What’s been happening over the past few years is that as nonrenewable natural gas supplies dwindle, fracking efforts have become more extreme: drilling is deeper, more fluid volume is forced in, more toxins are used. Thus, with this increased violence, we can expect more earthquakes.

After yesterday’s earthquake, one nuclear plant was shut down and 12 others reported unusual incidents. With continued fracking, it’s a matter of time until we see a nuclear accident. Do any of our major metropolitan areas have an evacuation plan? Or a plan to distribute potassium iodide (taken after a nuclear accident to prevent radiation poisoning) to the populace?

Can we stop fracking? Because of the Halliburton Loophole, the federal government is prohibited from regulating fracking.

Can we depend on our governments at any level to make sure we have our iodide, or a way out, when the inevitable happens? I suggest you lay in your own supplies and make an exit plan.

Sharon Nichols
Portsmouth, NH

Over 28 years we have been taught how conservative or Republican Party says they are. Their words do not match their accounting. They left us over drawn by $13 trillion dollars. Now a new mystery in accounting Frank Guinta can’t account for $330,000. “This will be another mess we will get into. Republican Finance at its finest.

When Frank Guinta was Mayor he promised that his school system would be an example on a hill. What Manchester got was 1,000 % failure. We are now 24th in the world, when Frank takes our seat in our House look out Plaistow, Exeter, Derry, Portsmouth and others we will drop down even further. Our schools will become, a bad example on a hill.
Frank Guinta talks about taxes as a friend, but he raised taxes in Manchester so he could spend money for services. Isn’t it what is said as, “Tax and Spend?”
Carol Shea-Porter is still working for us in Congress for all of us, Veterans, firefighter, police, teachers, children, waitresses and others.

Re: Repeal and Replace

As a patriotic American, I want to applaud and encourage your efforts to improve our healthcare system with sensible conservative solutions. I happen to have a self-employed brother who is a diabetic and is losing his eyesight due to a progressive degenerative condition. While his quarterly insurance payments have gone from under $500 a quarter to over $2500 per quarter over the past decade and his out of pocket co-payments etc run him another $5- 6000 annually, that us not why I am writing you.

My spouse has Crohn’s Disease which (if you know anything about the progression of same) will end up requiring a surgical procedure to bag her waste rather than just dump it directly into the municipal water supply. She receives a bi-monthly infusion that used to cost $10K a dose, but unlike most drugs has come down in price and now only cost around $4 K six times a year… but that is not why I am writing you.

As you Repeal and Replace the current healthcare reform with your sensible, conservative solutions, I want to make sure that you include coverage for a long overlooked condition that a majority of my fellow citizens in your party and in the Tea Party movement certainly suffer from. It causes a severe oxygen deficiency resulting in erratic and irrational behavior, great anxiety, fear mongering behavior, an inability to recognize rational thought, the complete acceptance of fallacious ideas and comments, promotion of thoughts and advocacy of candidates who have little substance and who care only for the smallest percentage of the population, with no concern for the planet they live on or how their behaviors affect anything else.

I am writing because I have another brother, and two brothers-in-law, who each have chronic cases of this condition. It is imperative that coverage be included in any replacement legislation you bring forward to benefit the American people who suffer from this condition. The remedy is simple, inexpensive and can be performed by veterinarians or gastroenterologists. It is called Cranial Rectal Extraction.

When I think of the relief you can bring to these citizens, the improvement in family relationships, the reduction of domestic violence, the elevation in civil discourse and the restoration of true bipartisanship that will result from your efforts and all it will bring to America….well it make me proud. As Vice President Biden said, “This is a big fucking deal!” And to think the GOP could actually be a part of a solution that makes America better. Once this replacement legislation passes, the majority of Americans (and indeed most of the world) will welcome hearing the “giant sucking sound” that will resonate around the world.

A better America! An appreciative population… Repeal and Replace! Include FREE, MANDATORY Cranial Rectal Extractions for any registered Republican or Tea Party member in the GOP Healthcare Reform Package.

Thank you.

Tom Lonnquist

Dear Editor, would you be interested in publishing this letter?
Open letter to Bill Gates.

Dear Bill Gates, recently the prominent scientist Stephen Hawking warned humanity that “we’re acting with reckless indifference to our future on Planet Earth.”
Your dream in cutting CO2 to zero by 2040 is praiseworthy, but much more than that needs to be done to save our planet, and it’s just not happening. Since several attempts to contact you previously have failed, I’m trying with this open letter to reach you, as it is urgent, since Stephen Hawking also said earlier “the Doomsday Clock advanced to five minutes to midnight.”
I’ve been orbiting (involuntary J) the sun since 1935 and researched the causes of our problems, and if there are possible solutions, for as long as you’ve been alive.
I invite you to look through ‘my telescope’, as I am, until proven otherwise, a modern day Galileo, ignored and maybe silently ridiculed. You’ll find some of my thoughts on the Internet, but these are only appetizers.
Should you decline to meet me privately, I then ask you to a public debate where, should you be the looser, you will spend three hundred thousand dollars, to a project that is needed to allow other people to look through my telescope. I do not want your money. Personally, I know nothing; I’m just stepping on the shoulders of giants and consolidate their genius.
However, to be fair, should I loose this debate, my loss will be one dollar, as this is about the relative worth between us.
You know Bill, we have much to learn. I heartily embrace the humble and honest admission by the late physicist John Wheeler “we do not know the first thing about the universe, about ourselves, and about our place in the universe.”
Sincerely
Gunther Ostermann
Kelowna, BC. 250 765 8726 gco@shaw.ca

Anyway, your newspaper is pure propaganda. That word has been used alot lately, so please allow me to tell you what that means since I already know you’re not going to admit to your paper being left wing propaganda.

Propaganda is a form of communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position. As opposed to impartially providing information, propaganda in its most basic sense, presents information primarily to influence an audience. It often presents facts selectively (thus possibly lying by omission) to encourage a particular synthesis, or uses loaded messages to produce an emotional rather than rational response to the information presented. The desired result is a change of the attitude toward the subject in the target audience to further a political agenda.

Propaganda is neutrally defined as a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels.