The Hayseeds blog, No. 120 for the week starting June 26, 2005.
June 12, 2005
Hayseeds No. 119
June 26, 2005
Hayseeds No. 120
July 3, 2005
Hayseeds No. 120
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Yesterday after going canoeing with a friend, that namely friend convienced me that it might be fun to try my hand a lassoing a calf. Let's put it this way, at least I didn't get trambled to death or fall into any cow dung—nor did I lasso that frightened holstein calf, but neither did my friend. Following that theme though, a lot can be talked about this week.
This weekend was the Democratic Picinic and it was a washout to put it nicely. It rained and it rained. Us Young Dems had a pretty nice booth hidden out from the rain, but I got wet enough walking around filling my belly with goodies. I also now have a nice Jennings '05 baseball cap and t-shirt. I was suppost to work Sunday, but my job canceled out so I ended up canoeing and going over to a friend's farm and doing what I previously described.
You know, I'm rather suspecious of the Jennings baseball cap. I noticed on mine that the inside label was removed. Isn't that illegal, even when giving them away? One has to wonder if the Jennings camp created the all mighty sin of buying baseball caps from a non-union factory over in China like the rest of us do when not playing politics. Jerry's boys where being bad boys.
And now it's off to the governor for his final signatures on these bills numbered SB 1398 and AB 6465. I expect the governor to promptly sign it into law. A person who rides an ATV on farmland that's posted could face up to a $500 dollar fine and a jail sentence up to 90 days with this class-B misodemeanor. 98% of the time though, it would be pled down to just regular tresspass (a violation) and a much smaller fine without jailtime. The idea is stop people from tearing up crops and doing serious damage to people's livelyhoods. While we don't need any more laws, it seems like a reasonable protection for property rights and particularly farmers who struggle enough to make a living.
Yesterday I mentioned the bills that would lower the snowmobile speed limit and reauthorize the trail funds. AB 4847 and SB 740 are the ones to reauthorize the trail funds, and SB 3158 and AB 6815 establishes the speed limit and other restrictions in the "Snowmobile Rights and Responsibilies Act". The NY legislature just isn't so creative in their naming of bills the few times it actually does it. Read those bills and the text to find out what new law we all have to live under. One thing good about the Snowmobile Rights and Responsibilities Act is that violators (such as not carrying insurance or registration) will not just be funding local and state government, but also the sport of snowmobiling. Snowmobilers all lose when people violate the law:
Any person who violates any provision of this article or regulation adopted pursuant thereto shall be guilty of a violation punishable by a fine of TWO hundred dollars {ed note: changed from the old fee of $100}, and one-half of such fine shall be deposited in the snowmobile trail development and maintenance fund as set forth in section 21.07 of the parks, recreation and historic preservation law.
It's a definate possibility despite all the efforts of the beer wholesalers and grocery store people to kill the bill. With farmers and environmentalists on our side, it looks like an admended AB 2517 and SB 1290 will go up for votes in their restrospective chambers this week, though the Senate bill must first pass out of Senate EnCon first. Expect that to happen today or tommorow.
I forgot that all bills in the Senate have to go through Joe Bruno's Rules committee and that the standing committee on EnCon is dead for the year. So it's doesn't have to pass through Encon but Rules at this point.
In theory about 212 legislators will be leaving Albany for summer break starting Thursday afternoon. Darrell Aubertine can go and spend more time with his cows up on the Tugg Hill Plateau, Neil Breslin can spend more time helping his brother get re-elected, Broadsky can continue to dream about beating Andrew Cuomo for Attorney General, Tom DiNappoli can pretend to be a serious Leutient Governor candidate, and so forth. Many people are ready to go home. Enjoy the first day of summer!
While session is scheduled to end shortly there is much business to complete. It is crazy in the LOB and Capitol, stay out if you can avoid!!! Some of the perverts in the Capitol on the Republican side of things are focusing on the expiring Megan's law, and are doing their part to derail it's renewal by trying to force controversal provisions. Yet, these things seem unimportant to other bigger issues that need to pass but also are in trouble:
There are other issues like cleaning up the Encon and VLT law as regards to ATVs and funding trails with the budget proposals. I don't include this on my list as I know there is little chance of these things passing. I would also like to see more money spent on road reconstruction, open space protection, and state land, but that's not going to happen either.
I see that Tom O'Leary has been working hard at the LOB to push for Timothy's Law. You see his F-350 dually driving around and parked on State Street virtually every session day. It's the neat dark grey one with the Pass Timothy Law stickers all over it (of course!). Everybody has to gawk at nice pickup trucks. It looked so promising last year with all the big signs saying "XX more days of session to pass Timothy's Law". This year though it's in more trouble.
