To the editor:

Even though I live in North Las Vegas, I am tired of hearing of Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman's fight to bring a professional sports team to Las Vegas ("Mayor calls gains amazing," Thursday Review-Journal). We already have two: the Wranglers hockey team and the 51s baseball team.

If Cashman Field were filled for every game and The Orleans Arena were filled every game, I could better understand that the next step would be to bring the next level of players here.

We need to better support the teams we have here before thinking about bringing a top-level team here.

ANNMARIE HOMER

NORTH LAS VEGAS

Training table

To the editor:

It seems to me that if one of the main things we are trying to accomplish in Iraq is to train the Iraqi army and police forces to protect themselves and provide for their own security, then we have been doing a lousy job.

Here is a unique idea: Let's find the guys who are training the insurgents and hire them. They are doing a heck of a good job.

DON SHIRLEY

LAS VEGAS

Bomb blast

To the editor:

Divine Strake is a test that will explode a 700-ton bomb made of fuel oil and fertilizer in a tunnel located on the Nevada Test Site, some 85 miles northwest of Las Vegas. The National Nuclear Security Administration and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency admit that background radiation exists at the Divine Strake site but profess that there are no health risks to citizens living "downwind" of the explosion. Trouble is, as the saying goes, the truth is seldom plain and rarely simple.

This is a big bomb and it will make a big hole in dirt contaminated from decades of radioactive testing. The poisoned dust from the hole will rise in a mushroom-shaped cloud some 10,000 feet above the Nevada desert. Climatology dictates that winds at 2,500 feet, 5,000 feet, 7,000 feet and 10,000 feet will carry the dust to the east-southeast in an expanding fan-shaped profile for several days. Gravity dictates that the carcinogenic particles will fall to Earth, landing on farmland, ranchland, back yards and swimming pools and on water used for agriculture and drinking. The NNSA and DTRA contention that no health threat exists defies logic, reeks of lazy planning, lacks clear thinking and is based on bad science.

I served 27 years in the Air Force and believe this weapon is needed to help defeat terrorists who want to destroy our democratic way of life. It should be tested. What escapes me is why this conventional (non-nuclear) bomb needs to be exploded on a radioactive site and thus endanger thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of loyal and patriotic Americans?

There are many other locations available that could provide an adequate target -- sites without deadly alpha emitters in the soil and more than suitable to test the effectiveness of this weapon without kicking up tons of radioactive fallout. To name a few: In Nevada, the Nellis Air Force Bombing and Gunnery Range or the Fallon Naval Range; in Arizona, the Barry M. Goldwater Air Force Range; in California, Fort Irwin or the China Lake Naval Weapons Center or the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center; or in Utah, the Dugway Proving Ground.

Let me suggest one other site, one that is just off the Washington, D.C, Beltway a few miles south on Interstate 95. A site allowing the military brass of the Pentagon, members of Congress and the administration and folks of the NNSA and DTRA to attend with little travel time and at little travel expense. That would be the Fort Belvoir Proving Ground in Virginia. Things get blown up there all the time. The NNSA and DTRA people could bring their families, pack a lunch and make it an outing. Truly plain and simple.

Lance Jensen

HENDERSON

Traffic safety

To the editor:

Wednesday's newspaper carried an article decrying the fact that Nevada has been "downgraded" from "green" to "yellow" in its "safety rating" by an activist lobbying group that claims to promote traffic safety.

The group cites three Nevada "failures": Nevada police cannot stop and ticket a driver for not wearing seat belts; child safety seats for kids ages 6 and 7 are not "mandated"; and Nevada does not ban teen drivers from using cell phones.

The first item (seat belts) is not the proper turf of the state. Any driver who does not buckle up, and does not require the passengers to do so, is needlessly endangering himself and them -- not any other cars on the road. The state has no valid reason to get into this.

Personally, I always snug up my belts before starting the car, and require that passengers do so, too. This is because I am a devout coward, and have a strong aversion to being injured or killed -- or sued by my passengers for contributory negligence. No other reasons. I don't need a law to force me to protect myself and my passengers.

The second item (child safety seats) is in the same category. It is the personal responsibility of the driver to see to the safety of all passengers -- not the responsibility of the state.

The third item (teen drivers using cell phones) does relate to the safety of other drivers and their passengers. It does not go far enough, however, because a driver of any age using a cell phone is distracted and a menace to other drivers. I would share this lobbying group's desire to ban cell phone use by any drivers (not just teens) while the car is in traffic.

A driver's use of a cell phone does endanger others who rightfully depend on all drivers to pay attention. Incidentally, the new GPS navigators are worse than cell phones as a distraction.

We already have too much shifting of responsibility from individuals to the government. Enough already.

John Gayton

LAS VEGAS

Wake up, America

To the editor:

In response to Mark Wilson's recent letter, "Can't wait for that 'new direction' ":

Boy, no wonder the Review-Journal loves Republicans. They write such glowing letters to the editor. Their fabulous stock portfolios and the appreciation of their mansions is going gangbusters under Bush-Cheney.

And isn't it wonderful: America has become so hated worldwide that all those 19-year-old Muslims who might otherwise have just gone about their lives instead are being attracted to Iraq and mass-murdered by our despised military.

Unfortunately for Mr. Wilson, not everyone in this country is growing money trees out in their Summerlin gardens. Not everyone seethes with hatred of gay people and immigrants, or howls at spending a dollar on taxes to improve social well-being in Nevada.

Not everyone wishes our president would keep lying and lying -- and wasting hundreds of billions of our children's dollars on a "war on terror" that maybe the opposition Democrats have finally woken up to realize cannot be won by raining endless bombs down on neighborhoods half a world away from all of us happy-as-clams here in Las Vegas.

Triton Hebbron

LAS VEGAS