The Hayseeds blog, No. 161 for the week starting June 11, 2006.
May 28, 2006
Hayseeds No. 160
June 11, 2006
Hayseeds No. 161
June 18, 2006
Hayseeds No. 161
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The only women in the race who was thought to stay in the race through the primary, has announced that she won't be running for Attorney General this year. That leaves mostly Andy Cuomo and Mark Green in the race (well and Sean Patrick Malloney who is pratically already out), though it's not clear how much longer Green or Malloney will stay in.
It looks like several Renselear County Farmers could be in for a windfall should they choose to sell development rights to their farms and agree that their land should forever be farmed. It should be interesting to watch to see who will opt in to such a program, and who will choose to continue to farm with the possiblity of eventually sell out or more immediately sell out for development.
Tonight the County Legislature will get together and discuss the possiblity of capping the gas tax, following the state leader and saving drivers another 3¢ this year. Not sure if the will happen though, as things are purty tight for the county right now.
It looks like yet another Republican crossed lines at least in 2004 to support the candidacy of our next Governor. That has to be very good news for Weld, who is expected to be pushed out by the Republican state committee now that he came in second place.
As many of you already know, it's fundraing week on WAMC . Alan gets on the radio and begs for more money to keep his already well off to do station to do better.
It's an amazing to see how one man has been able to create such a large radio empire, feeding on people's desire for a progressive radio station in greater upstate New York. It's now one of the biggest NPR stations He wouldn't have gotten so far had people not given a lot of money over the years to WAMC.
A lot of people who listen and contribute to WAMC are quite clearly limousine liberals, who can afford to throw a few thousands bucks to hear views exposed on the world. There is a diverse crowd that likes WAMC across it's range, but we all know they are pretty liberal. For some that's pretty upsetting.
WROW which has to in many ways be the conservative equalivent of the liberal WAMC (and just as fair and balanced for a certain group of people), featured an interview with Glen Heller critic of WAMC on Fred Dicker's show. He went on and on about how well WAMC treats it's personalities compared to the typical person. Yet, people still contribute to WAMC as they like the programming. WAMC continues to grow, with new shows like Ward Stone's half hour and the Weekly Rundown.
NYCO takes a nice look at the growing opposition to building a powerline from Syracuse to downstate, pointing to local opposition that's sometiems funded by groups that get their support from state monies from people like Boniciac. State-wide politicans have remained remarkably silent on the issue, suggesting that they all need to study it more before drawing conclusions.
I look at that project and I'm not totally sure I can totally agree with the opposition. Then again, they aren't putting the powerline in my backyard that might cause cancer, not to mention the well documented clicks and static you here walking by the power wire. It also would be higher the tree line.
On the other hand, the line would follow the railroad line right away from Syracuse all the way down to New York City, so the only impact on land use would be slight in a suburb of Syracuse in an existing industrial lot. It would be virtually unnoticable except for those who saw it protuding above the tree line.
The benifits for the environment of having NYRI are significant. If we can simply transfer the excess power from places like the Oswego Generating Station (using oil) and particularly Nine Mile Nuclear, and a half dozen other on Lake Ontario, then it means that far dirtier and older 'backup' New York City plants don't have to go on in times of high demand—typically on already poor air quality days.
Remember, these big plants (particularly Nine Mile) aren't too flexible at changing their amount of output, so unless the power can be stored using a hydro-pump storage system like in Gilboa, if it's not consumed it's wasted. A line sending power down to New York in times of excess of power could save a significant amount of energy, meaning less natural resources despoiled and less carbon dioxide produced.
Conclusions. I don't like the idea of federal pre-emption forcing the line through without discussion. We should carefully study the power line, and see if we can get it below the tree line or possibly bury it next to the railroad tracks. Plenty of upstaters have high-tension powerlines running across their lands, and they are doing just fine.
As you know, Lewis County out on the Tugg Hill Plateau is considering keeping trails open county roads despite the threat of some trial lawyers, farmers and environmentalists who feel allowing these machines on the roads only invites people to tear up other people's crops.
This coming Tuesday, 6 June 2006 will be the deciding factor on the riding of ATV’s on Lewis County roads.
The meeting will at 5PM at the Lewis County Courthouse in Lowville.
