Pacific Beach kite surfers blow right by the law

Hi, I'm a somewhat beginner kiteboarder, so I have two things to add: 1) As a beginner you will NOT see me or my kind at Tourmaline. We're safe and sound kiting to the east of Fiesta Island in Mission Bay. 2) The kiteboarding community is very self-policing. There will always be exceptions, but it's in our best interest not to overly perturb the surfers and to stay out of their way. Tourmaline is one of the only places on the ocean in San Diego where kiteboarders can enjoy the good winds and waves that come with kiting out in the open. The bottom line: can't we all just get along? :) If a kiteboarder at Tourmaline is endangering surfers, they are out of line and should be asked to get out of there. Otherwise, hopefully we can peacefully coexist, and in any case as the article notes under most conditions surfers and kiteboarders won't be out in the water simultaneously.
— August 31, 2012 11:54 a.m.

Global Warming Is Crap!

SDaniels, I'm happy to hear they published our comments in last week's printed Reader. Any place you'd suggest where I could go find a copy? I live in Mission Hills.
— February 11, 2010 1:30 p.m.

Factoring the Fringe

He just got my vote. Time to tackle the overblown city worker pensions and restore funding to libraries and maintaining our city!
— February 10, 2010 3:17 p.m.

Global Warming Is Crap!

Danny, please don't misrepresent my intentions by citing Wikipedia - we both know Wikipedia is not a source of original research. The article I linked is a good summary of the consensus on climate change among scientific organizations of national or international standing... and their sheer number and diversity. Many or most of these various groups do not stand to gain financially in any way by making their opinion statements. This is not a hoax. There is a consensus (not without detractors, but debate is a good thing) precisely because the evidence is real and compelling. Your post seems designed to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt... so let me briefly address your points. 1) NASA "fudged temperature data". This is a new allegation, and one that I could find no support for beyond blogs which appear to be hung up on a lack of understanding of data interpolation between temperature stations. Surely if there was a scandal here, a legitimate news organization (ok, even Fox News?) would have picked up the story? 2) Michael Mann under investigation. Here's what's true - Penn State is reading through his emails with Phil Jones, formerly of the CRU. Mann himself is welcoming the investigation, and none of the leaked emails show any wrongdoing on his part. 3) "Mike's Nature trick" - the most notorious of the hacked CRU emails. If you've read about it already, you'll know this was in no way deceitful. http://www.skepticalscience.com/What-do-the-hacke… 4) "the earth has been COOLING for the last decade." Nice time period selection - you're right... but only because the beginning of the past decade registered as the warmest temperatures since records began. Here's the full graph from three independent temperature data sets, along with uncertainty bands: http://climateprogress.org/2009/12/08/world-meteo… 5) GlacierGate - Not so much a scandal, but it is an embarrassing prediction. One they've now been forced to retract. The glaciers won't be gone by 2035, but that doesn't change the fact that they are receding rapidly. Fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Let's keep the debate civil and fair. Cooler heads acknowledge that there is uncertainty in this science, but the best information available (CO2 measurements, temperature measurements, sea ice extent, glacier extent, etc) indicates that we're at risk of affecting our climate in ways that will likely have significant consequences for our future.
— January 29, 2010 2:30 a.m.

Global Warming Is Crap!

Hold on a minute, people. Steve's degree in Environmental Engineering doesn't make him any more of an authority on climate change than my own degree in Mechanical Engineering does. We're both engineers - not climate scientists. The statement "There are 100,000 scientists out there who think it is total crap too but they get shunned" is, at best, a gross exaggeration, and at worse, utter nonsense. Here is a rather authoritative list of 600 or so leading climate scientists: http://www.eecg.utoronto.ca/~prall/climate/climat… Among the 500 leading researchers, 4.6% have skeptic views toward human-induced global warming while 37% have activist views (seeking action on climate change). The majority of leading researchers have not firmly sided with either camp. Let's be clear - the scientific debate is NOT whether global warming is occurring - even ExxonMobil now concedes that fact. The debate is whether humans are responsible for global warming and whether we should do something about it. Let's take a look at one issue cited by Steve - arctic sea ice. Steve says that the University of Illinois shows early satellite photos (1979) that have the same sea ice extent as today...well here's the website: http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ If Steve knew how to read a graph (http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/se…), he'd see that U of IL is showing a current 1 million sq km. ice shortage relative to the historical average. The Reader article doesn't question his statement... shame on you guys. The article's title statement of "Global Warming is Crap" is contributing to a misconception among the general public that is at odds with the available data - satellite measurements, land-based measurements, ocean measurements, models, etc. There is no conspiracy here - independent meteorological organizations worldwide, even the Chinese - are all reaching the same conclusion. The San Diego Reader interviewed some very knowledgeable people right here at UCSD and SDSU - why give so much airtime to Steve Wampler? He's spouting his mouth "a la Glenn Beck" - I expect better out of the San Diego Reader. For further reading: http://climate.nasa.gov/evidence/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_o… http://skepticalscience.com/
— January 28, 2010 2:37 p.m.