ReaderWire ReaderWire (August 27, 2004)

Forget 'Fiber'?

It's time to stop wasting time and money on Fiber-to-the-Home and get busy investigating a promising new technology: Broadband Over Powerlines (BPL).

According to an item in Barron's (Aug. 9, page T-1), BPL is already offered in Cincinnati, Ohio, with 1,400 subscribers. Performance exceeds that of cable and the cost to install is less than $300 per home.

How about it, Palo Alto Municipal Utilities?
Norman Hart
Carolina Lane, Palo Alto

Our deficit's safe

As the price of oil approaches $50 a barrel, we Californians can at least be comforted by the royalties pouring into our schools from tidelands oil production.

Oh, wait. We have stopped all new tideland oil development. Thank God our deficit is safe.
Walter E. Wallis
Waverley Street, Palo Alto

Boxer's benefits

I visited the medical insurance survey on Senator Barbara Boxer's Web site and I agree that businesses that employ Americans should have a tax credit for offering medical benefits.

However, wouldn't it be best for the whole country if we the taxpayers were offered the same insurance that all elected officials receive?

It seems to me that since we're paying for not only Senator Boxer's salary and her medical/dental/vision insurance, that we the taxpayers should be given the same insurance provisions at the same costs -- which are a whole lot cheaper than anything individuals can get on their own or through the COBRA system.

So, Senator Boxer, how about helping out those taxpayers who pay for your great medical insurance with the same? It is our money, isn't it?

And I have no sympathy for the pharmaceuticals crying about not making enough billions. I've worked in research and they make a bundle, so much so that they can afford the expensive lobbyists to fight against the average American trying to make ends meet.
Donnasue Jacobi
Haight Street, Menlo Park

Avoiding Vietnam?

If those "Swift Boat Veterans" care so much about truth and the Vietnam war, why don't they talk more about a far simpler truth?

Any young man who used family connections to avoid service in Vietnam basically sent one or more men over there in his place -- men who may or may not have come back.
Janice Hough
Bryant Street, Palo Alto

E-mail a friend a link to this story.