Suncook Post Office, Maine Oxy of Hooksett, School Street Kindergarten & Day Care, Unitil of Hampton, Tender Years Childcare and Learning Center, Allenstown Animal Hospital, Mega-X, Gosselin Accounting, Kempo Karate, Curves of Allenstown, New Hampshire Exteriors, Suncook Family Health, Perfect-Fit Industries and Wal- Mart Distribution Center, Raymond.

Allenstown Health and Welfare was able to provide 146 children in eighth grade and under a thoughtful and generous experience from community resources. Great job, Allenstown contributors! It is this type of thoughtfulness and generosity from your businesses that keep a community together and more stable.

Much appreciation is to be given to volunteers within the community that made this possible. Sandy Mosley, Marie Calder, Margauette Hinkell- Beaulieu, Lorette Houle and an anonymous elf from Hooksett for their time and effort donated. Without the time and teamwork accomplished the process would not have been complete. Thank You all for making Christmas, Christmas.

May you all have a very prosperous New Year!

Marcella Mann-Hinkell
Allenstown Health & Welfare

Therefore, in June of this year, six New Hampshire citizens peacefully entered Sen. Judd Gregg's Concord office and politely asked for the senator to meet with them in a public forum to discuss an exit strategy for leaving Iraq. This was their sixth plea for holding such a meeting.

As the six waited for a response from Sen. Gregg, they read the names of U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq as well as the names of Iraqi civilians who also have died. Vowing not to leave the senator's office until he responded, the police were called and then arrested the six and took them in handcuffs to the Concord jail. They now await a trial in January for criminal trespass.

On Dec. 5, another group of citizens, this time, eight, went to Sen. Gregg's office and respectfully requested, for the seventh time, that our senator, Judd Gregg, schedule a future public meeting with them and the earlier group of six and the 250 New Hampshire residents, constituents, who signed a petition asking for such a forum. As in June, the office closing time of 5 p.m. approached, and again, the chief staff person asked the Concord eight to vacate the premises.

A spokesperson for the eight replied: "The situation in Iraq is an emergency as people are dying daily and for no good reason. We need a reply from the senator regarding a future public meeting. We are acting on conscience as we call for an end to the killing."

Shortly thereafter, the Concord police arrived and arrested the eight, as earlier, for "criminal trespass."

What are constituents to do if their elected officials fail to respond to their concerns, especially when it involves matters of life and death? All of us, as constituents of Sen. Gregg, should be outraged that this elected official is not responding to peaceful requests for a meeting.

Perhaps, the politically powerful senator ought to be reminded that he was "hired" to work for us, the people, and not the other way around. Our tax dollars help pay his salary, his office and his staff. To be unresponsive to citizens. calm and legitimate requests is for the senator to abdicate his civic duty and obligation as an elected public official.

Will Thomas
Auburn

Regarding the theory of evolution: There is absolutely no evidence that meet the requirements of science, it is not a "fact."

Of course, theory is not fact, as Mr. Ross correctly points out. In science, facts are observed phenomena. Theories are explanations of observed phenomena that have been shown to be accurate such that the scientific community has accepted them as valid.

A very large and growing body of observed evidence demonstrates that evolution did, indeed, happen. This evidence clearly shows a progression of ever more complicated species. The scientific community accepts this observed evidence as fact. The theory of natural selection is an explanation of the observed phenomenon of evolution. The scientific community has clearly accepted this theory as valid.

When you blow something up, it does not get more complex, as the "chaos theory" claims. Chaos theory does not make this claim. Chaos theory explains the observation that behavior of complex systems can vary greatly depending on even very tiny differences in starting conditions.

Matter can neither be destroyed, nor created. Energy is finite, there is only so much. Matter cannot make itself into something else, it can only decay into base elements. Matter can be converted into energy and energy into matter, as explained in Einstein's theory of relativity. Nuclear weapons demonstrate the conversion of matter into energy.

Even Isaac Newton's laws have remained intact, because they are scientific facts. This is not quite correct. Beginning with relativity and then quantum theory, it has been shown that in certain situations, Newton's laws break down and do not explain observed phenomena. But, Newtonian physics works well enough to predict the behaviors most folks have to deal with, so they are still considered valid in those areas.

