Letters to the editor: Politics and oil wells; stopping Putin

Oil wells becoming too political

Re: your Feb. 18 story, “Groups battle over oil and gas measures”:

I see from the article that considerations of our existing and planned oil wells are changing from science to political science.

Wikipedia tells us that political science is the study of politics, and very simply uses the art of shifting political will to match a foredrawn conclusion.

In this case, the dirty, oily and emotional baggage laid upon the petroleum industry hopes to force Ventura County and the state of California to abandon this valuable resource. This is an example of bad science.

Would a farmer let his crops wither and die on the vine, while watching his children starve because a local social “scientist” told him that disturbing the land by harvesting it and getting mud on his hands and muck on his boots was bad?

R.L. Lyons, Thousand Oaks

Putin wants another Soviet Union

I have been reading numerous sources of reports on the latest military threat posed by Putin. But nothing to date has mentioned a similar course of events over eight decades ago. Please forgive any historical inaccuracies. Hitler was given the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in September 1939. Great Britain’s Neville Chamberlain was quoted as saying we have “peace in our time.” We all know how all that turned out.

Now we have Putin threatening Ukraine to force that country to do what he wants, which is to not join NATO. Ukraine is a sovereign nation and Putin has no business telling that nation what to do under threat of military invasion. It is my opinion that Putin wants to put the Soviet Union back together again. He has already taken Crimea and Georgia. I can see him wanting to just take Ukraine, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia while he is at it.

There is no way any one nation can stop Russia from invading. However, together through NATO, Russia can be prevented from gobbling up various countries. And China also does not want any more European nations joining NATO. Dictators think alike for the same reasons. I hope that whatever sanctions the NATO countries decide to impose will work. It doesn’t seem sanctions are doing much at this time.

George Maguire, Ventura

This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Letters to the editor: Politics and oil wells; stopping Putin