The Hayseeds blog, No. 179 for the week starting October 15, 2006.
October 1, 2006
Hayseeds No. 178
October 15, 2006
Hayseeds No. 179
October 22, 2006
Hayseeds No. 179
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He claims the reason is the lack of food safety inspectors rather then simply a problem of contimination from mega-CAFOs and strong bacteria they produce from feeding cows acidic corn, caused by stupid government regulations that work against small farmers.
The General Legislative Operations Program funds, that serve as the slush funds for the Senate Majority has come under a lot of scrunity lately for good reasons. Most recently the TU oncovered that one such funds are being used for glossy brochures on private colleges sponsored by the state of New York. There is a lot of sleeze going on in Albany, all out of public view.
It looks like our fine governor has been making sure to contact the media people to hype the fact that New York is mailing out checks to many nice voters who will hopefully vote for his fellow Republicans.
It looks like the NYT is suggesting that John Hall might just be the candidate to beat Sue Kelley and win yet another important seat in Congress, as part of the greater effort to win back Congress this year.
Last weekend was the last days to see the few animals remaining at the game farm before it forever closed it doors to the public. I will certainly miss it as it was a place I enjoyed an awful lot over the years.
The suppostly-academic group that clearly doesn't know much about New York State government has released yet another scaving report on how things work in Albany, calling us still the most disfunctional legislature in our country.
They are right that power continues largely to be held by 3 men in a room (Joe, Shelly and George), and that rank and file have little power particularly those in the minority. Yet, it seems having a Democrat and a Republican controlling opposite houses is a good check on both house's policy extremes. It also means that few legislative initatives get stopped that both parties like by certian legislatures except by one of those 3 men.
Who said the state environmental conservation law lacked teeth? It looks like after 6 years, they finally said enough is enough when it comes to regularly dumping raw sewage into the Bronx River.
Another side note brought up in the story, is despite getting a VLT license the same day they went public about the massive fine, is that they haven't been doing harnass track racing in about 15 months—a requirement to get a VLT license, as VLT machines are suppost to be helping out the race tracks which ultimately help out local farmers who sell hay to feed the race horses.
Two and a half years after the court-set deadline for the legislature to adquately fund New York City schools, it still has not happened, and CFE advocates are trying to secure yet another court order to force the legislature to appropiate sufficent funds for a basic education.
The problem they continue to run up against is that courts can't order legislatures to do anything. They have the right to judicial review and to declare legislative acts null and void, but the seperation of powers doctrine prevents from securing an order to force the legislature or the governor to appropiate funds. That's why the special master failed to force upon them the needed school funds.
Nobody doubts that New York City Schools and urban schools across our state need more funding and accountability. Yet, nobody is going to raise taxes particularly as people are already struggling under the burden of high property taxes. We might be able to get more revenue by making our taxes more progressive, but all the big businesses will claim fowl and that they will have to outsource New York jobs because it costs to much to do business in our state.
