Newton Independent

Letter: We need to think out of the box on the Newton budget

To the Newton Independent:

The more I attend the council meetings, the more I get the feeling the council members are like a flock of sheep that are easily lead. If I heard correctly (Monday) night and last week, the main reason we are raising the levy by $0.15 was because we needed to have benefits costs transferred out of the General Fund Levy and have the total true cost be reflected in the benefit levy.

When you look at the categories for city levies, there are six of them. The General Levy is limited to $8.10. Outside of the $8.10 (includes Tort, Library and Emergency Management), Emergency Levy, Debt Service, Benefits and Capital Improvements.

The proposed budget for 2013-14 is:

General Levy - $8.10
Outside $8.10 - $0.28 (which is $0.0092 lower than last year
Emergency Levy - $0.00
Debt Service - $1.036 (which is $0.054 lower than last year
Benefits - $5.40 (which is $0.30 higher than last year

This gives a total of $15.14, which is $0.15 higher than last year. There is a savings of $0.146 in Outside $8.10 and Debt Service which helps offset the $0.30 increase in Benefits.

The projected year end balance is 25.9 percent when it needs to be only 25 percent. This extra .9 percent is about $65,000 or $0.15 of the levy.

I wonder if these people think that the General Levy category of $8.10 is a fixed amount?

I can see no reason why if they want to have all the Trust and Agency cost moved to Benefits to show the true cost why they just don't do it. It is a simple thing to move the T&A cost from the General Fund to Benefits. This will not raise the total levy rate if you just lower the General Fund levy by the same amount. Tehre is no reason that we could not lower it to $7.95 or even less. This would result in the levy remaining at the $14.99 as it is this year and still have a 25 percent year-end balance.

If you think this is a wacky idea, many cities do not use the full $8.10. Ames is one at only $5.83, but they also only have a total levy of $10.72.

Even if the levy would remain at $14.99 it would still result in a 3.96 percent tax increase for the average home, but that is a little better than with the 5.11 percent increase in the proposed budget.

Maybe we need to think a little out of the box.

Dennis Messick
Newton

 

Letter: Obama won

To the Newton Independent:

It won't be long now until President Obama gives his State of the Union address. I hope he will take the opportunity with all the members of Congress assembled to explain to those members who seem to be clueless that he, Barack Husane Obama, won the last presidential election in both the electoral and the national vote count.

And then, in Spanish, I want him to say, "that makes me the president of all the people in America."

I want him to do that because I am sure that some Republican idiot will jump up and shout, "you lie," and four years from now we will have a new Democrat president.

Olen W. Lambert
Newton

Letter: Property taxes; do we pay too much?

To the Newton Independent:

Let's take a look at Newton and see how we compare with other Iowa cities.

In population, we are the 26th largest. When we compare our city property tax levy with cities with over 10,000, which there are 38, we rank 15th.

Our current rate is $14.99. The average of all 38 of these cities is $13.96. The 14 cities with a higher levy average is $16.93 and the 23 with a lower rate average $12.10.

There is another little thing to look at, the Local Option Sales Tax (LOST). Without this, for Newton to have the same revenues the levy rate would need to be $17.77 as this LOST revenue equals 18.5 percent of our property tax revenues. The $17.77 would put as at the fifth highest of cities over 10,000.

Another interesting little fact: That of the 23 cities with a lower levy rate than Newton, eight of them do not have a Local Option Sales Tax (LOST).

Dennis Messick
Newton

 

Letter: So much news

To the Newton Independent:

I hope I don't make anyone made, but I just saw a news report that Sara Palin is no longer going to be working for the FOX propoganda service that tries to pass as a news program. Oh, doom and gloom and agony on us.

I made some nice people mad some time ago when I wrote that the recession was not bad enough and Palin is one of the reasons for my observation. I saw a bunch of people standing in line while things were going from bad to worse spending a book she wrote.

Oh, so much news. Harkin is not going to run again. Good. Well, you say, he did a lot of good stuff, and I say he sure did but he went to Congress poor as a church mouse and now he is a multi-millionaire. Any preacher or politician who gets rich while serving God's children should relect to the fact that Jesus was offered the whole world and all of its riches by the devil, but all Jesus had was the clothes on his body when he was killed. He still managed to leave something to the world.

