LETTERS:
There should have been a smoking compromise
To the editor:
Thank you for your Sunday editorial "Judge upholds smoking ban." The Review-Journal is the only medium (electronic or print) in the valley to note that the emperor has no clothes.
Advertisement
The vote was ill-considered. If the voting public had been fully aware of the collateral downside of Question 5 -- as is now becoming clear -- the measure would have never passed. Smoking tobacco has been proved damaging to the smoker's health, but the health hazard of secondhand smoke is, in the opinion of several medical experts, clouded by "junk science." There is no scientifically sound information on the effects of secondhand smoke because it is so far impossible to measure in a scientifically approved manner.
Is there a possibility it is damaging? Yes. A little? A lot? Who knows. Should small business be put on the bubble as a result of a "maybe"?
Your unmasking of the "protecting the children" ruse was right on. The pro-Question 4 folks were just as bad, with commercials so bogus as to inspire "no" votes based on blind disgust. Done properly, the two sides would have joined forces and drafted a proposal in the manner your editorial suggests. But the fact is, the sides want opposites: Anti-smoking advocates want no smoking anywhere in the world -- not negotiable. Smoking advocates want no laws that negatively effect the income from gaming. In this city, the gaming issue must be considered.
Among people of good faith, a workable compromise could be made.
But don't bet on it.
DONALD MERZ
LAS VEGAS
Space station
To the editor:
The Tom Toles editorial cartoon published on Christmas Day carried a message that I've been semi-ranting about for more than a decade. I am an electronics engineer and scientist who has been involved with the defense and space segments of the technology "industry" for 30 years. The gigantic boondoggle referred to as the International Space Station has been a fiasco since its beginning.
The people involved with sustaining their own government jobs have sold the concept of the "space station" to the keepers of the funds in Congress on the basis of it becoming a laboratory in which many pharmaceutical and material compounds can be developed in this special zero-gravity environment.
While this is theoretically possible, the orbiting laboratory is not of sufficient size to produce meaningful quantities of any newly developed compound to be economically viable. In addition, the special technology created on the space station could not be transferred to high quantity production on Earth because of the "one-G" ambient.
This "space station" has always been a make-work project for scientists and engineers who could be plying their talents in more meaningful pursuits in the various civilian markets. In addition, it has given our elected representatives a high-technology item to flaunt to their constituents during their continuous re-election campaigning. What they have always failed to remember is that all of those billions (that's thousands of millions) of dollars are our confiscated taxes, not their money.
If our representatives ever started to reflect the desires of their constituents and conformed to their constitutional duties, these scientists would be out of work. That assumes, of course, that the American public wakes up, becomes informed and performs their own duties instead of expecting something for nothing -- as so many do.
Lou Garner
LAS VEGAS
Union label
To the editor:
We're all better off with high-paid union workers taking over the Hoover Dam bypass bridge work, as stated by Robert Finlay in a letter you published Dec. 23. The letter addressed concerns that using underpaid non-union workers could cause sub-par, shoddy and even dangerous construction. Hmm.
The recent $14.6 billion "Big Dig" tunnel project in Boston, one of the largest public works projects in history, resulted in thousands of massive leaks, a driver being crushed to death and all drivers being urged to carry whistles and flashlights in case of massive flooding. Much of the defective work has been blamed on shoddy workmanship, such as concrete slurry walls that were never cleaned properly prior to pouring, incorrect epoxy bolt installations and general incompetence. Parts of the tunnels are still closed today, many months after completion, waiting for safety approvals.
The whole project was built by union employees. Under an umbrella agreement.
Thank goodness they didn't have low-paid, non-union workers.
