The Hayseeds blog, No. 45 for the week starting January 10, 2004.
December 27, 2003
Hayseeds No. 44
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Hayseeds No. 45
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Hayseeds No. 45
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Well besides working on Saturday, my sleep patterns have been pretty screwed up since the camp-in with Troop 89 over Friday night.
Saturday as part of work, I got to see the movie Paycheck, which while a lot of hollywood crap, including 12 minutes of previews before the feature presentation, there was a lot of symbolism and interesting issues discussed in the film. I'm thinking of doing a little review of it for the fodder collection: wait and see.
I got a few books out of the library, which I was reading some on Saturday. Today I went out hiking for about an hour (see below), and I don't remember what exactly happened to the rest of the day. I guess some writing, reading, sleeping, etc.
I'm studying some of the advanced uses of pointers in C++ right now, this has been a concept I've long struggled with, but I think I'm getting a good handle on it, plus training in college should help even more.
It's suppost to have a pretty significant ice storm tonight into Monday, of course, like anything, it's wait and see. Ice storms can have some pretty nasty ramifications for all kinds of different people (for me: losing power and not being able to go online, and not being able to go out because the roads are icy).
might be centered around the advocacy of a hippie who dropped out of hippiedom and joined capitalism, and is exploiting former-hippies like her to buy silly Burts Bee's products.
I fundamentally doubt that there is anything worst then fakedom: even if so much of society is now surrounded by such notions. Buying all the organic/natural/bullshit products in the world ain't going to fix any of the 4 developing crisis: if anything it will make things worst.
But that's a totally different story, from what I'm particularly interested in.
Roxanne Quimby, founder of the rather evil corporation previously noted, has been using her millions of dollars to buy up large globs of land in Northern Maine.
Her aim is to turn such land over to the feds, in an effort to create a huge national park, not unlike what John D. Rockefeller did with Acadia National Park. Before I get into the obvious problems with such a proposal, let's look at her intentions and potential results.
Roxanne Quimby wants to give this land to the federal government, in an attempt to protect the are from many of the local activities that have existed for scores of years, such as logging, hunting (she's a vegetarian), 4-wheeling, fishing, snowmobiling, etc. She believes that such activities are destructive to the environment, and are destroying a beautiful area, and repudidates the people of Maine, saying:
But for Roxanne Quimby, a multimillionaire businesswoman, the worries of blue-collar families in out-of-the-way places like Millinocket should take a back seat to the global need for a sound environment.
But this is what the people of Northern Maine have been engaged in for years: it is what there lives are center around. Many people pay their bills through good paying jobs from the Timber industry, among others that use (and sustain) the forest. Dish washing, tour guiding, and the alike are perversion of people, undermine morals, not to mention piss-ant paying jobs.
Such are the passions shared by many of the 5,200 people left in this one-mill town, where the paper mill has been shuttered for a year. Nothing less is at stake, they say, than the forestry jobs and hardy outdoor life that northern Maine families have enjoyed for generations.
The Northern Forest will become a tourist destination, with all the problems of tourism, namely the lack of respect to the natural resources (tragedy of the commons + tragedy of no stake in area at all), more trash that has to be landfilled, more air pollution, more rules and regulations, and probably in the long run, more environmental degradation, then what the few locals can produce.
It's yet another story of rationalism trying to extinguish the irrational, and diminishing the quality of life for all. In other words, its Marxism living up to it's fundamental goal (destroying the idiocy of rural [or any kind of] life): the pacification and subsequent destruction of society.
"When someone comes here and wants to take that away from us, it's like thieves in the night," said Jimmy Busque, a laid-off mill-worker who owns hunting camps that he fears would be banished under national park rules. "What right do they have to come up here and tell us how to live? The arrogance..."
...For generations of Mainers, the woods have played a vital role in personal and state identity. Although most of the wilderness has been privately owned by forest-product companies for decades, Mainers have been allowed free access to the land to fish, hunt, camp, hike, and simply commune with the magnificent terrain...
...But in a national park, some access would be restricted; recreational activities such as hunting would be confined to park "preserves"; and fees would be charged. As unwelcome as those changes would be to park opponents, however, their greater concern is a dramatic loss of forest industry that would devastate the sawdust-and-lumberjack lifeblood of the economy.
Gosh, it sounds rather nice up there, right now, and it sounds like what Quinby wants to turn it into would be just terrible, it would be the destruction of the Maine woods! Fortunetly this proposal may be dead in the water. For one, it has not garnished much but opposition in Northern Maine (except for fringe environmental groups), very little support in the state legislature (essential if the Feds are going to buy into it in DC), and nothing at all in DC.
Of course, Quimby has lots of money, so expect big lobbying campaigns with groups like RESTORE: The Maine Woods, that will twist many environmentalists and other people with good intentions to their side. But probably the fiscal burden of another national forest will probably mean it's dead.
Don't worry though: Quimby has plans for world dominance: This is a microcosm of a vision I have for a healthier planet
, she not only wants the park, she wants to control the world, placing it in the hands of pacified liberal-wash.
Roxanne Quimby: The modern-day equivlent to Germany, 1940? Okay, maybe that's a bit excessive, but there is a certain 'dangerous'-strain of liberalism (conservatism, libertarianism, marxism, etc. also has a similiar strain) does seem to present a great threat to society.
of New York, who find their liberties and ability to snowmobile in peril.
Part of the problem is the mass-phenomon which has been discussed before here: the more people that are involved, the greater demand for regulation ('rationalization') of the sport. Snowmobiles registered in the state have tripled to 150k in the past decade.
As previously noted, the Feb 9th hearing (at 5 PM) in the Guilderland Town Hall will be for 'public' discussion of the implications of a clarified and improved trail system in the Adirondacks: should they be built, and should there be more limits on where snowmobiles are allowed to go (guess what: the Snowmobile Associations and Environmentalists are anti-thesis to each other on this).
Another issue that's likely to be brought up is the speed limit for sleds: should there be a 55 MPH limit like the state has for cars? The people of the snowmobile association note that trail conditions demand different speeds, a numeric speed rarely makes sense (likewise, that's why we have laws on the road that recommend a reasonable and prudence speed which depends on weather and traffic conditions).
Not to mention the issue of snowmobilers have limited control over their speed: two-stroke engines, while they have a wide variety of speed they can be ran at, they have little power at the low-end, effectively diminishing the possibilities of having 20-25 MPH speed limits on trails.