Small business people aren't crazy about another mandate that would increase costs (it currently costs about $2.50 an hour to provide health insurance for each employee). Requiring parity on mental health might add a nickel to that cost. That amount is a lot of money for those businesses and farms that are struggling along penny-by-penny. Still, it's good to encourage psychotherapy and to normalize it as part of culture. It should be no more difficult to dianosis and look at behavior then the physical body. When we start seeing the prevelance of nuerosis in society, it will inspire us to do things that clean up our often troublesome environment around us.
If you want to get something from your favorite state agency, and your taking the agency head out for dinner, your going to have to tell David Grandeau about your activities. You can still spend outrageous amounts to get such favors, but now you have to tell delusions of Grandeau.
The measure would require lobbyists to publicly report their activities and spending tied to work regarding public contracts, Indian gaming compacts and executive orders.
This is better then outright banning lobbying of the executive branch. The executive branch will always be lobbied despite whatever wall you set up, but now we will at least be able to study who gives the money and who gets the results. Public pressure from interest groups will do a lot to keep people honest, probably better then so-called contributions limitations.
Some people in the NYS Senate want to create special plates for people who drive drunk perpetutally, namely get convicted 3x for DWI in 5 years. Seems like a reasonable, though the drunk driving legislators don't want it as it might effect them personally at some point. Other reasons for opposition is privacy concerns, and the fear of police targeting these drivers. Still, we do the exact same thing with sex offenders by putting their faces on the internet and requiring them to be monitored by the police.
As you might guess most are pretty supportive of the law as ATVs are particularly destructive as they cross the land directly and can tear up crops:
“What we end up with are ruts. We end up with some crop damage causing…it destroys crop land, and if you have enough of it going across your property you're going to end up having to reseed, replant, which costs you more money in the long run and some headaches,” said farmer Wesley Baldock.
Most of these articles in the media are overstating the reality of getting stopped for illegally tresspassing on farm land with an ATV. It is not a criminal act or a misodemor but a violation of traffic law, even for repeated infractions. Many other kinds of tresspass are criminal acts as was the first version of the law, so it's surpising that they changed the law to de-criminalize this act.
No person shall operate an Atv on the real property of a farm operation, as defined in subdivision Eleven of section three hundred one of the agriculture and markets law, Without the consent of the owner or lessee thereof, where such owner or Lessee has erected or maintained any sign, structure, display, or device Prohibiting the trespass thereon, and which shall include a sign stating: "no trespassing". A violation of this subdivision shall be a traffic infraction, and shall, upon a conviction of a first violation be punishable by a fine of not more than two hundred fifty dollars or by Imprisonment for not more than fifteen days or by both such fine and Imprisonment; upon a conviction of a second violation, both of which were committed within a period of eighteen months, shall be punishable by a fine of not more than four hundred dollars or by imprisonment for not more than forty-five days or by both such fine and imprisonment; Upon a conviction of a third or subsequent violation, all of which were committed within a period of eighteen months, shall be punishable by a fine of not more than five hundred fifty dollars or by imprisonment for not more than ninety days or by both such fine and imprisonment.
So in short, a first time violation is less then $250 or up to 15 days in jail (like with any violation such as speeding), a second violation within a year and a half a fine less then $400 or inprisonment of 45 days, and for a third violation of less then $500 or 90 days. Again, it's not a criminal act so no criminal record, and the chance of going to jail is almost none.
And as the News 10 article notes, it's pretty difficult to issue a ticket to an ATVer, as you have to identify them and stop them. Farms typically have a lot of land, and patrolling them is nearly impossible. Still, such a law might discourage such tresspass in some cases. Let's hope for all the farm property owners.
That proposition would make Detriot really quite happy. While I can not find that exact quote online, it does seem that Joe Bruno has is opposing the bigger bottle bill, meaning that is dead for at least this year. In his anti-bottle bill diatrabe he said:
Passing an expansion of the law "is one of the dumbest things that has happened this year in the Legislature on the Assembly side...We're going to make rubbish carriers out of everybody that goes shopping. It's just nonsense."
So what are people suppost to do with all those bottles? As far as I know the recycle bin and trash bin don't make it to the town transfer station or burn barrel on their own. It certainly would be nice if they did do that. So you have to haul those bottles somewhere, and at least with beer bottles they don't burn (aluminum cans do somewhat but that takes a hot fire and I wouldn't stand downwind). Likewise, glass doesn't biodegrade in any reasonable time so dumping them out back doesn't work. So you'll need the pickup truck for getting rid of the cans where-ever you take them.
