Netlets for Thursday, Feb. 14

The Democratic "superdelegates" would be well advised to give earnest consideration to the huge number of independents and Republicans who attended the Tuesday night caucuses. It was Barack Obama who brought many of us to caucus with the Democrats.

Except for 1972 and 2004, I have voted a straight Republican ticket since 1964. In 1988 I was also an endorsed Republican candidate in Minnesota House District 64A. I am now an independent, and there is now doubt in my mind I will vote for Obama for president.

It's my belief that there were large numbers of people who caucused as a Democrat who are people who are just like me.

The superdelegates need to recognize that the Democrat Party has new blood. You can't afford to discount our votes ... the swing voters are the key votes.

RICHARD PECAR, LINDSTROM, MINN.

The seduction of charm I cried for days when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was assassinated. I was 13 and just on the cusp of an adolescence and a young womanhood that would see me fall victim (in love) to an endless sequence of charmers with the gift of the gab, the ability to entrance me with their words, the beauty of their hands, the way they smiled, the way they looked at me.

I was unable to recognize the indifference and the manipulation behind all this until I was in my early 40s. Is that why I am simply unable to yield to the Obama charm and let myself be carried away by the fantasy that he will be our saviour, that by the flick of his charming wrist he will solve the problem of Iraq, the economy, the environment and global warming?

M.J. FITZGERALD, MINNEAPOLIS

Crisis cooperation: an American trait In regard to Sen. Norm Coleman's commentary concerning the recent nonpartisan cooperation for the Interstate 35W bridge ("When politics take a back seat, Congress can get things done," Feb. 5): I think we can all be thankful that this tragic situation has been handled relatively well to date. Shouldn't this have been the norm, however, for accomplishing the people's work rather than the exception?

Unfortunately absolutely nothing of importance in this country is accomplished without some major crisis or panic or catastrophe. This very American trait is simply represented in our political leaders.

We talk about what great organizers and planners we are in this country yet without fail we need a Pearl Harbor or 9/11-type incident to actually make us face those issues that we all can see yet wish not to confront. I fear that we are about to face a number of such events but in an unprecedented number of areas. We have an economy that is not only weakening but is likely requiring major overhaul to make it competitive in the world. We have an over-stretched military fighting a war against religious zealots that literally could be never ending. We have a society and lifestyle that are driven by low-cost oil in a world that will never see cheap oil again. Need I go on?

Other countries come here to study our crisis management techniques because we excel at them. I suspect that we will provide some outstanding case studies soon if we don't start to confront these issues instead of waiting for a crisis.

Whom do we trust on global warming? Would anyone believe an article saying that smoking was not harmful? What if that article was authored by the tobacco industry? Would the Star Tribune even publish such rubbish? Why then would the Star Tribune run the op-ed piece by Paul Chesser attacking the work done by Minnesota's Climate Change Advisory Group ("Climate change will cost us, all right ... ," Feb. 4)?

Chesser is the director of the Climate Strategies Watch, an organization created by the conservative anti-regulation John Locke Foundation that receives substantial funding directly and indirectly from Exxon Oil and Koch industries. Regardless of the hyperbole Chesser uses to make it seem like the issues of global warming are leftist conspiracies and media fear-mongering, global warming is real and the overwhelming scientific consensus is that humans are contributing to global warming through the emissions of greenhouse gasses. Do we trust the scientific community or big oil companies?

ROGER SKOPHAMMER, NORFOLK, VA.

Most scientists have spoken Paul Chesser of the Climate Strategies Watch criticizes global warming governmental initiatives in his Feb. 4 Counterpoint, arguing a consensus around global warming has not been reached. He cited as evidence a Newsweek poll that found only 42 percent of respondents believe humans are the chief cause of global warming.

Coincidentally, on the front page of the same section a recent survey found that 25 percent of respondents said Winston Churchill never actually existed, that he was a mythical figure. Shall we remove Sir Winston from the history books until we reach an absolute consensus?

JON URBAN, MINNEAPOLIS

Subprime loan applicants, substandard treatment The Feb. 5 letter "Blame the borrowers" is rife with arrogance and ignorance. The writer obviously has never been on either side of a subprime transaction; if he ever had, I can guarantee him that he'd see things differently.

I've been the recipient of a subprime loan, and I'm proud to say that I've kept my end of the bargain. But I could talk for hours about the personal abuses my wife and I endured through the process, not the least of which was a detestable bait-and-switch at closing. But in the end we had no choice but to take the loan; the "switch" still represented a step up from the ARM terms we had with our previous loan.

From my perspective, "subprime loan applicant" is really code language for "sucker" in the mortgage-lending industry.