Environmentalists obviously have an environmental problem to correspond with every nuisance problem: they want the slower speed limit, because supposedly animals like to walk on trails in deep snow, and high speed (55+ mph) snowmobiles can hit them easily. Of course road kill as an environmental problem: this is stretching the limits of what environmentalism can stand for.
to conclusions on the shooting on Lark and State, shows that there is something fundamentally wrong with the Albany PD, discharging 8 shots into a crowded street, especially when it appears that life was never at serious risk, we are talking about a traffic violation that could have easily been stopped by putting a bulletin out about the car/driver.
Other residents of the Center Square neighborhood (the location of the shooting), are also questioning the police's wild west tactics: Lark Street normally doesn't have bullets flying around at 4:30 PM, especially in plain daylight.
Albany County District Attorney Paul Clyne says that he will present the evidence to a grand jury, but as we know, pigs are often above the law. And this was no crime by criminals: it was a crime committed by police.
and the governor's State of the State address being on Wednesday at 1 PM, the Times Union has extensive coverage of this non-event of sorts: I just don't see much new coming out of Albany this year that will not be a continuation of last year.
Everybody expects it to be a short session, with the biggest conflicts being over borrowing (which will likely be shadowy and essential like most years) and providing a sound education in urban schools (after the NY Court of Appeals demanded this for NYC).
What makes education policy so hard, as previously noted, is "save/hold harmless" education policy which prevents cuts to any school budget: they can only be increased. So if we want make spending more equitable, we have increase education spending, the biggest chunk of the state budget.
The governor certainly has a mixed track record at his goals: he hasn't put much of a dent in the Albany process, with budget negotiations mostly in the backroom, with the continuation powerful organizations like the unelected Board of Regents controlling education policy (the biggest, most comprehensive education bureaucracy in the world, supposedly), and no term limits on the governor.
In similar policy news, the TU notes some of the perks that the state has created to try to boost sagging volunteerism in local fire departments, and the problems of community today.
Fishkill, many people have been waiting for green, literally, and especially for this traffic light. Yeap, next to the traffic light that's been bagged since '95, there has been a sign warning drivers to wait for green (this is the state's coded message to let you know that your suppost to wait until the beginning of the light cycle to turn, as it's a lead-ahead left turn light).
a look at the problem of it's county becoming everybody's favorite place to dump garbage, especially our favorite big city, sometimes known as hell, ran not by the devil, but his son, Brilliant Bloomberg.
They have an interesting articles and other documents on how the big cities are dumping their trash on rural towns' landfills, and how corrupt solid waste actors are screwing them over. Oh by the way: think Southern Tier, south of Buffalo/Erie County, and nearby Allegany and Wyoming Counties. All I can say is: more power to them.
I don't feel like explaining them all, except to note that we are XHTML 1.0 Strict (with a few exceptions due to werid bugs in the code), and the opening of the autonomy section, replacing snapshot and certain pieces of fodder. Good stuff, I think. Hopefully it will make things more accessable, faster loading, more understandable, and interesting.
Of particular interest is the Principles and Politics page, which details my ideas on the world, and tries to explain my perspective as it relates to the site.
I admitly spent a lot of time working on getting the spit-and-span of these changes (way to long), besides playing in C++, reading, and other wasteful things today. I'm going to do better things tommorow: namely going skiing or hiking or something like that a Partridge Run. We will see...
that Luther Forest personifies more stupid growth then smart growth, or at least it is a form of bastardized smart growth, sometimes called by people green wrapping. Not unlike wrapping ourselves in the flag, (s)he notes that the proposed Luther Forest factory cluster meets none of the principles of smart growth contained in the article
.
...yet another suburban white elephant with taxpayer money while ignoring the problems in revitalizing Schenectady, Troy or Amsterdam, all in the name of Tech Valley is a gross injustice to the concept of regional smart growth. This project is a '90s dot-com version of economic development, more like chasing a mirage than offering a diverse, stable, smart growth vision for Tech Valley.
...The Luther Forest factory cluster calls for building a project larger than four Crossgates Malls in a forested suburban community. It will emit more than 150 tons of toxic air emissions per year, including cancer-causing chemicals directly over 3,000 residents. There is literally no existing infrastructure. Power lines must be carved through residential areas, water must be piped miles away from the Hudson, and a new Northway exit and other transportation improvements must be built at a huge cost to state taxpayers. All this to subsidize a suburban community with the lowest unemployment rate in the country and whose taxes are so low that there is not even a local town tax.
Not surpisingly, smart growth principles were discarded by developers and evil business peolpe (even though they are suppostly supportive of them):
One of the tools of smart growth is for a community to write a master plan and stick to it. Malta wrote a master plan in 2000, but has thrown the plan out due to political pressure, not residents' desires. The developers actually offered to re-write the master plan to accommodate their own selfish interests. It seems that your article should hold Malta up as an example of what smart growth is not.
I think she said it better then I could have: Tech Valley is a farce, ripping off taxpayers and ignoring smart growth prinicples.
of reconcilation seem like a rather absurb notion, but DeWayne Wickham disagrees (her piece was on the Commentary page of the TU on Monday, but I can't find it online).
Unlike those Democrats who are skirmishing over the nomination, Clinton is not seen as a divisive force within the party.
Okay, at one level I see where they are coming from: Hillary isn't running for any office right now, and while some Democrats strongly dislike her (especially upstate and more conservative ones), they aren't fightening over her right now. If Hillary is doing anything right now, she is smoldering in the Democratic Party: not a person of an active fight over personality and leadership, but just kind of there: we sort of accept her. Yes, I dislike Hillary with a passion.
I suspect the Republicans are going to keep Giuliani in the closet for the 2006 Senate race, and not expend him on the race with Schumer this year (assuming he can wait, he has for a couple of years alrady). I don't see Pataki not running for a 4th term right now (he wants to be the next Rockefeller of sorts), so don't expect a Giuliani-Spitzer race (as hellish as it might be).
Just think: if Hillary loses the Senate race in 2006, her chances of being President someday will be greatly deminished, and the Republican Party of New York will have the statification of seeing her soundly repudiated.
are cutting merit scholarships in the state, especially when the demand for talented students is going down (there are suppostly a lot of high scorers in the current crop of students).
