Mailbag: Bicyclists, motorists make for a dangerous mix

I have no doubt that there are "many lies" concerning Islam on the Internet, so allow me to go over what's true. While most Muslims are exceptionally gracious and peace-loving people, anyone who wants to commit violence has perfect justification for doing so from the Koran.

While violence in the Koran is sometimes for self-defense, at other times it is open-ended. Many passages in the Koran exhort Muslims to hate or kill or terrorize infidels (non-Muslims) wherever they find them.

See Suras 2:190-193, 2:216, 2:244, 3:56, 3:151, 4:56, 4:74, 4:76, 4:89, 4:91, 4:95, 4:104, 5:51, 5:32-38, 7:96-99, 8:12-14, 8:39, 8:60, 8:65, 9:5, 9:14, 9:23-30, 9:38-41, 9:111, 9:123, 22:18-22, 25:52, 47:4, 47:35, 48:16, 48:29, 61:4, and 66:8-10. (Note: English translators of the Koran sometimes try to soften the true Arabic meaning of some of these passages. For example, to "fight" really means to kill in Arabic.)

There are dozens of violent prescriptive statements like those above in the Koran. Osama bin Laden in the now-famous videotape discovered in Afghanistan in late 2001 is quoted as saying, "I was ordered to fight the people until they say there is no god but Allah, and his prophet Muhammad."

Such calls to violence are not mere distortions of the Koran by extreme radicals who twist the Koran for their violent ends; violence is an integral part of Islam. Violence is Muslim doctrine. Just as many Christians are ignorant of what is actually in the Bible, many Muslims, like columnist Mona Shadia are not aware of such passages in the Koran.

Randle C. Sink

Huntington Beach

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Why I support Prop. 29

"I want to quit smoking," pleaded Paul Wells, 23 years of age. He was 5 when he, his brother and sister arrived in the United States from Poland after a long adoption process.

He had it all: a wonderful adoptive mother, the nation's safest city (Irvine) to live in, an excellent high school, new friends and relatives. However, his life took a bad shift when he lit his first cigarette. It never crossed in his mind that as teenager he would be so hooked on cigarettes.

Wells began smoking at 15. Since he put a cigarette in his mouth, his fingers have not stopped reaching for those tiny rolled-up papers containing harmful substances. He knows cigarettes are bad, but wishes he had had a real choice when he was a teenager.