The Hayseeds blog, No. 225 for the week starting October 7, 2007.
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Hayseeds No. 224
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Hayseeds No. 225
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Hayseeds No. 225
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That's what Elane Doremus pens in a recent LtE in the Times Union.
Who can be opposed to to this? Clearly, there needs to be more time educating students about civic opporunities in their communities, and how they can make it a better place to live. And there needs to be a basic sense of respect in our communities.
Buried on the Op-Ed pages on Sunday there was a nice little nugget penned by David Weiss of Renselearville.
A new generation of windmills has made capturing clean, cheap and limitless wind energy into a very lucrative business. Wind energy is one of the fastest growing energy sources in the world. In 2006, new wind farms were the second-largest source of new power generation in the United States, after natural gas power plants.
But there's an untold story here that can have a huge impact on area farmers and small communities. It's the story of who really owns the wind, and who will profit from it.
The choice is simple. The money can go to large corporations, and thus leave the region. Or it can go to the farmers who actually own the wind rights and stay here to save family farms and benefit the local community.
See also:
It's exciting to see the prospects of such technology.
How far right wing loonie can you go? Compare and contrast:
It's clear that these people are true wackos. I can just see what dairymen have to say about Wallace's position on immigration. And whom going to milk them cows?
Honestly, I hope either one of these men run for Congress. They would be easily defeatable as rigth-wing loonatics. Our Congresswomen, Kirsten Gillibrand, in contrast has done a great job at reprenting her district, infusing the values of the district with a progressive vision for our country.
That's what the Buffalo news points out about the notes about the debate over giving drivers licenses to illegals.
Now that sure would be an interesting race for governor.
It looks like Supervisor Cunningham will be doing the unpopular move of raising taxes during an election year.
Some people seem to think it's strange that I live out of the back of a pickup truck at my parents farm.
Well, it turns out that a number of well-healed US Senators from Idaho's Larry Craig to Alasaka's Ted Stevens are having a good ol' time living on their yachts when they are hanging out in Washington DC.
It apparently is a popular hang out for other top noch lobbyists, contractors, and other of Washington elite. So despite being a hang out for the rich from Idaho and Alsaka, it has quite the clintele living on the water.
One resident describes the strip of Potomac River waterfront as a “floating trailer park” where everyone knows everyone else’s business. Protected by locked gates and security, members of Congress rub elbows with lawyers and lobbyists, judges and bureaucrats, established government contractors and aspiring ones, and others lucky enough to own expensive boats and secure a coveted slip.
“There’s no other place like it,” said Dutch von Ehrenfried, a former yacht club commodore who says a cabinet member, astronauts, and the musician Yanni have attended parties on his boat. “Why would all these big shots with their big boats be anywhere else?”
And we also learned on Sunday night on CBS's 60-minutes that Justice Clarence Stevens likes drydocking in Walmart parking lots with his RV. See also the Washington Post.
Thomas spends much of his summer on the road in a recreational vehicle. Earlier this month, he drove his RV to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, for a football game between Wake Forest University and his beloved Cornhuskers of Nebraska, his wife's home state. Thomas had one special request: to meet professional basketball star Chris Paul, who played at Wake Forest.
...
When he's out on the road in his bus," says one close friend, "it's like he's off the record with himself." He'll pull into a Wal-Mart parking lot, cap on, sometimes unrecognizable in middle America. Polishing the bus with a rag, he'll engage folks in conversation about different waxes and oils, and drink lemonade. The homey atmosphere at RV parks and campgrounds--not to mention the anonymity he enjoys--is a welcome respite, he tells friends.
Maybe that's a step up from the back of a beat up old Ford Ranger pickup truck, but still, I feel significantly more sufisticated. And I'm looking forward to my weekend up to Plattsburgh where one night I'll be backcountry camping, and the other night dry-docking in a state forest.
It looks like the people over High Country News have picked up on people's rather uncomfortable feelings about Hillary running in the West.
One “key” Dem politico says:
“It’s a disaster for Western Democrats. It keeps me up at night.”
He’s talking about the dreaded likelihood that Hillary Rodham Clinton will win the party’s nomination in the presidential race.