I want to note that SUNYA has the highest tution + fees of any state school listed, and yet they also offer the most in merit scholarships. And yet, I'm not eligable for any of them: I guess I'm just not bright enough, or work hard enough, or something like that. It ain't me, it ain't me. And it sure isn't fair, plenty of studies have showed that socioeconomic class and social location of an indivdual is a big measure of how one preforms on the test, and it looks like many of these merit scholarships are little more then taking from the poor to give to the rich. Maybe I'm just bitter about them, because I didn't get any.
be able to pump gasoline shortly without standing right there, thanks to new regs (as of 2004) that bring back pumps that can be stuck on. Which is handy, now that they've fixed the safety issues: of course still some cities like NYC don't allow these yet. Other states have allowed these for years, NY has banned them far longer...
so varied, your not alone. Scientists are taking a look at the varied weather patterns in the region, that caused by any number of factors, like tide changes all the way up to Troy.
in the Plattsburgh Press-Republican (where else ?) takes a look back at 2003 outdoors stories. He notes many of the same stories that I've followed through out the year (of course his coverage is far better), like DEC press 'gag'-order, motorized vechicles in the Adirondacks, fish stocking, deer takes, and much more.
I just wish that locally we had a columnist as talented as April, Fred LeBrun is sad in comparision. Then again, I guess the Albany-area is less into the great outdoors then the people of Essex, Clinton, and Franklin County (where they are always just feet away from the great outdoors.
sorts, and other brave autohawkers are saying it's the year of the car. I find both claims a bit hard to believe: Detriot isn't known for their (small) cars. They never have been (you can probably count on your fingers the number of well built 4-banger cars from Detriot).
Of course, I don't know, Japenese cars have become so American (besides the fact most of them are made in America ;), hop into any Toyota Camery of the past few years, and you'll see that it's not exactly foreign feeling (unlike the Jap-crap cars of the '80s, like the old Honda Civics). They've also become American sized.
I hate to say it: the Chevy Malibu is so uninspired, that it's uglier and probably not very competitive with japense-cars that are more reliable, but it will likely get snaped up many bureaucracy who want to buy American (more 1/5 of all American car sales are for fleets). The Impala is slightly more exciting, but it screams GM all over it (boring and unreliable looking, even if it isn't!).
Can you even name the Compact, Mid-size, Full-size models that Ford and Chrysler are putting out nowdays? Maybe their luxury cars, like Buick Century and Chrysler New Yorker, they are noticable, but things like the Cirrus and the Intrepid don't ring off the toung, or they scream old school. What is Ford producing nowdays? I know the Focus, and still the Taraus? I haven't seen one of them in ages. Nobody drives Fords in the Capital District, except for an occassional Ford truck (probably because Ford stands for Found On Road Dead, as scout Sean points out all of them the time).
Just remember that most of Detriot struggled to get fuel efficent front-wheel drive cars on the market for years: and there first models were generally terrible: the GM X-Body (hey, one of my neighboors years ago had a Chevy Nova) is case in point. The most interesting part of NAISS this year is the new-styled Nissan Frontier midsize truck, plus all kinds of silly luxury pickup trucks (we all had hoped that they were dead) and Honda's sad attempt in joining the industry.
the next US Senator from NY, if she becomes the Republican candidate and then defeats Chuck E. Schumer, an almost impossible task. I think Hoffman will never go for it, and her potentially scandalous operation of her family beef farm (she is the chairman of State Senate Ag Committee, and she has gotten many of her farm workers and her boyfriend good paying state jobs, besides the work on the farm and other jobs they may have). Of course, such scandals are like wild pointers in C++: you never know what's going to happen, it will either totally crash Hoffman or it will be a non-event.
I don't see her in Washington, as cute as she may be, and as Republican/rural upstate as she might be, too much of a liability to run (she is an upstater), she doesn't want to be destroyed, and I think she likes New York, an being able to live around her farm, at least part of the year. But the Republicans are mentioning that she might be a candidate to be considered for US Senate... I think Schumer is a shoo-in in '04, and Gulliani is going to be the real competition for the '06 Hillary race. The '06 Governor's race is likely to be a Pataki-Spitzer race, as I noted yesterday, Pataki isn't ready to quit the ghost yet, even if he does lose against Spitzer. Notice how I didn't mention the other two candidates in the article, I have no idea who they are, plus they don't fit our theme around there.
complaints about Medicaid being their biggest issue. As the article notes, many New Yorkers are getting taxed out of their homes, off their land:
Leaders of all 62 counties in the state began beating the drum for Medicaid reform Monday, saying the health care program claims much, if not all, of the property taxes they collect.
"If you're getting taxed out of your home, you should care," said Albany County Executive Michael Breslin at a news conference with representatives of other area counties.
If you don't believe the situtation is bad, look at this:
Local leaders said Medicaid, whose cost has risen in recent years, is unaffordable. Albany County, for instance, collects $52 million in property taxes, but has Medicaid costs of $65.5 million.
The Republicans say they want to do something about it (figuring that their core consituency is rural upstaters who probably care about this more then renters in downstate urban areas):
Senate Republicans have identified controlling Medicaid costs as a top priority and suggested reforms that could save counties $2.5 billion. They included taking over the counties' Family Health Plus costs, which reached nearly $220 million last year.
Assembly Republicans are expected to get behind a similar reform campaign, said Assemblyman Roy McDonald, R-Saratoga County.
Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, said helping localities afford Medicaid will be "one of our budget goals." He said if not for Gov. George Pataki's insistence in 1999 that localities pay their share, Family Health Plus would have been paid for entirely by the state.
it probably is because your basing it on a misprint in the paper.
Kristian, another Albany Blogger corrected me on this January 2nd entry:
Actually, that building is easily 25 years old. It was Edwards Food Warehouse before Appliance Giant moved in, and Edwards was not the first tenant there, but past 1980 things get hazy.
Which makes things seem more reasonable: but I still have a point about societies' tendency to have disposable buildings (and everything else except life).
injured in a car accident this afternoon, however none of these injuries are expected to be life threatening. The lawn ornment hit was not so luck though, although one might see that as his intent, he doesn't remember what caused the accident. At 82, I had no idea that he was still kicking around, he's the Assembly Speaker listed at that Empire State Plaza, and served as Speaker from 68-74 and minority leader from 74-78, running for governor against Carey and losing in '78.
the green flag for snowmobilers to ride this year, noting the fix for the insurance crisis, improved trails, and all kinds of godd stuff. I could quote that article for death, but I have little to say about it,read it, if your interested in snowmobiling, it covers almost everything. ;)
the Long Island ATV park, although I have my doubts it will ever be completed, it would be great to have a legal place for people to ride downstate.
economy about 96% on a diesel Dodge Ram? This is what Torvec is suppostly claiming, although I have very skeptical.
