Mailbox for June 30

Government bailout for airlines? Not again

More pleas for another government bailout by the airlines are surfacing from the management geniuses at the helm of these companies. Who was it that started selling airlines tickets at a loss on the Web? Whoever dreamed it up must have thought volume would make up the loss.

Now, top management's solution is less service, baggage charges, fewer flights and another plea to the government to save them. I wonder why no one thought of just selling every coach seat on every flight at a profitable price and foregoing the surcharge/ bailout smokescreen?

Kay Kosmicki, Greeley
president, Cottonwood Travel Company

Democrats are using fuzzy math again

Ken Salazar, Nancy Pelosi, et al., are stating that there are 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of gas per day awaiting Big Oil in the government lands they lease.

Mike Rosen on KOA radio reports that Don Young, R-Alaska, on the House National Resources Committee, has learned how the Democrats came up with that figure, and put it in a letter to fellow Congressmen. Here's how the Dems did it:

Of 91.8 million acres the government leases to oil companies, 68 million acres are producing no oil and gas; the other 23.8 million acres produce 1.68 million barrels of oil and 15.63 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

You can see that there are 2.86 times as many nonproducing acres as producing (68/23.8 = 2.86).

Assuming the nonproducing acres to be as full of oil and gas as the producing acres:

2.86 x (current production quoted above) = 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of gas per day.

Simple, huh? Tell the geologists about this.

I don't hear the press or the Republicans challenging this foolish figure. I guess it's up to us "grass roots" to spread the word.

Jim Conant, Greeley