And I must say good job to the art guy at the Des Moines Sunday paper, Mark Marturello. His painting of Terry Branstad was beautiful. A little man with a big head.

I have always been opposed to term limits but now believe that they could be the answer to the mess we have in Washington. Three terms and you're out would be my ideal time.

Olen W. Lambert
Newton

Letter: God has blessed us again

To the Newton Independent:

My bleeding liberal heart is full and my soul is resting contently. But only resting because the damned thing in my chest that keeps my heart beating regular also keeps reminding me that my time here could end at any time and if I want my soul to reflect who I was when it gets to its final destination place I need to keep on writing.

So, here is a little bit of food for my soul. And if you want to take a little bit for your soul that's fine with me, for the Bible that some of you claim to follow says you need to leave a little grain at the edge of the field for others.

When I watched the inaugural ceremony for President Obama I stored away in my soul another first. I remember holding my first-born son and I wrote a poem that day:

Little boy all dressed in blue
you will never know what I have been through.
Those terrible days when your mother was sick
and those awful times when her temper was quick.
And then on the day you finally arrived
they say it's a wonder I even survived.
But I'll tell you son believe it not
it's tough ol' dad that you got.
Why I'll probably take only three or four pills
when they give me the total of your doctor bills.

I had no insurance. Now, because of President Obama - and it's fine with me if you want to call it Obama care - some poor father will be able to hold his first-born daughter or son and not have to worry about the bills being turned over to a collection agency because the father had no health insurance.

My liberal, bleeding heart caused me to support President Obama and my soul has reaped the benefit. Time and time again I hear politicians crying to God to bless America. Well, God did that four years ago when He, She or It gave us a smart, compassionate, black man to lead us out of the wilderness. And He, She or It blessed us again last Monday. And my four liberal sons all know his name.

Olen W. Lambert
Newton

Letter: I sure am sorry

To the Newton Independent:

I haven't seen much that is news-worthy coming from the losers of the last presidential election. Self-reflection is sometimes a slow process and angry letters may be just a sign that some guy from Kellogg is waring underwear that is too small. Oh well, there I go again doing the devil's bidding.

A friend of mine told me that after watching Colin Powell on a news program last Sunday he thought Mr. Powell should join the Democrat Party. Well, that is the way a lot of Republicans feel about this man who once was their hero.

I hope he stays in the Republican Party because he is what that party needs to get back to.

Olen W. Lambert
Newton

Letter: Loathe the action, respect the right

To the Newton Independent:

I am writing this letter as an active member of the Jasper County Veterans community. It has been brought to my attention, by several fellow vets, that there is an individual in our county that has chosen to fly their American Flag upside down at their personal residence.

The U.S. Flag Code states that the United States flag should never be displayed with the union (the starred blue union) down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property. The United States Flag Code establishes advisory rules for display and care of the flag of the United States. It is Chapter 1 of Title 4 of the United States Code (4 U.S.C Sec. 1). this is a U.S. federal law, but there is no penalty for failure to comply with it. In fact, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that punitive enforcement would conflict with the First Amendment right to freedome of speech.

In 1987, I raised my right hand and took the following oath of enlistment: "I (State Your Name), do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and orders of the officers appointed overme, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Every individual that has worn the uniform of our country has taken the same oath; an oath to defend our country and constitution. I, myself, do not like the fact that this individual has chosen to disrespect our flag in this manner. I do not like the fact that this individual has used our flag as a tool to protest some feelings of inadequacy in their life.

I will, however, fight for his right to do so under the First Amendment of our constitution.

I remember when Desert Storm broke out and an individual in our county chose to fly their flag upside down in protest. As a young vet, I was enraged that someone would take this action in a time of war. I ran the plans to "correct the situation" past Coy Bishop, my Dad. He was a decorated veteran of the 102nd Infantry Division in World War II. His words in response were simple but strong:

"Son, as a vet, you will face this situation several times in your life. You may not like it, you certainly won't agree with it but it takes guys like you to insure that knotheads like that maintain their right to disagree with our government. Getting yourself in trouble won't help the situation. Talking to him probably won't help either because in the end, you can educate the uneducated but you can't fix the stupid."

