Short Takes for Monday 12 February 2018

I COULDN’T agree more with the sentiments expressed by Doug Hewitt (Letters, 8/2) We can't subside building trains, a great contributor to social cohesiveness, but we can substitute exporting armaments, death, misery and more. I believe this comparison shows our country’s priorities are severely misplaced. 

PRAISE the beer gods, professor Mike McCullough is the Messiah, his discovery that craft beer is good for your health is worthy of a Nobel prize. Forget the gym off to the pub to work on my six pack.

HOW is it that for more than two decades Maitland has been labelled the major growth area of the state, but nobody did any planning to go with the label? The result is dozens of knee-jerk half-assed attempts at correction. Someone will die at the two Melbourne Street intersections before the so-called "planners" realise that these literally cannot handle peak traffic unless at least 20 vehicles per cycle per intersection "run" the amber and red lights, which is exactly what happens. It’s a big gamble.

THANKS Geoff Dawson for your comment on my letter concerning the unacceptable carnage of native fauna on our roads. It's unfortunate your driving skills aren't equal to mine. While I was driving on my first leg to Melbourne between the hours of 4pm and 10:30pm I certainly saw in amongst all the dead animals some living ones, which I managed to avoid without causing any problem to any other road users. I'm not a slow driver either. It's all in your attitude to driving, your concentration and your level of compassion I guess.

THE National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) publish a graph of sea level rise since 1880. The graph shows virtually a straight line of change since 1930, long before climate change. The average over the last 100 years was only about 2mm a year.  That's 20cm a century. A continuous 15 year sea-level rise to 2014 was over a period of no atmospheric temperature rise. So the rise had nothing to do with rising air temperature? The years since 2014 have seen lower sea levels, only just exceeding 2014 at the end of 2017 by 2mm.  So then, there appears nothing to worry about with sea-level rise?

IN reply to Anne Phillips (Short Takes 6/2) you can blame the powers that be for putting the feral animal crossing signs in the 110km/h zones. All the road kill the signs should be put in the 60kph zones to give them a fighting chance.

REGARDING the Broadmeadow concepts (“Showtime”, Herald 9/2) I would much rather we built a casino and full-on, 24-hour red light district. You can't be a credible first rate city without these fundamental items.