Miles:

A popular expression these days is "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."  In California, the voters have put the Democrats in charge of the Senate every year since 1970 and in charge of the Assembly every year since 1970 except for the 1995-96 session.  We know the State is in dire economic straits with a massive deficit, high unemployment, 48th worst in the nation in taxes, Silicon Valley start-ups face a 40.7% tax rate, many bad roads due to diversion of gas taxes to other spending and local governments facing deficits and layoffs.  Perhaps it is time for voters to give Republicans and Independents a shot at controlling the Senate and Assembly for a few sessions.  You can always go back to insanity.

- Ronald Brackney

Re: Milestones

You last column demonstrated that you are the thoroughbred of city thought, while most of us are grunting donkeys.  The brown pot licker of opposition to the stadium really has to be thrown out in the backyard since there is only one hogweed of nay saying left to bore our residents with his fuzzy math.  For the past month, serious financial information has been presented that shows that the Santa Clara stadium is attracting heavy investment, brisk suite sales, and also important vendors stepping up to develop the project.  The stadium is part of Santa Clara, as is Great America, and many other efforts made for economic development.  Run free, and fast, Miles, while the slow-witted turtles bailey forth addicted to rhetorical locoweed.

James Rowen

Unfortunately, Santa Clara wasn't able to have a Fireworks display this July 4th. Fortunately, there were still a number of legal fireworks displays to watch this year. However, it was also a year that had more illegal fireworks than I can ever remember. I heard that the Santa Clara Police were going to try and catch some of those doing the illegal fireworks - I hope that they were successful. It is a little disheartening that more and more of our city residents are using illegal fireworks. It is difficult to expect that our police and fire departments would be able to keep the city free of fireworks injuries and fireworks related fires. I would encourage all residents not to give into the temptation of using illegal fireworks, and to encourage any neighbor to not use illegal fireworks. It is disappointing that our citizens do not comply with the local laws.

Alan Eft