Just when it seemed hopeless for the dam scam I read this Schopenhauer quote in Dr. J’s post. It was like oxygen to my lungs.
All truth passes through 3 stages:
First, it is ridiculed.
Second, it is violently opposed.
Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Arthur Schopenhauer
German philosopher (1788 - 1860)
DAM SCAM LIKE GLOBAL WARMING
At first, only idiots challenged man-made global warming. The issue was clear. Everybody knew global warming was true. Teachers taught it in their classrooms. Challengers were ridiculed. But it appears we are now entering stage three. Soon it will be self-evident that man-made global warming was a fraud. Years from now the News & Record will say, "We knew that."
Someday it will be universally understood that the City of Greensboro lied, cheated, falsified reports, manipulated its water supply into near failure and scuttled its water conservation manager and program to get the approval and funding for the Randleman Dam.
Have you noticed that the ridiculers are now keeping a distance from the dam scam? Robinson, Johnson, Wireback, Green, Hammer, Cone, Fec and Roch have had 2 years to take my "criminally insane" claims to the City of Greensboro so it could disprove them. They haven't. That's because they are afraid I am right. They don’t wish to appear like fools for missing a giant public works fraud when the truth becomes known.
I would not be surprised if one of them actually emailed my water sales CHART to the city and asked, "Are Baron's numbers correct?" That effort would have required several mouse clicks.
And I wouldn't be surprised if one of them actually did email my CHART to the city and got the answer, "Yes, the numbers are correct" ....and never bothered to report the city's response. It sounds like the global warming fraud to me.
Posts
I see that apologies are wasted on you.
ReplyDeleteI have not ignored you, nor have I ridiculed you.
ReplyDeleteI've answered you here, and at my own site.
I'd love to break a massive fraud story, and I'd guess a lot of folks would, too.
The accuracy of the water usage chart is not the issue; it just does not prove your case, or even make a particularly compelling argument for it, in my view.
What I've said, in essence, is that plans for the dam long predate the era on which you focus, and usage of the dam is meant to extend for many decades into the future.
If you have evidence of falsified documents, produce it.
maybe you feel like this scam is of monumental importance because you lost your job. however, maybe nobody has covered this story because the general public really doesnt care.
ReplyDeleteMike, keep the faith.
ReplyDeleteSayeth Ed Cone: "I'd love to break a massive fraud story, and I'd guess a lot of folks would, too."
That's laughable given the stories in Randolph County (pertaining to frauds conducted upon communities by so-called public servants) that you've stuck up your well-named nose at.
Again, Ed, from fricking WIKIPEDIA: " . . . in 1987, the US Army Corps of Engineers withdrew support for the project because the "cost of the Randleman Dam would outweigh the flood control benefits of building it".
It sure seems to me that that's at least half-way to proving Mike's case. You don't really need "falsified documents" to prove that the public was mislead by the City of Greensboro.
And yes, Anon, the general public doesn't care about what's going on around them until the walls are falling down on top of them (then they whine and moan and want Federal investigations). But that doesn't make what happened to Mike right, does it?
Apologies are never wasted if they are sincere.
The rest of the paragraph:
ReplyDelete"Later that same year, the PTRWA proposed a smaller reservoir, with a $57 million dollar price tag, which used 40% less land. Over the next several years, environmental impact statements were offered by the PTRWA, with the final Federal Environmental Impact Statement for the Randleman Lake Project being issued in 2000. On April 6, 2001, the USACE issued a permit to allow construction, which began on August 7 of the same year."
The dam was discussed and planned for decades, and is meant to serve the area for decades.
And that, Ed, skates around ALL of this issues surrounding the reasons Mike was fired. A smaller dam was approved and built. And it turns out we haven't needed even that.
ReplyDeleteThe fact is that Mike did his job too well for the people doing all the planning and selling the water.
Your argument is that the end justifies the means. If you're comfortable with that, fine. But don't dress it all up in the public good.
Another thing. Good journalism is about more than sitting behind a keyboard - on your lazy, well-named butt - and waiting for people to drop stories (and documents) in your lap).
You won't be breaking any massive fraud stories that way.
It has not turned out that we don't need the dam.
ReplyDeleteThe dam was built to meet decades of demand.
It is possible that posterity will, toward the end of this century, consider the dam to have been unnecessary, although I doubt this will be the case. And a mistake is not a scam.
Mike claims to have knowledge of the specifics of a scam. Asking him to elaborate seems like a reasonable journalistic response.
Mike named me as someone who has ignored and ridiculed him. I've done neither.
No, you've just dismissed him as "irrelevant" as long as your kids/grandkids have more "potable water" than they'll probably need.
ReplyDeleteSo the end justifies the means.
And you are comfortable with that.