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LETTERS - Dec. 12

ISSUE | ENERGY Lay down that pipe This region and the entire state need to create long-term, high-paying jobs. Sunoco Logistics Partners' $2.5 billion plan to transport natural gas from the Marcellus Shale fields to Marcus Hook via pipeline will help accomplish that.

ISSUE | ENERGY

Lay down that pipe

This region and the entire state need to create long-term, high-paying jobs. Sunoco Logistics Partners' $2.5 billion plan to transport natural gas from the Marcellus Shale fields to Marcus Hook via pipeline will help accomplish that.

As Michael J. Hennigan, president and chief executive officer of Sunoco Logistics, said in a statement, "The project also enables the continuing development of the Marcus Hook Industrial Complex, as we convert a former refinery site into a world-class natural-gas liquids hub in Southeastern Pennsylvania."

Natural-gas lines crisscross the region and nation already, so if local companies don't build the pipeline to Philadelphia's refineries and its port, the pipeline and the jobs it creates will go elsewhere.

It's time that we join together in a parochial effort to make the natural-gas pipeline plan to Philadelphia a reality.

|Paul M. Fanelli, Perkasie

ISSUE | CAPITOL VIEWS

Dionne's favorites

I must admit that Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne writes well, but I consider him more of an apologist than a columnist ("Knows his government," Dec. 10). His views are always consistent with the Democrats' and, as with President Obama, there is no room for compromise.

|C.T. Howes, Havertown

ISSUE | WILD N.J.

Hunting for a reason

When New Jersey announced its bear hunt, it was supposed to protect public safety and eliminate aggressive bears - but just the opposite has happened. Aggressive bear incidents have gone up and, for the first time in New Jersey, a person has died from a bear attack. This shows the previous four hunts have not worked, and that we need a real bear management plan that includes public education on dealing with bears, bear-proofing properties, reducing food sources - especially garbage - and nonlethal control methods.

Rather than being about sustainability and controlling the number of bears, this hunt is more about Gov. Christie showing support for the hunting groups that support him.

|Jeff Tittel, director, New Jersey Sierra Club, Trenton

ISSUE | ANTITERRORISM TACTICS

Looking for an excuse to look the other way

What is disheartening about the CIA report and the news coverage is the emphasis on whether the interrogation methods worked - not on whether a nation needs to operate along a different axis entirely, one oriented to human decency and morality, right and wrong ("Torture by any name," Dec. 11).

Some of us could see it coming when the war on terror was declared: a limitless state of war; an immediate and lasting alteration of our civil rights laws; a sneer at the Geneva Conventions, the World Court, and the Magna Carta, reversing hundreds of years of progress toward a humane and civil society; and the corruption and distortion of language itself.

We are now all complicit in the worst kinds of crimes against humanity, and all we can think about is whether torture works or not, and whether we can excuse these acts in the name of patriotism and duty. Shame on top of guilt.

|Elaine P. Zickler, Moorestown

Bad staff work contributed to scandal

If news reports are accurate on the CIA report, the scandal is not that the federal government condoned torture after 9/11 - after all, we were at war, attacked on our soil for the first time since Pearl Harbor - it is that $81 million was taken in by two psychologists who did not serve their country well by giving poor advice to the CIA.

|Hans Bombeck, Philadelphia, hcb1800@gmail.com

ISSUE | FUTURISTIC LIBRARY

Temple's new library must go digital

Rather than spend part of its $190 million budget for a new library automating its printed collection, Temple University should use the funds to create a digital library and accomplish what a book-based system cannot ("Temple plans a new library," Dec. 10). It could make an unlimited number of copies available for download (read-only, one book per computer only); provide access anywhere 24/7; enable remote printing of digital copies (one time only, for a fee); and enable remote printing in Braille for the sightless and in large print for the sight-impaired.

Additionally, and not insignificantly, Temple could achieve vast, permanent reductions in the millions spent for inventory, construction, maintenance, and operating costs.

I hope Temple reconsiders its library plan and instead makes a bold, progressive move into the inevitable digitalized future.

|Rod Meyers, Bryn Mawr, rodmeyers@aol.com

ISSUE |CASINO WORKERS

Advocating for benefits amid downsizing

State Senate President Steve Sweeney had the courage to stand up to billionaire Carl Icahn and fight for the hardworking men and women of Atlantic City ("Taj offer: Restore health insurance for its workers," Nov. 23). It is never an easy proposition to tell a guy with unlimited resources that he is wrong, but Sweeney has never shied from a fight if he believes it is the right thing to do.

|Dominick J. Burzichelli, Gibbstown