Iowa man wanted invasive turtle shipped to his farm

It is a shame the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife had to euthanize the common snapping turtle recently, although I understand the reasoning. I found out about the situation a week or so ago and called the ODFW to see if the turtle could be sent to me.

I spoke with a gentleman who seemed to think it was a good idea, and he gave me the voice mail of a lady who handles these situations, but I never heard back from her.

In the future, when snapping turtles are found in your state, it is my hope that the ODFW looks into shipping the turtles to interested people, parties or institutions in other states. All options that would allow the turtle to live should be strongly considered first before settling on killing the reptile.

Daniel Skogen, Marion, Iowa

Editor's note: Daniel Skogen is the owner of Atkoh Turtle Farm. He told the Gazette-Times that he exports snapper turtle hatchlings "to people who sell them overseas for pets, research, food and medicinal purposes."

Take care with any revision of our Constitution, rights

In her July 22 letter, Bea Michalik suggested it is time to revise the Bill of Rights. Without giving an opinion on the specific right, she questions "… the right of the people to keep and bear arms." I must give an opinion on her suggestion about revising the appropriately-revered founding document. Her statement that "… such processes do exist in other countries" suggests such a process does not exist here.

It does. The "wise" Founding Fathers foresaw the need Ms. Michalik points to and built into the Constitution the ability to amend (revise) as needed. There are two ways to do so, neither of them easy (lest we revise willy-nilly), but both of them do-able (as evidenced by the 27 ratified amendments, the most recent in 1992).

Surprisingly only a handful of amendments passed both houses of Congress, only to end in defeat by the states. The process seems to work. Indeed, the right Ms. Michalik is concerned with is the second of those 27 amendments.

Again, without regard to the Second Amendment issue, we must not be willing to allow Congress or the courts to legislate away or pronounce judgments against the Constitution and the protections and rights it affords us. If we are willing to allow them to do so with the Second Amendment, which other rights are we then willing to put at risk?

If they can take one, they can take them all. Let us revise anything we want in the Constitution, but only, ONLY by a constitutional process. Anything else is extreme foolhardiness.

David A. Williams, Corvallis

What about Barack Obama is real, and what is slogan?

I have now lived through (endured) nearly a dozen presidential slogans: "New Beginnings," "New Mornings," "Mornings in America" and now "Change We Can Believe In."

While (Sen. Barack)Obama is no doubt an exceptional salesman, please excuse me if I suspend belief. He is to be sure a profound political talent, but I do wonder if he is just a new pitchman, the product remaining the same.

While promising to reduce troop levels in Iraq, he has also promised to raise troop levels in Afghanistan.

Change?

President Clinton often referred to the "job he was hired to do." I often wondered who had hired him? Was he working for me?

America's image has taken a terrible battering around the world during the Bush years. Barack Obama could revive that image. I just wonder if that is the job he has been hired to do.

Joe Mogus, Philomath

It's past time to updating Bill of Rights for modern era

Bea Michalik's letter of July 22 gave voice to what I have been thinking. Those present at the creation of our nation were mindful of the right to bear arms, having faced the English interventions. What they could not foresee was the evolution of personal weapons. The Second Amendment was written in a time when the weapon of choice was a musket or possibly a dueling pistol. They could never have imagined the plethora of lethal weapons on the market today.

Regardless of what Justice Scalia says, the Constitution is a living document and provides for changes to be made when conditions in our nation make obvious a need for change. An amendment to the Bill of Rights may be necessary to cope with the insane blood bath on our streets.

Sharon Nixon, Corvallis

Indecisive Sen. Gordon Smith not fit for office

Gordon Smith's refusal to commit himself on women's right to birth control is just more evidence of his unsuitability for re-election.

Arthur Boucot, Corvallis

Better gas mileage? Explain science behind the claims

Raspberries to the Gazette-Times for its shallow and uninformative front-page July 24 article about using a "hydrogen generation system" to improve an automobile's gas mileage. Corvallis has a highly-educated citizenry. I think we deserve to know a little more about the science behind the astonishing claims in the article.

Instead of the gee-whiz presentation of the story, perhaps the author could have enlightened us on such questions as:

• How does the hydrogen generator work?

• Does the generator provide new energy itself, or it is a type of catalyst that somehow improves the combustion efficiency of the gasoline?

• Is the gas mileage measured in a reliable and reproducible manner?

• How is it that the automobile manufacturers, desperate to meet new CAFE standards, have not all adopted this technology?

I suspect that the device is some variation of the gadgets that use the car's electrical system to produce hydrogen by electrolysis. To produce a net energy gain by this means would violate the laws of thermodynamics, which has never actually been done by anyone.

William Wickes, Corvallis