So, it doesn't matter if you are Democrat or Republican, white, black, yellow, red, Catholic, Protestant, Buddhist or athiest. I don't care. The United States of America is still the greatest country in the world to live in, love it or not. And, as Coy Bishop would say, "I will defend your right to be an absolute knothead until my dying days, no matter how dumb you are."

Doug Bishop
Baxter

Letter: Emotion makes truth relative

To the Newton Independent

Emotions can be powerful. We live in an image age in which our emotions and perceptions of things can be swayed. And truth can become relative. When Al Gore uses a lone polar bear floating around on a block of ice, it tugs at us when he also includes comments that global warming is causing this.

Well, Olen Lambert has made a similar attempt recently in a letter to the editor. But the images he tried to use to tug at us are a classic example of Heinrich Himmler's approach that if you repeat a falsehood long enough, then eventually it appears to be the truth.

He seemed agitated that farm land is selling at an "obscene" price. It begs the question, "why?" Well, due to mismanagement of the economy by the hired help in Washington, the dollar has lost over 40 percent of its value in the last decade. Land is a commodity like other hard assets. All metals, precious or not, are much higher than they were a short few years ago. But they retain the same value. In 1900, a one ounce gold coin would buy a high quality man's suit. Today, that same gold coin will still buy a high quality man's suit. Only the dollar value has changed. That is because the dollar is nothing more than some paper and ink. It is only worth what someone thinks it is, unlike hard assets. And Olen needs to give a call to the Iowa State University Ag Extension Service to learn that much of Iowa land does not lend itself well to irrigation like, say, the Platte River area of Nebraska. Droughts go in cycles and we still haven't even come remotely close to the heat and droughts of the 1930s.

Fracking seems to have Olen worried about ground water. What will be the problem we cannot see now. Well, hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," has been with us since 1947. There are plenty of studies showing that it causes no effect to the ground water we would consume. Ground water that we need is within the first 1,000 feet of the earth's surface. Hydraulic fracturing occurs several thousand feet below the earth's surface and no where close to the underground water table. The well that is bored through the water layer to get down to the deep geologic structure is encased in several feet of concrete. There is no contamination of drinking water. A recent film documentary being released called "Frack Nation" does an in-depth analysis of the history of fracking and any consequences. Olen, and others, should take a look at this researched documentary and see if his fears are realized.

He worries about epidemics that will occur if people only have bad water. Valid concern. But let's put this in perspective.

The environmentalists who come up with the stuff have a bad track record. The environmentalist movement, primarily through the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the United Nations, has been responsible for more wrongful deaths of people than Hitler and Stalin - combined. There was, and still is, clear evidence that DDT had no detrimental effects, unlike Rachel Carson in her book "Silent Spring," and others would contend. Yet, the elimination of DDT from use as a pesticide has led to over one million deaths per year of people around the globe due to malaria, typhus and other maladies. The EPA judge, Edmund Sweeney, ruled in April 1972 after seven months of evidentiary hearings, that "the uses of DDT under the regulations involved here do not have a deletrious effect on freshwater fish, estuarine organisms, wild birds, or other wildlife. The evidence in this proceeding supports the conclusion that htere is a present need for the essential uses of DDT." Two months later, the EPA head, William Ruckelshaus, who had never attended a single day's session in the seven month hearings and who admittedly had not read the transcripts of the hearings, overturned Judge Sweeney's decision and declared DDT a hazard and banned it for virtually all uses. So, based on nothing more than emotion about the issue, a decision was made that has killed more people than most of the genocidal episodes of the 20th century.

It has been estimated that somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 people in the U.S. alone die needlessly each year just as a result of EPA regulations regarding automobiles. Why? Vehicles must be made lighter via use of plastics and aluminum, which inherently makes them less safe for the occupants who ride in those vehicles; all for the sake of CAFE fuel standards, which have had little, if any, effect on the environment. When vehicles get better fuel mileage, people in response have driven them more. These CAFE standards were implemented under guise of getting us off dependence on foreign oil. When they were started, we were importing 10 percent of our oil. Today we are importing 40 percent. Well, so much for that idea. Yet people die needlessly each year over an emotional, unreasoned response to a perceived problem.

Before we have another knee jerk reaction by folks who have not thought through the issues and perpetuate a problem that doesn't exist. let's at least look at the unintended consequences of reacting too soon.

