beliefs.” However, it is difficult to imagine how the basic facts about Tiller’s victims could be only relatively true.

The Bible and science converge on the conclusion that the prenatal child is a living human individual.

According to America’s founders, living human individuals have the Creator’s endowment of an inalienable right to life.

If the prenatal child isn’t alive, why does she have a heartbeat, brainwaves, and an emergent bad habit of sucking her thumb?

If she isn’t human, how did two human parents conceive some other species?

If she isn’t an individual, how did she gain a DNA fingerprint future paleontologists can use to identify her remains?

The religion section Saturday had three stories showing the extent that liberal secularists have managed to deny free speech to Christians.

A kindergartner cannot bring his favorite book, the Bible, to show and tell. A couple in San Diego needs a permit to hold a Bible study at home. A valedictorian in Denver is punished for talking about Christianity in her commencement speech.

Liberal secularists want more than separation of church and state. They want the exclusion of Christians from public debate.

Bruce Murray
Auburn