It just makes sense to take cans back to the store where you got them. Most people go to the store a lot more often then the transfer station. Right now, my family goes to the town transfer station maybe once a month and sometimes less often that. We load up our trash trailer with several trash cans, marked for each kind of recycable or trash such as junk mail and co-mingled recyclables (cans, bottles, etc.) . We're at one supermarket or another almost every other day. You buy more beer, you take back your previous case worth of beer bottles. If you remember to bring your bottles back regularly, then it's a quick bag of bottles to return. The Boy Scouts sometimes collect pickup truck loads full of returnable cans, but that's only because they are doing a fund-raiser.
A deposit discourages litter and encourages people to pick up bottles and take them back for recycling. Everybody hates roadside litter, trash in farm fields, and on state land. This is the orginal purpose of the program, but deposit bottles also provides a source of high-quality material for recycling. The stuff they get at town transfer stations are not as well sorted and less likely to be recycled successfully. In my town, they take all junk mail in one container, another takes a mixature of comingled recyclables—plastics, glass, metal. Somebody has to sort out all that stuff for sucessful recycling, otherwise it ends up in the dump with the other trash. Bottle centers require specific sorting from PET plastic to glass to metal.
Unlike the argument provided by the grocers, bottle trash makes up a lot of garbage. When they state that bottles only make up 3% of muncipal garbage dumps, that ignores the fact that about half of what is in these dumps is byproducts from manufacturing (industrial/commerical waste), some of it that would be prevented by recycling, about a quarter construction debris, and about 20% the stuff that gets put out at the curb. So that means that about 15% of household trash is otherwise recyable bottles. That is by weight as plastic takes up far more by weight then other heavier types of trash like masory construction debris or various industrial slags.
An interesting report from the Legislative Commission on Rural Resources talks about different kinds of land-use restrictions out-there and who uses what. It doesn't go into detail about each local law, but it shows where each town can go to improve its protection of unique resources.
While I can never spell Schaghticoke and have to refer to it as my favorite Freedom-to-a-Farmlife Town, the story over about Alberto Martinez fascinated me. As a behavioralist I tend to always look for environmental factors that influence behavior and create so-called sociopathic behavior. My gut reaction and pacifism suggests that the root of the problem is not Martinez but the terrible invasion into Iraq. Without a question Martinez has had a financial problems and a troublesome life, but a lot of it has to do with confusion that militarism and subsequent killing has created.
The late R.D. Laing used to talk about how normal people put in destructive situations act distructively. Behavior is a learned thing, and when we are teaching our youth to kill for vegence, we are training murders. Thanks to modern society, we are not only training solders to kill but all those who witness the horrors on television. What else could explain the increase of violent crime since the 1950s? If we plowed the money we burned up in Iraq into our country we could do much to improve the environment. We could have a healthier industrial base, more prosperous farms, and downtowns that where pleasant places for all to come. Schaghticoke is a nice place, but we could make it better. When people have jobs and are involved in politics and not in killing, not only is society is healthier but so is the individual. His troubles in the past can be blamed on the lessons that military culture tough him, and the struggles of our economy today.
Many lives have been destroyed by this war as it drags on into it's third year. Martinez is just another victim as was the people he killed. Life is cheap in battefield, just like things are cheap in Walmart. We need less hate in our society. We need not to hate Martinez or anyone else, but to create a better environment and better people through that environment. Martinez should not have been in the military, he should have been building or growing products, promoting political activism, and being an active member of his community. When your in the military far away, you are not part of the community.
While many of the mines around here are open gravel pit mines, in many areas there are some really neat old abandoned mines that people are climbing down in and getting injured in one way or another. Many of the accidents involve tresspassing, but most of the time there is little protection of old mines that are not in federal jursidication anymore. The vast majority of accidents are on ATVs and by drowning. A typical scenario:
In May, a man and his wife were found dead in a creek 60 feet below a cliff formed by a coal waste pile in Bentleyville in western Pennsylvania. Authorities said the two were riding an ATV on an unfamiliar trail when they went up a hill and were launched off the top.
These mines sound like beautiful places, but people need to be careful on what they do down in them. It is disappointing when government is so involved in keeping people out, instead of just educating them of the potential dangers. Most of the deaths are tragic accidents and not the fault of people being there. It is important for government to hold harmless property owners for those who do go down into the mines, beyond the protections offered by the posted signs and tresspassing laws.
Everybody is most certainly going home tonight probably before too late, and they're not coming back until 2006. They might stay longer if they want to fight out another issue, or come back in the fall for something yet to come to the front, but for now it looks like session is going to end on time this year. Chambers won't offically close as there will be a legislator pounding the gavel once a week, through January. Traditionally the person doing that will be Joe Bruno in the Senate and Jack McEneny in the Assembly, as both are regularly in Albany year round. If they didn't do that, then session would offically be closed.
