To the editor:

Let it never be said that the liberal media is in charge of the newspaper of record in Las Vegas. Your Friday editorial, " 'Windfall' profits," is the epitome of politicization and mindless rhetoric that permeates and putrefies the political climate in this country.

Is it possible that corporations are doing what they are legally required to do, which is maximize profits? And is it also possible that when they have their guy in the White House, the same guy who did nothing when California was raked over the coals by the energy industry with power shortages during a very mild spring, the oil companies are going to milk every drop of profit out of every situation that will allow it? That is what they do every day. They find ways to exploit situations, and when they know the lifeguard is asleep they jump in the deep end and make the biggest mess you ever saw.

Is it also possible that politicians who aren't expressly beholden to these companies -- politicians such as Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada -- should stand up, point it out and try to do something about it? By presenting this situation into a ploy for votes from a 65-year-old senator who is five years away from re-election and who just had a stroke, you are playing the same tired, lowest-common-denominator card of the post-Newt Gingrich era that has given FOX News something to say for the past five years.

They blame everything that they can't come up with a reasonable argument for on someone else playing politics. If you don't like the news, it's the liberal media, not reality. If you don't like the indictment, it's the overzealous liberal attorney, not the 12 average Americans who sat on a grand jury and handed down the indictments. If you don't like the science, it's the liberal elites at the universities. The armchair quarterbacks of the right wing somehow know more.

For shame. You have encapsulated in a very short, simplistic, mind-numbing way what is wrong with the whole discussion in this country. Sometimes politics is about being right and not about your lame excuses.

Tim Farkas

LAS VEGAS

Wrist slaps

To the editor:

I was amazed to see that Geoffrey Wells, the father of the 12-year-old boy who killed himself, will not be charged with a felony ("Father agrees to plea deal," Wednesday).

District Attorney David Roger compared this case to others in which defendants who left unsecured weapons in their homes pleaded guilty to misdemeanors. This case was totally different. Multiple weapons were left loaded and unsecured. Mr. Wells was ordered by Family Court Judge Cheryl Moss to secure them and ignored her -- just like the judge ignored the evidence.

Not only should Mr. Wells be charged with a felony, eliminating his ability to own guns, but Judge Moss should be charged with gross dereliction of duty.

I truly can't wait for Judge Moss to run for re-election.

John Devine

LAS VEGAS

Blame the educrats

To the editor:

Glenn Cook's Oct. 2 commentary on the teacher hiring boondoggle and the failures of the Nevada education bureaucracy generated several letters to the editor. But I'd like to add one more.

To improve education in Clark County, we'll need a new kind of superintendent, a change in administration personnel and a new School Board. This probably won't happen. But the ball is still in the school district's court. It needs to provide solutions and get results. If not, our teachers will not get the respect or pay they deserve and the status quo of low test scores, high dropout rates and seniors who can't pass the Nevada High School Proficiency Exam will continue to be the norm.

And don't blame the taxpayers. More than 50 percent of tax dollars already go toward education. Blame the educrats who refuse to make the necessary decisions to educate (reading, writing and arithmetic and teacher knowledge in subject matter) in favor of idealism, education courses, the "education is negotiating to learn" philosophy, and ludicrous and arcane teacher hiring policies.

And if the teacher hiring policy isn't already strange enough, now the school district wants to hire two "facilitators" to provide support and training for all the foreign teachers they just hired ("School district seeks two facilitators," Wednesday). This is because the foreign teachers have limited experience in the American educational system. And the Clark County School District believes that this is better than hiring American teachers?

It is this kind of thinking that keeps Clark County schools at the bottom of the test score barrel.

Richard McArthur

LAS VEGAS

Staying put

To the editor:

As a special education teacher in Maryland, I wanted to relocate to your city to teach. A couple of my college courses had names that weren't familiar to Clark County School District officials, and I was rejected. It turns out your school district would rather hire foreign teachers.

I am glad I was not hired, because if this is how your public school system runs -- and believe me, your school system has a terrible reputation because of the brutal Human Resources Department -- I would never want my child to attend its schools.

Rick Sexton

PERRYVILLE, MD.

The public's servant

To the editor:

Clark County Sheriff Bill Young seems to have forgotten that he is an elected official ("Sheriff defends salary accord," Friday). He was elected to provide the best protection possible to the residents of Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County with the financial resources provided by the governments that fund his agency.

For the sheriff to state that no monies for the proposed pay raise for police, which he is backing, will come from the recently increased sales tax is pure smoke and mirrors at best and devious at worst. All tax money is obtained by government bureaucrats putting their hands into the taxpayers' pockets and extracting our money. Any increase in spending, such as the police pay raise, will cause the government to reach deeper into our pockets and extract more money. Whether they reach into our right pocket or our left pocket to get the money, we still pay.

If approved, this police contract will cause another round of raises for the other unions representing other government employees.

All elected officials have a duty to the taxpayers who elect them to consider the impact of their hands in our pockets when they request additional funds. It seems like the only elected officials attempting to judiciously look out for the taxpayers are the Clark County Commission.

Sheriff Young needs to remember that he was elected by the taxpayers. He is their public servant, not the servant of rank-and-file police.

David Wright

LAS VEGAS

Cross your fingers

To the editor:

In response to Joella Roach's Oct. 8 letter criticizing your reports of burgeoning property values and real estate sales in the Las Vegas Valley, I agree, but with a slight qualification.

If you are buying a house to live in, then the value of the property shouldn't be of much concern, except at property tax time. However, if you are buying for speculation, then, as with any other game in this gambling capital of the world, you lay your money and the mortgage company's or bank's money on the table, cross your fingers and roll the dice. And remember that the casinos don't publicize their losers to attract customers -- only the winners.

Kent Rischling

LAS VEGAS

Get them jobs

To the editor:

I noted with interest a recent television news report. A reporter and a cameraman were touring New Orleans, pointing out all of the "help wanted" signs and lamenting the fact that they couldn't fill the positions. I saw signs for laborers, warehouse workers and restaurant workers.

Here's a novel idea: Instead of having welfare caseworkers lead people back to the taxpayer trough, lead them to these "help wanted" signs and get them jobs.

frank thompson

HENDERSON

A terrible bill

To the editor:

Last week, in the name of hurricane relief, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly passed a bill that gives new handouts to oil companies while leaving consumers twisting in the wind. The bill passed only after the House leadership held a five-minute vote open for nearly an hour to browbeat members into changing their votes.

The bill does nothing to solve the country's energy problems or help consumers with rising energy costs. Rather, it doles out more than $3 billion in taxpayer money to the oil industry -- even as oil companies rake in record profits -- and weakens important health and environmental protections.

I commend Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., for opposing this terrible bill. We need real energy solutions, not an oil industry boondoggle that exposes us to more health and environmental problems.

Brad Johnson

PHOENIX

THE WRITER IS THE NEVADA ORGANIZER FOR THE U.S. PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP.