As Pat Hanson says, La Crosse officals should take another look at Oktoberfest. They are trying to find a way to stop binge drinking and still encourage it.

While we can't tell everybody not to drink, we should be trying to encourage them to use common sense if they are going to consume alcoholic beverages. There have been too many heartbreaking stories and pain of the living and those who have died because of this problem for the families involved.

ministry before retiring, I'm certainly not unfamiliar with his kind of misinformed sentiment — interpreting destructive natural or historical events as "judgments of God."

Let's consider a couple of pertinent facts. First, if you are going to use the Bible as your interpretive lens for events in everyday life, you should try to remain consistent with its principles. Judgments of God are always portrayed as thorough and specific. For example, in the familiar story of Sodom and Gomorrah, God destroyed everyone except those who were faithful.

Yet, look at the Katrina disaster. Believers and non-believers alike died and/or were rendered homeless. Was God judging New Orleans or all of America? What about the hundreds of other natural disasters that take place all over the world every year? What about the tsunami? What about 9/11?

Instead of taking advantage of others' suffering by invoking the divine to assert one's imagined religious superiority, these pompous self-proclaimed prophets should seek to be more like the Christ they claim to follow. Jesus would be sharing in the suffering of survivors, not announcing judgment on them.

According to a Federal Election Committee report, Texas' indicted Republican leader Tom DeLay's political action committee gave Minnesota Rep. Gil Gutknecht $5,778. This is money that DeLay's PAC raised and then contributed to its fellow House members' campaigns.

I believe Rep. Gutknecht should return the $5,778 to Tom DeLay's PAC. This would reduce the appearance of impropriety. Presently, Tom DeLay has been charged with money laundering related to a campaign finance scheme. So far only Rep. Jeb Bradley, R-N.H., has returned the DeLay PAC money because he wanted to "remove any question about the nature of the contribution."

In addition to returning the money, Rep. Gutknecht would do well to support Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold and Arizona Sen. John McCain's efforts to clean up campaigns. Members of Congress should be encouraged to disassociate themselves from dubious campaign fundraising. A good first step would be for Gil Gutknecht to return the $5,778.

I'm writing in response to the recent news story regarding Trempealeau County's law declaring certain dog breeds dangerous. How dangerous an animal is depends on who they belong to, just as a gun or a car can be dangerous. But anyone of age can go buy a gun, a car or even a Rottweiler. Just because you can buy it doesn't mean you know how to use it, or take care of it.

In the article, County Supervisor Dick Miller stated, "This ordinance was about preventing serious injuries." How is making an animal wear a tag and putting a sign in the yard going to prevent that?

I think if they want to prevent injuries, they need to require the owner and the animal to attend a training program provided by the county's Humane Society, so the animal can be trained and the owner can know how to control the animal to help make the animal less dangerous.

The owners also should educate themselves before going out and purchasing any animal that would be considered "dangerous." It isn't the animal's fault that the owner doesn't know how to care for them or what they will be capable of. People give all animals "bad names" by not knowing what they are getting themselves into. Pets aren't toys. They are supposed to be our friends and companions, so treat them that way.

My relatives and friends who I have personally talked with report much differently than the news reports. People in Iraq are appreciative we are there. The news does not show the restored electrical power by our military, the hospitals rebuilt or newly built by our military, the medical attention now available by our military, the freedoms now available because of our military. We saw in their election, women were voting for the first time.

We faced a 9/11 attack on our own soil, but it was not the first time we were attacked. We have been attacked by Islamic terrorists from way back to the early '70s. The Islamic terrorists, including those insurgents fighting our military in Iraq, want Islamic law not only in Iraq but here in America as well. That is the goal of Islam and the terrorists.

If one of the Islamic countries in the area or Saddam himself were planning to attack our ally Israel, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan stopped it right in its tracks. And if, as the news reports tell us, Iran has or is soon to develop nuclear weapons they will need to face our troops right next door should they want to attack us.

Iowa Congressman Steve King was asked in Iraq by our soldiers, "Why do we have to fight the enemy and the news media?" Why do the news media closely filter the words of Cindy Sheehan to exclude her statements that "We are waging a nuclear war in Iraq right now," "This country is not worth dying for" and that the Jihadis are "freedom fighters"? Why is the story of Spc. Casey Sheehan not reported? You can read Casey's story and others like him for yourself at www.blackfive.net under the heading, "Someone you should know."

The news media failed miserably to accurately report on Hurricane Katrina. They repeated the most outlandish rumors in order to sensationalize their reports. Where are the retractions of the false rape and murder stories? Why should I believe the news media when they exaggerated the deaths by 10 times? I guess they are too busy giving awards to the discredited fabulist Dan Rather to check any facts.

Should I believe the stories of the men and women who have volunteered to fight the terrorists who have sworn to behead us or the stories of some liberal reporter sitting in a Baghdad hotel room and running his report through a liberal news editor in New York?

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