Letters to the editor

Milking diet fads

As a dietitian, I’m not surprised at the debates surrounding the “dairy diet” (“Dairy industry sued for weight-loss ads,” Business, Wednesday). The facts do not support the industry’s outrageous statement that it hasn’t been promoting a “dairy diet.”

In fact, the dairy industry has spent millions on campaigns such as “24/24 Milk your diet. Lose weight.” One dairy industry TV commercial shows a glass of milk magically slimming to hourglass proportions. As of today, the National Dairy Council’s Web site continues to greet visitors with this message: “The latest research shows 3-4 servings of milk, cheese or yogurt each day help burn fat.”

However, the latest published study on this subject, conducted by Harvard Medical School researchers, found that children who drink more than three servings of even low-fat milk a day are 35 percent more likely to become overweight. The more milk children drank, the more weight they gained. More than two dozen other scientific studies have refuted milk producers’ self-serving claims about weight loss.

As more and more Americans struggle to control their weight problems, they don’t need a well-funded advertising campaign pushing another ineffective fad diet.

KIM SEIDL

Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

Washington

Energy tax shift

In “Energy piracy” (Commentary, Sunday), Alan Reynolds makes a strong case against the subsidy approach of the energy bill just passed by the Senate. If ethanol is the wrong choice because of a low or negative energy return, this subsidy makes us weaker rather than stronger. Likewise, subsidies for hybrid sport utility vehicles may not be the best use of our limited resources.

Mr. Reynolds is right that our subsidy-based approach to energy policy should be abandoned. However, relying on the market alone isn’t a sufficient approach, either. Our experience with past oil price shocks is that they happen quickly and that a 5 percent or 10 percent supply reduction can result in a doubling or tripling of prices.

Given that oil is finite and, hence, supply must at some point enter decline, we should not wait for the market to signal this to us. When oil production enters its inevitable decline, prices will rise and we will ship our wealth to the oil-exporting nations.

This could occur sooner rather than later, given that for about 20 years the world has been burning more oil than is being discovered and American oil production has been falling for more than 30 years. We need a policy to prevent this outcome.

We need a tax shift: Reduce taxes on payroll and income, and increase taxes on fossil fuels. Higher oil prices are inevitable, but we can capture that price increase in our own economy through such a tax shift.

A tax shift that results in higher oil prices would provide a market incentive to develop alternatives, both new energy sources and greater conservation. This is a different approach from the “choose the winners” subsidy of the energy bill. A tax shift providing income-tax relief and higher oil prices is exactly what our economy needs.

CARL HENN

Rockville

Understanding the rule of law

Thomas Sowell insightfully noted that “economists have been discovering the importance of law,” but then he demonstrated a profound lack of understanding of law, the rule of law and Americans’ use of foreign law in the other points he tried to make (“Foreign law fantasies,” Op-Ed, Saturday). Mr. Sowell mentioned “the rule of law” twice in the first three paragraphs with no clear context. I would like to offer some.

While on a panel discussing the important distinctions between U.S. laws and laws of other nations, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy once outlined the three essential elements needed for the “rule of law” to be effective. First, he said, the laws must be made and enforced by a democratic process. Second, they must be applied equally to everyone. Last, Mr. Kennedy insisted, the laws had to be protective of certain inalienable rights — rights that people have just because they are born. Not because they are white, American, Christian, male, members of a particular political party or income group. Without such a clear understanding of the rule of law, Mr. Sowell’s other points were based on fantasies.

First, almost every serious legal scholar concedes that the Constitution and Bill of Rights are based on Christian ideals, but few acknowledge that such ideals were not created in the United States. They are, in fact, “foreign” ideals — ideals brought to our shores by courageous foreigners. Even the Founding Fathers failed to reject the abomination of slavery that other, more civilized nations rejected during that time.

Second, “self government through elected representatives” is not “at the heart of American society.” Powerful restrictions on the potential abuse of government power was and should still be our core concern. The power of elected representatives (i.e. democratic power) must remain restricted by our Constitution and by appointed judges who understand this fine balancing of power as the true “heart of American society.”

Last, a proper reading of our Declaration of Independence will show that our nation’s Founding Fathers wanted “to assume among the powers of the earth … a decent respect to the opinions of mankind …” so as to ensure the maximum freedom and security of all people — not just Americans.

Mr. Sowell lives in a fantasy world if he thinks Americans are above or beyond the soundness of all foreign laws. The rule of law is at the heart of what it means to be American. Such law belongs to and should be applied by all humanity. Until Mr. Sowell and other American policy-makers accept this law of nature and nature’s God, our freedom and our security remain at risk.

CHUCK WOOLERY

Rockville

Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots

Notwithstanding the commitment of the Turkish Cypriots and their elected leadership to European Union membership, I would like to clarify that the “Cyprus” to which reference is made in the article “Parliament ratifies EU constitution” (World, Friday) is the Greek Cypriot administration of Southern Cyprus, which does not represent the Turkish Cypriots or the whole of the island.

As conclusively demonstrated by the separate, simultaneous referenda on the unification plan sponsored by the United Nations in April last year (in which the Turkish Cypriots overwhelmingly voted in favor of the plan while the Greek Cypriots rejected it) neither side has the authority or competence to represent or act on behalf of Cyprus as a whole. Political expediency was the reason the Greek Cypriot side unilaterally joined the European Union in spite of its rejective attitude in May last year; it had nothing to do with reality, legality or justice. Not a single Turkish Cypriot parliamentarian has taken part in this or any other decision of the “Parliament” that was usurped by the Greek Cypriots 40 years ago and has since been monopolized by them. Only a Cyprus settlement can produce a unified republic and legislature composed of both sides that could act on behalf of Cyprus as a whole. The decision of the Greek Cypriot House of Representatives, therefore, is not binding on the Turkish Cypriot people, who have their own democratically elected representatives.

Treating the Greek Cypriot side as if it were the sole legitimate authority on the island only emboldens it in its intransigence and mitigates against a political settlement, to which the Turkish Cypriot side remains firmly committed.

OSMAN ERTUG

Representative

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

Washington