Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/9450
6A – Daily News – Thursday, April 22, 2010 Opinion D NEWSAILY RED BLUFF TEHAMACOUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U N T Y S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Pump restrictions Editor: Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes let- ters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All let- ters must be signed and pro- vide the writer’s home street address and home phone num- ber. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submit- ted will be considered for publi- cation. Letters will be edited. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Am I the only person in Northern California that sees what is coming? Judge Oliver Wanger is in hearings now, but has already upheld the pumping restrictions in the Delta. Get that part — pumping restrictions. The story I’ve gotten is that the Delta smelt are a food source for the salmon and they get sucked into the pumps. But the salmon do not eat once they enter the fresh water of the Delta on their return from the sea. As I see it; the salmon are food for the delta smelt on their way to the sea. I wasn’t here when the deci- sions were made to eliminate Lake Red Bluff and eventually remove the dam that made it. Because? The dam stopped the salmon from moving upstream to spawn. But since the canal system was already built and the Sacramento Valley farms need- ed water, the compromise was to take out the dam and install pumps. Pumps. See it coming? The reasoning here was that the pumps could be screened off so they would not impact the salmon’s migratory habits. Apparently, the pumps in Red Bluff can be screened, but the pumps in the Delta cannot. But I will wager you this. In three years the environmental- ists and the commercial fisher- men will be in front of Judge Wanger again and putting forth their case that the screens in front of the pumps in Red Bluff don’t work either. Those pumps will then be the new cause for the disappearing fish, and will have to be shut down. So we will shut down agri- culture in California and buy all our fruits, nuts and vegetables from Mexico, South America and Asia. It won’t make any difference anyway. We will by then have shipped what few jobs we have left now to China and won't have any money to buy food anyway. Shortly thereafter the com- mercial fishermen will have pulled the last chinook, sockeye and coho out of the Pacific Ocean off California and will be concentrating all their efforts in Alaskan waters. These environmentalists are going to save every plant and critter on the planet except one. Homo sapiens will be regulated to extinction. How much longer must we suffer these nattering nabobs of negativity before we take Cali- fornia back? Fred Boest, Red Bluff Do the math Editor: Here are some figures I found most interesting. Spent and approved war- spending for 2010 is $900 bil- lion. Amount spent in Iraq monthly in 2009 was $7.3 billion. To deploy one soldier to Iraq for one year is $390,000 and I’m sure that soldier receives a very small percentage of that money. Nine billion dollars so far have been lost and unaccounted for in Iraq. Of that figure $549.7 million were the cost of spare parts shipped to US contractors in 2004. Congressional hearings dis- covered that per 2007 the US lost $10 billion due to waste or mismanagement. According to the Pentagon, Halliburton over- charged them to the tune of $1.4 billion. Now let’s go from the dollar and cents to the blood and guts cost of the war. To date, 4,386 US troops have died in Iraq and 19 percent of those died of non- hostile — suicides maybe or friendly fire — causes; 31,716 of our soldiers were wounded 20 percent of which were seri- ous brain or spinal injuries; 30 Your Turn percent of US troops develop serious mental health problems within 3-4 months after return- ing home. Now the question is has all of this made our country any safer, or Iraq any better off? The estimated insur- gency strength in 2003 was 15,000 by ‘07 it was 70,000. The British Ministry of Defense took a poll in Iraq back in 2007 and here are the results: 82 percent of those polled said they were strongly opposed to coalition troops in their coun- try, only 1 only believed coali- tion forces were responsible for any improvements in secu- rity. We seem to have a problem of how to deal with the non- combatants. In all other wars throughout our history they were left alone. But these days that is a punishable offense. People in Iraq and Afghanistan face being killed, mutilated or imprisoned for life, whether they take up arms against us or not. What has all of this bought us? It certainly has not bought us any more security. And we complain about the price of the new healthcare legislation. Orval Strong, Gerber Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Jim Nielsen (R), State Capitol Bldg., Room 4164 P.O. Box 942849, Sacramen- to 94249; (916) 319-2002; Fax (916) 319-2102 STATE SENATOR — Sam Aanestad (R), State Capitol Bldg., Room 2054, Sacramento, CA 95814. (916) 651-4004; Fax (916) 445-7750 GOVERNOR — Arnold Schwarzenegger (R), State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 558-3160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Wally Herger (R), 2635 Forest Ave. Ste. 100, Chico, CA 95928; 893-8363. