If a police officer tells you to stop and drop your weapon for 15 minutes and you don't do it, expect to be shot. As for shooting to wound, it's too difficult to score a hit and wounded men can shoot back. Officers are trained to aim for center of mass.

It seems every time there is a police shooting, the wise guys make comments about their lack of marksmanship. They have obviously never shot at anything while in danger. (I have - Vietnam, '69-70.) As far back as the Civil War, it was estimated that it took a man's weight in bullets for every kill. In Vietnam, it cost a million dollars for every enemy killed and we were shooting rifles and hurling artillery at them! A pistol is an inaccurate weapon, especially when you are under stress and in danger yourself.

Obama did a disservice to LV with his casual remark. If he wants to ban junkets by companies receiving bailout money - ok. But one of those companies moved their meeting to San Francisco, which is many times more expensive than Las Vegas and neither the president nor anyone else is complaining. It's all about appearances.

RobertD says Houston's economy never came back. I live in Houston and it has been booming for years now. We couldn't even find enough people to fill the available jobs. Of course, it's in the downturn now like everywhere else. I've been here for 28 years and saw the boom, the bust, and the gradual recovery. The economy is cyclical and will come back. The question is - how long?

I think the overall economy and Las Vegas will see a gradual improvement late in the year and a steady rise from there. What will hurt Las Vegas is that the building of megaprojects will probably be the last to recover.

CCSDTeacher thinks the teachers should get it. I think I should get my bosses' bonus too! If this had all happened in just one teacher's classroom, then that teacher should get it. This was a school-wide accomplishment. If the scores school-wide had gone down, should all the teachers be fired? I'm sure the principal would get the blame. There's an old army axiom which goes: "The commander is responsible for everything the unit does or fails to do." Therefore; the principal gets the money.

The German auto engineer described in the first letter doesn't match my experience. I work for an international company and have visited plants in Germany, France, Belgium, and the Netherlands. All of the workers live well and have long vacations and health care. The difference is that their definition of living well doesn't match ours. The majority live in a relatively small apartment, own one car, one TV set and avoid most of the excesses of what we consider the good life. They don't try to buy huge houses with no money down, run up large credit card bills, and think it's necessary to buy the latest and greatest of everything as soon as it comes out. They are content with a simple, yet comfortable life.

I worked in a Ford factory in Ohio twenty years back. Some of the assembly workers were making six figures even then. They had a large house, the biggest Winnebago, a boat, and bought two new cars every year. The problem was that to acquire all this they worked every minute of overtime and cashed in their vacations, just to make the minimum payments. They never had time to use what they bought. They just had to have it. When times got tough and overtime was eliminated, some of them had to file bankruptcy,even though they were among the highest paid hourly workers in the world.

Be content to live within your means. You won't have nearly as much stress and you'll be entitled to critize the executives who are trying to live too large.

There are two arguments here which seem to be getting entangled: legal and moral.
Legal: In theory, the state grants special considerations to married couples because it recognizes that the family is the foundation of the state. It does it, not for the benefit of the couple, but for the benefit of the state. Gay couples don't offer that benefit to the state any more than single persons. I think gay couples have a right to happiness and companionship, but granting married status will probably generate lawsuits from singles as the only discriminated upon group left. I don't know if "civil union" is the best term, but perhaps, some term other than marriage would lower the heat on this issue.

I believe the public was misled when tasers were being sold to the police. The rules for the use of deadly force are quite clear. If deadly force is needed, the officer won't use a taser. It is not a replacement for the gun and doesn't materially reduce the number of shootings. It's not effective or fast enough if the officer is facing an armed felon. The taser replaces MACE and the nightstick/baton. That's what most officers took off their belts to make room for the taser. The advantage is for the safety of the officer. They don't have to engage in hand-to-hand combat with violent criminals.

Another argument for the Electoral College: It prevents small parties and splinter groups from gaining disproportionate influence. For example: in some of our recent close elections, if the American Nazi Party could claim half a million members nationwide, it could try to make a deal with the Republicans and Democrats. "Give our leader a cabinet post and we'll tell all our members to vote for you." It's the sort of thing you see in some parliamentary governments where small radical groups hold cabinet posts. Since the Electoral College requires that the candidate carry the state to get its electoral votes, no whacko group can ever gain much influence.