John H Hedley
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On the article Report: Newport Schools Show Improvement, Still Struggle
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On the Blog Post Bridge Toll Opponents To Hold Rally
John H Hedley
8:33 am on Monday, May 6, 2013
An adult conversation? You have singlehandedly hijacked three separate threads on this subject in the past three months. I lost count at 70 different posts that were completely unrelated to the subject, many dealing with political party affiliation, past political involvement and the minutia of some petty personal disputes. I'm sorry I misunderstood this to be a pubic forum rather than your personal chat room. I really do hope, at this point, that the predictions of infighting and petty squabbling doomsayers on the East Bay come true, because never has a group deserved such devastation more than your ilk. My only disappointment is that pretty much none of it will come to pass, but any of it that does will be sweet schadenfreude.
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On the Blog Post Bridge Toll Opponents To Hold Rally
John H Hedley
10:25 pm on Sunday, May 5, 2013
Anecdote is not the singular of data, no matter how you spin it. People said they'd avoid the Pell, but in less than ten weeks its traffic volumes returned to pre-increase levels. How come the survey of last summer's ACWS patrons didn't include any questions about tolls? That was sponsored by stakeholders in the tourism industry. Opponents have had two years to gather hard data to support their position and none has been forthcoming, either it doesn't exist or it's been suppressed/spiked because the results don't conform to their viewpoint. Either way they can't make a case based on facts.
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On the Blog Post Bridge Toll Opponents To Hold Rally
John H Hedley
9:18 pm on Sunday, May 5, 2013
So we should act solely on what people, absent any proof, believe. That's a strategy that worked out so well for the antebellum South and their beliefs about slavery, doctors who prescribed thalidomide for expectant mothers, and the litany of history's litany of folly. People predicted doom for the island after tolls on the Pell shot up and yet that summer, the nadir of the recession, the drop in tax revenue in Newport was less than a third of the national average. You and the rest of the toll opponents just want a free lunch because you know of no other life than one that is utterly dependent on the government and other to carry your water over the water.
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On the Blog Post Bridge Toll Opponents To Hold Rally
John H Hedley
3:13 pm on Sunday, May 5, 2013
And, of course, you have proof all these things will happen. Oh, that's right, you don't. Not one study, survey, or comparable instance. Just the rambling logic of planet JimL.
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On the article City Manager Tells Superintendent There is a ‘Crisis in Confidence’
John H Hedley
9:45 am on Saturday, May 4, 2013
ReplyFrom what I've seem, the manager is challenged at anything that doesn't deal with the tourism sector. However, lost in all the vitriolic and tangential comments is the legitimate point at the heart of her memo. Namely, that the board has managed to run surpluses despite two consecutive years of rejected requests for increased appropriations. That's a potential trend that deserves frank discussion. The Board's untimely ability to generate a budget compounds the matter and adds to the imperative. Injecting considerations about personnel and personality is tantamount to giving the Board and Superintendent a free pass on a legitimate problem.
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On the Blog Post Newport's Danger to our Water Reservoir Foot Path [Local Voice]
John H Hedley
10:21 am on Saturday, April 27, 2013
Agreed. Bragga Field is so inundated with goose poop you could spend a whole afternoon there and not make contact with firm ground.
It's actually the goose poop that makes the water unsafe for drinking: the byproduct of action by decontaminants of goose feces is what prompted the warning notices a couple of years back (linked to bladder cancer). That's why that new embankment is being built- to stem the runoff.
As for prescription meds getting into water supplies: it's more likely being flushed down toilets intact. The only common antidepressant that passes though urine unaltered is Lithium and frankly a lot of people in this town, this whole state in fact, could use some.
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On the article Feds Approve Tolls for Sakonnet River Bridge
John H Hedley
9:28 am on Thursday, April 25, 2013
So Mr. Sousa,
Help me understand your comment: every business is going to add 4 bucks per axle to every single thing or divvy it up.
You claim to be a Republican, at least by your comments, but are you aware that underlying both conservative and neo-con thought is the idea of supply side economics? Under that theory, government stimulates the supply side of the supply-demand curve; providing general fund taxpayer paid access to an otherwise isolated area, such as an island, is stimulus of the demand curve: it artificially cheapens the cost of goods being delivered to consumers. As a graduate of the most conservative college in the country and a long time supply side libertarian, I'm tickled pink that a state in the death grip of liberal democrats would adopt such a course. If you were a real republican, and not the working class reactionary tea-party lemming that you most clearly are, you'd be amused and just as delighted that RI was, for once, adopting and imposing some semblance of responsible fiscal governance.
Please do leave, because the only chance for orthodox republicans to make any headway in this state is to exorcise out the ideological ignoramuses like your reactionary-ism, the tea party and the bible-thumpers.
Six percent of the wealthiest residents (on a per capita basis) should not expect the remaining 94 to foot the island's bills; especially when that Island's contribution to state GDP has a 15 year history of steady declines.
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On the Blog Post Some Numbers Regarding the Bridge Toll
John H Hedley
1:28 am on Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Yet oddly the author's of that study won't divulge their full data or mythology. What I can point to is this: in 2010 RI's growth rate in real GDP was 2.8 percent. Hospitality and food service, the heart and soul of tourism, accounted for .11 or a measly 4 PERCENT and trailed all the other sectors. That's what's holding back the state from recovery: spending 20 million extra in two years on roads that contributed less than 4 percent of growth. Pathetic.
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On the Blog Post Some Numbers Regarding the Bridge Toll
John H Hedley
11:30 pm on Sunday, April 21, 2013
@ Dan
You have no grasp of the facts. You don't pay that much in taxes relative to the rest of the state. The island is less than 6 percent of households in the state. Due to its rapidly declining fuel consumption it contributes a decreasing amount of money to the general road fund. But its per capita income is 6K higher than the state average. So why should the rest of the state pay for your local 'prosperity'? That's arrogance of the first order.
John H Hedley
10:45 am on Tuesday, May 7, 2013
@nptresident
You stated "Because students are not widgets that fit into a one size fits all education."
Yet that is EXACTLY what public school education is in it's modern incarnation: one size fits all. This is the second time I've caught you in logical fallacy. Now I know why you hide behind an anonymous screen name.
No I don't have kids in the public schools, yes I live here. But, as you will recall from our earlier conversation you believe that not living here and not having kids in the system is perfectly acceptable for criteria for a new superintendent. Just not for having any standing to comment on the school. When it comes down to it people like you are this city's biggest liability.
And, by the way, Newport is not world class. It takes more than some wealthy foreigners and subsidized art to make a city world class. A five diamond hotel would be a nice start, at least one five diamond restaurant would be another. Not neglecting infrastructure for 3 generations so you don't have three rubber tubes of crap running down the main boulevard for a whole summer would also fall in the Not-World-Class category.