The EPA is going to be taking a look at these numbers in the near future.
I'd love to see such fuel economy improvements, but it's not likely: CRV transmissions really aren't that great, as they currently lose a lot of power through slippage.
and the CATO Insititute as being a bunch of crazy, but rich libertarians creating myths that will make them rich. But they've grown pretty acute a picking out when scientists are jumping at conclusions, and when we really only know half-answers and are desprately trying to find them to control our future ('rationality').
At some level the irrational scares us all: it is a state of nature, we have no degree of control, everything is on it's own, and our fate is not yet determined. We'd all like to prolong our lives, and if we can't do that, at least no when we are going to die.
CATOian Steven Milloy notes that BSE and CJD is a lot lke cancer, we don't really understand it:
Although laboratory testing seemed to indicate that BSE and variant CJD were similar, no one could determine with certainty whether and how the BSE epidemic was related to the "human mad cow" cases.
Our friends in the Asbestos business will tell you that fit-tested respirators and full PPE are a neccessity (by Code Rule 56) when abating Asbestos (unless you have a variance or an individual homeowner), but when you put the pressure on them, they can't tell you how many fibers will cause cancer, and why an asbestos fiber does cause cancer, or even give you definative proof that low level exposures will hurt you (the most compelling evidence solely to high level exposure risk, yet even that evidence is less compelling when you consider all other factors).
We'd like to know the answers: if we understood what really caused cancer not just possible precurser exposions (the smallness of the particles is one probable suggestion), we'd probably already have found a successful way to prevent and/or treat it. We pretend to have control, as it makes us feel safer, makes it easier for us to sleep at night. Keeping people away from Asbestos may save lives: particularly for those who would normally be exposed to high levels if it were not for OSHA/EPA/NYDOH standards.
And we must not forget that scientists buts and egos are on the line here:
Some researchers nevertheless became fixated on the idea that consumption of infected beef was the culprit behind variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob, especially after it was discovered that 1980s slaughterhouse and meat preparation practices inadvertently might have allowed tissue from diseased cattle to be mixed into packaged meat products.
That mere hypothetical possibility spawned mad cow mania.
Remember how critical theorists from Marcuse to Habermas all noted how science (and technology) are forms of unacknowledged dominance (of man and nature, with there rarely being much of a difference between the two). Focault called it the proflication of the disciplines trying to control, you can't leave one form of control to one field, as if people like it, they will embrace it and bring it to new fields. And Weber noted bueraucratic-rational as power.
Science is a question of power.
When considering science relating to health issues we often take an insane position: we can only glimpse part of the problem, but the results are so scary we try to shut the whole issue off by creating policy that prohibits anything related to the problem. Of course in real life, every individual make decisions that create greater risks then most things that the government can or chooses to prohibit. We drive in cars, even in bad weather: a bad move can be fatal, and driving in winter weather has a very high probably of serious accident, especially for inexperienced drivers. It all comes down to a societal risk decision. While we hate to admit that we all policymakers are playing russian roulette with people's lives, they are: we try to select how many random people we want to die from all of the forces in our world (even if we lack much control over the irrrational in our world).
The chances of anyone getting CJD from eating beef or vencine are rare if not minimal. The real issue is the impact to those who will be truly effected: farmers and ranchers who are in the cattle business (be it dairy and/or meat). Many of those people are on the marginal side of society to start out with, and we are threatening their choice of lifestyle. Still the greater society suffers from CJD...err... I mean the paranioa of BSE. We've spent or wasted (depending where you come from) hundreds millions on this supposted risk of sorts, creating press releases, writing articles, inspecting beef, etc. Not mention a loss of tax revenue on sales relating to farming and the consumption of food.
Inevitably this crisis has meant less money that could be spent on useful things: be it figthing poverty, conservation projects, etc. It means more solid waste produced and landfilled (be it from slaughterhouses to more USDA papers created). And it means that more people will be driven out of the business that they love.
who purchase a shiny new F-250 pickup truck, an ATV, a snowmobile, and a dozen other things, and they get into debt.
But if were only that simple: many people in debt don't do it with capital intensive things that can be used for along time (over a decade, like the aformentioned things). Even those leasing all those things can be bad results, as the uncle of a friend of my learned (but at least he could sell back some of his toys, ATVs in particular hold a lot of value).
If you ever watch TV you've heard this silly scenario that some people engage in:
For Bruce and Lorraine Esbensen of Clifton Heights, Pa., trouble started when they spent lavishly on their wedding six years ago. They soon found themselves falling behind on their bills.
"Creditors were calling, and I knew if I paid one, I couldn't pay the other," Lorraine Esbensen remembers. "It was so painful I got to the point where I didn't want to answer the phone."
Credit counselors helped the couple work out a repayment plan, but it still took more than four years to pay down their debt.
Well, duh! If it is a one shot deal, and not a capital project, a wedding is it. You get married, and then it's over. You don't borrow for those kind of things, period. There may be a issue of poor values today, and the wastefulness of society, ie. the consume at Crossgates, ship to Rapp Road cycle. Repeat to the nth degree.
"The Depression generation is passing on, and we're losing their values," said Howard Dvorkin, president of the nonprofit Consolidated Credit Counseling Services in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. "Now we've got an entire generation that doesn't know anything about thrift and careful spending. It's tearing the fabric that made this country great."
The depression taught our country a lot, it's terrible that we are ignoring it's lessions already, what's next, forget the lessons of World War II? Admitly, the majority of people in society, and particularly the elite have a little bit more memory. And to make matters worst, it's largely an issue of frilous consumption and waste, using credit cards:
The nation's credit card debt currently stands at $735 billion, or nearly $7,000 per household. And since about 40 percent of card users pay their balances in full each month, the household card debt of those who carry balances is closer to $12,000.
interesting vechicles at the autoshow. In particular, the fuel efficent Toyota Hybrid Highlander Sport SUV and the VW Passat Diesel seem particularly interesting..
