If ever there was a great reason to vote for Measure 49 in November, it was the Gazette-Times' report that Oregon agricultural production generated a record $4.4 billion in sales in 2006.

Nursery plants, bulbs, greenhouse crops, grass seed and Christmas trees led the state, with cattle in second place. Eighty-two commodities grossed more than $1 million in sales.

Imagine the diverse products Oregon land grows! That doesn't include forest products from prime forest lands in the Coast Range and The Cascades worth billions to our economy and employment for thousands.

Your "Yes" vote on Measure 49 would undo the disastrous consequences of Measure 37, which represents a grave threat to our farm- and forest-land economy. Measure 49 will limit waivers to residential use - no commercial or industrial.

Up to three houses will be allowed on high-value farm and forestland and in groundwater-limited areas. Claimants must follow existing land-use regulations. Every Measure 37 claimant could build one house, regardless of location. Waivers would be transferable under Measure 49.

The 2007 Legislature, after numerous public hearings statewide, worked hard to address the concerns of Oregonians. Measure 49 is the result of their efforts and deserves a "Yes" vote from everyone who values the land that supports us all.

Jean Nath

Corvallis

Knife an example of how more is less

The 141 function/87 tool pocket knife featured in the Aug. 19 Gazette-Times is a perfect metaphor for much of modern technology; cell phones that lost a simple "redial" button, feature laden computer software (AKA "bloatware"), and VCRs and DVDs that are nearly impossible to program. I still need to refer the owner's manual on my year-old cordless phone to change the personal greeting, set the time or delete a message, and I'm an electronics engineer!

I cannot even imagine how one would use that knife to clean a fish, for example. As a terrorist weapon, it would probably be more dangerous to the user than an intended victim.

Bruce Carsten

Corvallis

Local schools lack capacity for K-5

Corvallis School District staffers under-projected K-5 enrollment in the 2005-06 PR2 planning process. The PR2 projections ignored findings of a 2001 survey that predicted the current and accelerating increase in local elementary enrollment.

District staff use enrollment projections to estimate budget revenues. Actual revenues derived from K-5 enrollment can now be expected to exceed estimates by more than $300,000. (This is a conservative estimate; the actual figure probably will be more than $400,000 above estimated levels.) Insofar as district enrollment estimates continue to be low, the result is an annual recurring year-end revenue surplus. Underestimated revenues have prompted three recent school closures (and very nearly a fourth).To put this in perspective, one elementary school closure produces less than $150,000 in annual expenditure reductions.

Meanwhile, on Aug. 13, the district-appointed school boundaries committee was scheduled to report its ideas on how to balance enrollment in district schools. Boundary decisions are of interest to the entire community; construction of a new middle school and high school have created real estate boomlets within their neighborhood boundaries.

The boundary committee faces a difficult task. The Corvallis School District has insufficient capacity in its elementary schools. No amount of boundary tweaking is going to change that fact.

Bill Bogley

Corvallis

Al-Qaida was in Iraq long before war

John F. Borowski has substituted conventional wisdom for fact to brand President Bush a liar (Letters, Aug. 7, "Let's retrace that long road to Iraq"). Mr. Borowski cited a 2005 CIA claim that Saddam Hussein distrusted al-Qaida and refused to support or meet with them. Thus, Mr. Borowski declared that Bush lied about al-Qaida associate Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's pre-war presence in Iraq.

It is well-established that al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian by birth, was in Iraq at least by May 2002 after being wounded in Afghanistan and was treated in Baghdad's Olympic Hospital. Afterward, he set up terror operations in northern Iraq. Jordan's King Abdullah stated that his government knew al-Zarqawi was in Iraq before the war and had requested al-Zarqawi's deportation. Is King Abdullah also a liar?

The same CIA that presumed Saddam wouldn't work with al-Qaida produced a memo on Feb. 21, 2003 stating: "Close al-Qaida associate al-Zarqawi has had an operational alliance with Iraqi officials. As of October 2002, al-Zarqawi maintained contacts with the IIS (Iraqi Intelligence Service) to procure weapons and explosives, including surface-to-air missiles from an IIS officer in Baghdad." The CIA has documented contacts between IIS and al-Qaida operatives since 1992. Those spooks need to get their stories straight.

The Democrat party's foreign policy is stuck somewhere between the Summer of Love and Sept. 10, 2001. Their presidential candidates show a dangerous proclivity to return to the abject weakness of the Carter administration, weakness that ushered in the Islamic Republic of Iran and the modern era of terrorism.

John D. Jones

Philomath

Dems aren't doing enough to end war

I just don't get it.

I'm not so sure the Democrats in Congress are not in cahoots with Bush/Cheney and their lot. Maybe we need to elect all new people to the Congress - just clean it all out!

Jane Sivetz

Corvallis