Online-only letters

To tax or not to tax

Fruit of injustice

Editor, The Times:

Regarding "What's the rush, lawmakers?" [Times, editorial column, Nov. 26]: I thought the state Supreme Court was supposed to uphold the law, which is the will of the people.

The citizens of this state voted for I-747, which reduced the tax to 1 percent. It doesn't matter if the people of the state thought they were reducing it from 2 percent, 6 percent or even 100 percent. Where the tax was before the law was legally passed is not important. What's important is that the law said the tax would be reduced to 1 percent. Period. End of discussion.

Now, if the law had said, reduce the percentage 1 percent, that would be a whole different ballgame. Then the split court would definitely have legal grounds to invalidate the law. But that is clearly not the case.

The five judges who voted against the will of the people and the legal law of the land have now undid justice with the illegal invalidation of I-747. Since they clearly cannot do the job they were elected for, it is time for their employment to be immediately terminated, which includes loss of their retirement benefits due to being unqualified for the position they are currently holding. This means they no longer have the ability or the right to decide legal matters in the state of Washington, as their licenses should be revoked to practice law at any level in the state of Washington.

The governor needs to set up an immediate election to replace these five worthless judges who are just a sliver of a shadow away from being full-fledged criminals themselves who have tried to overturn the legal law of the land illegally by using their position of authority as judges. That's treason.

— Benjamin Brandes, Tacoma

Unfair and untrue

Vashon property owners are as shell-shocked as I am with our 2008 land-value assessment increase from the King County assessor in the 100 — 200 percent range!

I believe in fair and true taxation.

I would like to know from the county assessor, why one of our largest landowners, Glacier Northwest, which owns the largest waterfront property on Vashon Island, has no increase in land value for its property assessment!?

Glacier Northwest not only poses the largest single threat to Vashon's natural resources, it now also appears that fair and true taxation does not apply to Vashon residents who burden to stay in their homes.

— Steven Gering, Vashon

All the same

The foot-ferry argument volleys back and forth like a ping-pong ball ["Port Townsend-Keystone passenger ferry could start Monday," Local Digest, Nov. 25].

I have one question for the fast- and hard-paddling opponents: Have you ever ridden a passenger-and-car ferry during peak hours? I have.

The ferries are so full of foot passengers that you cannot find a place to sit inside or outside. As the foot ferries garner more attention and become better able to accommodate passengers, I am sure we can expect both the foot ferries and the car-and-passenger ferries to be full.

The buses are; the trains are. There is no reason the ferries should be any different.

— Pamela Buxton, Seattle

Lessons to learn

Sine die

Let's see, there are countries like Iran, Nigeria and Venezuela that use their natural resources to make their disgusting dictators disgustingly rich and nearly everyone else miserably poor. There are free countries like Norway, which uses revenue generated by its natural resources to attempt to benefit all its citizens.

Then, there are countries like the U.S., which virtually destroys its currency and economy importing most of the resources it consumes because of fear that the country won't be beautiful and pristine enough to attract illegal immigrants.

I'm all for using technology, conservation and common sense to consume fewer resources, but why not make intelligent use of what God has given us rather than wait until we become a third-world country, owned by others who will make decisions for us?

Do we really think Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez is more concerned than we are about protecting the environment when he drills for oil? I thought we were all one world.

— Gary McGavran, Bellevue

A clean slate

It was so sad to read about the volunteers who think it is their job to clean up Green Lake ["Many hands make a healthy lake," Local News, Nov. 19]. To take time away from probably already overscheduled lives in order to do what is really the job of the city of Seattle and the Seattle Parks Department — that's wrong.

For too long the citizens of Seattle have been sold this bill of goods that they have an obligation, nay, even a duty to volunteer to care for the assorted public spaces they love.

All this is an outgrowth of what has been going on for some time: The city claims a shortage of funds and then fobs off onto the public this idea that only its volunteerism can save the city, parks, streets. When the citizens are all caught up in knocking themselves out being the good little citizens they were told to be, the city officials get to walk off with the lion's share of our taxes, and do the big spending on the things they want.

Volunteering here and there is all well and good, but the city of Seattle for too long has lived off the backs of its citizens. It's time folks like the Green Lake volunteers wised up to this game, and tell the city officials to take the tools they are handing out to the volunteers and use them themselves; it is, after all, what the city was organized to do in the first place.

— Elizabeth Campbell, Seattle

Circle of life

We all know the orcas of Puget Sound are on the brink of extinction. And now we all know they are endangered because they are starving. There are simply not enough adult chinook salmon returning to West Coast rivers to feed them ["At Entiat hatchery, coho are taking the place of chinook," Local News, Nov. 26]. Yet, up until now, solutions to this problem have been few and far between.

The recent announcement by six leading orca researchers that Puget Sound orca recovery is dependent on the recovery of our salmon runs, and in particular those of the Columbia and Snake rivers, has finally hit home.

No more salmon, no more orcas. It is as simple as that. Scientists also agree that removing the four lower Snake River dams is necessary for recovery of Snake River salmon. So it is no longer a question of "salmon or dams," now it is "salmon and orcas or dams."

What's next? It is time we rethink our policies and reconsider what matters to people of the Northwest. And we need to make these choices while we still have the chance to recover these iconic species. Prudent policy requires examination of all of the options and clearly dam removal needs to be one of them.

Kudos to these orca scientists for informing the debate.

— Robyn Carmichael, Seattle

What a deal

We hear a lot about things we can do to help offset global warming. If serious about finding and reducing those things contributing to global warming, why doesn't Seattle Public Schools abandon school busing? Has an emissions audit been made to determine the bus-fleet carbon footprint?

If we abandon all those buses, wouldn't others looking to buy carbon offsets send us money much like Seattle City Light sent more than $600,000 to Kentucky to pay for our carbon footprint. Seattle could say, we reduced our emissions so send us money so you can still pollute. We save millions of dollars eliminating school buses and get money from others to boot. Sounds like a taxpayer windfall.

If the city leaders don't eliminate school busing, I believe that tells me social engineering is still more important than global warming. Which is it?

— Larry Jacobson, Seattle

Old new story

Mortal wound

The recent film Beowulf — a catastrophe in many ways — serves up as the latest effort to obliterate any chance our young people have to grow up in moral security ["Web trailers are sexier, more violent," Entertainment and the Arts, Nov. 18].

I've heard no voices even questioning how a film like this could get a PG-13 rating. Ask yourself: How will 13-year-old boys and girls be affected by seeing men ripped in half, slammed on the ground repeatedly, have their heads bitten off and burned alive?

What about seeing fully nude, oversexualized men and women leering at each other? I thought that was for adults (should it be?). What's the R-rating for, if not that?

This film presents the latest impossible standard for female beauty and leaves nothing to the imagination, as if a 13-year-old boy needs any help.

When did this become OK? Are we so naive and foolish to think this won't hurt kids' psychological and sexual development?

Oh wait, it's animated. Silly me.

Have the feminists abandoned hope for women to be treated with respect in films? Is this how women want their worth defined by the next generation?

And where are the men who still believe women are deserving of respect and honor for more than how perfectly shaped all their features can be made to look by a perverted animator?

— Daniel Magill, Seattle