District deserves support on mill levy
The Missoula Rural Fire District and Missoula city fire department are very important to our community.
The rural and city areas are growing by leaps and bounds, so it is very essential that we have both departments. The remodeling of Missoula city fire’s Station 2 is finished, and Station 3 is coming along very nicely.
In September, the Missoula Rural Fire District is asking for your support to pass a mill levy. It is in need of additional manpower at each station for your safety and its own. (It sometimes has only one man on a responding engine). It also needs to upgrade equipment and its stations.
It does so much for our community, so please vote yes on mill levy 08-3.
Ronda McDermott, Lolo
Now’s time to fight for gains we’ve made
I watched with interest and then pride. Hillary Clinton was marvelous and Barack Obama - wow! My call is this: Where are all my old hippie protesters? Wake up. We fought with Joe Biden before, and we can do it again.
I am appalled that John McCain thinks his vice presidential choice is great. With his thinking, he could throw a bra on my mayor and call him vice president. She is against choice, health care for children - kill polar bears, drill for more oil and everything Clinton was against.
Young women need to realize that other women went to jail for giving women information about their reproductive rights in the ’30s. It was against the law for women to know - just because they were dying they were and are replaceable. It galls me that in parts of the world goats are still more important than women.
All the things my people (hippies) fought for are being lost. My parents’ American dream has been squandered by President Bush. Young people, wake up or there will be nothing left except for the rich, oh, and white. Don’t let Obama being different scare you. He is our only hope. Oh, and he will let you keep your guns.
Finally, let me sum this up: a picture of McCain and Bush cutting McCain’s birthday cake on the day Hurricane Katrina was devastating New Orleans. As Marie Antoinette said, “Let them eat cake.”
Kristy Sanders, Thompson Falls
We don’t need a White House pitbull
In her speech at the Republican National Convention, Sarah Palin proudly proclaimed herself a “pitbull.” My apologies to the owners of well-behaved, trained pitbulls, but the stereotypical pitbull is an aggressive, unpredictable, loose cannon. When it gets in a fight, a pitbull will try not only to dominate its opponent, but to kill it.
Watching “Pitbull” Palin speak, I truly believe she does embody that same go-for-the-throat mentality. But right now, our country faces some extremely sensitive issues, such as the Russia/Georgia/South Ossetia situation (do we really want to take on Russia over a tiny region no one ever heard of a month ago?), and the escalating tension between Israel and Iran that threatens to drag us into yet another senseless war before this year is over.
What we need right now in the White House is a cool-headed, even-tempered diplomat like Barack Obama who will deal with other countries in a firm and assertive manner, not a bullying and aggressive one.
What we need is a true statesman who will treat other countries with the respect that other sovereign nations deserve, and thereby restore respect for our own country, respect that was lost due to the swaggering buffoonery of the Bush administration.
What we don’t need in the White House is a pitbull, with or without lipstick.
Dana Henricks, Florence
Senate needs to take up tobacco bill
The Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act recently passed the House of Representatives and is now in the hands of the Senate. We need to urge Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to bring the bill to the Senate floor and to fight for its passage.
This is a common-sense bill to give the Food and Drug Administration authority over the marketing and manufacturing of tobacco products. The House passed its version, H.R. 1108, with an overwhelming and bipartisan 326 in support to 102 against. It is now time for the Senate to act.
Sen. Reid, please end marketing practices that target children. Do not allow the tobacco industry to continue with unregulated marketing tactics. Even though the Senate has much on its plate, there is currently no pending legislation that would save more lives and more money than this critically important public health bill.
Sen. Reid has long been a friend of public health and it is time for him to bring the FDA bill to the Senate floor and to take on Sen. Richard Burr and others who are in the pocket of Big Tobacco. The fate of this life-saving legislation is in our senators’ hands.
Paul Driesbach, Corvallis
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