Wow. I haven’t consumed any news since Friday’s PM Bellingham… it’s nice to be un-reachable for a few days (no internet, no cell service, nothing), but for a news junkie like me, withdrawals inevitably hit.

I realized I’m basically a news addict last night when I returned home. I couldn’t get caught up quickly enough in my frantic effort to find out what I missed when I was gone.

Thankfully, I’m finally starting to calm down now that I’m here in the news room… but, I’d better get to work on show prep, otherwise I won’t be ready at 5:05.

See you then!

Time to get creative tonight on the 5:35 Sound Off… If it were up to you, what would the former GP site look like when it’s finished?

The City of Bellingham and the Port of Bellingham have released a ‘Preliminary Draft Master Plan,’ and I wanted to talk with Port Environmental Director Mike Stoner about it on the show. He was listed as the primary contact on today’s press release, but Port staff now tells me he (and most other top officials there) are in a budget retreat all day, so I’m now scheduled to speak with Linda Stewart with Mayor Dan Pike’s office.  Note to anyone sending out press releases: make sure the contact person you list is actually available for comment the day you send out the release.

Other than that, the WTA board has voted down the plan (”Option 2″) that would have cut Sunday service. I spoke with WTA board member and Lynden Mayor Scott Korthuis about the vote, as well as an alternative he put forward. That interview will air at 5:10:34 (yes, PM Bellingham is scheduled down to every last precious second).

Also, I’m going to call Whatcom County Public Works Director Frank Abart now, to get a couple quick sound bites on the latest plans for dry dock work on the Whatcom Chief ferry.

It looks like the story I did on the dairy industry after my interview last night with Mike Schoeneveld, Lynden dairyman and President of the Whatcom Chapter of the Washington State Dairy Federation, got rolled into the evergreen file. So, listen for that tomorrow morning.

That’s the question for tonight’s Sound Off, following up on a surprising number in a new CBS poll… it says only 13% of Americans think President Obama’s policies have personally benefitted them: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/07/13/opinion/polls/main6675137.shtml

Had a bunch of great calls last night on the NAACP/Tea Party racism thing. Let’s keep that going!

Trying to get going here today after a LONG County Council public hearing last night on restoring UGAs around Birch Bay, Ferndale, Nooksack and Sumas: http://kgmi.com/County-Council-Decision-on-Urban-Growth-Delayed/7687155

I’m still trying to work on a story about the ‘Dairy Price Stabilization Act’ in the Senate that Patty Murray is co-sponsoring. In fact, I’m scheduled be interviewing Mike Schoeneveld with the Whatcom County chapter of the Washington State Dairy Federation right now… you should hear it on the show tonight.

The title says it all: it’s our 5:35 Sound Off question tonight on PM Bellingham… I just got back from doing my usual ‘man on the street’ interviews, and I was surprised how many people felt strongly that the Tea Party is, indeed, racist.

Want to disagree with them? Call 676-KGMI at any time this afternoon, or during the show to go on live (of course, you can also call if you’d like to agree that the Tea Party is racist).

Here’s the Washington Post piece, if you want to get up to speed on today’s controversy: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/12/AR2010071204471.html?hpid=moreheadlines

On the street this afternoon, one man told me he felt the Tea Party was racist because if you look at a crowd of Tea Partiers, all you see is white people. I challenged him on that, asking if that observation alone is enough to make a group racist. He said he thought it was, because clearly, they aren’t attracting any people of color, so they must be racist.

I guess I should have asked him what he thought of the New Black Panther Party.

Beyond that controversy o’ the day, I’m getting ready for tonight’s Whatcom County Council meeting, covering the public hearing on a plan to restore some UGAs around Birch Bay, Ferndale, Nooksack and Sumas.

I’m also still trying to get in touch with a man who says he worked with Colton Harris-Moore’s mother… I want to talk with him and see if he’d make a good interview. Stay tuned.

It looks like I haven’t posted here since… hmmm… November? Pretty bad, I know.

Anyway, I’m back. It’s kind of like renewing my vows to the blog. I’m going to try again.

Tonight on PM Bellingham, I’m looking forward to hearing from you on Colton Harris-Moore, the ‘Barefoot Bandit,’ and what kind of punishment he should get. That’s the topic for the 5:35 Sound Off, and I’ve already interviewed several people on the street about it.

Most said he should be punished to the full extent of the law, and I’ll have the sound bites tonight on the show. But, I keep hearing about a contingent of folks who don’t think he should be punished harsly… are these people really out there? Something along the lines of, ‘He didn’t hurt anyone, and he’s just a misguided, if brilliant, kid…’ kind of stuff. If that’s where you’re coming from, I’d really like to hear from you, too.

676-KGMI (5464) as usual, either live during the show, or anytime in the afternoon, if you can’t call the show live. I’ll just quickly record your sound off, and play it back at 5:35. If you are calling the show live, try to phone in a couple of minutes before 5:35, so the call screener can get you set up.

Also today, I’m working on getting both Bellingham Mayor Dan Pike and Whatcom County Executive Pete Kremen to come on PM Bellingham to talk about an apparently heated meeting on Medic One services here in the county. Sounded like the two of them got into it a bit in the meeting, and I’d like to see what they say about it today.

