To the editor:

One day before being sworn in, Doug Gillespie failed his first test as sheriff. In response to the recent fatal police shooting, his rationalization of the incident as "suicide by cop" is an insult to law enforcement training and procedure.

Four officers, quivering in their boots in the face of a knife-wielding man asking to be killed, gun him down in a volley of fire from 10 to 15 feet away? I am embarrassed and saddened for them -- they will wear the scar of that killing for the rest of their lives.

Clearly our police department needs a top-down review of its lethal force policies and practices. Sheriff Gillespie's ridiculous quote disqualifies him from participating in that review.

David MacAlpine

LAS VEGAS

Ambitious agenda

To the editor:

Last summer, Rep. Nancy Pelosi began talking about what the Democrats would accomplish during the first 100 hours of the 110th Congress when they convened in January. Well, here we are.

On Day One they would put new rules in place to "break the link" between lobbyists and legislation. On Day Two they would enact all the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission.

During the time remaining of the 100 hours they would pass legislation to: raise the minimum wage to $7.25 an hour; cut the interest rate on student loans in half; allow the government to negotiate directly with the pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices for Medicare patients; and broaden the types of stem-cell research allowed with federal funds. Phew! If that sounds like a lot of legislation to be considered in a short amount of time, it is.

Congressional rules require that bills be available for review at least three days before coming to a vote. But those rules have routinely been overridden, leaving only a few hours to read bills that are thousands of pages long, and call for spending hundreds of billions of our tax dollars. Worse yet, it seems that the more important the legislation, the less time members have to review it before voting. Recent examples include the energy bill, the Medicare prescription drug bill, the intelligence bill and the defense authorization bill, which together totaled almost 3,000 pages, authorized more than $1 trillion spending, and yet, were available to members for less than 48 hours total for reading.

Speaker Pelosi has said that 100 hours is enough time to begin to "drain the swamp" created by more than a decade of Republican rule. But it looks to me like her yellow brick road is actually a dirt path leading to that same swamp.

Joe Schaerer

LAS VEGAS

A thousand words

To the editor:

Your decision to print a close-up, color photograph of Saddam Hussein hanging dead with a noose around his neck, and to place it atop the inside page of the Sunday paper, set a new low even for your publication. I probably should be praising you for not putting it squarely on the front page and four columns wide. I shouldn't be surprised at this from an organization that publishes the Booneville Democrat and the Pawhuska Journal Capital, though I doubt that hangings get front-page coverage even in Arkansas or Oklahoma anymore.

Most decent, responsible news organizations in this country were able to refrain from printing this piece of pornography. I was even able to avoid it while navigating the Internet, where this type of trash is ubiquitous. I was disgusted to have to look at it in my local newspaper.

In a country that values the rule of law, we do not publicize pictures of executed criminals dangling from a rope; the condemned are not executed by people wearing ski masks; executions are not accompanied by frenzied religious chants and verbal taunts from a rabble.

You chose to publish a picture of a sectarian killing, not the orderly working of a nation of laws, and not very different than the thousands of incidents of butchery that have taken place in that miserable country since our leaders decided to make it a "beacon of democracy."

Nice job.

JOHN HENRY MELANCON

LAS VEGAS

Moral choice

To the editor:

The New York Times and some European nations have condemned the execution of Saddam Hussein. Their high-minded condemnation is of capital punishment in general. They assert that capital punishment is morally as wrong as the crime it is intended to punish. I say it is not.

Capital punishment is society's ultimate justice for individuals who commit ultimate crimes. Equating society's punishment to the criminal's act undermines society's sense of morality and puts it at risk. Other "arguments" against capital punishment are mere rationalizations for this flawed and confused morality.

The argument that a human life is of infinite value is contradictory. Those who are squeamish about taking the life of a monstrous criminal should not be ambivalent toward ending the life of an unborn innocent. There is no contradiction, though, in the opposite view that innocents are to be protected, and the guilty are to be punished.

The argument that capital punishment does not deter capital crimes is specious. If deterrence were the justification for all punishments, then all punishments would be abolished because none of them deters the crimes they are intended to punish.

Saddam had to be held accountable for his crimes against Iraqi society and humanity. To shy away from the death penalty for confused moral reasons would have put Iraqi society at risk. Many have terrorized the country in hopes that Saddam and his criminal regime could be reinstated. His death removes that motivation.

His execution was Iraq's only moral choice.

Richard D. McCord

HENDERSON

Financial waste

To the editor:

Why is the city going to spend $357,000 of taxpayer money in the selfish pursuit of fighting the FAA to placate the whiners of Summerlin? What is so wrong about alleviating some of the airline traffic over Las Vegas by sharing flight paths?

The people of Summerlin cry out with concerns for their health and property values. Are they so much better than the rest of the people in the Las Vegas Valley who live with the plane traffic on a daily basis? What about our health and property values?

In my mind, they just do not want the noise and are fighting a non-issue. Airlines are a vital part of our travel and life -- and people live with this reality and survive all around the world.

And why should these whiners get to use $357,000 of the valley's taxes for their own greedy wants? I would propose that the mayor and City Council utilize this money on a more worthy project that would benefit every citizen in Las Vegas.

Las Vegas police face an uphill battle in fighting traffic problems and vehicular homicides on a daily basis and could definitely use some help.

How many lives could be saved by getting speeders, reckless drivers, drunken drivers and red light and stop sign runners under control?

Bob Wells

LAS VEGAS