Overkill

Re "Requests for rides, refills sap 911 system resources," May 15 The article about non-emergency calls was illuminating. But it also prompted another question: Why must several people respond to every 911 call that involves a so-called medical emergency? Most of us have witnessed this in our neighborhoods. Even the most innocuous health-related 911calls result in a flotilla of vehicles, including a fire truck and assorted personnel arriving on scene. At the risk of using a bad pun, isn't that overkill?

Prosecutors must prove that Pfc. Bradley Manning "had reason to believe" that the classified material he provided to WikiLeaks would harm the nation, a military judge ruled Wednesday - offering the Pentagon and the Obama administration an opportunity to bring an end to a prosecution that has become an exercise in overkill. Manning, the 25-year-old former intelligence analyst in Iraq, pleaded guilty in February to 10 charges, including possessing classified information and transferring it to an unauthorized person.

When 11 students affiliated with the Muslim Student Union at UC Irvine disrupted a speech by the Israeli ambassador to the United States last year, they no doubt knew there would be consequences. Rather than staging a traditional protest ? by leafleting, say, or holding up signs expressing their disapproval ? they attended the event as members of the audience and then stood up, one by one, and shouted the ambassador down more than a dozen times. The university was right to punish the students, who needed to be taught that it is not an appropriate use of one's free speech rights to deny someone else the opportunity to make himself heard.

D ue to a quirk caused by redistricting, 4 million Californians will not have an elected state senator until the year 2014. Until then a caretaker senator from a neighboring district will take charge of these no-man's lands. How on earth are constituents supposed to pressure their fake senators? ALSO: Overkill in the war on pot Photo gallery: Ted Rall cartoons Clinton goes back to basics on Benghazi Follow Ted Rall on Twitter @TedRall

I enjoy watching the best players play--not because they are winning by such big margins but because I get a chance to see how truly great these guys are. If you don't like to see Custer at Little Big Horn, turn it off. There are other channels--a lot of them if you got cable. EDWARD WHITE Los Angeles

If there's anyone in this country who hasn't stripped and refinished at least one piece of furniture or woodwork, I have yet to meet him (or her). This is a job nearly everyone feels qualified to tackle, yet in most cases I have seen, the job wasn't really done right. The most common problem? Overkill. At the very least, overkill involves more work than necessary. At worst, it ruins the piece you are trying to save. The basic rule of stripping is to work gently, using the mildest treatment that will get the job done.

Feinstein will not play in Pacoima because her tasteless commercial mentioning the death of Harvey Milk and George Moscone has gone past viewer saturation into nauseating overkill. MARILYN MARRS Pacoima

Have you checked out the new concentration camp in Simi Valley? It seems the safest city requires drug-cartel-type security for its new post office. Maybe they plan on using it for a lot of prison movies. Seems like a bit of overkill to me. But what do I know? We might be planning to declare war on Thousand Oaks and their unprotected post office. Yeah--and I'll bet we win. GARY HOWELL Simi Valley

D ue to a quirk caused by redistricting, 4 million Californians will not have an elected state senator until the year 2014. Until then a caretaker senator from a neighboring district will take charge of these no-man's lands. How on earth are constituents supposed to pressure their fake senators? ALSO: Overkill in the war on pot Photo gallery: Ted Rall cartoons Clinton goes back to basics on Benghazi Follow Ted Rall on Twitter @TedRall

Too bad Gorbachev can't run for President of the United States! His recent bitter experiences could help prevent the U.S. headlong decline into an overcentralized, bureaucratic, violent, need-based society. The enormous private business base present in the U.S. but not the Soviet Union would be a good starting point, provided it can be unshackled from over-regulation and bureaucratic overkill. But if Gorbachev can't be President, maybe we could use another high-priced consultant.

