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Bush's Beijing trip is an insult to everyone

President George Bush reportedly plans to attend the opening ceremonies of the Summer Olympics in Beijing. Bush said it "would be an affront to the Chinese people" if he stayed away.

Other world leaders, including Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister Gordon Brown of Britain, are choosing not to attend the opening ceremonies in the communist country.

Even the socialist President Franklin Delano Roosevelt showed more integrity than our so-called conservative president. When the 1936 Olympics were held in Berlin, Roosevelt refused to attend those ceremonies for fear that his presence would give honor and prestige to Adolph Hitler. And surely it would have.

Bush said it would be an affront to the Chinese people if he did not attend the Olympics. Wrong. It would be an affront to the Red Chinese tyrants. And they deserve to be affronted.

Instead, Bush is choosing to affront the hundreds of thousands of Chinese victims who have suffered brutality and barbarism at the hands of the very people with whom Bush will be wining and dining. Actually, by participating in the Beijing Olympics, Bush is an affront to freedom-loving people everywhere.

Abortion advocates should read the Bible

Re: "Honor the ethics of health care workers," July 30 letter:

Jonathan Imbody wrote: "For obvious reasons, some abortion advocates portray a developing human embryo as something other than human and will not tolerate the accommodation of any view challenging their ideology."

As a Christ follower, I live by the Bible, which says how I was sculpted from nothing into something.

I challenge them to read the Bible and the account of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who newly pregnant with Jesus, a tiny embryo, visited her cousin Elizabeth, who was six months pregnant with John the Baptist, a fetus.

As that embryo, Jesus caused the unborn fetus John to leap for joy. It is that tiny embryo Jesus that Elizabeth recognizes and calls Lord.

We also have an enemy, Satan, who will do whatever he can by whatever means to destroy the "image-bearers" of God. Because Satan was banished by God, he thinks murdering the unborn is a way to get back at God, but no plan of God's can be thwarted.

Yippee! Looks like I'm not going to die

The recent article "Study finds sleep apnea can increase risk of death" (Aug. 1) leaves me breathless with excitement.

The article states: "People with the severe form of apnea, which interferes with sleep, are several times more likely to die from any cause than are those without the disorder." And I thought we were all going to die of "any cause," like heart failure or being broadsided by an 18-wheeler.

Apparently some of us are not, and this is the cause of my excitement because I don't think I have sleep apnea. And here I thought that upon birth, the risk of death immediately rose to 100 percent.

Washington detested homosexuality

A recent letter, "Sexual orientation was irrelevant to George Washington" (July 30), offers further proof that homosexuals are compelled to distort history in a desperate attempt to legitimize their sexual deviancy.

The writer claimed that Alexander Hamilton and John Laurens carried on a homosexual relationship while serving as staff officers under George Washington, who was indifferent to their "affair." Nothing could be further from the truth.

We know the truth about George Washington's view of homosexuals in the military. In 1778, Washington learned that an officer under his command, Lt. Enslin, had attempted to commit an act of sodomy with a soldier. Washington had Enslin court-martialed and drummed out of the army, a demeaning sentence that forced a man to march slowly through the ranks of his fellow soldiers after having his buttons and insignia stripped from his uniform. As he passed, he experienced the disgust of his former comrades and the reality that he was not fit to serve his country.

Washington concluded his general orders with the statement: "His Excellency the Commander in Chief approves the sentence ... with abhorrence and detestation of such infamous crimes." Sexual deviancy was relevant to Washington.

Good reasons to vote against Obama

The letter of Dyke M. Wood Sr. ("Presidents always get training from on-the-job experiences," July 28) is perplexing. Wood suggests Barack Obama can be a good president in spite of having no leadership experience, as he can just surround himself with good folks and learn on the job.

Needing to learn leadership on the job and from advisers is a perfect reason not to vote for Obama.

Wood also poses a question to help us choose the better candidate by asking whom we would prefer, "The man who has had to put his men in harm's way, or the man who kept them out of harm's way?" Is Woods suggesting we should vote for Obama because he has no military experience and this will keep us out of conflict? If so, he must have failed Civics 101.

The U.S. Armed Forces go to war only when ordered by politicians and they alone put men, and women, in harm's way. Most politicians today have no military service and have not experienced the great personal costs of defending freedom. I would prefer a president who has been there and will not needlessly take us to war.

Obama is all about expediency

I read with interest Rodney K. Smith's essay on flip-flopping ("Good thing the Founders were flip-floppers," Aug. 3 commentary).

Much has been written about this of late, most in support of Barack Obama. Smith mentions past and present leaders who changed their minds as justification for recent flip-flops.

Great leaders do change positions, but normally based on their experiences. They see what works and what doesn't. And since they have accountability for failed policy, they learn from it and change their minds.

However, Obama had little experience when he burst on the scene in 2007. As a potential Democratic presidential nominee with no resume, his advisers wrote speeches dealing with "hope" and "change." And we learned nothing about him.

To gain support, he adopted the radical left positions of moveon.org. Then when Hillary Clinton challenged, he shifted toward the middle, hoping to stop her momentum. Now John McCain pulls even in the polls, so Obama moves right.

No one knows where he really stands on Iraq, the war on terrorism, negotiating with our enemies and now even on drilling for oil. This is politically expedient flip-flopping, pure and simple, and the nation is not served well by it.

Default to English for self-service

As a consumer and software developer, I'm growing tired of having to choose my language before I can proceed. Some of the ATMs and self-checkout machines in the Roanoke Valley are requiring you to select your language before you begin your transaction.

This is poor functional design on the developers' part and a bad business decision for the leadership that approved the design. It is also not an "English" thing, or a "this is America" thing. It's just a waste of time and a frustration for the majority of the users.

Bottom line: A public electronic machine should default to the national language of the country it physically resides in, then give users the option to change languages any time they want.