If there has ever been a “PUBLIC MEETING” that we need a strong turnout, then this is it. This vote has a bearing on more then just Lewis County. Towns, Villages, and other Counties are watching to see the outcome. So even if you don’t ride in Lewis County, it can have a big impact in your area.
The bottom line, "ATV owners" and “BUSINESS OWNERS” is, it’s time to make an appearance and be prepared to tell how this will impact on where you will ride and spend your “DOLLARS”, and to the business owners what is the real impact for your future.
Anyone with an interest in the future of ATV and OHM riding in Lewis County and the greater region should take special notice, and if you are in reasonable driving distance, participation in the public portion of the meeting of the Lewis County Legislature is suggested. This county’s legislature is poised to make some significant positive decisions to open up new riding opportunities, and we need to maximize the outcome and lend any assistance we can to make it a success.
If you have any questions or would like to coordinate with local advocates, please contact NYSORVA Region 6 Director, Floyd Rivers, at this address: mailto:f.rivers@nysorva.org.
It would be nice to drive up to Mansville State Forest (which allows ATV use on its roads) up there then go to the hearing tonight, but it's a bit of a trip from Albany plus I have to work. But for those more in CNY, this is an important thing to attend and testify at.
The other morning there was a couple holestien cows that had gotten out of their pen at a local farm and they were in traffic on Route 32. While nobody was particularly hurt by this development, it was quite entertaining to watch the poor State Police trying to escort the cows back to their pen.
This just is part of the State Police job across a lot of Upstate New York. They weren't so pleased by it the look on their faces, but certainly not as embarassed as the farmer working with the cops to move them back.
The train line that went from Utica to Lake Placid, was bound for obscurity until Hugh Carey and the state stepped in the early 1980s, and bought it for transporting people to the 1982 Olympics in lake Placid.
Every year since then it's run for secenic runs in the fall, though it's gotten more difficult to maintain with many of the volunteers that cut brush and maintain the rails getting old, and the state spending less to fund the railroad.
See the Adirondack Daily Paper on this article.
It looks like this afternoon that Bill Weld is dropping out, leaving basically a Spitzer-Faso race. We know that will go in such a race, but at least now we can get down and git dirty.
It looks like several of the Upstate Counties that once supported Denise O'Donnell such as Allegany, Chautauqua, Livingston, Putnam, Rensselaer and Wyoming, now are moving to back the party favorite—Andy Cuomo.
In other words, the new and old guard are duking it out to see who will be top dog in County Democratic politics.
McEneny emphasizes that he's been loyal to the party, and hasn't been going around supporting Republicans for Congress (Jennings photo-op earlier this year with John Sweeney at the port) and endorsing Pataki for governor.
"I will never endorse a Republican for governor, never raise money for a Republican congressman and always support the winners of Democratic primaries."
On the other hand, Jennings is arguing that McEneny is doing more to represent his district and the state over the interests of the city, as abohorrent as they may be:
Jennings on Monday shot back at McEneny, suggesting he doesn't advocate enough for the city in the state Capitol, and darkly hinting he might return the primary favor. "Some people have encouraged me to run against him and hold both positions, maybe I'll sleep on that," Jennings said. "If Jack wants to have a good contested race, we might as well talk about everything."
I don't see how Mayor Jennings can even think that he does a good job representing the county on the state Democratic committee despite his grumbles that McEneny doesn't give him everything he wants.
Maybe the city should get more state aid—then again, all upstate cities clearly need more aid and Albany's doing pretty good compared to Rochester or Buffalo. The argument that Albany doesn't get enough payments in lieu of taxes is weak when you consider most cities upstate can't tax sizable non-profit parcels, from universities to government to churches. Albany isn't unique.
McEneny not going along with Albany's plan to expand the landfill in one of the remaining high quality chunks of Pine Bush or some of the mayor's other schemes is also reasonable. He has a conscience unlike the mayor.
Our fine governor has done a lot of tax cutting and elimating of state jobs. Unfortunately as the Times Union, mandates have kind of taken a big bite out of it:
True, state taxes have gone down over the last 12 years, but usually by pushing the burden down to the local level. As a result, what taxpayers save on state taxes goes right out the other pocket in local levies.
