LETTERS TO THE EDITOR LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Drill Now

Fox News recently had a guest on from an oil drilling company who gave his estimate of the amounts and locations of oil readily available in the U.S. Not only could we start getting oil from these sources within a short period of time, (he said less than a year from nearby shore lines; three to six years from those farther away) but it would start freeing us from our dependence on foreign oil.

Best of all our drilling offshore and in ANWAR would immediately create well-paying jobs for more than 700,000 people. He also stated this was a conservative figure both for future oil discoveries and employment figures.

Think what drilling off Florida coasts would do for employment here. Thousands of good paying jobs would be permanently created. The state of Florida would no longer have to rely on tourism and snowbirds for its main sources of revenue. And how much longer will these seasonal revenues continue with the cost of everything going up due to the cost of oil? Oil is part of just about everything we use and everything will rise in cost accordingly, leaving little money left over for someone's vacation or second home.

Not only do we need to explore and drill for oil now, we need to build more oil refineries and nuclear power plants. We also need to start digging and reconstituting shale into oil and engineer a way to burn coal cleanly. Our known coal deposits are more than equal to the world's known oil deposits and the potential for coal's energy use is enormous.

We will eventually forfeit our country for oil if we continue to transfer our wealth to foreign oil producers. They use our oil dollars to purchase our real estate and the weapons they intend to use against us. Developing our own sources of adequate energy is paramount to our national security and survival. By drilling now we both increase our oil production and give employment to a lot of people in the immediate future. In the meantime, we gain time for developing sources of energy that can last us forever. If we are to remain a "super power" in the world, we need to act quickly.

Joan Butler

Brooksville

Legal Slavery

Re: "Sheriff's Tobacco-Free Policy Still Enforced" in the July 13 edition of Hernando Today.

The labor law attorney from Fort Lauderdale, Donna Ballman, asks how far employers can go when it comes to regulating an employee's personal life. Well, when it comes to applicants agreeing to sign a form giving up their freedoms, it ends when a prospective employee who is asked to sign a form saying they will be someone's slave.

It's a trick, Ms. Ballman, to make slavery legal. Employers really don't care if you do things like smoke cigarettes, they ask you to sign off on civil liberties because they can. They use the excuse of lowering health insurance because without it they wouldn't have a leg to stand on. What they could do is just say the company health insurance won't cover your smoking, but they can't rule you or get a tax cut that way. As for promoting a healthy lifestyle, that's a joke, because you can bet if an employer hired family or a personal friend, none of this would apply.

You see, when you don't know a person personally, it's easier to dangle the purse strings over their head. Especially when you know they must work for a living. Now, if you want the Legislature to fix it, we will need to replace the political party that has littered it in recent years.

Jane Kukla

Spring Hill