Clifford Downing
Kellogg

Letter: Water, water everywhere...

To the Newton Independent

I was born on the 12th of February so my astrological sign is a guy carrying a jug of water. I hope it is clean water. Yes, water, water everywhere, but not a drop to drink. A great poet wrote those words many years ago about some people on a ship in the middle of the ocean. The plight of those peole may become our reality because of climate change and drought.

I saw an article the other day that said some farm land was being sold for $17,000 an acre. To me, that is an obscene amount. If that land is to be used for crop production and if the drought continues even intermittently, people will be looking for a way to irrigate that land. And it will be an easy task; a pipe, a pump, a timing device and a water source. The more surface water used to irrigate crops means less clean drinking water for people.

In order to become energy self sufficient, gas producers are doing a thing called 'fracking," a process that requires large amounts of water and makes it dirty water. No one knows for sure how ground water it contaminates. In the coming years, some poet may write, "water, water everywhere, but it's too damned dirty to drink."

Life came out of the ocean and there is no man alive today who can survive without some form of water. The wealthy will always have access to clean drinking water, but they cannot insulate themselves from the epidemics that will come from people who drink bad water.

There are scientific solutions to our water problems and the Earth is a water planet so we will never run out of water. But there are not enough people working on our water problems and there are not enough people listening to the scientists who are working on our problems with water.

Well, we need to pray for rain, you say. I say fine. So if God gives ur rain, how will we use it and collect and conserve it? Oh hell, I know; we can all go out and water our one acre front yards this summer so they won't turn brown.

Now let's get back to the important stuff - the debt limit and bombing Iran.

Olen W. Lambert
Newton

Letter: Too darn bad

To the Newton Independent:

Evil is what I said about the T-Bag mob and if you take a look at what happened with the going over the cliff fiasco you can't reach any other conclusion.

I wish to hell that the news media would stop calling thos T-Baggers a party. For many years the Democrats were infected with the Dixiecrats but they were never referred to as a party. The T-Party is a creation of the news people.

It pains me that the Republican Christian conservative party that we now have has still not come to grips with the fact that Obama won the election. He didn't steal it like Bush did. Mr. Obama won the election and he won big. He is not going to change colors so, like it or not, you are going to have to deal with this black president and give him the respect he deserves and was legitimized by a majority of the American people.

I was so sorry to see in that big Des Moines paper Sunday sayng they must take the blame for the column that Donald Kaul wrote about guns. If some people were too ignorant to understand his satire, that's just too bad.

Olen W. Lambert
Newton

Letter: Skiff announces fundraising campaign to upgrade its endoscopy suite

To the Newton Independent:

As I'm sure you know, we are not in the health-care field because of technology. Machines and electronics, hardware and software - these did not compel our caregivers to dedicate their lives to medicine. No, we are here because of people. Our calling is to heal the sick, offer relief to those who suffer, and promote wellness to each and every individual who calls Jasper County home.

That being said, innovative technology is a powerful tool that we require daily as we care for our patients and their loved ones. At Skiff, it is our duty to offer not only extraordinary care provided by exceptional people and a wonderful physical environment in which to do so, but also to feature leading-edge technology and the many benefits that accompany it.

That is why we have initiated an end-of-year fundraising campaign. This is the season of giving and it is our hope that our supporters will see fit to help us achieve the next level of medical advances needed by our patients.

Earlier this year, our highly trafficked Emergency Department received a much-needed updating. Even as this is being written, a large section of inpatient areas is being renovated to make it the comforting, beautiful setting our patients deserve in which to get well. Both projects received these stunning upgrades thanks to last year's fundraising campaign. It is a credit to the continuing generosity of many people that the hospital is able to invest in both the facility improvements and equipment necessary to adapt to the rapidly changing world of health care.

Now we are looking to upgrade another area where advanced technology is vital: our endoscopy suite, a surgical area which provides care to nearly 1,000 patients annually. This suite utilizes a system of fiber optic scopes, lights and monitors to diagnose and treat ailments of the digestive system, including cancer and precancerous conditions. Endoscopy is the primary means of not only diagnosing colon cancer - the third leading cause of death in the U.S. - but of preventing it before it develops. With regular screening, colon cancer is often preventable; with early detection, it is largely curable.

