Letters to the Editor
Your money at work Re: "Fuel prices rise as demand drops," Tuesday: The price of a barrel of oil has risen about 74 percent since mid-January. Is it supply? Demand? Is it that we are driving more? Is it that oil inventories are falling? Is it that cars are getting better mileage? No. The answer is speculation. Banks and investment companies are using your money to drive up the cost. No market fundamentals are at work.
Your money
at work
Re: "Fuel prices rise as demand drops," Tuesday:
The price of a barrel of oil has risen about 74 percent since mid-January. Is it supply? Demand? Is it that we are driving more? Is it that oil inventories are falling? Is it that cars are getting better mileage? No. The answer is speculation. Banks and investment companies are using your money to drive up the cost. No market fundamentals are at work.
Joel H. Beldner
Glenmoore
Speculating is not
in the public interest
Goldman Sachs borrows from TARP so it can buy up petroleum futures and force prices up at the pump for all of us. I can understand an airline buying oil futures to hedge against large price swings so it can manage fuel costs. But Goldman Sachs buys strictly as a speculative venture and not in the public's interest.
Goldman Sachs should be forced to return the TARP money, and commodities pricing should be affected by supply and demand, and not speculation.
Carl Witonsky
Bryn Mawr
Cynical nominee
for Supreme Court
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has said that a "wise Latina lady with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male . . . " I can't see the wisdom - or fairness - in this statement. George Washington owned slaves as president, but nine white men on the Supreme Court struck down segregated schools.
America is still not free from gender and ethnic bias, but Sotomayor's brand of cynicism and arrogance warrants scrutiny.
James Miles
Collingdale
Sotomayor
is qualified
Now that President Obama has nominated someone for the Supreme Court, I see Rush Limbaugh has jumped right in, saying that this is the worst possible nomination. The American Bar Association has given a moderate rating to the nominee. She has been approved twice by the Senate, once under George Bush senior and once under Bill Clinton. There should be very little resistance to her being our next Supreme Court associate justice.
Ronald Costello
Warminster
Denying
animal cruelty
Open letter to Shayne Lee, assistant professor of sociology at Tulane University:
Please take some courses in rational, logical thinking ("Punishing Vick for our crimes," Tuesday).
1) The fact that other forms of animal torture exist in the world does not vindicate the morally reprehensible actions of Michael Vick.
2) I have always thought of boxing as a mindless, violent sport. However, the participants are consenting adult human beings. You cannot extract consent from two fighting dogs. Therefore, Lee's boxing analogy is ridiculous.
If he truly believes Vick did nothing wrong, Lee can be included in the category of morally reprehensible.
Barry Fisher
Bristol
Another liberal . . .
Your newspaper's ability to find liberal whiners never ceases to amaze me ("Powerful women: They just can't win," Sunday).
Columnist Susan Estrich lauds Michelle Obama and comes close to equating dislike of her with tyranny. If Obama is so concerned about tending to life, as one could suspect by her vegetable garden, why does she not care about unborn fetuses? They are eager to bloom, too.
Joseph Myers
Philadelphia
. . . and a left-wing tilt
Funny how all of the letters to the editor that are printed seem to be from liberals, all praising the socialist President Obama, and taking all conservatives to task.
C. A. Galle
Willow Grove