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NOW THAT Senator John F. Kerry has agreed to pay the taxes on his yacht (“Kerry will pay Mass. tax on R.I. yacht,’’ Page A1, July 28), the media should now play “gotcha’’ with all the Massachusetts drivers who register vehicles out of state. Better yet, maybe it’s time to look at all the businesses in the state that avoid paying their fair share of local, state, and federal taxes. I suggest starting with all the hospitals that are nonprofit organizations, but seem to make millions. It would make Kerry’s tax total seem like a drop in the ocean.

The Senate has not acted on global warming for several reasons, but not because of scant public approval. Contrary to the July 12 front-page story, public support for action on climate change remains strong. The Post's own June poll found that 71 percent favor action to "regulate the release of greenhouse gases" -- an increase since your poll in December. Americans clearly want investments in clean-energy jobs and to slash climate pollution. Whether 60 senators listen, or 41 follow big oil, is the real question.

Over the years the federal government has become the powerful central government the Anti-Federalists feared. Issues such as mandatory health care, expanding welfare programs, government takeover of private industry and an insurmountable national debt created by our elected representatives have Tea Party members as mad as hornets.

Change will not happen until we stop corporations and unions from giving money to senators and congressmen for their million-dollar election campaigns. We all have seen congressmen pick up lush jobs when they leave Congress.

Regarding poll findings about climate change, Mr. Krosnick posits that his question is more legitimate than others. It is but one approach and hardly ideal. The question’s preamble is “you may have heard about the idea that the world’s temperature may have been going up slowly” and then asks whether this is “probably” happening. Such wordings often encourage a positive response: this is known in the polling world as acquiescence bias.

More than 90 percent of all scientific communities worldwide acknowledge that climate change is in fact man-made and the threats it poses are imminent. Unfortunately, this knowledge is often lost in translation, as a 2009 survey of the Pew Research Center for the People

In the Metro section on Mother's Day were two photos of children playing in U.S. war machines. The photos took up nearly a quarter of a page, with no explanation for being featured other than the inane headline "All gung-ho near the Capitol in recognition of public service."

In contrast to the methodology of that study, the only way to determine charter school success is to compare the achievement of students in a charter school with the achievement of students in the public school they would have otherwise attended.

He agreed to an increase in the regressive sales tax. Local aid is highly dependent on an even more regressive tax we like to call the lottery. The governor continues to support casino gambling. Meanwhile, his modest attempts to close corporate tax loopholes have led him to lower the corporate tax rate.

As a recent visitor to Israel, I want to commend you for the article describing nonviolent resistance to Israeli authority by Palestinians. The article, however, should not have characterized it as a “new approach.” Much of the resistance during the first intifada was nonviolent, including a tax revolt in Beit Sahour. Nonviolent protests against the separation wall in Bilin have occurred weekly since 2005.