While our current equipment works well, it is time to take the next step in this area and provide the best technology to our physicians and, as a result, the best experience for our patients.

As we all know from home, the difference in picture quality between the old CRT screens and flat screens was tremendous; the jump between flat screens and high-definition screens was even bigger. As you might expect, high-definition endoscopy requires not only HD monitors but also the highest-tech cameras, light sources, and image management systems, as well. The better our physicians can see what's happening within the human body, the better care they can provide. They cannot remove a potentially dangerous polyp that they cannot see.

This year's fundraising campaign will go toward the cost of updating the endoscopy suite and equipment, which is estimated at about $250,000. This message I'm writing to our community represents the first step to reaching this objective.

The primary goal for the Skiff Medical Center Foundation in 2013 is upgrading our endoscopy capabilities and, in doing so, saving lives. We ask you to please consider a tax-deductible contribution to help us with this vital acquisition. To learn more, you can contact me at 641-791-4887 or bhoffmeier(at sign)skiffmed.com.

This holiday season, we are reminded of how fortunate Skiff Medical Center is to be treasured by the people of Newton and Jasper County. Thank you for anything you can do to help us with our mission to provide the very best care - and technology - close to home.

Bruce Hoffmeier
Director
Skiff Medical Center Foundation

Letter: Winter driving time is upon us

To the Newton Independent:

The Iowa State Patrol would like to remind drivers that winter driving will soon be upon us. We need to remember that our vehicles respond differently in cold weather. There are several ways to keep ourselves dafe in the winter time.

1. Make sure your vehicle is tuned up and ready for winter.
2. Always have at least a half a tank of gas. You may need the fuel if you get stuck in the snow.
3. Ask yourself, "Do I really need to go out in this weather?" If the trip can wait, then wait.
4. Make sure you have supplies in the vehicle - canned, easy-to-open food, bottled water, first aid kit and flashlight.
5. Have extra blankets, gloves, hats or clothes in the car.
6. If you must travel, call ahead to check out the road conditions. Let someone know your route.
7. Dial 511 or visit www.iowaroadconditions.org before you travel.
8. Slow down, don't be in a hurry. Just because the speed limit is posted doesn't mean you need to go that fast.
9. Drive defensively and watch out for the other driver.
10. Above all, always were your seatbelt.

Trooper Doug Cutts
Safety Education
Iowa State Patrol

Letter: Let us celebrate without commotion

To the Newton Independent:

I am so tired of hearing people say "all religions" should be able to have displays for Christmas in public locations.

The purpose of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. That is not Hanukkah or Islam or Buddhism or any of the other religions that we have in America.

Freedom of religion is what our country was built on. Please let us celebrate Christmas without all the commotion.

Heidi Ellis
Newton

Letter: A Christmas carol

To the Newton Independent:

Over the river and through the woods
to Grandma's house we go,

but Grandma's house ain't there no more
it went over the cliff you know.

Now cut her Social Security and raise her Medicare
and any programs that aid her you'll surely want to pare,

now if there is a worry as some will want to do
the solution is really simple, just let her move in with you.

Olen W. Lambert
Newton

Letter: I'm the man of this house

To the Newton Independent:

Over 2,000 years ago, a man has a life altering experience while he was on the road to Damascus. He believed that god spoke to him. Well, about 20 years ago I had one of those life altering experiences while working with my wife. Now, I don't think god spoke to me, but I sure did get the message.

Our sons were all out of the hosue and we had moved to an acreage in the country to pursue our hobby of raising and breeding exotic fowl. One morning we were in the barn feeding the birds and cleaning the cages. The amount of protein you put in the feed is very important. Too much or too little protein in the feed can have an adverse effect on the fowl. It must be adjusted for the age and breed of the birds.

On this morning, I was "gently" chastising my wife about the amount of protein she was puttin in her feed bucket when all of a sudden she slammed her feed bucket down on the barn floor so hard that half the feed jumped out onto the floor. Then she stomped right up and got in my face. I could feel her breath on my eyeballs and she said, "Listen here Olie Lambert, we have been married over 20 years now and I think it is about time you understand something. I am a person and like all persons I have ideas about things. Now my ideas might not always be right, but I sure as hell am not always wrong, and if you don't like the way I do things around here you can go straight to hell."

