Hoosierific To the Editor, Regarding Emil Franzi's "Why I'm Voting For B1-Bobby" (Tucson Weekly, February 22): Franzi is uninformed about which presidential candidates once wore a uniform. Richard Lugar also wore a uniform. He was too young for WWII, but he later served in the Navy, if my memory serves me right. I seem to remember news stories that he was involved with intelligence briefings of higher brass. He could very well be the most intelligent of the candidates, as well as having had a Rhodes Scholarship. If the election were restricted to Indiana, he'd likely win easily, being the only person to ever be elected for more than three terms to the Senate from that state. --Neil Matthew Heated Debate To the Editor, I read your article on global warming ("140 Degrees," Tucson Weekly, February 15) with feelings of fear, shame, sadness and denial. What a horrible yet somehow just end to such an arrogant and selfish species as we humans have become. Even the "lowly" animals don't defecate in their own dens. The article reminded me of the old frog in hot water tale: If you drag a frog into hot water, and he jumps out and hops away, drop a frog into cold water and heat it on the stove. As the water becomes warmer, the frog becomes acclimated to it until he cooks to death. I guess the global warming wake-up call continues to go unheeded because it just isn't bad enough yet to get our attention. Maybe next year? I fear by the time the environment is bad enough to get our attention, we will be cooked too much to hop up and correct the problems. I see us finally waking up to our disdain for and ignorance of the ecosystems of Earth when we begin choking to death on our own carbon monoxide fumes and methanol gases from the heads of beef cattle which overran the rainforest land. As the Bible says: "And so then now what shall we do?" We each alone must decide--today, not next year! --Mira George To the Editor, Reading Michael Burns' "140 Degrees" (Tucson Weekly, February 15) about global warming gave me the insight to finally understand that Pat Buchanan's secret political agenda is to save us from those excess greenhouse gases. Pat Buchanan and his Republican cohorts must be a secret environmentalist/Third Reich/Christian Fundamentalists group trying to save us from becoming crispy critters the only way they know how: plunging us into a modern version of the European feudal system. It's common knowledge the United States is the worst offender worldwide on emissions of greenhouse gases, and Pat Buchanan must realize we will never willingly change our lifestyles to curtail global warming. But with walls built around the country and a serious curtailment of trade with other countries, we won't be able to do anything else but lower our greenhouse gas emissions. Even though the number of jobs available will decline under his tutelage, they'll be enough to go around when he forces women back into the home and allows no immigration--the main factor of U.S. population growth today. Even when the population eventually grows from lack of birth control and abortion, all King Buchanan has to do is keep our standard of living low, so we don't produce too many of those nasty gases. Of course, Pat will keep us environmentally in line with a forced state religion disguised as fundamental Christianity, which acts to suppress all rational thinking as the Church did during the Dark Ages. I can see the film title now: Dark Ages II. But at least it won't be too warm in the theatre. --Deborah Bird To the Editor, Regarding ("140 Degrees," Tucson Weekly, February 15): Michael Burns may have a point in that mankind's introduction of greenhouse gasses is causing the earth to heat up, but has anyone considered the alternative? The earth cooling down, in which case we'll have ice a mile thick, covering great expanses of the northern hemisphere again. OK, so that won't happen for a while, but the point still remains that shifts in atmospheric conditions (including temperatures) are part of an extremely complex interplay of forces which are constantly changing and thus, climatic conditions never remain constant for very long. The earth normally experiences temperature swings great enough to trigger and maintain ice ages and warm periods between them. This has been going on for the last 65 million years, in which time we have had six major discernible ice epochs of several million years each. Within those ice epochs are ice age cycles of approximately 100,000 to 150,000 years. Each ice age has about 75,000 to 140,000 years of colder temperatures and about 10,000 years of warmer temperatures. As you can see, the ice wins most of the time. We have been enjoying our current warm period (the Holocene interglacial) for the last 10,000 years, and time is running out. The celestial mechanics which drive these ice cycles are such that current conditions are favorable for ice sheet growth in the northern hemisphere (elliptical orbit and axial precession with perihelion during winter and decreased axial tilt). This will eventually result in cooler summers and warmer winters in which more snow is deposited than is melted off in the summer. Viola: ice age. In fact the warmer temperatures characteristic of interglacials peaked about 6,000 years ago (many regions were about 5-12 degrees warmer than today), stabilized for about 2,000 years, declined until about 450 BC, rose until about 1,000 AD, and then began declining with an extreme downturn between 1,500 AD, and 1800 AD (known as the little ice age). What is my point, you ask? Why does it seem so hot? Where is all of this ice? The answer to these question is: No one really knows. --Thomas Spendiarian Irish Charm To the Editor, You know what's worse than a Dallas Cowpie fan? A loud-mouthed, Irish Catholic fan of Our Lady of Perpetual Television Coverage of South Bend, Indiana (otherwise known as the Fightin' Irish of Notre Dame, or the Fightin' West Africans of Lou Holtz). Tom Danehy should come down off his high horse, Mr. My Opinion Deserves to be Published Even Though I May Be Empty Headed. --Seamus We Want Letters! Thrilled by our brilliant insights? Sick of our mean-spirited attacks? Need to make something perfectly clear? Write: tucsonweekly@tucsonweekly.com

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