Perhaps Mr. Ross should take solace in this: While he has not been able to prove the scientific community wrong on evolution, if even Newton's Laws can be shown to fail, there may yet be hope for science to someday disprove the theory of natural selection.

Michael Kohlbrenner
Hooksett

I use terms like balderdash, blather, preposterous, outlandish, ridiculous, foolish, and when really annoyed, ignorant, clueless, deceitful, and sometimes bleep. In response to Keith A. Tuson's letter, published Dec. 22, 2005, I must use lie! The first thing to pop into my head was the notorious name Joseph Goebbels of Nazi Germany fame. He was their chief purveyor of propaganda, who coined the phrase: "If you tell a lie big enough and often enough, it will be believed," just like Satan does. Goebbels. lessons were learned well, and are practiced by Planned Parenthood and their ally, Keith.

To say "for the record... unplanned pregnancies that are not the result of rape are almost never terminated by surgical abortions" is a bald-faced lie. I won't bother with the other indefensibly preposterous sentences. Fortunately, the truth is self-evident. Produce your sources for your blatantly false assertions. I went to the official Web site for The Centers For Disease Control, www.cdc.gov. Extrapolate the numbers. Notice the non-mention of rape as a factor used. Some tables used millions as units for abortions. Read and weep; I did, God does.

In California, they had reached a ratio of 525 abortions to 1,000 live births, before they stopped reporting. 1997 was the last year that all states reported. In the District of Columbia, they reached a ratio of 690. More troubling is I found that our lovely state of New Hampshire no longer reports either! This will not stand. I will knock, call, write and screech, if necessary, to change this. I challenge everyone reading this to get busy too.

Hey, Dick Marple, I demand a bill be introduced to require this reporting be done, immediately, and would like to find out if, and how I could address a public session.

Pardon the timing.

David Ross
Hooksett

David says that the Bible does not give the Earth an age of 6,000 years. Right again! Nowhere in the Bible is it stated that in 2000 A.D. the earth will be 6,000 years old! The 6,000-years-old figure comes from young-earth creationists, who calculated the age of the earth using the biblical listing of the generations from Adam on. With, at one time, humans romping about with dinosaurs, of course.

David says the Catholic Church believes in creationism. If he means by that that the Vatican rejects evolution, then he's wrong, and I refer him to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger who, a year before he became Pope Benedict XVI, called evolution and religion compatible: "We cannot speak of creation vs. evolution," he wrote, "but of creation and evolution." I've never heard of any creationists of the common varieties that accept that compatibility, though creationists do accept some changes within the species ("kinds").

No help from the qualified librarian. It was the June 29, 1987, edition of Newsweek that gave us the figure that only 700 out of 480,000 earth and life scientists believe in creationism (but I understand various Gallup polls have yielded similar figures). Doing the math, that means that 99.85 percent of earth and life scientists - the scientists with the deepest knowledge of the subject - accept evolution as proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

We should all pray for David with the same spirit that Galileo might have prayed for those poor benighted souls who were so adamant in their conviction that God had the sun circling the earth that they wanted to burn him at the stake. Still, I've just heard that half of the U.S. population doesn't even know whether the earth circles the sun or the sun the earth. Believe it or not, those are the same citizens who are asked by pollsters whether or not they believe in evolution! Call it science education at work, here in America.

Charles Beward
Candia

Already we have speed limits on our town roads to ensure the safety of those bicycling, roller blading, walking, jogging and pushing baby strollers, side-byside cars and trucks.

The proposed 45 mph daytime speed limit is plenty fast enough to waterski and to boat from one end of a lake to the other, while allowing enough reaction and stopping time to prevent collisions with objects and other lake enthusiasts.

The proposed 25 mph nighttime limit is plenty fast enough to move about at night, but at much slower speeds to compensate for the vastly challenged visibility that darkness on water brings.

The New Hampshire House of Representatives will be addressing this bill in January. Please call, write or e-mail your New Hampshire legislators before then and urge them to support House Bill 162 and the proposed 45/25 mph boating speed limits for New Hampshire. It will save somebody's life or limb.

Douglas Joseph, M.D.
Nashua