As a candidate in 2008, Barack Obama emphatically stated that medical marijuana use was an issue best left to the states. One of the first promises he made as the newly elected president was that he was "not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws. " This was even reiterated formally in the so-called Ogden memo of 2009, in which the Department of Justice instructed U.S. attorneys that federal enforcement should apply only to medical marijuana operations that were not in clear compliance with state law. Obama has since "clarified" those promises, but it still makes no sense that Matthew R. Davies, a business school graduate who set out in 2009 to create a medical marijuana dispensary that would be in full compliance with California law, is facing up to 15 years in prison - with a mandatory five-year sentence.

Director Stephen Fung's stylistic hodgepodge "Tai Chi Zero" follows a battle-hardened, impulsive kung fu prodigy who seeks training in a secretive, energy-conserving martial arts style practiced in peaceful Chen Village. He becomes an unwitting warrior in a battle between the town and a Western-influenced prodigal son whose giant mechanical claw-monster threatens to wipe out the residents so a railroad can be built. "Tai Chi Zero" is often more distracting than diverting with its everything-goes aesthetic - there are strains of steampunk, manga and silent film comedy, with video-game touches.

Unable to stop ticket scalpers from repeatedly violating city laws, City Atty. Carmen Trutanich has filed suit to bar 17 of them - and potentially many more - from setting foot anywhere near five of Los Angeles' most popular sports and concert venues. The injunction sought by Trutanich is the same forceful tool he has used repeatedly against a growing list of targets, including violent criminal gangs, graffiti "taggers" and drug dealers on skid row. And while critics complain about injunctions' effect on civil liberties, there are times when they're appropriate.

With more than a century between us of working the land, farming and ranching are in our blood. We work 1,500 miles apart - one near the Mexico border, one near the Canada line - but we share a lifestyle rooted in being stewards of America's borderlands. As border-area landowners, we strongly oppose two bills pending in Congress: HR 1505, sponsored by Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and S 803, cosponsored by Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.), Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.). Both bills would give unrestricted power to the Department of Homeland Security on all public lands within 100 miles of the border (land currently under the jurisdiction of the Interior or Agriculture departments, a great deal of which is leased to ranchers and farmers)

Los Angeles has made slow but significant progress toward ending homelessness, but the City Council is about to vote on a proposed law that could stop that momentum in its tracks. The Community Care Facilities Ordinance would threaten the well-being of thousands of people with disabilities, create a nightmare for property owners, cost taxpayers more, violate principles of fair housing and jeopardize access to federal funds. The proposed ordinance grew out of an effort to eliminate sober-living homes in residential neighborhoods.

Re "Requests for rides, refills sap 911 system resources," May 15 The article about non-emergency calls was illuminating. But it also prompted another question: Why must several people respond to every 911 call that involves a so-called medical emergency? Most of us have witnessed this in our neighborhoods. Even the most innocuous health-related 911calls result in a flotilla of vehicles, including a fire truck and assorted personnel arriving on scene. At the risk of using a bad pun, isn't that overkill?

State Sen. Ted Lieu (D-Torrance) is right to be offended by "conversion therapy," the pseudo-psychiatric treatment that purports to talk patients out of being gay and into being straight. There's no medical basis for the treatment, and there's some evidence that it causes harm while failing to do any good. As is so often the case, Lieu and his colleagues in the Legislature reacted to a perceived problem by proposing a bill. Lieu's legislation, SB 1172, which would make it illegal for California psychologists to attempt to convert gay minors, has passed the Senate Judiciary Committee and is working its way through the statehouse.

LAS VEGAS - The boys sat there swilling coffee and bemoaning a depressing reality: What happens in this town doesn't necessarily stay here - thanks, they say, to the national media spreading scuttlebutt. The gossip doesn't involve a tawdry tryst in a hotel room off the Strip. These days, the diciest Sin City escapade is just trying to scratch out a living here, claim the news reports. "Everybody," insurance salesman Rodney Leavitt told his coffee klatch buddies, "likes to beat up on the big guy when he's down.