Then se di that thing that women do. She started bawling and she stomped out of the barn and slammed the barn door so hard that one of the hinges came loose.

After she left, I just stood there. I couldn't believe it. After all these years, "my woman" told me flat out to go to hell right there in my own barn. I sat down on a bale of straw. I had to figure this thing out.

My two hound dogs came over and lay down at my feet. I said to my hound dogs, "hells fire boys, what went on here? Doesn't she know she is loved? You boys know your loved, don't you?" Four adoring eyes told me yes.

Well, I cleaned up the feed off the floor and nailed the hinge back on the door. Then I finished the rest of the chores and worked in my shop the rest of the day. About 5 o'clock, I went up to the house. On the way I rehearsed in my mind what I was going to say: "I am the man of the house and you should not talk to me that way."

Well, when I opened the kitchen door I knew right away that I had lost any argument I was going to have. Women don't fight fair. There, setting on the kitchen table, was a beef roast swimming in dark brown delicious juice surrounded by browned potatoes, onions and carrots. By the time I finished the hot apple pie with a scoop of ice cream on it I was apologizing for things I didn't even know I had done.

Later on that night as I lay in bed, I tried to sort things out. Then I remembered something I read in the Bible. So I got out of bed and went to the living room and started to look through my Bible and there it was, Ecclesiastes 9:9, "Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that thy portion in this life, and in thy labour which thou takest under the sun."

And at the bottom of the Bible page I wrote the part that god forgot, "And don't mess with her feed bucket."

Olen W. Lambert
Newton

Letter: Alarmists crying wolf over global warming

To the Newton Independent:

Craig Althof recently wrote into the Newton Independent on his concerns about global warming. His desire to warn others about something that has him concerned is laudable, but I have always found it is best to step back, take a breath and think logically about such issues.

Is there global warming? Most definately! There has been since the last Ice Age. And we have had at least five, possibly more, Ice Age occurrences in Earth history. This is why you can find tropical fauna frozen into the ice in the Arctic and Antarctic regions. This has happened in a cyclic nature throughout Earth's history. Just like there are annual cycles. You know, there is summer, then there is winter. There is summer, then there is winter, etc. In the equatorial regions, there is the rainy season, the dry season, the rainy season, the dry season.

But focusing a little closer, this begs the question, "what is mankind's negative contribution?" Let's look at some well defined facts. The Earth, itself, emits more carbon dioxide, and other so-called "greenhouse gases" in one day than mankind does in 100 years. That's right, the contribution to global warming by mankind's activities is roughly 1 percent. The Mt. Pinatubo volcano that blew in the Phillippines back in the '80s threw more ozone depleting agents, carbon dioxide, sulfuric acid, nitrous oxide, cyanide, etc., into the atmosphere than mankind has done since the industrial revolution began.

That is one volcano. Volcanos have been going off since the planet came into being. Many in our lifetime. Anyone still remember Mt. St. Helens or the Kilauea volcano in Hawaii, that by itself has had the longest eruption cycle of any volcano in recorded history? Yet, this planet is still well within the zone of conditions known as the anthropic principle. That simply means that all the conditions are right for mankind and other life forms to exist due to a lot of conditions being just right.

Also, carbon dioxide, contrary to what some with a specific agenda would claim, is not a destructive substance, it is plant food. Not sure what is taught in elementary education nowadays, but I learned that carbon dioxide is mandatory for flourishing plant life. In turn, they use the carbon dioxide and expel the oxygen. We need that. If there is more global warming, then areas previously unable to support beneficial vegetation will be zones of viability. Plant life will increas. As it increase, it will consume more and more carbon dioxide.

Are we on the edge of a crisis? Common evidence would suggest otherwise. It has been mathematically determined that there are more trees and forestation "in 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue." And it is common knowledge in transportation circles that one over the road truck in the mid '90s emitted more pollutants than 98 commercial trucks today. That is correct. It would take 98 semi trucks today to emit the pollutants created by burning the very same fuel that just one semi truck did only two decades ago. And a modern semi truck today gets 100 percent better fuel mileage than a truck of two decades ago. Now, we all know that there is not a net increase of over 980 percent more trucks on the road today than then, so to say we are in worse shape is farcical. And don't forget one thing, the largest contributor by far to global warming is that atomic bomb we affectionally call the sun.

