• What’s the rush?
• Save the Sagos
• Scientist are affected by their world view!
What’s the rush?
The Kauai County Planning Commission is reviewing a Special Management Area (SMA) Use Permit for Moloa’a Bay Ranch. The public has documented years of illegal tree cutting, burning, grubbing and grading. State and local notifications were ignored. Fines were paid and the illegal activity continued until the SMA hillside gave way. Photos show mud flowing for years and Moloa’a Bay looking like a chocolate milkshake. One residence was inundated by mud and MBR owner Tom McCloskey paid for the resident’s relocation.
MBR wants to again grade steep portions of the SMA and construct roads — despite these past mudflows.
MBR wants to fence along the deeded public trail and claim it is private. MBR wants to use Koolau Japanese Cemetery property for access despite Kauai Planning Department notification that this access is illegal.
Today nature has healed and the mudflows have abated.
MBR says sale of the property is not pending.
MBR says building is not pending.
Nonetheless MBR claims urgency in closing the public hearing. WHY?
What’s the rush to exclude the public?
If the public is not allowed voice, the public’s interests are easily lost — it’s as simple as that.
- Jennie Loke Pereira
Moloa’a
Save the Sagos
I am distressed at the Sago palm disease in our state of Hawai’i. It was introduced in the mid-90s.
It is a scale that can spread rapidly from one Sago palm to another. It can be treated if caught early on.
I use Volk oil, a oil used for spraying fruit trees during the winter, every 10 days. I alternate with a Pyrethrin spray, an extract derived from an African chrysantheum. Pyrethrin is the ingredient in flea and tick spray.
The Volk oil suffocates the scale and the Pyrethrin works to paralyze and kill the scale on contact.
The oil and Pyrethrin can be bought at any hardware store.
If your Sago is totally brown you can cut the fronds off, being careful to put them in an air tight bag, and brought to the dump. Don’t add it to your compost pile. The remaining cone must be treated with Volk oil and the Pyrethrin spray.
It saddens me to see so many Sago palms take a dive when a simple solution can save them.
- Richard Porto
Princeville
Scientist are affected by their world view!
We are always governed by our assumptions. If a scientist does not believe in God, then his starting point of atheism will be bound to affect his judgment as he looks at the world around him. If his mind is closed to the possibility of a designer, his own assumption will force him to adopt what to many will seem an unlikely explanation for what he observes. We should not be surprised to find arguments being used to stretch the imagination and are based on little concrete evidence, since last thing that the natural man will wish to admit is design. Often assumptions are cleverly hidden behind so called evidence. It is not necessarily the case that these scientific writers are insincere. There conclusions are the product of a mind set which is deeply rooted by atheistic humanism that they are barely aware that their assumption of there being no external influences in the Universe has been the major factor affecting their conclusion.
A good example of this type of thinking is the rotation of our own planet. The world we live on is remarkable in its delicate balance of atmosphere, oceans, tides and energy from the sun. The fact that the moon is just the right distance from the earth so as not to leave stagnant oceans on one hand or give daily tidal waves on the other is a witness to design, yet some scientist turn to the notion that earth itself has mysteriously controlled its own environment and atmosphere to sustain life. Romans 1:28 speaks very clearly of the nature of natural man, that “they did not like to retain God in their knowledge.” No scientist is without bias. He will always be colored by his or her world view. Every scientist, if he or she is honest knows there has to be a starting point. The evolutionist, can in the end, only be definite about one fact, that he has no idea where we are from, no idea where we are going or why we are here. What a contrast to the Bible centered view which teaches why there is sin and death and gives a lasting and secure hope to a fallen race through Christ alone.
(excerpts taken from “Genesis For Today” by Dr. Andy McIntosh, University of Leeds)
The real leap of faith
The debate over intelligent design (God creation) or evolution continues to rage. Which prompts me to ask: why does human kind take such interest in the existence of a God when the evidence clearly shows that our interest is not reciprocated? Millions of people have been needlessly wiped out by tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, epidemics, wars, famine, etc. I mean, how difficult would it be for a God to send down some rain to drought stricken regions where children are starving to death?
Does this give evidence of an all-powerful, all-merciful God? It appears to me that if there is an intelligent creator, it cannot or is not interested in controlling its creation. All the praying done over the millennia has not stopped one war, one earthquake or won one football game. If there be a God, reason and observation demonstrates that it is of the “great clock-maker” variety, i.e., it created the universe, wound it up, turned it loose, and either watches it wind down or is off doing what ever God’s do. Human pain and suffering is of no concern to it. There is no intervention, no prayers answered.
It is fear of the unknown, specifically what happens after death (if anything), that made man create God in man’s vision of what a God should be, what laws a God would make, and construct a system of rewards and punishments that man can understand, like 72 virgins for the Muslims or burning in fire. Without fear, there is no need of God.
We have a very interesting intellectual, scientific discussion going on. I can accept intelligent design but can draw no conclusions from it. But notice how often those who believe in “God” jump from science to the bible as if the bible contains scientific truth.
That is the leap of faith, not science.
