Gas is still a deal in U.S.

With the media stirring the pot, American motorists are having fits over the price of fuel. Politicians who know zilch about economics but everything about self-promotion blame it all on the evil oil companies. You can bet the solutions they've proposed will make matters worse.

It might be enlightening to see where the American consumer stands in the global motor fuel price picture. While we whine about the price of regular unleaded gas at $3.62, other countries are worse off.

In Sierra Leone, with the highest prices, one gallon costs $18.42. In Norway, at No. 5, you would pay $8.73. In No. 10 Belgium, the price is $8.22. Well down the list is our northern neighbor, Canada, at $5.40.

With the world spot market price at, say, $116 per barrel, the crude oil price of a gallon of refined gasoline is $2.76. At $3.62 per gallon at the pump, that leaves 86 cents available for transportation of crude oil to the refinery, refining and processing, cost of additives, transportation to distributors and retailers, marketing costs, taxes and profit.

Maybe we should commend our oil companies rather than condemning them.

-- Bruce Wencel, Madison

When I was a student at UW-Madison, I used to live in the Mendota Court apartment named "worst house in Madison" last week by the Student Tenant Union. I write to defend landlord Patrick Corcoran.

Sure, it's old and the walls are a bit thin, but that's Madison for you. I had a very different experience with Corcoran compared to other landlords. I never had any problems. If anything was ever wrong, he responded with kindness, never indifference or blame, like other landlords in that area do.

Being a UW-Madison graduate, I have a keen sense of what's anti-establishment, and Corcoran is the opposite of "establishment." He is probably one of the last small-time property owners in that area, and it's a shame he's been given so much grief over something that's probably been exaggerated.

Yes, safety should always come first. However, I seriously doubt that he waited long to fix the problem complained about and which subsequently contributed to the break-in.

Patrick Corcoran is one of a kind as far as landlords go. It's personal with him, not impersonal like some others. He's flexible -- he allowed me to have my ferret! I would rent that apartment again if I were in the area, and I'm not even a college student anymore.

-- Shanae Reed, Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Missionary attests to power of prayer

A Friday letter claiming "Nothing fails like prayer" couldn't be more mistaken.

I have spent nearly 20 years as a missionary overseas, and I have seen miraculous answers to prayer time and again, including healings that took place before my eyes.

The error in the case of Madeline Neumann was that her parents apparently thought that prayer is the only way God heals. But the Bible does not teach such a dichotomy. God is in favor of life, and so is the medical profession. Both appear in the Bible.

I, too, am sorry for the tragic death of the child and the error that caused it. But to deny the existence of God and his genuine answers to prayer is equally erroneous. I can assure you from personal experience that when there is no doctor, it is very good to know how to pray.

-- the Rev. Chuck Jonas, Madison

We're blighting Iowa with ugly wind farm

I read that a $251 million wind farm will be located in Iowa for Milwaukee-based utility Wisconsin Public Service Corp. These are the sort of dollar decisions being foisted upon the public by our utilities. At $251 million for 66 wind turbines, that's $3.8 million for each unsightly tower.

The cost versus benefit model is negative. The electricity produced sporadically by each wind tower is way too costly to justify the investment of $3.8 million. At $3.8 million per wind turbine, the promoter profit is obvious.

Our utility companies should not be allowed to "invest" in questionable products that cannot be supported by positive economics. Wind chargers do not reliably create electricity, as we proved back in the 1930s. Let's not seek cheaper, more efficient power by regressing to failed history.

The Netherlands is home of charming windmills. The United States will not become charming with iron wind turbines on every scenic hill or plain. We endure the visual blight; the promoter takes the cash. And we pay again later to remove the iron and steel from our hills and plains.

I support protecting our environment as we struggle to provide power to our citizens. Apply the consuming public's dollars responsibly, seeking true replacement methods of creating electricity. That $251 million could fund a lot of energy research.

And pleasant natural landscapes are part of our environment. I have always enjoyed our Big Ten competition with Iowa, sometimes to my competitive disappointment. But I would never want to blight Iowa's landscape.

-- Dwight E. Ziegler, DeForest

Hard to deny the success of the surge

Shane Sanderson's Friday guest column concerning the war in Iraq, "It's time for a new Kool-Aid," demonstrates that being a combat veteran doesn't necessarily mean you know how to evaluate a war.

He dismisses the success of the surge as just an administration talking point. Yet the violence is undeniably lower, the Iraqi government is making political progress (if more slowly than we would like) and they are trying to neutralize the private militias.

The media made much of the military failure of the Iraqi move against al-Sadr's militia in Basra, but they have neglected the fact that it turned into a significant political victory. The Sunnis and Kurds have been favorably impressed by the willingness of a Shiite-dominated government to even try an attack on al-Sadr's forces.

Sanderson claims that Sen. John McCain is "parroting the company line." In fact, McCain harshly criticized Bush's conduct of the war before the surge. Sanderson even repeats Sen. Barack Obama's distortion of McCain's "100 years" remark -- twice.

Sanderson was in Anbar province in 2005 where he saw how bad things were. He is apparently unaware that Anbar province has been one of the great success stories of the surge. He says we must search for the truth, but he needs to look a little harder himself.

-- Wayne Shockley, Brooklyn

Darling should attend to pressing matters

The remarks of Sen. Alberta Darling, R-River Hills, in a Monday article that correctional officers are "abusing" taxpayers to fatten our own pocketbooks are absurd.

I'm a sergeant at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage and a member of the union board. We eliminated the right to overtime for 24 hours for any officer who used sick leave.

What the findings did not say was that there are other reasons for using sick leave, such as maternity leave, funerals and for the extended care of an ill family member.

If Sen. Darling wants to know what constitutes abuse and a practice that is "totally unacceptable," she should be the parent of an autistic child whose insurance coverage is withheld. These children are put on waiting lists for months, even years, before they are given any treatment or services, and their families are under the financial burden of paying out-of-pocket.

Sen. Darling and her Republican cohorts had the chance to fix this issue, by following Gov. Doyle's lead in making the insurance companies cover these expenses, but failed to do so. Instead, they have chosen to "abuse" the families dealing daily with this horrible condition.

Maybe Sen. Darling and others in elected office should worry more about the problems these individuals face and less about state employees using the benefits they have fairly bargained for.

-- Dwayne Vilwock, Portage