But I suppose I will not quite bite at the global warming thing. I just plain had too much science in college to be buffaloed by some knee jerk ideas from folks with an agenda. On a more simplistic level, I still remember the '60s and '70s when pollution was so rampant that even the Cuyahoga river in Ohio caught on fire! Those that remember those decades, once they sit back and think about it, will realize we are in far better shape than we were then. And also remember, those that have a global warming agenda now were espousing a coming Ice Age in the early '80s. That is when I attended university after spending most of the '70s in the military and heard that all the Chicken Little sky is falling junk that is going on in the other direction now. The pendulum has swung the other way. Three decades ago we were all going to freeze. Now we are all going to cook. These folks have cried wolf for so long it is hard to even care anymore.

Clifford Downing
Kellogg

Letter: Wake up to global warming

To the Newton Independent:

Tree huggers, unite!

I really don't consider myself a tree-hugger nut. But now and then my job (wind industry) leads me to information that is really hard to blow off.

A degree by degree explanation of what will happen when the earth warms can be read here.

How aware are you of global warming? Think about your grandchildren - what will their world be like if we only get one to two degrees warmer, which is already about guaranteed? Don't even read the projections for a more than two degree increase.

This is sobering to the nth degree. Read it, share it, wake up.

Craig Althof
Newton

 

Letter: Lawmaker offers thanks for return to office

To the Newton Independent:

I appreciated the support my campaign received during the recent election. Thank you for re-electing me as State Representative. Thank you to campaign donors and volunteers. Your efforts secured a wide-margin of victory on Election Day.

Congratulations to all candidates who were successful in their efforts and thanks to everyone who stepped forward to run for office. Thanks, Gabe, for a spirited, yet respectful, discussion of the issues. I wish you and your family the best. I look forward to our "post-election dinner" and it's on me.

Again, I am grateful for the opportunity to continue serving as State Representative, this time in the new House District 29. I'm proud to represent my hometown, Newton, as well as Baxter, Mingo, Kellogg, Ira, Valeria, Lambs Grove and Oakland Acres. I'm especially excited to represent the new towns in my district, Colfax and Prairie City.

To my former constituents in Lynnville, Sully, Reasnor and Killduff, I've enjoyed the opportunity to represent and meet you. I will continue to work for the benefit of the entire county, and I will build a good working relationship with your new State Representative, Greg Heartsill.

While the legislative session begins in January, serving in the Iowa House is a year-round job. Feel free to contact me anytime at 641-521-9260 or dankelley(at sign)mchsi.com. Visit my web site at electkelley.com.

State Representative Dan Kelley
Newton

Letter: We have only begun

To the Newton Independent:

There are some Democrats who are making the big mistake of assuming that the last election was a defining blow against the religious right that controls the Republican party. We won, they think.

Well, let me help you understand something. You didn't win all that much. You made some headway to further the liberal way of thinking but you need to understand that over 250 years ago the religious right was burning people at the stake. Now, liberal thinkers have put a stop to that, but they haven't been able to convince the descendants of people burners that the world is older than 10,000 years.

In a few weeks we will be celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ, the most loving liberal who ever lived. Love of god, love of your neighbor, forgiveness and the admiration of the peace makers were the foundation on which he wanted his church to stand.

After all these years, the stones are still being put in place. We have not won. We have only begun.

Olen W. Lambert
Newton

Letter: Better safe than sorry

To the Newton Independent:

This is Senior Trooper Doug Cutts with the Iowa State Patrol with a reminder for drivers. With Thanksgiving upon us, both you and your vehicle should be prepared for your holiday trip.

Make sure you are well rested before getting behind the wheel. The weather appears to be great for traveling. This means there will be more vehicles on the road.

There will be extra troopers on the roadways so no drinking of alcohol and check those prescription drugs to see if they will make you sleepy.

Inspect the tires, brakes, headlights, turn signals and windshield wipers before starting your trip. Once you are on the road, be alert and be ready to take necessary precautions to avoid accidents.

Make sure everyone in the vehicle is buckled up. Anyone younger than 18 must be seatbelted in, no matter where they are sitting. Obey the speed limit. It's better to show up late than not get there at all.

Doug Cutts
Senior Trooper
Iowa State Patrol
Safety Education Unit