The L.A. Times explores the negatives, in an analysis piece by Noam N. Levey. Among Levey’s findings:
The New York senator and Democratic front-runner was by a wide margin the most unpopular of 13 potential presidential candidates in Montana, according to a June survey … 61% said they would not consider voting for her, compared with 49% who would not vote for former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and 45% who would not vote for Illinois Sen. Barack Obama …
Recent polls in Colorado, Nevada and Arizona have found similar distaste for Clinton.
“She’s carrying huge negatives out here,” said Floyd Ciruli, an independent Colorado pollster who (added that) Democratic congressional candidates would have to highlight their differences with the national party to be successful next year. “It’s that liberal East Coast image that is so hard to sell in the West.”
...
Hell, Hillary is a tough sell in Upstate New York and in liberal circles, who are less then happy with her position on the war, triangulation or the becking to the sterile days of the 1990s.
But the party people love her at least officially. There is such enormous pressure to support her in New York State, regardless of what you think of her. She is our Senator, after all, if only because she moved to New York State and defeated Rick Lazio.
The sad thing is that Jonthan Edwards is basically out of the game at this point, at least as the media and the polls have defined it. Without the attention that the Hillary-Obama race has given, he has languished, and lost a lot of good people and money because of it. But that's poltics.
It looks like Metroland has a compliation of shady local and state politicans in our area, that deserve (and are gettiing) some scrunity by the public and investigator.
I was somewhat surpised and quite dismayed that the investigation on Dave Bryant's theft of money left and right is now closed after his plea to third-degree grand larceny.
We will never know where all the money was going—be it for a cover up over his sexuality or other form of blackmail. It seems unlikely that it was drugs, as he seemed to clean to be into illicit substances or alcohol.
More over, this plea will likely block procecutors from looking for other places where money may have been stolen. What about the $150 in money stolen from Shell Inn? Did he steal from the County Democratic Committee, the Town Democratic Committee, Renselearville Democratic Social Club, the Town of Renselearville, Greenville Centeral Schools, Cub Scout Pack 49, or maybe even defrauding his kids college loans. He was involved in so many organizations besides the ones he got caught stealing from.
It might also prevent further investigation in to potential insurance fraud. How about the two house fires he had within about 5 years—one from smoking and another from electrical problems? Did all that money go to repair the house or other reasons? I'm sure a number of Renselearville Firefighters are now wondering if they were putting their lives at risk for arson-for-profit? The same must apply for the community help he got rebuilding his house twice.
At any rate, it's really quite shocking and disgusting that such a person in so much trust would steal so much and do so much in evil in such a small community. And how must his family feel? At least it's over now.
It looks like the State Board of Elections is deadlocked on the issue of how many ballot marketing devices should be required in each county.
Right now, every county board of elections headquarters has a single ballot marking machine for disabled voters, and is busing in the disabled using their mass-transit systems to election headquarters. In Albany County, that means if your disabled, STAR will take you to North Russell for free to vote on the ballot marking machine, even if you live in Cooksberg. In Plattsburgh, it's CART that will do the same thing except to Margret Street office building.
The Democrats on the State Board want a ballot marking machine at every polling place, saying that busing is inconvient for voters. Republicans are happy with the current arrangement in 2008. It is widely seen that if Democrats get their way in the District Court, it will force counties to buy optical scan or scantron machines, to vote on, due to the cost, and the difficulties of getting other machines to comply with hte technology.
Not that it would be a bad thing. Optical scan works well, is the most secure and reliable. Ater reading the ballot—and warning the voter based on completeness—ballots go into a locked box for further evaluation as neccessary.
The bill that would have allowed (not forced) states to expand healthcare for working people unable to get healthcare for their children was vetoed by the president as widely expected.
SCHIP is designed to provide health care to children from low to middle-income families that can't afford private insurance, but make too much to qualify for Medicaid. Congress's proposal calls for a $35 billion expansion of the program over five years, which would be entirely offset by a tobacco tax increase of 61 cents per pack.
Congress will attempt to override Bush's veto sometime in the next two weeks. For a successful override, both chambers would have to muster 2/3rds support—the Senate is already there, but the House is currently about 25 votes short. SCHIP is widely popular and for Republicans from moderate or blue-leaning states, voting to sustain the President's veto could be politically perilous. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has already come out hitting hard with radio ads and robo calls criticizing eight House Republican incumbents who voted against the bill.
