At a local level, in a survey this week of the 83 members of Hawkes Bay Primary Principal's Association members, not one vote of support for the introduction of the global budget was recorded.
Additionally, the principals of Hawkes Bay's secondary schools were unanimous in their opposition as well.
Mark Johnson
Principal, Greenmeadows School
• Evolution idea
Evolution is a belief system and not a science because it cannot involve observations in the present. It is based on "facts" from the unobservable past.
No living scientist was present to observe the "Big Bang" 10 or 20 billion years ago and also to observe the first life forming in some primeval sea.
The facts cannot be repeated empirically. We have only the present.
Fossils are difficult to date and there are many missing links between them which show the weakness of this evolutionary theory. But some people "have seen it".
People try to reconstruct the past with many pieces missing.
Another "fact" is that evolutionists believe that humans and chimps split from a common ancestor 5 to 7 million years ago with 98 per cent similarity. The more correct number is 90 per cent.
Indeed, there is much similarity but the problem is the human and chimpanzee Y chromosome. They are radically different.
Half of the chimp chromosome is "missing" and the rest is only 70 per cent identical.
There are about 35 million single letter differences that separate the two species.
Ref.: Genomic monkey business, by J Tomkins, and J Bergman in Journal of Creation 2012; also JW Carter 2012, "The chimpanzee chromosome is radically different from human".
Therefore the degree of similarity is much less than most people claim. I will continue to read about creation and evolution to compare both.
The remark that the Bible is a book (in reality 66 books) of "myths" is disrespectful for the Christian readers.
There is no book in history that has survived so long and has so many old manuscripts.
Another well-known book is The works of Flavius Josephus, a Jewish-Roman historian who lived during the first century.
He mentions, as a non-believer, the historical fact that Jesus was crucified by the Romans and rose from the dead.
The archeological facts for the Old Testament were mentioned in my previous letter.
It is interesting to notice that we count the calendar years from Christ's birth. An evolutionary calendar would be a mathematical tongue twister!
C. Majoor
Hastings
• Trump trash
I thought I was reading satire when I came across Hilton Kyle's letter espousing what a "great man" Donald Trump is.
Perhaps I might agree if I viewed his vacuous speeches with the sound turned off, or if I ignored his repetitive 10-word vocabulary, blatant lies and exploitative behaviour?
Or, perhaps if I read less about his activities and lowered my expectations of common decency?
Maybe I should just be glad that I can recognise an arrogant, self-centred bully when I see one and not worry that many people can't.
Paul Axford
Napier
• Driving decline
Re Peter Dalrymple letter - if Peter thinks four traffic islands over a nearly 1km stretch of road make an obstacle course, he shouldn't be let loose in a car.
Imagine the inconvenience of an elderly or any other pedestrian crossing the road (unexpected obstacle), a cyclist on a bend (unexpected obstacle) or one of the many children walking/cycling home from school.
Yet another example of dumbing down, ie "it's not my driving it's the road/pedestrians/cyclists/traffic islands/any other inconvenience I can think of".
"Drive to the conditions", don't whinge about make the conditions suit your driving.
This would also apply if you can't get a Ponsonby tractor around a traffic island safely.
Seems the art of driving is deteriorating the better cars are being made.
D.Abraham
Havelock North