Why is this not surpising to anybody whose been around Albany for a while? Everybody wants to add a little thing to state law that will help some small person out, but nobody wants to raise taxes to pay for it. When you force somebody else to do your good deeds, then you don't have to pay for it.
The only problem is local government does not yet have the ability to use progressive taxation. Why can't their just be a county income tax instead of a property tax? At the same time, we have prohibit all mandates that are likely to have a local fisical impact.
For those you interested in whether or not farms making milk under national organic standards should see this rule proposed by the Bush administration that would basically allow for confined animal feeding operations to count.
So what National Organic Standards Board (NOSB) wants from the USDA is for them to modify their standards to specifically require 'ruminant livestock' (ie. cows, goats, etc.) pasture for 30% of their food and 120 days of the year. Seems reasonable at first inspection, but like anything there are two sides of the issue.
CAFO-produced milk typically tastes better, as pastured cows grazing in on the spring grass tend to make a bitter milk thanks to the nutrent content of greening plants. CAFOs keep the cows from tramperling on the ground, causing erosion in many cases particularly with overgrazing. CAFOs also can control run-off pollution better then grazing, and are heavily regulated at least in New York.
On the other hand, requiring pasture raises the cost of animal raising and sets the bar high for organic things. Pasture land is expensive and means fewer cows and less profit initally, but can be made up and then some by passing it on the consumer. It's also probably nicer to the cows, not that they are bright enough to know the difference.
Still, most organic consumers who've never been on a typical dairy farm, probably assume organic means no CAFO. Pasturing cows means fewer cows per acre, which means less pollution in general, so it's good. People who get organic really should be getting for what they think they are getting. So no organic standard for CAFOs makes a lot of sense.
The former man who made us want to fall asleep, now has a movie out on a purty important topic—global warming. His website, climatecrisis.net has some interesting tools like those who let you calculate your CO2 footprint and how you can alivate your sole by paying money to plant trees, and encourage you to lobby your legislators.
It looks like the city in it's latest land aquistation has bought up more land in Coeymans to have a larger buffer land around their resivour. The city likes to brag about how their land is a no-mans zone, and how they've arrested 200 people nearby it. Must keep the Coeymans courts busy—though probably a good money bringer in.
They continue to maintain no access to either their main Alcove resivour or the Basic Resivour, despite the fact even terrorist-attacked New York City does. They claim it's their primary source of water, though the reality of it is they don't want to have to deal with people and just ring in the maximum amount of profit. This is disgusting, and we really should do something to change it.
This just follows their other aquisitions of parcels nearby the resivour along with their plans to dump garbage in Coeymans. Don't forget that the city already sends all their sewage to another part of Coeymans for treatment, showing their treatment of us versus the interest of Mayor's profit-making city.
You have to love big boondogles that the state gives out, but Joe's proposed enticement package for luther forest really boggles the mind.
The reality is despite all the money they're getting and are promised to get, building a plant in New York is very unlikely:
"It's hard to break into a new spot when there are compelling reasons to go to an existing location," said Bob Goforth of Florida-based site selection consultant Leak-Goforth Co. LLC. "It's a lot easier to get an environmental permit on a site where you already have a plant."
Then there are the suppliers, the skilled work force and management that's already in place at the existing plants, he added.
New York state faces the same challenge with AMD, which already has plants in Austin, Texas. But New York continues to expand a massive nanotechnology research effort, with hundreds of millions of dollars in state and private funding at Albany Nanotech, based at the University at Albany.
Not to mention New York has pollution control laws unlike Texas or at least ones with some teath that can make getting permits if you don't already have them purty tough. Old factories get grandfathered in, new factories are nearly impossible to build. Yet, it gets better...
This has to be the quote of the day: "If AMD brings 1,000 jobs to the region, that would mean New York would be paying $1 million per job." Okay. Why not spend such money on something that benifits all our citizens like cleaning up the Hudson River?
Brian Premo just last night picked up the endorsement of Renselear County Dems to run against Joe Bruno following Saratoga's no-endorsement on grounds that he wasn't a serious candidate, and that Bruno is making Saratoga County rich with state monies.
Does he have a chance this year? Nope. It's good to see somebody challenge Bruno though and show he's not as strong as some pretend him to be—even in Bruno country. Joe says that he plans to leave the legislature and even the state with his head bowed should his men lose the Senate, and that will be our chance to get Saratoga and Renselear Counties back.
