Happy birthday to the Penn’s Woods Council, Boy Scouts of America.
On behalf of the Conemaugh Valley Marine Corps League, I would like to thank the council for including our league’s color guard to assist in its opening ceremonies at the Scouts’ Harry E. Mangle Memorial Dinner on Feb. 18.
We were honored to serve it and its outstanding organization and would like to thank the master of ceremonies, David Fyock, for a job well-done.
Best wishes to all who made this event possible.
Gerry W. Horvath
Judge Advocate, Detachment 287,
Conemaugh Valley Marine Corps League
Speeder didn’t care to stop for pet
I would like to discuss the cold, heartless and uncaring individual who sped into my Richland Township neighborhood at midnight on Feb. 14 and killed my beloved dog.
This person hit my dog and never bothered to stop and check on his condition.
My dog was identified with a reflective collar, and this person actually hit him under a street light.
Perhaps if this had been that person’s child, he may have taken a moment to slow down or stopped to check on what he had struck with his vehicle.
We as residents must band together and stop the speeding. With the addition of curbing on Kerr Drive and Annette Street, these two roadways are mirror images of the Indy 500.
We should petition Richland Township supervisors to install stop signs, for this is our only option in a residential neighborhood where the speed limit is 25 mph.
This would ensure the safety of our children and pets in our own back yards.
Carolyn Deitle
Richland Township
Greens’ goal is to nationalize energy
After being slapped by the inconvenient truth of unusually cold, snowy winters, extreme environmentalists have learned not to bandy the term “global warming” to justify their goal of nationalizing America’s energy industry. Instead, they often say “climate change” – brilliant, they think, for a couple reasons.
Depending on warmer-than-average weather typical of the 1990s, the theory was blown apart by colder-than-average weather more recently.
But climate change can mean any kind of weather anywhere on earth, whenever the weather deviates a little from average – which is most of the time.
And they know climates change: It can be argued that climates have always been changing.
Since nobody can prove that human activity will not cause future climate change, the extreme greens are confident they can’t be disproved.
Of course, there’s no evidence that their extreme theory is correct, but it’s the means to bring down the energy industry and ultimately the free enterprise system.
The demand for more laws and restrictions was the theme of a shrill column by a Pitt-Johnstown biology professor. He often used the words “contaminants” and “pollution,” but he did not mean things in our water and air, such as dioxins and smog. No, the professor meant carbon emissions (actually carbon dioxide).
It’s another apparently brilliant contrivance by the greens to have CO2 declared a pollutant: The naturally occurring gas is necessary for life, thus will always be present for the greens to misuse in their efforts to nationalize our energy industry.
Dwight B. Owen
Westmont
Allow the snow to melt naturally
I would like to respond to Margaret Kupetz’s letter on global warming in the Readers’ Forum on Feb. 21.
Global warming is real; just because it’s colder here doesn’t mean it’s cold all over the world.
Greenland and Canada had a mild winter with record high temperatures; South America has a heat wave with a drought going on right now.
Our cold weather pattern is being caused by a strong El Nino warming the Pacific Ocean that is caused by global warming.
Also, we have a negative North Atlantic Oscillation with warm air at the North Pole causing the ice caps to melt.
Just think of the added pollution by our using the big internal combustion engines to plow and move the snow.
Al Gore warned us that we should allow the snow to melt naturally; plowing and moving it only causes more global warming.
Thomas Lego
Gallitzin
As a gentleman, Tiger Woods a fraud
A gentleman, by definition, can mean “a man whose conduct conforms to a high standard of propriety or correct behavior.”
When you hear the term “gentleman’s game,” what comes to mind?
Baseball? Football? Basketball?
Certainly not hockey.
No, it refers to the sport of golf.
It is a game that dictates its participants, be they professionals or just duffers, hold strictly to the rules, even at times calling a penalty on themselves.
What, then about Tiger Woods’ behavior? He is a fraud who has victimized millions of people.
A great golfer, yes; a gentleman, no.
R.T. Hirsch
Westmont
Voters chose government they wanted
The services and eulogies and processions are over and our late congressman is at rest. Can we all, just for a moment, think critically and realistically about his career?
John Murtha used his political influence to get federal tax dollars to spend in this region. Where did that money come from?
From taxpayers in the other 434 congressional districts.
Why did the other representatives agree to that? Because they are all doing the same thing – getting money from elsewhere around the country (including here) to spend in their districts.
Is this good government? A big, zero-sum game of musical dollars designed to make incumbents invincible at the polls?
Was this the vision of our country’s founders?
Did Murtha’s years of experience and seniority in Congress give him (and us) an edge in the game? Now we will see what it is like being on the other end.
Speaking of musical dollars, what about so-called stimulus packages and jobs bills that our congressman also supported?
Resources allocated to a government project or artificially created jobs are not available for other purposes or to support other jobs. How is that of net benefit?
Productive, sustainable employment comes from private capital investments in a free market, not government boondoggles.
If we are just borrowing more from China, isn’t that like trying to make yourself richer by running up credit card debt?
For your kids to pay?
My point is not to blame Murtha. We voters get the government we choose.
Allan Walstad
Upper Yoder Township
Cable blackout, editorial disappointing
I and others were very disappointed with the media coverage of John Murtha’s funeral.
At noon, my TV screen went black and there was no sound whatsoever. After 40 minutes, WJAC-TV news anchor Marty Radovanic appeared on the screen and said the services were over.
Many of us called Comcast, our cable provider. As usual, we got a smart response but no complete answer. We missed seeing our service people who train so well. We watch them in awe. We thank them for their service. It was a day to remember regardless of the short coverage. Thank you, Comcast, for nothing.
The day after the funeral, The Tribune-Democrat editorialized about Mrs. Murtha. How insensitive can you be? The day the family is finally getting some needed rest. There is a time to express your views. What was the rush?
Our thoughts and prayers go out to the John Murtha family.
Ann Puch
Nanty Glo
Tim Burns is a true-blue native son
We find it frustrating that The Tribune-Democrat continuously refers to Republican congressional candidate Tim Burns as just a “businessman from Washington County.”
While that is true, Tim is a native Johnstowner, as were his parents and grandparents.
He was raised in the Hornerstown section of the city, educated in the Greater Johnstown school system, graduated from Indiana University of Pennsylvania and now lives in Eighty Four, Washington County. To be sure, Eight Four, as well as Johnstown and Indiana, is a part of the 12th Congressional District.
As a teenager, Tim delivered the Sunday Tribune-Democrat for several years.
Throughout his high school and college years, Tim worked part-time jobs at Surf & Turf Inn, Sani-Dairy, Photo Art Shoppe, System House and in our photography studio, Ed Burns Photography, all in Johnstown.
We implore The Tribune-Democrat to give its readers the facts about all the candidates. Tim did not move into the district to run for office. He knows the district as only a native son can. He knows the strengths of its people and the area’s weaknesses.
We raised him with the Johnstown work ethic. We taught him to work hard at whatever task was at hand and to respect the work of others.
Many of us use the newspapers as a source of information; is it not the responsibility of the reporters and editors to give us all the facts?
Ed and DIANE Burns
Venice, Fla., formerly of Johnstown
