Comments by Ken King
July 15, 2007
Jimmy, hoping for fair play from the gang running HMB and Mr. Muteff and friends is a non starter. They say whatever it takes to knock their opponents down be it fair or unfair. Call it what it is, a syndrome, but it is their rule of engagement. Regarding the Gale appeal, you wrote eloquently about it Friday, so I copied part for this thread. This regards Mayor Patridge's commissioner Roman's claim that Gale having to build a two-story house to reduce his project's footprint is not a "feasible alternative."…
July 14, 2007
second part . . . If you read Muteff first, you saw his paranoid reference to local "snakes” and perfidy. Permit me to wonder in turn how Gale became the cause celebre for the development crowd? Could it be that Mr. Gale was purposely misguided and sorely misused by our city in the risky enterprise of suborning its own law? This council majority and its retooled planning commission imagine that the law is, or should be, permeable. Their feelings about this do not substitute for sound arguments,…
July 14, 2007
George Muteff posted his view of the meeting on the Review’s site. http://talkabout.hmbreview.com/topic.php?t=575&c=10 Despite the picture Mr. Muteff paints, he, council members Patridge and McClung, the planning department staff and consultants were not fighting this out for the little guy, but instead using Gale’s project as a Trojan horse to overturn HMB's long-established Local Coastal Plan that prohibits building in wetland buffer zones. This was the slippery slope the city, under the current…
June 05, 2007
Ginna quote: "The City has the upper hand here, folks." It has the power to DEFAULT on its agreement and take the hit on its credit rating, which the majority obviously doesn't think is a problem. Is anyone else naive enough to think that this won't seriously impact the City's ability to obtain cheap credit in the future?
May 27, 2007
As someone who has scrambled from the beach to bluff top on various occasions, I'm glad that access will be closed off and revegitated. I merely did it, like Bill Clinton, because I could, not because it was imperative in any way at all. Though accomplishing this with the lightest tread and careful balance in order not to disturb the meager plant life along the "trails," I knew deep down that even I was making an impact, and the slopes were obviously melting like icecream due to frequent human use.…
May 10, 2007
We're all capitalists here, and if you can do good, or assume the appearance of doing good, while making a buck, that's better than the alternative. Walmart hasn't generated any other ethical headlines of late, if you haven't noticed.
Call concern about climate change a "craze," it will bring sustainable and cheaper energy sources than the $5/gallon gas and heating bills we're soon to be facing.
May 08, 2007
When Big Businesses like Citybank, GE and Walmart incorporate climate change into their capital budgeting process, you know that they've reviewed the evidence thoroughly and objectively because of the dollars and cents involved. Avowed market boosters should recognize that Business is responding 180 degrees differently than the Bushies. For your consideration: "Citigroup Inc. (C) said it will spend $50 billion over the next 10 years on investments, financings and related activities designed to address…
May 07, 2007
An iconoclast, Alexander Cockburn thrives on controversy, and he's not afraid to go over the top, as in this silly statement from his essay: "There is still zero empirical evidence that anthropogenic production of CO2 is making any measurable contribution to the world's present warming trend." Here's a counterexample: Kump's "Reducing Uncertainty about CO2 as a Climate Driver," Nature 419, 2004. Many others exist. Cockburn enlists Martin Hertzberg, a retired US Navy meteorologist to bolster his position:…
May 04, 2007
Citing Cockburn as a liberal who happens not to believe in global warming is a falacious appeal to authority because he's not a scientific authority. The missing premise in Perkins' argument is that belief in human-influenced climate change is a liberal conspiracy to stop economic progress and human freedom. The problem is that it's not a liberal idea, it's been an emerging fact for thirty years but it's taken this long to gain public attention, largely because of special interest backed oposition…
May 03, 2007
Mike Perkins reminds me of Wolfgang Pauli's quip about someone who held a different view from his, that "he's not even wrong." That fits someone who willfully ignores a mountain of evidence to locate picayune and sundry authorities who agree with him. The Cockburn link is mere junk, Mr. Perkins. Alexander Cockburn is a colorful and opinionated personality who is sometimes perceptive in his political judgments, but that does not make him an authority in scientific matters. Here he offers no evidence,…
April 22, 2007
Mike Perkins, the Michaels article you refer us to is ten years old, and that is supposed to convince us of what?
April 20, 2007
Ahem, back, Mike Perkins. There are two strong research universities in the U of Alabama system, Mobile and Birmingham. Note that Huntsville, where Spencer holds his position, is not one of them. Spencer admits (in the second paragraph) that "he knows he is in the minority with his opinions." To be clear about what constitutes a "minority" in this case, almost NO scientists who conduct peer-reviewed research deny that global warming is occurring, or that it is caused by humans. The annual increase…
April 14, 2007
Hey, Mike! Don't go away mad, and don't go away. Your ironic touch would be missed. As a libertarian and freethinker, you should not be surprised that many folks arrive at different opinions than yours. We have the freedom to do that in this country, and this forum allows the opportunity for diverse folks to sound off. Stick around, please. To keep us "libs" stirred up if nothing else.
April 12, 2007
Thank you for the correction, Darin! You'll appreciate Flannery's book, I guarantee it. Sorry to confuse things for those paying attention.
Flannery is from New Zealand, btw, and has plenty of information about Austalia's energy and land use patterns that affect its ongoing drought. The govenment there has been even more obdurate in the face of its environmental problems than has the Bush administration, if you can feature that.
April 11, 2007
Whoever Camille Paglia is? Pawning off Ms. Paglia's views about climate when she is actually an ideologically-driven social critic poorly positioned to evaluate physical science is a dismal counter to the mass of scientific evidence on global warming. Anyone who imagines that global warming is a cyclical occurrence needs to increase their scientific understanding of why what's happening today is different from anything the world's experienced before. Timothy Ferris's book, The Weather Makers, an…
April 09, 2007
We can assume "present trends continuing" refers to conclusive evidence of global warming like polar sea ice melting that the Bush administration recently confirmed in opting to push for polar bears as a threatened species (Washingtom Post, December 27, 2006), or the U.N.Intergovernmental Climate Panel's comprehensive report in February about human impact on climate. The jury has been in on this subject for some time.
January 31, 2007
Surprise! A red herring from Mr. Ginna. The parkland disparaged by he and the CCF clique might have been an asset like parks in other communities. With the felling of the pines along 92, the immense potential of that unused land at the entrance of our town is breathtakingly apparent. What a waste because the faction in power, who would prefer seeing condos on it, chooses to do nothing at all. This has nothing to do with its cost, btw. Property costs money and this was cheap by any standard, particularly…
January 30, 2007
This is a reasonable view and is not demanding too much from our council members to be prudent in their actions.
January 19, 2007
Mayor Patridge stands bathed in the light of Mr. Ginna's dispensing grace--his non sequitur was barely noticeable. Lucky there is an available knight errant to defend HMB's fair mayor
January 18, 2007
Mr. Ginna: "there must be a reason for the sudden interest in non-HMB residents serving on HMB commissions." Um, yes, interest was fueled by the mayor's sudden move to change a legal precedent of fifteen years' duration, with a nonchalant admission that it might disenfranchise Mid Coast residents, who, while not voting in HMB, do shop, attend school and obtain services in HMB. Here's an exchange from Tuesday's nights council meeting on the topic: GRADY: "I think we should remain inclusive by keeping…
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