Our comptroller who became a right-wing Republican says that if Albany County where to cut their sales tax on gas to the $2 level like the state has, it would basically do in the county budget. He probably has a point, and we simply do not want more property tax increases to pay for a little bit cheaper gas.
The reality is the gas tax cut support by Republicans and eventually forced down the throat of Assembly Democrats, turns out to be purty small of maybe 40¢ a fillup of one's pickup. On the other hand, people who depend on fuel like small construction firm and family farms (to the extent not using ag diesel/gasoline), the savings can be purty significant.
So I don't know where to stand on this all. We need national leadership to keep prices now and to build more efficent cars and trucks. A 1 MPG increase on a Silverado pickup could save a person hundreds of dollars each year. Similiarly, a 20¢ cut in fuel prices would be the same way. Yet, thanks to Medicaid,
After the big liability issue last year, it looks like the Lewis County Legislature opened up several county lands and four roads to ATV access.
From the NYSORVA list:
Lewis County legislators on Tuesday approved opening selectedcounty reforestation lands and four county road portions to all-terrainvehicles.
They also learned that Robert C. Diehl, a resident of the Jefferson Countytown of Lorraine, will be the county's first trail development coordinator.County legislators voted 9-0 on a pair of laws that would establishregulations for ATV access on county reforestation land and open four countyroad portions totaling 11.5 miles to ATVs. Legislator Richard C. Lucas,R-Barnes Corners, abstained on both votes since he owns the Montague Inn,which caters to recreational vehicle traffic.
The proposed law would allow the county forester, in consultation with thePlanning Department, to designate trails on reforestation land for ATV use.County officials have identified 33 parcels that could be opened.The road portions that were opened are as follows: 1.5 miles of HermitageRoad in the town of Diana, 5.5 miles of Sears Pond and Liberty roads in thetown of Montague, 2.5 miles of Number Four Road in the town of New Bremenand 2 miles of Seven By Nine Road in the town of Pinckney.
While he's not an ATV enthusiast, Mr. Villanti said he wishes that opponentswould provide suggestions for how to make the situation better.Mr. Lucas, chairman of the legislative Planning Committee, hopes the hiringof a trail development coordinator, effective June 19, will do just that.Mr. Diehl was hired for the $40,000-per-year position mainly because of hisextensive environmental knowledge and strong interview skills, Mr. Lucassaid after the meeting.
"This person is obviously going to have to interview every day of the job,"he said, noting Mr. Diehl is also a "down-to-earth guy."Mr. Diehl for the past two years has worked as a surveyor and environmentaltester for Syracuse environmental engineering firm Blasland, Bouck and Lee.He was also a surveyor for three firms from 1998 to 2004.
That's great news for all of us who love to ride, particularly those who are lucky enough to live on the Tugg Hill Plateau.
That's what theAlbany Business Journal is calling the Fair Care for Healthcare. They claim that SB 7090 / AB 10583 is unfair to mega-corporations that will have to dip in their profits by a couple of bucks to provide the lady at Walmart healthcare.
Again, it doesn't include cow chasers or machinists or anybody who works for a company with less then 100 people. It only means you might pay a penny or so more on that big bottle of oil and filter you get really cheap at Walmart to change the oil in your truck.
While this is probably obvious, a study shows that increase in price in the spring far offsets the cost of feeding cows all winter long—that is if you have enough place to put all that silage.
A political scientist from UCLA says that living in the boondocks isn't the main reason why so many people are conservative, but part of many factors that effect political behavior. Marriage and demoniation of church seem to be much bigger factors in behavior then population or more common demographical characteristics including age, sex, etc..
It looks like Billy Preston, the man who made the song a long time ago has passed away. He also was a back up drummer for groups like the Beatles.
He has a purty detailed list of ways to cut gun crime including:
Well, figuring that the Attorney General can't do 2, 3, or 4 himself it's mostly grandstanding. Proposal 2 seems the most controversal, as it kind of means that if you buy a gun, you can't let your wife or kid use it, unless you register it at purchase (not to mention the risk of the thing not working or misfiring).
None of these things would go over to well with the State Riffle and Pistol Association, and despite our liberal legislature wouldn't past muster with the Senate. The only thing this will do is probably alienate Democratic voters upstate by his silly gun proposals.
