Once again gasoline prices are skyrocketing, and once again at the beginning of the vacation season. We are told that supply and demand causes the price hike.

Why is it, as opposed to the oil industry raising their prices in anticipation to high demand, grocery stores welcome vacation time and holidays by having sales and lowering prices for picnic staples? This is the kind of supply and demand which makes sense to me!

Why is it that, even though there are different brands of gasoline, and I am assuming different refineries for each, all the stations show pretty much the same increase?

Since oil companies keep listing high profits, it is difficult to understand the price hikes at the drop of a hat and seemingly for no reasons.

Robert Ponte, Lincoln

Judge makes bad call

With all due respect, the judge was just plain wrong with the “not guilty” verdict regarding Shane Tilley. This sends out a message to all of our hundreds of kids that it is OK to do illegal drugs, get real high and then go commit a crime. You won’t be held accountable for your actions.

Of course Shane was insane at that moment. Of course his dad didn’t “know” him that morning. He was higher than a kite, but he choose to be that way. He took all those pills to get a high. He choose to alter his mind for a period of time. That’s just it. It was just for a period of time. He is not insane. He was just high and should be held accountable for his actions. He took a life and we will never see Andy Lubben again.

This is just so disturbing to me. Andy Lubben was a wonderful person. He would do anything for anyone and always offered to do so. That is why he was there with Shane that morning. I believe Andy was there to try and take care of his “friend.” Andy and my son went to Shane’s house not two months earlier to spend Christmas with him because they didn’t want him to be alone.

This whole case has just been so disturbing. Now the judge is sending Shane to the Regional Center where he has already been and found competent. Now what? A little counseling and send him on his way? What about the Lubbens and their son? Is there any justice in Lincoln, Nebraska? What has this world come to?

Tammy Curry, Lincoln

Big buses are overkill

The city of Lincoln’s public transportation system needs a serious look at by the mayor and those involved in trying to balance the city budget. Nine million dollars is spent every year for public transportation; only $1.3 million is generated by the users.

Break those numbers down, it comes to $28,754 spent every day, and only $4,153 brought in, based on 313 days used in a year. It is probably worse than the numbers already given, since the recent fuel cost increases. Does the city try to find the least expensive source for fuel for those huge city buses?

Am I the only one who has observed that these buses are almost always empty or only two passengers riding between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.? Having these huge city buses that are fuel inefficient to haul two people around is like a pharmacy using a 5-ton truck to deliver a couple prescriptions to a resident.

You do not need a sledge hammer to kill a gnat. No one in business would have the equipment and example listed above for that sole purpose. The city would do a lot better if it was run like a business.

A solution would be smaller buses and less frequent scheduled trips. People would adapt if there were fewer trips made with these buses. Two examples already exist to prove that: airline flights and train rides. You miss your scheduled departure, you miss your trip.

The only time I have seen these buses full are for the six or seven home NU football games. And we do not even need these huge buses for that. The city could lease school buses from Lincoln Public Schools for those six or seven days. The school buses hold more passengers, and the LPS system is always looking for more money.

Herb Welter, Lincoln

Let’s just ban everyone

I feel compelled to reply to Benjamin Kruse’s letter, “Single, male, homeless,” (LJS, May 16).

He wishes to remove transients from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln union area, and perhaps the campus itself, I am not sure which. His reason for wanting this is puzzling. He states, “some of these transients are sex offenders and some have violent criminal backgrounds.” My question is this: How do you know that?, and which ones have the violent/sexual backgrounds?

I don’t know if there is or is not a vagrancy problem on campus. But I do know that trying to remove a group of people because some of them may be trouble is wrong. If we searched the enrollment records and employee list of UNL, we would certainly find that “some of these (students and staff) are sex offenders and some have violent criminal backgrounds.” Perhaps we should close the university. Otherwise, we cannot ensure that the downtown is a “family-friendly area, where families can shop …”

For that matter, more than a couple of Lincolnites have violent criminal backgrounds (including sexual offenders). Maybe we should disband the city.

Our only alternative is to treat people as individuals, and deal with the troublemakers on an individual, case-by-case basis. It is not a perfect system, but it does give the police and courts something to do with their time.

And, by the way — isn’t everyone who resides in a dormitory legally a transient, because they do not have permanent, year-round residency?

Joe Gores, Lincoln

Opinion versus fact

Lincoln East student Dan Cramer complains that his history teacher, Michael Baker, downgraded his paper for arguing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (letter, May 15). Well, duh! Of course his teacher downgraded his paper. There’s no credible evidence that Iraq had WMDs, or active programs to develop them, since the country was forced to relinquish them in the early- to mid-1990s.

Cramer can wish that Iraq had WMDs. He can hope that some day there will be proof that Iraq had WMDs after all. But in the meantime, he can’t ignore the substantial evidence that Iraq didn’t have any WMDs when we attacked it.

As I tell my students, everyone is entitled to his own opinions, but no one is entitled to his own facts. If citizens won’t acknowledge the facts, democracy, which requires informed citizens, won’t work.

John Gruhl, Lincoln