This is just one example of problems associated with voter-approved propositions that aren't well thought out by the voters. Similarly, voters had no idea when they passed the three-strikes law that offenders would spend the rest of their lives in jail for a nonviolent felony, causing taxpayers to provide nursing home care in prisons for convicts who are no longer any risk to society.
Maybe it's time to end the initiative process.
Greg Bristol
Santa Barbara
Have Times editors spent a moment worrying about the threat from sexual predators? I can't help but think that if the editorial board were talking about people with the plague, it wouldn't be arguing to let the infected loose in society because the cure "is a subject that begs for serious and comprehensive study. Once we have better answers, we can engage in a serious discussion of which restrictions … are justified."
I vote for a quarantine until a universally tested cure is found. I'm an ACLU member, but I'm not in the least concerned about sex offenders' constitutional rights.
Patricia E. Bransfield
Los Osos, Calif.
Coal cash
Re " Texas vs. EPA climate rules," Nov. 7
Corbin Robertson — chief executive of Quintana Minerals Resources Group, the "largest private owner of coal reserves in the United States" — has donated money to Texas Gov. Rick Perry, state Atty. Gen. Greg Abbott and Rep. Joe Barton of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Now Texas is suing the Environmental Protection Agency.
It is simple to connect the dots. Potential profit from filthy coal production is vastly more important than clean air, clean water, public health or the future of the planet.
Cheryl Kohr
Redondo Beach
Wise man
Re "Trapped by the hands of time," Opinion, Nov. 5
Why Arizona has no daylight saving time:
The state of Arizona listened to the wise old Indian. When told the reason for daylight saving time, the old Indian said, "Only a white man would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket and sew it to the bottom of the blanket and have a longer blanket."
Joanne Crandall
Ojai
