Let chimps stay where they are
To the editor:
The Nov. 21 article “Chimp owner denied permit by Clark County” doesn’t explain what will become of the chimpanzees and monkey when the 30 days run out. The animals have been living at a southwest valley home for two years without a temporary land use permit. So why don’t the Clark County commissioners just grant the permit? I feel continuing to keep the animals safe on their own two-acre property for one more year is a very reasonable request. And so does one commissioner, Tom Collins.
Luckily, Commissioner Collins volunteered his own property to provide a home for these beautiful exotic animals right here in North Las Vegas. His ranch-style property in his northeast valley district would be just right. So why didn’t the county grant a temporary permit right then and there?
It’s a little unfair to the animals, since owner Mike Casey has only 30 days to find them a place to live. Mr. Casey has already purchased some property for their new habitat, according to a news report. If so, a temporary permit would allow Mr. Casey time to relocate the animals and finish construction on their new home.
The neighbors will be happier knowing the animals and community are a safe distance from each other. The animals will be better off in their own habitat.
I say let’s step aside and give the animals some room. This is Nevada, after all.
VINCENT VALER
LAS VEGAS
Not a ballot
To the editor,
It’s very clear that whoever wrote the caption for the photo on Page 2A of Wednesday’s Review-Journal has never voted. The card the voter is putting into the return box is not a ballot – it’s only an access card to the voting machines, which gets used over and over again.
S. HAWKINS
HENDERSON
Strongman
To the editor:
I saw in the Nov. 24 Review-Journal that Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi has issued “decrees” giving himself extensive new powers that are “final and not subject to appeal or judicial review.”
The article quoted him as saying “My duty is to move forward” (egad, the words sound familiar) “with the goals of the revolution and eliminate all obstacles of the past.”
Isn’t this guy outrageous, arrogant and dictatorial? Just who does Morsi think he is anyway? Barack Obama?
BRIAN ZIELKE
LAS VEGAS
Democratic solution
To the editor:
I just read the Nov. 24 letter to the editor “California solution.” Ron Lowe of Nevada City, Calif., is basking in his liberal glory because California residents, in their infinite wisdom, decided to give tax-and-spend Democrats a supermajority in both houses of their Legislature for Gov. Jerry Brown.
Mr. Lowe concluded that Republicans’ “days are numbered, as fiscal balance and sanity are now highlighted in California.”
We’ve seen these same liberal, socialist experiments play out in a petri dish cultivated in Europe. Ask Greece, Spain, Portugal and France how that’s working out for them. Now we have one in the United States.
Time will tell if this experiment plays out any better in California than the abject failure everywhere else it has ever been tried. Just don’t expect the American taxpayers to come riding to the rescue when California defaults.
SKIP BLOUGH
NORTH LAS VEGAS
Spend, spend, spend
To the editor:
Ron Lowe Nov. 24 letter, “California solution,” should probably have looked more closely into California’s budget problems. The state of California has funded only 1 percent of its health care promises to its workers and retirees. It is billions of dollars short in funding state pension obligations.
California, like the nation, doesn’t have a taxing problem, it has a spending problem. How can a state spend more than $14 billion a year on services to people who are not even citizens of this country? It doesn’t matter if all the illegals living in California now are granted amnesty, because in a few years you will have that many again who come to California for all the freebies.
You can raise the taxes all you want. The problem is the number of people who don’t pay state and federal income taxes. They are beginning to outnumber the ones who do pay them. As Margaret Thatcher said years ago, “The problem with socialism is sooner or later you run out of other people’s money.”
As far as a warning to Republicans that our days are numbered, at the end of President Obama’s second term we will be more than $21 trillion in debt. If the interest rates stay where they are now, which by the way are historically low, we will be paying over half a trillion dollars just in interest payments. At this rate, everybody’s days are numbered.
After our nation goes bankrupt, we can start over with real fiscal discipline – and we won’t be using California as a blueprint.
KEVIN ALEXANDER
LOGANDALE
Blames sheriff
To the editor:
I request the resignation of Sheriff Doug Gillespie from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. His egregious actions while with the department, and while sheriff, have led to the deaths of innocent people and brought 75 improvement recommendations by the Department of Justice.
This is unacceptable.
KAREN STEELMON
LAS VEGAS
Wildcat fan
To the editor:
Who edits your Sports section? In your Nov. 20 edition, you have a headline (Nov. 20) about how a “defeat irks” a UCLA player from Las Vegas. Really? Defeat irks all players.
Do your editors hate the University of Arizona, for some reason? It has a great basketball team and several players with Las Vegas connections, yet Arizona is consistently ignored by your sports section. Why? Arizona is much more interesting than some irked player at UCLA.
ROBERT STANELLE
LAS VEGAS
