Gabe and Lori Theander authored a My Turn published on Feb. 28; they dealt with the need for state transparency and in particular "chemtrails." Unfortunately, they say that ... "if we ask questions about a danger or risk, truth must come in the answer." That's the Edward Snowden truth at any cost belief. They say, "Our state representatives are supposed to be here to serve the citizenry." Leaving aside any question of State vs. Federal, our elected officials are there to represent the public not serve it.

Winston Churchill once wrote, "In wartime truth is so precious that she must be attended by a bodyguard of lies." We are at war. Not just against terror, but a clandestine war fought on the Web, fought by human intelligence agents, and on the markets of the world. Would the Theanders have argued for a complete intelligence briefing on the risks of the Manhattan Project if there had been a radiation leak at Hanford in 1943? That would have given Hitler two years knowledge that we were building atomic weapons.

They then progress to the bizarre notion that the Federal government must be truthful because of biblical teachings. Sorry, folks. The U.S. is a secular state. While officers of the government must live with their consciences, the process of state is based on an agreement among the people of America; Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Atheist and all of the other shades of belief.

Then they make a turn-around and argue the government is open in cases of danger to the population. Except ... for chemtrails from which one of them claims to suffer dire effects. They then give a shopping list of symptoms caused by unmarked white aircraft. On that, they claim a cover-up.

I have a solution for this apparent contradiction. It doesn't even involve the safety of the United States. There are no chemtrails, not one. If you check their sources, they found their data on the Web and radio. We all know how reliable the Internet is.

In fact the one source they give: geoengineering.org isn't even Google-able. Let's do a small exercise. The Earth's land surface is around 57.5 million square miles to drop one pound of chemicals on each square mile and using planes carrying 100 tons apiece we would need we would need around 2,875 flights. Do you really think the Russians are going to let, say, 900 chemical spraying aircraft drop poisonous chemicals on their ground? Really, American chemical attack craft?

Let's look at the one quantifiable claim they make. "... because of continuous chemical assault, 'vast swaths of America now see little or no sunlight.'" In so far as this is true I'd blame the Koch brothers rather than mysterious aerial sprayers. However, we can check this. Total Solar Irradiance, the amount of sunlight reaching the ground has, according to the University of Colorado at Boulder, remained steady or even climbed over the past 40 years.

The Theanders complain when they take their case to the main stream media they are accused of anti-government paranoia. I don't think they're paranoid, naive about sources, perhaps but not paranoid. Whichever one of them suffers the symptoms is legitimately ill.

While there are cases when the government may legitimately withhold information or even lie, I do not think chemtrails are one of those cases. I personally feel the evidence is that there are no such things as chemtrails. They are a fiction of the Internet and talk radio. While most people who believe in such things are honest, and even honestly suffering from other causes, the people selling the concept are either deluded or crooks.

Jeff Bourget is a Coeur d'Alene resident.