It's great to see bigger cars with hybrid engines: that's where they are really needed, it's so wasteful to idle any engine, but particularly a big engine. I have little problem with driving a V-8 engine around, if I'm using it often and it's not wasting fuel at stop lights. Of course, I could never see driving a big truck around in the city: they make Plymouth Acclaims and the alike for that use, it's fun to drive a junker around where a junker is good to have.
Likewise, I think it's cool to see more diesel sedans, the diesel engine is all but ignored in America, yet diesel does have many advantages over gas (including lower fuel consumption). And as they say, modern diesel cars don't soot up like old ones, but I imagine they still are pretty noisey to drive, if they are at all like the diesel trucks I've ridden in.
information overload after listening to both VoxPop (hosted by Chartock of course) on WAMC and Jim Gallager/Jim Brennen on WHMT-TV. This was totally induced by watching the governor's state of the state address.
was bad? First off, the governor like usual had his tounge stuck in his mouth, and regularly tripped up on his speech, then again, there must be a lot of stress giving that speech that is so carefully watched and anaylsized. Throughout the speech Sheldon Silver looked rather bored, and appeared to be reading the paper, or maybe just finishing up his response, but it looked like it was a paper in his hands. Bruno spent a lot of time wispering in the ear of Libby Pataki, and smiling (unlike Silver). Carey was back for another address, as was (Grandmother) Peggy Pataki, who had to help Carey get up, both of them look really old, and Peggy Pataki's dress was kind of icky.
, the bastardized notion embraced by the Republicans so much. He used the word freedom 45 times in his speech (an average of once every 1.7 minutes). He had this doctrine:
The freedom to live in safety and security...
The freedom to find a good job and build a strong family...
The freedom to live, breathe and dream in a clean and healthy environment...
The freedom that comes with knowledge and a quality education...
...And the freedom to persevere over adversity.
Of course the devils are in the details.
subject of crime, the democrats didn't clap much, a lot of Pataki's proposals stunk. But he had a good quote.
And as we fight to protect our freedoms from the threat of terror, we must continue to fight for our most basic freedom of all - the freedom to walk on the streets of New York with confidence, and without fear.
for solders seems pretty reasonable, but it's likely to be difficult in tough fiscal times.
He promised Medicaid reform but did not go into details. Sheldon Silver in his democratic response noted that it was Governor Pataki who suspended the previous attempt to give the state a larger role in Medicaid funding, and it was the governor who refused to make the state pay entirely for Medicaid. It good to see bipartisan support for property tax relief, but will they spar it out and nothing get really done?
Silver emphasized that it was his house with the help of the Senate Republicans that prevented the governor from imposing the largest real property tax increase in the history of New York. Silver also said that one can't just cut education or dump disabled and sick people on the street, we are talking about your mother, your children, your grandmother, not nameless, faceless people. Medicaid is essential, not only does it help the poor and disabled, it keeps hospitals open and pays for 85% of all nursing homes.
Alan Chartock noted on VoxPop that it wasn't solely a problem of property taxation, but instead an issue of high taxes across the board. Of course as the caller who brought this issue up, noted the lack of discussion of regressive vs. progressive taxes, although I believe Sheldon talked a bit about progressivity of taxation in his response.
up in the speech, with the governor promising a million new jobs by the end of the decade. Like leaked earlier this morning, the Harrium Office Campus will continue it's conversion over to the center of high-tech business, and there has been a new state corporaton founded, and a head picked to run it.
Chartock is rather suspicous of this Harrium Office Campus, he suspects there is some serious political patronage going on involving it, which wouldn't surpise me. Maybe part of Pataki's goal is to get more Republicans in the city (like orginal creator Dewey) and damage the Democratic machine. As Chartock notes, Helen Defoses would love to see that, she is always pushing for more development (even in the Pine Bush ;).
I really hope Tech Valley brings good jobs, and allows New York State to improve over the years, combined with a variety of other smart initatives, the governor promised a wide degree of local and regional control over the future of Tech Valley.
were quite impressive, and adgenda setting, not unlike the 25% renewable energy mandate of last year.
This year he said, within 5 years, that is 2009, he wants the Hudson River so clean that one can safely swim from it's headwaters to the ocean in time for the big Henry Hudson Exploraration's 400th aniversey. If we can do that, I'll be amazed, it's one hell of a goal, but with the PCB dredging, and cutting down on emergency releases of raw sewage in the Hudson, it might just happen.
Of course the kicker is, what would you swim in? I'm sure already, one can swim from end to end, but it's still not all that clean yet. We've done a lot to clean up the Hudson already, and Pataki has a personal attachment to the Hudson from his farm in Peekskill, even though he could never swim in it. At the same time he wants the Hudson River Greenway improved, and greater access offered for to the River.
Likewise, he notes the state's open space protection program has been a resounding success, with it reaching half of it's 10 year goal of buying up development rights in a year (5,000 acres out of the 10,000 acres). Hey, farmers like 'free' money from the government, plus to them it means their hard work is going to last forever, thanks to the selling of development rights.
things for us this year, he has no plans for going for yearly tution increases, that looks dead in the water. Likewise, he wants to hike minium wage across the state, a reasonable proposal, it is still a totally unreasonable $5.15 an hours, yes I know this proposal hurts marginal farms and small businesses, but the increase will be slow enough, and they've had enough time to adjust.
did not mention Japan as a place in recent we sent our solders, even though he mentioned Germany and France, strange oversight, I wonder what that means. In the end of the speech, as Gallager noted, the Governor hinted that he's going to stick around for a long time, namely he's going to run in '06.
me, that meeting the goal of making the Hudson swimmable isn't all that difficult, but it's not easy either, as far as I know, there are two major problems with swimming the Hudson south of Glens Falls (north of there, I've been swiming several times, and there aren't the serious pollution problems).
what all these dramatic Indian commericals have been about recently:
Lots of Indian TV ads on local (Albany) stations. What's this about NYS breaking Indian Treaties?
The *real* anwser to your question, is what is posted above. If you read the Times Union or watch TV in the Capital District, you've seen these commericals, the ads in the paper give this url: honorindiantreaties.org.
From their website:
It's the Supreme Law for the U.S.
So why is New York preparing to break it?
The U.S. Constitution calls treaties "the Supreme Law of the Land." And yet New York State is about to violate U.S. treaties that have lasted over 200 years. The state plans to implement regulations that would impose sales tax on petroleum and tobacco products sold on Indian lands. These regulations would violate sacred treaties between the U.S. and Indian tribes.
