Editor, Manteca Bulletin,
Apparently the local fringe is leaving little tidbits of misinformation on the breakfast napkins at Johnny’s. (Sept. 5 letter, “Save jobs, go to smaller cop cars” penned  by Gary Duran.)

Mr. Duran jumps from cop cars to the lottery, to health care for illegals, to Social Security, to the benefits of jail for the homeless, to snow storms of microwave energy.

First of all let’s address the size of Police cars and why they are needed. Mr. Duran points out that other countries use smaller cars, maybe that is because EVERYONE does. Could you imagine the effectiveness of our police using SMART cars and scooters? The videos taken of a car chase shown on COPS would be very short, don’t you think? How about weapons? Should we only issue police officers smaller weapons, say 22 caliber single shot rifles? That would save a bundle, don’t you think? Never mind that anybody with a rifle rack on his pickup can go down to Bass Pro Shops and pick up any manner of assault weapons that would make the Taliban giddy as Dick Cheney with a new torture device.

We just had a bank robbery in town where police were forced to fire several canisters of gas in order to apprehend the suspects. I imagine these gas canisters aren’t cheap. We probably could have saved some money if they had just sent in a cow and let it do what cows do best. Our police, firemen and service troops should have the best of everything, no question about it. Just because the Taliban have no helicopters or fighter jets, doesn’t mean we should deny them from our troops, don’t you think? Same goes for our police officers and firemen. Case closed.

Now to the tidbits of misinformation:

1. The Health Care Reform legislation being proposed does not have a provision for free health care for Illegal Aliens. Period. (wad up and toss napkin number 1).

2. Social Security benefits are not and never have been passed out to Illegal Aliens. Some Illegals have been known to obtain jobs using stolen or fake Social Security cards but it is impossible to obtain Social Security benefits without a valid Birth Certificate and more. This very paper has a weekly column every Sunday on Social Security concerns where that very question has been answered more than once as far as I can remember. (wad up and toss napkin number 2).

3. The advice to those who cannot afford decent health care, to just get arrested and go to jail where health care is free, is just ludicrous, period. (wad up and toss napkin number 3).

4. The claim that convicts from DVI sent to Doctors Hospital are somehow taking beds away from others and cutting in line at the emergency room  is just plain not true. Convicts are probably not going to be seen sitting in the ER waiting room but their care does not take precedence over anyone else, everyone is attended to according to their injuries or condition. They wait just like everyone else, except under guard. Convicts just don’t show up for care, the hospital knows in advance when they are coming and for what reason. (wad up and toss napkin number 4).

Now about the Microwave energy snow storms from tracking satellites, watching our every move. Well, maybe Johnny’s should start passing out aluminum foil hats for everyone considering reading the napkins.