So Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe wants to deliver alcohol (Business, Aug. 2). Well, he’d better check the definition of “deliver” first.
To deliver is to bring or hand over (a letter, parcel or ordered goods) to the proper recipient or address.
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When the post office can’t even deliver a certified letter to my address and a package of knitting needles exceeded their technological ability to deliver, Postmaster General Donahoe has a lot of nerve suggesting that a case of alcohol will somehow be different.
What astounds me is that a package will make it across the country but the last 300 feet to my door is somehow an insurmountable obstacle. And as to those cluster box deliveries, does he expect to just leave a case of booze at the curb?
When I have a store five minutes away that sells everything I need, why would I choose to make the 60-minute round trip to the post office?
It should be noted that UPS and FedEx have managed to crack the code on home delivery and do so efficiently, profitably and cheerfully.
So perhaps Patrick Donahoe should look to the private sector for tips on how to turn around the post office. In the meantime, until every business-size envelope makes it to “the proper recipient or address,” he’d best not heap any more responsibility on an institution that is clearly overwhelmed.
Kurt Woltersdorf
Sanford
Lawless bureaucrats need a good thrashing by voters
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Operation Fast and Furious facilitated gun purchases that went to our enemies, who used them to kill both citizens and Border Patrol agents. Consequences: Several bureaucrats resigned or retired with full benefits. No criminal convictions.
Benghazi: Americans were killed in an embassy attack. Rescuers were ordered to “stand down” by State Department. Consequences: Several bureaucrats (one who may run for president) resigned or retired with full benefits. No criminal convictions.
The Internal Revenue Service harassed conservative groups applying for tax status. (The IRS will be policing Obamacare.) Consequences:Several bureaucrats resigned or retired with full benefits. No criminal convictions.
The FBI wire/phone-tapped reporters and news organizations with no warrant. Consequences: Several bureaucrats resigned or retired with full benefits. The Department of Justice failed to prosecute anyone.
The government takes care of its own! Congress and the president could bring justice to these and other illegal governmental actions, but they will not.
They consider themselves above the law. They have set themselves over and apart from the American people.
They no longer have any respect or fear of the citizens of our country. And why should they? In spite of these atrocities, voters return them to office, election after election after election.
If we are to ever again have “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” voters must oust the present government and future Congresses and presidential administrations until they get the message.
All are complicit in this lawlessness, even our fabulous four!
Herbert Dobbins
Windham
Objections to wind power pale when benefits toted up
Please, renewable energy from the wind is not to be compared with dams and hydropower — not even close (“Letters to the editor: Environmentalists silent on wind threat,” July 31).
Trees actually grow back on their own, even where roads or windmills were, if they needed to be removed in the future. Most likely, they’d live a long life and be replaced by futuristic improved turbines, not by discarding the idea of renewable energy.
At least 97 percent of climate scientists believe we are experiencing a warmer climate, and this warming is caused largely by the burning of fossil fuels, so we have to get away from them as quickly as possible. If the Earth warms another 2 degrees, we are in for multiple and probably unsolvable problems, causing great death and suffering for so many people and other life forms.
Arguing that some trees need to come down and the view is no longer pristine is a ridiculous argument, compared with what is happening with present additions of greenhouse gases largely from the burning of fossil fuels.
We have got to change, and wind is the best alternative right now to help ensure we can limit the increase of temperature and all the problems that come with this advanced temperature. So, when compared with tremendous heat, horrible frequent storms and drought/floods, we can see we need alternatives that do not increase greenhouse gases.
Daniel Rynberg
Yarmouth
Regarding William Chapman’s July 31 letter, only 2 to 5 percent of the land area of a typical wind plant is actually taken up by turbines and related infrastructure.
Plus, wind energy developers work diligently to ensure that as little topographic changes and earthwork occur as possible when wind turbines are installed on mountains.
Wind power is safeguarding Maine’s current and future environmental health. Electricity from wind farms directly displaces the output of the most expensive power plant currently operating, which is almost always the least efficient fossil fuel-fired power plant due to its high fuel costs.
Further, a 2010 study by the New England ISO of wind energy’s effects on electricity prices and pollution found that obtaining 20 percent of the energy from wind would reduce regional electricity prices by more than 10 percent while also cutting total electric sector carbon dioxide emissions by 25 percent.
Generating electricity from wind does not create air or water pollution, greenhouse gases, use water, require mining or drilling for fuel or generate hazardous waste that requires permanent storage. As a result, wind represents the lowest-impact form of energy generation available to our society today.
A New York State Energy Research and Development Authority study found that of all the energy sources evaluated (i.e., coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydro and wind), wind energy has the lowest cradle-to-grave life cycle impacts on wildlife and their habitats.
At the end of the day, we must get our power from somewhere, and the choice is not between wind and nothing.
No energy source, or really any human activity for that matter, is completely free of impacts. But the decision America faces is how we will power our country and make choices after weighing the costs and benefits, and after weighing all the evidence, wind energy is clearly the right choice.
John Anderson
director of siting policy, American Wind Energy Association
Washington, D.C.
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