You have to wonder what the president was thinking. Actually here is his entire veto message:
"TO THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES:
I am returning herewith without my approval H.R. 976, the "Children's Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act of 2007," because this legislation would move health care in this country in the wrong direction.
The original purpose of the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was to help children whose families cannot afford private health insurance, but do not qualify for Medicaid, to get the coverage they need. My Administration strongly supports reauthorization of SCHIP. That is why I proposed last February a 20 percent increase in funding for the program over 5 years.
This bill would shift SCHIP away from its original purpose and turn it into a program that would cover children from some families of four earning almost $83,000 a year. In addition, under this bill, government coverage would displace private health insurance for many children. If this bill were enacted, one out of every three children moving onto government coverage would be moving from private coverage. The bill also does not fully fund all its new spending, obscuring the true cost of the bill's expansion of SCHIP, and it raises taxes on working Americans.
Because the Congress has chosen to send me a bill that moves our health care system in the wrong direction, I must veto it. I hope we can now work together to produce a good bill that puts poorer children first, that moves adults out of a program meant for children, and that does not abandon the bipartisan tradition that marked the enactment of SCHIP. Our goal should be to move children who have no health insurance to private coverage, not to move children who already have private health insurance to government coverage.''
GEORGE W. BUSH
That's certainly a perspective one could have on the issue. Of course, the veto doesn't solve the problem for working folks, regardless of their income, who can not afford health insurance for their children.
You might be making nearly $82k a year, but living in lower-Manhattan, where $50k of their income goes to a rundown apartment and $20k to food, and your job doesn't provide health insurance coverage to your children. Your only choice is to spend $1,000 a month to get insurance for your kid, at full market price for an individual—and hope there is no pre-existing conditions. And that's an extreme case, many individuals making far less, living in small towns, are still ineligable for insurance.
They are pretty strongly against it.
why am I not surpised that they found a drug dealer in the suburbs? After all, who has the money to buy illicit substances.
It also appears that people are liking voluntary school uniforms in city schools. This is a fantastic idea, that allows parents to save money, avoid gang propaganda, and commericalization of our youngest. And it puts the poor and rich on equal grounds.
I don't know if you noticed, but in the past couple of days, it seems that DIA's weblog has been down. That's too bad, but hopefully it will be back up soon.
So what do you get when some random black person (a n1gger in the mind of the white officer) with a pistol tucked in his shirt and a passer by sees it? A swat team out wasting taxpayer dollars.
Understand police psyche: it's more fun to get into a drag-down shoot 'em up even with a criminal, then to observe and prosecute when there is evidence of a real threat. Maybe this kid was brandishing a firearm, and maybe he didn't have a proper permit for it. So what—he wasn't shooting or hurting anybody but somebody's ego.
We have laws against brandishing firearms, along with laws against harassment. If it was clear that somebody was truly at risk, then offer them protection, and use real undercover police to observe that no harm is happening. What would have happened had they tracked the kid for a few days, in unmarked vehicles such as random beat up ol' pickup trucks or old K-Cars? Nothing, and when they evidence of a real crime, then they could arrest and prosecute.
But that wouldn't be such an ego trip or such a good hand-stroking pleasure for the mass-media.
Yesterday we discussed SCHIP a little bit and posted the President's veto message. Now we have some actual truth about the matter, from the good folks over at DailyKos.
In fact, nothing in either the House or Senate bill would force coverage for families earning $83,000 a year. That's already possible under current law, but no state sets its cut-off that high for a family of four and the bill contains no requirement for any such increase. The Bush administration, in fact, just denied a request by New York to set its income cut-off at $82,600 for a family of four, a move New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and members of Congress from the state have vigorously protested. And Bush would retain the authority to deny similar applications under the proposed legislation.
Very interesting. Healthcare is such an important issue for many people, particularly for those working adults who happen to be independent contractors (like truckers) or own small businesses (like farmers and shop ownerers). Some of those people can get insurance from professional association, but those who can not for one reason or another, should at least be eligable for minimal insurance for their children.
