> Shame on you James!
> These advocates indicate a 
> deep seated concern at the 
> way the world is going - which I share.

I have shared that concern since I was a teenager, volunteering at New
Alchemy Institute on Cape Cod.  But unlike the late 1970s, we now have the
technology to accomplish the dreams, for example under a buck-a-watt PV
solar is common now, wind turbines are no longer dismissed as "impractical",
and insulation is amazingly better and cheaper.  But back then, we did our
homework and our finite element analysis.  We sweated the math. We worried
over metal fatigue, the pH of algae ponds to feed aquaculture fish, the
number of tons of passive-solar heated rock that would be required to keep a
greenhouse alive and productive through the worst possible winter.  That
just does not happen these days, and it shows.

But I still endlessly listen to anyone who has an idea.  Heck, I bought the
Hive Haven guy dinner, loaned him my 1080p projector so he could go pitch
the American Museum Of Natural History in NYC, I even got him a private
audience with the Parks Commissioner in NYC.  But the concept was simply too
flawed for a city of millions of people.

As for beekeeping, I was already up to several hundred hives and had a
decade behind me before I presumed to even post here. I had been reading
Bee-L since it was distributed via bitnet over uucp, and I wish I had saved
an archive of all those posts.  I don't expect everyone to wait a decade
before attempting to recast the entire beekeeping industry single-handed,
but at least taking a novice course first is not too much to ask, in my
view.  

If we were speaking of sailing, rather than beekeeping, novices without
training are "hazards to navigation".  I find the term very appropriate for
beekeeping purposes, too.

> It would be a huge service if you 
> would use your usual analytical 
> skills to de- engineer what they 
> believe, pick out the truths,

But these self-assured graduates of schools where everyone gets at least a
"B" and sports programs where everyone gets a trophy are not about to listen
at all, even to constructive comments!  I find myself in exactly the same
dilemma as Branford Marsalis:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=5rz2jRHA9fo

> It is encouraging that Randy acknowledges 
> that minor variants of concepts have been 
> UNjustly rejected in past decades

Randy was quoting my original post.  
Of course, once you see that I wrote it, you will wonder if I was sincere,
or sarcastic.

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