At any rate, did y'all see the latest Quinapac Poll? Mark Green has pulled up within 2% after the convention, and despite the party people's endorsement, he's doing pretty good. Petitioning for his ballot access will start in two weeks.
There were no farm workers there, either as they were working in the fields or they were afraid of immigrant round-ups.
In the past 10 years as the article points out, illegals have become about 50% of New York farm labor, thanks in a large part to economic conditions that continue to squeeze farmers. Illegals have no rights, and the rest aren't doing so good either:
Meanwhile, the workers, who number 47,000 statewide, still suffer the same plight, said the religious, union and community leaders who marched on their behalf.
Farm laborers have no legal right to overtime pay, disability insurance, a day of rest each week or collective bargaining.
"Many workers work 60 hours a week," said Damaris McGuire of New York's Episcopal Public Policy Network. "Nobody's giving up. We're going to just keep banging away."
Yet, as John Lincoln points out that the bad condition isn't just for the workers, and they are doing pretty good as farmers get poorer.
The New York Farm Bureau, a farm owners advocacy group, argues unionizing workers could bankrupt some farmers.
Since 1996, the Legislature passed laws mandating that farmworkers be paid the state minimum wage and required drinking water and sanitation in the fields, plus child care funding and housing loans.
Farm Bureau President John Lincoln accused Tuesday's protesters of promoting a "myth that farmers do not pay or treat their workers well."
At any rate, it was kind of disappointing that they didn't camp out at the Capitol like previous years. Still, we need to ensure that the farm economy is vibrant in New York and that when farmers get benifits they ensure that their workers, illegal or not, also get them.
Well, for y'all you concerned about NAIS requiring you sending in stacks and stacks of paperwork to the USDA in Washington DC, they say don't worry. If your not a real farmer, you'll only send in a few reams in each year. Of course the devil's in the details, so see what noais.org says about this all.
While he didn't exactly promise a run, it seems that he has stated that he will run as a Republican should he decide to run. And he will get smashed in the primary, as the Bloomberg news notes.
That's the phrase he made purty famous thanks to the stupid gaffe that he later applogized for making. Yup, it was a stupid remark but he certainly has a first admendment right to say that.
Somehow that kind of humor doesn't surpise me from Alan Hevesi. If you've ever heard him speak, he makes remarks like that all the time, though this time it was a bit over the top. Alan did accurately express the level of passion most of us bring to politics, yet it seems it went a bit too far.
It's probably part of the crudeness that our politics has gotten to these days. We hear so many terribly violent remarks as just part of day to day life ("I could just kill you for taking my parking space."). It's kind of sad that violence has become such a part of lives, but with media showing us the latest crime every night and the horrors of the immoral war in Iraq, that's what we have to expect.
Remember the cool looking orange and black truck Ford made to complement a Harley? They now have a truck that's the new F-150 Harley is rather ugly looking like a Lincoln Blackwood and the new F-150 mixed together.
No real surpises here, except that it took a long time for them to come to a consesus, with 3 people voting for Tom Suozzi (!) over Spitzer. That's surpising (and the TU gives no reason why) as Spitzer has such a strong environmental record. It's also kind of surpising it took them so long, as most groups where lock 'n step behind Spitzer since before Earth Day fundraisers last April.
Don't believe Spitzer is a good environmentalist? If you'd ever had to deal with his Environmental Protection Bureau at the Attorney General's office, you'd quickly learn he was tough and had a bold agenda—sometimes a bit beyond the limits of the law and trending into opinion, but still mostly good.
It looks like jewish Dov Hikov is back with his profiling bill, trying to ensure that Arab-American harassment is statutorially granted. It's a purty racist thing, that hasn't gone far in the past, but it sure gets news headlines.
It looks like Green's numbers against Cuomo in the NY1 poll shows they are 15% apart compared to 2% in the Quinapiac poll.
One of the problems you have from being a legislator is you have a long public record, and people will point out your dumb votes—particularly as a conservative.
The bill passed nearly unamoiusly from both houses of the legislature, that would have allowed Daycare workers to form unions was veto'd by Pataki on grounds that it would violate federal law.
They did a study showing that a lot of their medicaid reciepts are going for insuring people at big employeers covered by the bill.