Since 1794 the U.S. has acknowledged Indian independence, and the Treaty of 1842 clearly says the Seneca Nation will not be taxed by any US government. Including New York State. The state's unconstitutional action will cause over 1000 Indians and non-Indians to lose their jobs, consumer prices to rise, and businesses to close.
The Indians know they are being decitful, and wrong: their legal battle has been less then successful at preventing New York State from taxing NOT Indian products, but instead products sold to New York citizens and taxpayers on Indian reservations. If they stand on such moral high ground, as they claim (with a steadfast consitution exemption from taxation of NY citizens), why aren't hasn't the courts stepped in and stopped it?
We aren't taxing the Indians, we are taxing New Yorkers, who are illegally going onto Indian reservations, buying stuff and not declaring it on their tax forms: willfully committing tax fraud.
No matter where you buy something, be it Vermont, New Jersey, Canada, or the UK, if you are a New York Citizen, the law of the New York State requires you to pay sales tax. Likewise you do not have to legally pay Vermont or wherever sales tax, you can file for a refund from those states.
The 2004 New York State Income tax form clarifies this, there is a line specifically asking you to declare how many out-of state or on Indian Revervation purchases you have made. Try buying a car on an Indian Reservation or in New Jersey, and try to register it in New York, the state won't let you, until you pay county taxes. Likewise, if you buy a car in Saratoga County, and you live in Albnay County, by law the car dealer must charge you Albany County tax rate (and send your taxes to Albany County), not Saratoga County.
Sales tax law is pretty clear: anything you buy, regardless of where you buy it, is taxed as per your county of residence, and it goes into it's coffers and the state coffers (4.5% of it). The problem is for little items, people let the law slide, a candy bar bought in Albany County isn't going to have many Saratogians filing for a tax refund of a penny or so. Likewise, a pack of cigs and a fill up of your gas tank slips through the cracks, if you do it in Vermont or on an Indian Reservation.
A determined Taxation and Finanace Offical could do us all in, the state has agreements with many other states and companies over finding out what is purchased, so to catch big time tax cheats.
the full-size foreign pickup trucks, who believe that now is the time to take on the Americans. Of course none of the foreign companies sell anything remotely resemembling heavy duty trucks, I know, wait and see. But at least they are pretending to be playing the game, and are ready to become a player. There light duty full-sized trucks are as big (ie. quad/extended cab) as the American competition.
There were seemingly repeated a Nissan Titan and a Toyota Tundra commericals during Law and Order last night (which sucked besides the commericals). By the way, GM, the American Revolution commerical is just a GM fanasty, it's unlikely you'll ever own 51% of the auto market like you did in the '60s.
you must be safe, the mantra goes. Our policymakers have argued this for years, well maybe not directly, but through their actions. And it's good politics to give the appearance that you give a damn (even if you don't). This one is good, keep us safe by preventing bathroom lines on planes:
The agency in mid-December sent an advisory to airlines asking them to inform passengers that they should not gather in groups on airplanes, especially near the restroom, said spokesman Darrin Kayser.
Yeap, they need to implement this policy throughout society, especially at places where I have to go, I hate, really hate that is, waiting in lines. When you can't control the irrational (as it's truly irrational), the obvious response is to create the appearance of control ('rationality'), which is less then effective.
forms of politics. People often feel their liberties, their life, and their surroundings are at stake (many times they are), and they are willing to do whatever is possible to protect them. Not surpisingly, as Alex Ersnt points out that the Residents Committee to Protect the Adirondacks is engaging in this pratice:
The conclusion that 2.9 million acres of public lands could be in the process of being entirely destroyed by ATVs seems based on a hyperbole campaign by an exclusionist group calling itself the Residents Committee to Protect the Adirondacks.
yatta.. yatta... yatta... Radicalism promoting political morass. People wonder why New York has such high local taxes and at the same time, is struggling to provide decent care to Medicaid patients, the same deal is going on.
I remember from reading about the design of the local forest managment / use plans of a couple of years back, the state had proposed building an offical ATV trail through Renselearville State Forest, on one of those motor vechicle trails (which are probably not legal to ride on and are kind of a legal limbo, AFAIK), but the neighboors stopped it,
They were worried about tresspassers (which is probably a concern with some merit, there are many yahoos out there). We can't have idiots tearing around in people's corn fields and harrasing people's cows, not unlike we can't have bullets flying on Lark Street during Rush Hour. So the local citizens killed the plan, and now we have motor vechicle trails, that nobody seems to understand the regs for. Yet, Alex seems to think (or at least hope) that we as a society can get to a higher level and:
... Using reason over hysteria, we would propose that such a policy should be built on instituting proper management techniques, enforcement and education, as opposed to prohibition heralded as the panacea by such anti-access groups. Projects to manage sustainable ATV access in states all over the nation, including almost every adjacent state and province, are well documented as successful in solving various complaints of social and environmental impacts. So why not in New York?
We suspect that the DEC's apparent paralysis in dealing with this controversy is just another manifestation of the kind of counterproductive activities of these shrill our-way-only groups that are the greatest contributors to perpetuating the very conditions about which they complain.
And maybe we can locate trails and allow people to ride, in ways that avoid tresspassing and weapons of mass destruction.
then any other state, and has not a lot to show for it. Except inequality and unfairness, but as we all know, only suburban areas really care about education, and there the critical ones for elections, rural areas always go Republican and urban Democratic, so the game continues. At least our testing system is one of the best: we know what kids are idiots and need help, and which ones are bonafide geniouses (thanks to their high socioeconomic class).
today, with tempetures only about -1 °F right now, okay, maybe we've reached 0 °F, still it's very cold. But it's January, what can one expect. Get out those long johns, as they say. It's so nice out today (super clear), but I just can't face going out for an extended period, even with warm clothes on, plus I don't want to consume too much gas, have a big textbook bill coming up very soon, when I get my books from Mary Janes' on Monday (still less then SUNY bookstore).
your backyard would probably turn almost all of us into NIMBYs, like:
"I was in favor of the project in the beginning. I didn't realize the size. This crosses the line of responsible growth," Carter said
The sprawling bethemoth can be seen here. Notice how the conference/retreat center is segegated off from the rest of this mess. This seems to be the case of the people of Malta, who continue their fight against Luther Forest:
Austin and Cepiel lead the Coalition for Responsible Growth, whose members oppose the project for fueling suburban sprawl. They also have questions about the impact of increased traffic, pollution, demands on public services, adverse health impacts, dangers of chemical spills and destroying quality of life.
