Editor:

This time of year last year propane prices were about $1.65 per gallon in Riverton; today they are about $2.50 per gallon. The big factor is the increased price of crude oil, as propane is derived from other petroleum products during oil or natural gas processing.

So we can add high home heating costs to a dozen free gifts from the Cheney/Bush administration:

1. Choosing military options (obviously not solutions) instead of diplomatic options in Iraq; is it really easier to fight than talk? Why have the power if you don't use it?

2. Two undeclared wars that will likely afflict the U.S. longer than the Korean conflict (58 years and counting).

3. More than 4,000 U.S. soldiers dead, estimates of 180,000 to 240,000 Iraqis dead from the violence, and some 2.5 million Iraqis homeless - President Bush started a war built on lies, and refuses to change course.

4. Pushed corn as biofuel, driving up the cost of corn and food worldwide.

5. Secrecy, secrecy, and more secrecy; including outsourcing U.S. military actions to Blackwater and others with no-bid contracts.

6. Persuading telecommunications companies to violate U.S. law with promises to "catch the paperwork up later."

7. Illegal detention and imprisonment and torturing (Guantanamo)

8. Creating a strong Al-Qaida in Iraq, through continued occupation; imagine what Wyoming people would do if we were so "occupied."

9. Increased the price of crude oil to nearly $150 per barrel, causing huge increases in the cost of food and plastic products and freight (and therefore most purchased items).

10. An alive and well Osama bin Laden.

11. Zero resolution of health care costs or its related unregulated tort process to citizens, immigration resolution to realistically deal with some 12 million undocumented aliens, or the continued antagonism between the two political parties at work in Washington.

12. A U.S. dollar that is worth less and less, like the reputation of America among the nations of the world.

This administration is supported in a virtually lock-step manner by our Wyoming delegation. If you like the state of the world as they've influenced it, vote for Enzi, Barrasso and whatever Republican replaces Cubin.

A Web site readers might find interesting is http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home.

NEIL AMSBAUGH, Riverton