It's time to send Harry back home to Searchlight
Facing a November choice between Sharron Angle and Harry Reid, we do not have to make a blind choice. Angle has not yet been in the Senate, but yet in elective office there are perhaps just a few unknown aspects to her. With Harry, there is a great deal known.
While he boasts of being the most powerful senator, his record for Nevada is abysmal. Our state just passed Michigan to post the highest unemployment in the nation. We also lead in the rate of foreclosures; do you suspect these are related facts? A poll showed that our state was third from the bottom of stimulus dollars received per resident. Why can't he send some of those dollars here?
So what has the most powerful senator done for us while living in luxury at the Ritz Carlton? He helped pass the first and second stimulus packages. He engineered the passage of Obamacare. These he did with backroom deals, political bribery, and midnight votes. He is the muscle behind the ultra-liberal Obama agenda.
We know what we have in Reid, and we just don't want it. We want a senator who will work for Nevada and not just for the ultra-left. Harry is currently planning tax hikes, cap and trade, and federal land grabs from our private lands. Let's send Harry to a long overdue retirement in Searchlight.
Sam Batdorf
Gardnerville
Correlation between spending, student success doesn't exist
The faithful believe what is, at its root, unproveable. The faithful have religious conviction. For instance, some people are Christians; some are Jews; some are Muslim. I understand that.
What is really strange is that some people believe dollars spent per student is somehow correlated with learning outcomes.
I've spent hours searching ERIC (Dept of Education's massive database of almost everything ever written about education) for research that supports that belief. No luck; it isn't in ERIC.
If evidence exists, it is in ERIC. But it's not there. There is no evidence the correlation exists. It seems there should be. Sorry. There isn't. Too bad.
Dr. Paslov probably knows there is no evidence. He's got faith, though. That's nice.
But he insists that if I don't share his faith, I am small-minded, don't like kids, am cheap, or some other nasty thing. No, doctor, I am relying on the evidence.
Everyone who really cares about education can go to the Carson City library and check out ERIC. It's free.
Dave Campbell, Ph.D.
Carson City
Erosion of constitutional rights continues apace
I have watched, dismayed and heartbroken, over the past 30 years the demise of our small "d" democracy, piece by piece, under the guidance of both parties. I can't help but think of the most prescient statement of the father of the Constitution.
For the past 30 years and longer, and particularly the last 10, we have witnessed a massive erosion of our constitutional rights. The 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 8th amendments, as well as the congressional prerogative of controlling the purse strings and waging war have been virtually erased from the document in practice.
Further, we have abandoned the oldest civil right in Western history, that of habeas corpus, first articulated in the Magna Carta of 1215. Eight hundred years of Western civilization's most fundamental individual protection against tyranny has been relegated to the dustbin of history, and nobody seems to be the least bit concerned.
The president has claimed the right to murder anybody anywhere in the world via unmanned drone aircraft without so much as a formal legal charge. We are running a murder incorporated. More than 200 years ago, we collectively decided that, in America, the law is king. That concept, I am afraid, is as dead as the patriot who said it. The law today favors those who can afford to buy it.
"The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad." - James Madison, Father of the Constitution.
Vince Coyle
Carson City
Confer civil marriage
on all who want it
In many European countries when a couple marries, they first go to City Hall and sign the marriage register. They are now married. They next go to a church where a religious marriage ceremony is held.
Let's get the government out of marriage and do something similar. If any two people are willing to take on the responsibilities of a civil union, they would go to City Hall and sign the domestic partners agreement. They would, of course, have to be legally able to contract a marriage, age 18, sane, etc.
They now have all of the rights and obligations that married couples currently have. This would apply to same sex as well as heterosexual couples.
If the couple wants a religious ceremony, they would then go to any church that would agree to marry them.
Ronald H. Adams
Dayton