Some other comments have been:
"By doing this project you will ruin the town of Malta," said Linda Imfeld of Pepperbush Place.
"Please do not sell out our communities. We have to live here, they do not. No factories in the forest please," Linda Cepiel of Cold Springs Road, Stillwater, stated frankly.
Andrea Austin of Timber Trace, said: "Malta's not desperate for development that we have to accept the heavy concentration of this project. Our residents are being asked to suck it up so other people can benefit."
What sickens me, is the amount of money floating around, and how the major news stations are all but repuditating any nay sayers to this. Watching WTEN at 6 PM and WRGB at 11 PM, I noted that the stations noted the protestors and dissenters, but were all but dissmissive: they exist, they are a force getting in the way of progress, etc., those damn long hair hippie environmental people (hey, so what if I have long hair ?).
The myth of listening to the public continues to be portrayed by development now, jobs now, at any cost (but we are listening to you, in the words of Hubert Humphrey the right to be heard, does not mean the right automatically to be taken seriously
).
SEDC President Kenneth Green emphasized that the project will create up to 12,000 jobs that will provide incomes for residents who might otherwise have to leave the Capital Region to find work.
Green said his nonprofit economic development organization has been listening to residents and officials' concerns about the impact of the proposed "campus-like high technology manufacturing complex" since first submitting it to the Malta Town Board in June 2002.
I bet you the people in the town board are just soaking with gifts, money, nights out on the town, and anything else that one can use with lobbying. I'm sure some members just want to get out and shoot the lobbyists, because while they are nice, they can get annonying after a while.
Hey, if you want a good job, why don't you go to Austin, Texas and leave us alone? You like traffic and high pay, buh, bye. I'm sure the people who support this park so much, are same ones 40 years ago chanting, Love it or leave it
. Take your own advise! All for a fine plant in a troubled sector in America:
The U.S. high-tech sector is set to lose 234,000 jobs in 2003 on top of a calamitous 540,000 jobs lost in 2002, according to the American Electronics Association (AeA.)
Over half of the 2002 layoffs occurred in the electronics manufacturing sector, jobs in the software sector fell 150,000 in 2002 while about 15,000 engineers were laid off during the period, the trade organization said Wednesday (November 19, 2003) in its annual Cyberstates report, which details employment conditions in the high-tech industry...
This Tech Park thing smells so much of Storm King...
Tell your opinion here, obviously vote no, and vote repeatly (just make sure to change your ip address between votes (disconnect and reconnect on a dialup and delete the two lutherforest.com cookies, it tracks that you by them).
Heck, even have your friends vote, and vote no for all of Eratus Corning's old dead friends, and vote once for every member of the New York Assembly, hey, this could be so much fun flooding their poll. And finally, see how many great places for hi-tech shit that are around, and only avaible for $1 or $2 from the city of Schenetady? Certainly Luther Forest is going to cost a lot more then a couple of bucks. But those $1 or $2 sites are located in decent locations, have ample power, sewer and water, and close by to a lot of decent housing.
the High Peaks to Manahatten? Fred Lebrun notes that there is currently only one real issue with water quality for swimming the Hudson. PCBs are not legally a problem for swimming (although would you want to swim in such waters, many do though ?) That issue is that the state has to throw a lot of money at a couple of antiquated storm systems in Albany and Troy that have an annoying habit of dumping raw sewage in the Hudson after bad "events"
.
Of course, once the water quality is good enough, Fred notes that the hypothetical swimmer would still have problems, all of the dams above the Troy Federal Dam lack locks to help you deal with the 100 or so foot drops that hydroelectric dams create. There hasn't been much work to create footpaths or other ways the swimmer or boater (row or canoe) can get around the dams, with a few notable exceptions.
alt.culture.ny-upstate:
While your argument is very well presented, it omits one glaring difference between buying cigarettes in New Jersey and buying them on a reservation. The state was attempting (I'm not sure what they've done with this idea) to place the tax on the wholesalers who supply the reservations with cigarettes and gasoline. The Indians would have no choice but to raise prices, for everybody, both Indians and non-Indians. If the issue is just with non-Indians buying cigarettes and gas on reservations, then forcing Indians to pay taxes is hardly the correct way to solve it.
Ah... that makes sense, I've press release and all that spin Albany puts out, but never a real explanation on how taxation and finance was going to do it. I figured they were going to pressure the Indians to hand over sales reciepts or something and then tax and finance was going to go after big-time cheaters, but pre-taxing wholesale product makes more sense and is cheaper.
If this is the state's argument, then they should be going after Pennsylvania for all the folks near the border who are crossing state lines to buy these things.
They do, if they audit your taxes, and the purchase is big enough to warrent you to pay taxes.
People complain that non-Indian businesses are suffering because the reservations can sell these things so much cheaper, but there is a far better solution: NYS could easily cut the ridiculous taxes they charge on gas and cigarettes (at one time, half of what you pay for a gallon of gas went to NY, and if Marlboro's are selling for $50 a carton off reservations and $25 on reservations, what does that tell you?) and that would make non-Indian businesses competitive. However, I doubt NY would ever consider lowering a tax, no matter how exhorbitant it is.
And you propose cutting what, and raising what taxes (the question Cuomo so famoulously posed in his '90 SoS address after listing a bunch of the big spending items)? About 70% of the state budget goes to manditory spending (debt and federal/state entitlements), Medicaid/Medicare, and K-12 Education.
Cutting K-12 education spending would dratically cause a rise of property taxes, there are dizzing amounts unfunded mandates for K-12, not to mention school districts have to supply a certain level of education to their students: taxpayers expect it. The state's save-harmless policy makes it impossible to cut education spending, unless all schools lose aid (which is unlikely). Moreover, Rich suburban schools aren't going to give up their money they are currently getting, while poor rural and urban school fall apart (hey, suburban districts are competitive in elections and everybody wants to appease them, and they value education more).
Cutting Medicaid isn't much easier (and the movement to give more Medicaid costs to the state is growing), as Sheldon Silver noted yesterday, we are talking about kicking your parents out of the nursing home (85% get Medicaid), and taking health insurance from your family (HealthyNY (?) for small businesses is subsidized through Medicaid). Hell, it's also paying for one of my part time jobs I'm doing through college.
