Comcast removal of MSNBC leaves bias

So, what was it ... five or six seconds after Barack Obama named Joseph Biden as his running mate, that Fox News began its incessant hammering of that choice?

They’re so far into John McCain’s pocket they haven’t seen the sun for weeks. Sean Hannity gets whiter and whiter, and Karl (“Are the donuts here yet?”) Rove spreads more indecently across his numerous and soon-to-splatter chairs.

Nope, no fairness there, and no balance, either, especially for northwest Oregon cable-TV viewers, since Portland’s Comcast has long since kicked to the side MSNBC, which happens to be Fox’s only decent cable-news opponent (Formerly CNN, but no longer with the unctuously robotic Glenn Beck chattering away like Dick Cheney’s favorite wind-up monkey).

Comcast knows where it gets its fare and balances, though, so expect no changes until at least mid-November.

Robert Stevenson

Corvallis

U.S. armed Georgia; provoked Russia

The Russia-Georgia war represents, among other things, another sad failure of the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

If you tweak the nose of a grizzly bear, you shouldn’t expect the bear to sit idly watching you while you do whatever you want to do near the bear’s home territory.

Why did our government deliberately provoke Russia by arming and training the Georgian military?

David R. Prichard

Corvallis

Candidate debates must address issues

The question that I want to hear both candidates for the presidency of the United States answer during the upcoming debates is:

“Explain precisely the steps you will take to set about reversing the damage that the Bush administration has done to each of the following: The rule of law, Americans’ civil liberties, the nation’s financial well-being and our standing and influence with other nations.”

The new president cannot just conduct business as usual. He must take extremely thoughtful — but decisive — steps to reverse the steady onslaught of disastrous policies and insidious changes that have been thrust upon our fundamental institutions and our nation during the past eight years.

It will take a new president with tremendous intellectual, emotional and organizational skills — not to mention years and years of focused attention— to systematically undo these damages.

In my mind, there is only one candidate who has the intelligence, skills and capability to envision the specific effort and dedication it will take and carry it out: Barack Obama.

As for McCain: It is obvious that he is more interested in continuing Bush’s legacy of swaggering rashness, bravado and bluster.

Nevertheless, I would still be interested in hearing each candidate address the above question, because that will be the defining and consuming issue of the next presidency and of the future of the United States.

Sandy Thixton

Philomath

City’s proposed business tax unfair

Curtis Wright, author of the Aug. 20 “As I see it” column, “License fee is good for existing businesses,” needs to take another look at the unattractive details of the so-called “fee.”

The fee is in effect a payroll tax, but it does not distinguish between minimum-wage employees and $500,000-a-year executives. The fee counts both equally as employees. This makes it a highly regressive tax.

The fee does not distinguish between employees of a capital-intensive business, where the amount of labor saving machinery makes each worker highly productive, and those of a labor-intensive business (such as a fast-food establishment), where the profit per worker is much lower. This too makes it very much a regressive tax.

The $1,000 cap on the top end, no matter how many employees a firm has, also makes the fee regressive.

The additional legal complexity and paperwork associated with the fee also will be much more bothersome to small enterprises than they will be to large ones, another regressive feature.

If general revenues are used for this program, and it doesn’t deliver the promised benefits, the City Council could redirect the money to more useful purposes. The proposed fee, however, could be spent only on this program, no matter how small the results, and no matter how much good the same money could have done if redirected.

The merits of the proposed spending, which are dubious, do not justify the outrageous proposal for funding it.

Paul deLespinasse

Corvallis

Instant runoff better than ‘top two’ idea

Measure 65 could be a step in the right direction; it’s probably a misstep, for as noted in the Aug. 19 editorial, it is “likely to make it more difficult for third party candidates.” Open primaries have the potential for introducing a wider range of fresh ideas on sound government, but they’re unlikely to realize that potential if only the top two compete in the general election. Were the top three or four to move on to the general election, the voters’ probability of finding like-minded candidates would be enhanced.

The satisfying majority vote outcome in a field of more than two candidates is realized readily by employing instant runoff. That procedure only requires that the voter indicate his/her second choice and third choice in the event of four candidates on the ballot.

If the first ballot count fails to yield a majority winner, the candidate with the least votes is eliminated, and the second choices of his/her supporters are added to the remaining candidates’ totals to produce a majority winner. In the four candidate situation, third choices might need to be distributed similarly to decide the winner.

I’d readily support a measure calling for a nonpartisan primary and an instant runoff general election ballot to determine a majority winner from the field of more than two candidates.

Mike Wolf

Corvallis