Gazette’s many improvementsHurray for the “new” Gazette. You have made many improvements starting with the “Opinion” section. Now I have reasons to read all of the paper — not just scan the obits. I won’t need to renew my subscription to the Denver Post, because you cover all the news.Carolyn Robertson, Colorado SpringsThanks for the memoriesThanks for John Cunningham’s article in Fresh•Ink about Shakey’s Pizza Parlor. It brought back memories of many birthday parties there with my buddies, eating pizza and drinking root beer. It was a fun place, and I seem to recall a player piano. Shakey’s was actually divided into two sections, one for the younger crowd and one for the bar crowd.There was another one on the west side where The Mason Jar is now.I can still imagine it.Chris Jones, Colorado SpringsQuestioning letter’s accuracyIn response to Dan Thomasson: In his letter of Dec. 31, Thomasson refers to a “magazine that holds 30 bullets that a battlefield-style assault weapon can spit out as fast as one can say NRA” in the context of appearing to describe the weapon used by the madman shooter. I say “appearing”, because what Thomasson is describing is a machine gun, while a minute of research would reveal not only that the Newtown shooter used no such weapon, but that, Al Capone aside, no mass murderer in this country has ever used a machine gun. And perhaps Thomasson is unaware that the very term “assault weapon”, as used in victim-disarmament legislation and by victim-disarmament advocates, simply means “military-look rifle.”Of course, if one’s goal is to mislead people into thinking we’re talking about machine guns, then terms such as “assault weapon”, or, even better, “battlefield-style assault weapon”, are much more useful than “military-look rifle”. Finally, I wonder if Thomasson, who seems to believe the death toll would have been significantly reduced had the shooter not had a high-capacity magazine, understands that the few seconds it takes to change a magazine is irrelevant when no one else is armed — his apparent preference.Robert Herzfeld, Colorado SpringsThis is not an entitlementEntitlement by definition is giving benefits to a group of people by legislation, but does that definition hold true if the group of people have paid into the entitlement program?I have been paying into this supposed entitlement for over 40 years, so no one is really giving me anything but what I have already being paying for. In my mind, this is not an entitlement. We should encourage our congressional leaders to stop considering it an entitlement.Social Security is one of the more solvent government programs. It is solvent until 2030. Can we say that for other entitlements?The other side of the coin is subsidies. This is where government gives a benefit (money) to the producers or consumers of a specific product. This gets into the supply and demand cycle and can artificially affect that cycle. If the product is cheap enough it encourages consumption and production. Those producers did not have to pay into the subsidy program like the common citizen has for Social Security. The government just provides them a benefit (money).Maybe our congressional leaders really should be looking at subsidies and not Social Security. Here are some possibilities subsidies that could be on that list:• End the tax breaks on firms that outsource jobs overseas.• Remove the subsidies for oil and gas firms who in 2010 received over $409 billion in subsidies. Wasn’t that the year of our highest gas prices?• If we are looking at mortgage tax elimination, start with second homes first.• Farm subsidies? Agriculture (even with the big business farming) have a tough time with weather conditions so I waver a little on those. The exception is paying farmers not to plant certain crops.• Look at closing the loophole for off-shore bank accounts.Catherine Sellers, Colorado SpringsThe Supreme Court gets itHow unfortunate that so many people are misinformed about Obamacare being linked to an abortion morning-after pill. They are confusing Plan B — covered in Obamacare — with RU-486 which contains a synthetic steroid that interferes with the body’s production of progesterone, necessary to sustain pregnancy. RU-486 in not covered in Obamacare, nor is abortion, except in the limited situations of saving a mother’s life or in cases of rape or incest, should this option be sought. This has been made available by the federal government for decades. Decades, under both political administrations.Plan B, covered in Obamacare, inhibits or delays ovulation. It cannot cause a spontaneous abortion. This bears repeating. It is not a pill to cease pregnancy.Hobby Lobby just wants to get out of Obamacare and certainly out of any aspect of birth control coverage so they have concocted this myth — this lie to successfully stir up emotional sentiments of others who have not received the facts. Happily, the Supreme Court gets it. To that end, this religious-touting company that is opposed to paying for women’s health care concerning reproduction, but not opposed to ‘bearing false witness,’ is willing to pay a daily $1.3 million fine.Well, it’s their company and if they wish to be silly and gamble with their profits that’s their business. But the rest of us don’t have to be dragged into this gross misinformation thinking it has a grain of truthful merit.Micheale Duncan, Monument