Why is it that with all the political geniuses out there, no one has come up with an idea to help with the heating oil crisis? Tapping into the petroleum reserve is a quick and unrealistic answer many of taxpayers don’t want to see. Besides, by the time all the red tape is cut, our furnaces will be off and we’ll be planting our flowers.

I give some credit to the Russians for sending a tanker to Iraq. They must have known it was wrong, but for reasons unknown they knew people were dying from the cold. The United States will survive, but wouldn’t it be great to have a backup when all else fails? The backup plan for Russia failed, but did it?

I don’t understand why each state couldn’t have some sort of reserve. Sens. Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe want to spend billions for new Navy destroyers which the Navy didn’t even request, and landed the contract for Bath Iron Works to build them. The heck with the ships, let’s get BIW to construct our own Maine oil reserves. We don’t even have to buy the land, just build it at the former Loring Air Force Base. Randy Carrow Hampden