Letters to the Editor for Nov. 1, 2010

Like most, I was initially fooled by the hype into believing that wind power was “green energy.” Now I know better. Windmills are anything but green. They disfigure our scenic vistas, decimate land, kill wildlife and cause human health problems.

Wind farms annihilate wildlife. Nationwide they kill many thousands of migratory birds and birds of prey. Windmills create a shift in air pressure so severe that bats implode in flight and fall dead from the sky. Since bats eat mosquitoes, West Nile virus outbreaks could become more common. And where windmills stand, animals such as large mammals leave permanently. Wind farms become gargantuan pinwheeled killing fields.

People will suffer also. Those living near these noisy windmills experience fatigue, irritability, insomnia, depression and other ailments. They will suffer financially also, as their property values decrease dramatically.

Contrary to industry spiel, there will be few, if any, permanent jobs created locally. And the money will flow to the European company that is behind this. Your tax dollars will help subsidize them, however.

In the end, all that we will be left with if wind farms are allowed to invade our area is a desecrated landscape of wind turbines visible from up to 40 miles away, destruction of the feel of wildness and open space, loss of wildlife and a lingering sadness of how pretty it all used to be.

The best way to comprehend the devastation is to stand amidst the roar of the blades, atop land that was once pristine, ground that has become so cluttered with windmills that it is now nothing more than an industrial white-bladed wasteland — places such as those near the Columbia Gorge, or areas near Palm Springs and Mojave, Calif.

Don’t let this potential tragedy befall Union or Baker County.

Carl Kostol laments the “recent vote on Obama’s medical care bill [as] frightening.” (Letters, Oct. 27, 2010.) He has apparently forgotten the Republican medical care bill of 2003.

Hopefully dubbed the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act, a Republican creature, it was the product of corruption. A 15-minute vote stretched into the middle of the night while Republican leader Tom DeLay and his henchmen employed any means to gather votes, including bribery. Democratic members of the House were denied any opportunity to offer amendments. Cost estimates were known to be false. Medicare’s chief actuary believed the bill would cost an additional $200 billion. He was threatened with the loss of his job if he revealed that fact. His estimate was itself $200 billion short.

While states, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and private plans can negotiate drug prices, the law prohibits Medicare from doing so. The law prohibits the importation of drugs from other countries. Cheaper and equally efficacious drugs from Canada come to mind. I suppose it depends upon whose ox is being gored, whether by a socialist or the merely corrupt.