Even if your not benifiting from Medicaid directly, you enjoy the benifts through having hospitals open in your area (many cases Medicaid payments make it possible to keep them open). Yes, many hospitals are redundent and unneccessary (you don't need 3 competiting hospitals in a city the size of Albany, and you don't need specialized services in every city), but people want them (do you want to ship your father to Boston when he has a heart attack and needs bipass surgery ?).
Then there is so called discressionary spending, that's a lot cheaper, like road maintance and construction, I like my roads plowed in the winter. I like open space being protected and programs that allow people opporunities to select the field they desire to work in (from scholarships to beanstalk to beginner farmer program), to have more jobs avalible, to quality higher ed at a affordable point. Lower taxes are a neccesity (particularly local taxes), but a difficult neccessity to reach.
The tempeture only got up to about 0°F on Friday , that's cold. Last night, my mom's electronic themometer registered -15.1°F as the low temperature, that's pretty darn cold, you know. At 8 AM this morning (Saturday), it was about -10°F, but it is warming up quickly, we already are at -8°F. There was ice on the doors, and because my parents have prohibited use of the woodstove while they are away, the oil burner has only been able to keep the room above it about 53°F, (set to 70°F) although it's getting warmer already.
I guess at some level that's reasonable: if only because Jesse Irwin's old house in Clarksville burned the other day because of a chimney fire, and Tommy Smith's house had a chimney fire, but they got it under control quickly with no damage besides the need for inspecting the chimney. Of course, probably some of the ever so common chimney fires is caused by idiots who never clean their chimneys or burn stuff that they shouldn't be burning in their houses like paper and plastic (that's why you have a backyard ;).
I'm avoiding going outside in this weather, who wouldn't? I went out for a breif walk today, but it's too cold to do much. I just hope my Sundance will start today, I bet you it will, but I'll have to hold the accelerator down for a while, until all 4 cylnders totally fire on up, vrooooooomm, the good ol' Chrylser sound. Of course, if it doesn't start, in weather like this, and where I live, triple-A will not be here for hours, argh!
In related news, my Aunt Bette says they were sitting out on their pourch last night in Phenoix Arizona, enjoying the nice 78°F weather, but they don't have the claim of being one of the least stressful places to live like Albany. ;) As it's cold, there isn't a lot of exciting news, so I'll have to BS something, as I type and eat breakfast at the same time.
policy (created in '72) suggested in a recent op-ed that big-game hunters, unsuccessful in the fall season, be issued a license to hunt snowmobiles over the winter.
Just imagine the trophies you'd get for shooting a snowmobiler, a nice person's head you could take to a taxomist and have it stuffed, not to mention a nice snowmobile (not cheap, I should note). But it will never happen, as Norm found out. And people complain about the Bush administration putting people hostile to their mission into jobs. But it get gets better, the Plattsburgh Press Republican notes some of his other plans for snowmobiles:
Recounting past discussions with his colleague, Clarence Petty, Van Valkenburgh wrote, "Our debate wasn’t whether or not they (snowmobiles) should be permitted on the Forest Preserve; we were of a single mind about that. Instead, we debated how to get rid of them.
"I don’t recall now who took which point of view, but one advocated land mines set at strategic locations along snowmobile trails. The other opted for piano wire stretched taught and chin high across the trails, preferably at the end of long, straight runs where a high speed could be expected.
"However, we realized these actions were probably unconstitutional...In the end, none of our proposals was implemented. More’s the pity."
Yeah, I'd say so, of course I wonder how truly hostile one could have been in 1972, they didn't totally can things, or make things as bad as they might people, some people just grow mean and ugly as they get old. People in the snommobile community are rather up in arms with this (as are many others):
The snowmobile community has taken Van Valkenburgh’s piece as evidence that the cards have been stacked against them ever since the 1972 plan and its 848-mile limit on trails was passed.
"It shows we’re dealing with radical people with a radical agenda and no respect for human life," said James McCulley, president of the Lake Placid Snowmobile Association.
"This is the guy who wrote the policy, and he’s bragging about the decapitation of human beings. Meanwhile, you cut down a Christmas tree, they think you’re a murderer."
That Van Valkenburgh was thinking this way as he shaped snowmobile policy invalidates the State Land Master Plan and the proposals that followed, McCulley said.
I guess a hostile bureaucrat exists on every street corner. ;)
to call for emergencies from I-87, since the emergency phones died in '00 with the y2k-bug. Nobody has come up with any good solutions, people are still considering putting up cellphone towers along the Northway, that is, when they figure out to power them (it's too rural in many parts of the Northway to bring out powerlines at any reasonable expense). Fuel cells are one suggestion, solar cells won't work, as they require way too much power to broadcast the signal. Not to mention, cell towers are probably pretty ugly.
And if cellphones don't get better in rural areas (they are quite spotty around here, and mine or my mom's doesn't work at our house), Sayward says:
Assemblywoman Teresa Sayward (R-Willsboro) said cellular coverage in the North Country is spotty overall, and she wants to change that.
Cell coverage is an issue "not just on the Northway, but in rural communities," Sayward said. "Verizon (Wireless) made a statement that rural communities are not a top priority for cell providers."
She said cellular providers can expect more regulation from the state unless they address the coverage issue for all of New York state.
overly negative about my achievements. I'll admit it for once, they probably are right, not everybody can do the things I've done, actually only a small percentage of them: but there are so many people close to my level that are in constant competition with me, so sometimes it seems like I'm always uphill, on a losing battle. I like not being just somewhere in the front of the pack, I like to be first, second isn't an option, yet that's closer to reality. Hey, I may not get a lot of extra benifits, but that's okay. I've learned a lot of things are really difficult: ease of action comes only with pratice and mastery: it may look easy, but that's an illusion presented by experience.
Bob Dylan's 1966 Tour was called, Don't Look Back. Of course when I'm driving, I occassionally check all my mirrors, and tonight is no different. I've been straightening up around here, filing old notes away, and flipping through the past, it's just fascinating how I've stayed the same, yet somehow have fundamentally changed, and grown.
The past is embarrassing, you don't have to be a politician to know that. The facts and the reality of the past are far different then the current (what was I thinking when I wrote that?). It might be tempting to just take your past writings out back, and touch a match to it, but paper really doesn't burn that well (thanks to the clay in it) and you'll never destroy all the things you did in the past: you must forever somehow manage to live with it.