Other items on my news agenda for the day:

• Bellingham City Council committee worksession ahead of a third and final reading on the proposed Transportation Benefit District… keeping an eye on it right now.
• U.S. Sen. Patty Murray co-sponsors bill to protect Washington State Dairy Farmers… want to talk with a local farmer to see if there’s support for Murray’s plan, what it will really mean for local dairies, etc.
• KGMI’s Mike Curtiss passed along a contact (I’m assuming from a phone call to the station this morning) for a man who apparently worked with Colton Harris-Moore’s mother. Hopefully, I can make time to call him.
• Reviewing Whatcom County Council agenda for tomorrow night… there’s a public hearing on UGAs and changes to Birch Bay, Ferndale, Nooksack, and Sumas’ growth areas. Also, I see an update on the ‘Rural Element’ and discussion on zoning rules and the 6-year TIP.

Also, I got a voicemail from someone at the American Legion Post 7 about their TVs there. Said he was trying to get a retailer to donate new TVs, since the ones they have there are getting old, and veterans ‘need their entertainment’. Anyone want to donate TVs?

Governor Gregoire thinks the state needs an earlier deadline for mail-in ballots, since close races can remain unresolved days after Election Day.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2010237920_webvoting09.html

Isn’t Election Day purely arbitrary, anyway? What difference would it make to impose an earlier, yet similarly arbitrary deadline? Ballots have to be counted, either way. Someone wins, someone loses, either way. She says ‘The people deserve to know’… why?

Is the apparent right of state citizens to know voting results so important that we should risk confusing voters on when they need to get their ballots in? If we add another deadline, it simply makes the actual Election Day moot for mail-in voters. Essentially, all of us mail-in people would have a new ‘Election Day’, and then we’d have to wait just as long as we do now to hear the results. The only difference I see is that we’d be getting our results the same day that everyone else in the country has their voting deadline.

The governor’s push poses too many risks for the relatively insignificant benefit it promises.

I was a little slow getting this up here, but here ya go… the link to the article on modern male wimpyness I mentioned tonight on the show.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE59D0BR20091014?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=11604&sp=true  

PM Bellingham for 10/21/09:
http://kgmi.com/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=4107595

Jackie almost had me convinced on this issue, since I’m usually in favor of letting people do whatever they want, regardless of whether it offends others. But the burqa is such a symbol of the oppression of women, I really can’t believe liberals are saying we need to be ‘tolerant’ of them. Isn’t tolerance what it’s all about? Is there anything ‘tolerant’ about burqas in the first place?

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2009368118_apeufrancesarkozyburqa.html

http://chattahbox.com/world/2009/06/20/france-eyes-banning-islamic-burqa-shrouds-liberation-or-oppression/

I’m especially surprised by feminists who are opposed to this ban. Shouldn’t they be applauding it, just as they applaud other increased freedoms for women? Read this interesting post on Feministe.us:

http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2009/06/22/banning-the-burqa-in-france/

Here in the newsroom yesterday, I heard over the scanner something about an accident on E. Badger Road north of Everson, so I used Google maps to check the location of the address given.

Lo and behold, Google has apparently sent their camera vehicle down E. Badger to provide images for their ’street view’ feature, and honestly, it’s a little creepy.

Try it yourself: click here, http://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wl, then search ‘e badger rd everson’… once you have a map of the area up, then click and drag the icon of the little orange man onto E. Badger Road on the map. You’ll see the roads with ’street view’ turn blue, and then when you let go, you’ll get a photo from that location on the road.

I’ve used ’street view’ before, usually to check out things in big cities like Seattle. But when you can zoom in on trucks in the driveways of local dairy farms, it starts to get a bit weird.

So far, Google only has street view for state highways, I-5, and a few Bellingham streets in Whatcom County, but it’s already starting to feel like an invasion of privacy. If I could zoom in on a street view of my own house out in the country (not just an overhead satellite view, as they also provide), I don’t think I’d be okay with that.

Also, I see today that Greece is banning ’street view’ in that country. Read the article here: http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.35c2e98a13639c54adb496c3f97d16bf.21&show_article=1

What do you think?

Tomorrow, City of Bellingham, Whatcom County, and even federal officials will be on hand to dedicate a solar power system installed on a parking garage in downtown Bellingham.

While I’m always intrigued by new ways to generate power, and I applaud PSE and others’ efforts on this project, I have to look at the numbers. Is this project really worth it?

The City of Bellingham press release it says it’s a 2.4 kilowatt system, and they expect it to produce about 2,000 kilowatt hours of power per year (read the full city press release here http://www.piersystem.com/go/doc/1264/267506/).

I did some quick research online, and it seems the average U.S. home uses 9,000 kWh per year. That would mean this entire new system would cover less than 25% of the power needs of a SINGLE home.

Am I just raining on their parade? I don’t know how much it cost PSE to set it up, but my guess is that it’s going to take an extremely long time for this to pay for itself.

It seems so many people are so excited about so-called ‘green energy’ that they forget to do math.

Let’s try some more basic math. This system puts out 2.4 kW. A basic, portable home generator — the kind you fire up when the power goes out, and you at least want to keep some lights on and use the microwave — puts out anywhere from 2 to 20 kW.

Hmmmmm…. sounds like I could barely depend on this system to run a few things in my house during a power outage.

*UPDATE* I just researched small, portable home generators online. Looks like the 3kW to 5kW generators range in price from $300 to $600 dollars. Granted, they take costly gas to run and produce lots of pollution in the process, but the fact that 300 bucks will buy a generator that will produce as much power as this entire solar power system shows just how financially inefficient this solar energy thing is, at least so far.