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 393- 0710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (415) 403-0100. Fax (202) 224-0454. Cola Wars; Campaign to sell Wall Street status quo Commentary In the past hundred years Coca-Cola and Pepsi Cola have spent billions in advertis- ing and employed millions of people to get you to think this caffeinated bubbly sugar water is different/better/worse than that caffeinated bubbly sugar water. People are fiercely loyal and opinionated on the subject. All this marketing and bloviating ignores the fact that two very similar cola products do not equal actual choice. It boils down to an epic campaign for a product void of nutritional substance; a refreshment rather than a food. In the end, save the hype - it’s all a bunch of bubbles, sugar and water. For us veterans of the Cola Wars it’s easy to see that con- flict can be manufactured, pas- sions misdirected and some- times what we fight about is intentionally vague. We saw this during the health care debate when House Minority Leader John Boehner and others called the then-bill “a government takeover of health care.” The only way the statement was true is if you were an insurance company not wanting to be told you have to cover sick people. If regulations equal a gov- ernment takeover of health care then stoplights are a gov- ernment takeover of traffic. Health care reform is a far cry from government taking over anything. In the town halls over the summer people were upset by the idea, so with some encouragement and coaching by interest groups they came out to make that known. As the saying goes, feelings are not facts and in the health care debate the latter beat the snot out of the former. In the end we’re a sick nation that pays more than any other country for health care and we still rate low in quality of care. The bill that passed is an improvement not a cure-all, and certainly not enough to trigger the end of the world or even cause an unpronounceable Icelandic volcano to erupt. The next smoke and mirror campaign is pointed at the financial regulatory reform bill. It’s not an easy task to sell that criminalizing the mass fleecing of the middle class, resulting in the unprecedented cratering of the world’s econo- my can somehow be bad for working Americans. Senator Mitch McConnell has tried by saying the reform bill will lead to an endless tax- payer-funded bailout. This was widely panned as being straight from pollster Frank Luntz’s Word Doctors leaked report on how to stop the bill. Number 17, under Language reads, “It’s not ‘reform.’ – This is not a reform bill. It is the ‘Stop the Big Bank Bailout bill.’” It’s also widely noted that the status quo is the actual endless taxpay- er-funded bailout. Like saying, “Don’t outlaw grift – private industry theft creates jobs. No socialism!” Whose side are these guys on? One would think Tina this financial cata- clysm would tone down the canard chorus for some safe- guard installments. But hey, people think the uniform burg- er chain Burger King is an alternative to the uniform burg- er chain McDonalds. Mounds of money can make even the goofiest of conclusions sud- denly make sense. It’s not going to be comfort- able to convince the millions of victims that the shady, immoral and unethical prac- tices on Wall Street that put them out on the street, crippled their neighborhood and wiped- out their retirement shouldn’t be zapped by sunlight because of “American values.” It’d be a Dupuy nice trick, though. One is the argument to leave well enough alone, Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel said on This Week, “The fact that the SEC has a civil complaint against this [Goldman Sachs], their argument is that this is about misrepresentation of marketing a security, a law that has been on the books forever.” So because there is a suit brought up by the SEC against Goldman, it is proof we don’t need any more regulations for the bank- ing industry? The suit is civil so if Goldman loses because of its sneaky and super compli- cated shorting that made them billions, they’ll have to pay a fine. Unfortunately (pun intended), a lot of the stuff they did was legal, that’s the real issue. Usually being criminally injurious is a crime. But, we can talk it out over a Coke…or a Pepsi, whichever you prefer. Tina Dupuy is an award- winning writer and the editor of FishbowlLA.com. Tina can be reached at tina@cagle.com.