We are getting new electronic voting machines starting next year. These machines will look an awful lot like the existing machines, except they're skinner and lighter and have a lit up LCD-based face. The old machines are going to be scrapped for the metal or sent to museums (finally). The downside is that some counties will be allowed to use massive paper ballots (all races appear on a big sheet of paper). The full-face ballot is still required, which will make the machines more expensive then what other states use and makes it harder for the visually impaired. Instead of pulling levers in Row B from the left to the right, you will be touching a touch screen from left to right. It should be interesting to see how these voting machine touch screens will hold up over the years, compared to the old lever machines. It appears that the paper backup will not be required, though confirmation on that has not been made. At least we will get the $200 million in federal matching funds to buy the new machines.
It looks like the morning-after pill will be avalible from pharmacies without a perscription or parental consent. The Senate approved the bill after the Assembly. Federal law requires that phamacies and midwifes who give out this pill under the law have a blanket prescription for the bill. If you make a mistake in the back of your pickup, you have 72 hours to undue the mistake easily and realatively cheaply, assuming that you don't transmit anything else. The bill now goes to Pataki and let's hope that he signs it. While you probably should be more careful rolling around in the summer's moonlight and pratice safe sex, this offers a way to put the brakes on accidential pregenancies that ruin so many lives.
Many bills didn't make it so far. As mentioned yesterday, the bottle bill is dead for another year. Meagan's law won't be renewed this year except maybe for an act of god or a last minute agreement between the houses, meaning that on July 1st the sex offender database will disappear from the Internet as will many of the other previsions for sex offenders. This is unfortuante not only for parents with little kids who are scared for their safety, but also for those who need help from the mental illness that causes their compulsion towards little kids. And speaking of mental illness, Tom O'Clair, the man with his bill and his pickup truck won't again be getting Timothy's Law in memory of his son. It's too bad that mental health parity is dead for another year.
It so amazingly clear out there. You can see the Heldebergs increadibly well from the 14th floor of One Commerence Plaza. The Green Mountains are also increadibly clear. I wish I was out there hiking or camping and not stuck in Commerence Plaza. Tommorow evening with come fast, but it's going to be a lot more humid out then. I'm hoping to take a bunch of pictures. At the same time, I need to remember to bring a camera to work one day. Maybe we need to dig out that Small Face's song... It's all so beautiful... It's all so beautiful...
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An action alert from the nice people over at NYSORA lets us know about the status of the trail construction fund:
...Legislature has to this date failed to author, much less pass, a bill PROMISED TO US in the State Budget to pass in 2005 that would implement a Program to help us establish Legal Trails using our registration money. That Budget Law raised the ATV registration fee to $25 effective 7/11/05, the $15 increase to be dedicated to a Trail Program. The Budget Law also stated subsequent legislation would be passed in 2005 to take care of the spending authority and other details.
With the end of the Legislative Session on 6/23 and no ATV Program legislation in sight — not even a concept of one, means there is no authority to spend any of the fee increase on ATV trails or even badly needed insurance. If previous state-sponsored rip-offs of ATVers were not enough motivation, we hope this new fee increase with its subsequent broken promise finally gives riders something they think is serious enough to talk to their Legislators about. We encourage you to do so NOW.
They make a good point. We've basically criminalized (though we don't call it a 'crime' anymore) the tresspass of ATVs on posted private farm land (as described in Agri-Markets Law Article 301 Section 11—see below), but not given any good place to ride for most of the state, besides in people's own backyards. It sucks for ATV riders as there will be no appropiations of the collected funds this year, as there is no bill submited to that effect and they won't come back to do that (even if you ride your ATV on your legislator's lawn). Maybe next year. Now you understand why ATVers are so angry at the legislature.
Article 301 Section 11 is mentioned in AB 6564 ATV tresspass law, yet there has been little discussion in both the action alert and on this blog. Illegal tresspass with an ATV on farmland may just be tresspass unless it falls under the defination of land under active agricultural production, namely crop land. Farmers don't want people tearing up crops (the way they make their living), and who can blame them.
"Farm operation" means the land and on-farm buildings, equipment, manure processing and handling facilities, and practices which contribute to the production, preparation and marketing of crops, livestock and livestock products as a commercial enterprise, including a "commercial horse boarding operation" as defined in subdivision thirteen of this section. Such farm operation may consist of one or more parcels of owned or rented land, which parcels may be contiguous or noncontiguous to each other.
So AB 6564 does not include farm woodlands and other farm properties not listed. This is probably a good thing, as the most serious penalities should be reserved for those who damage actively farmed land. It also would not effect other property owners whose property is not used for crop or livestock production for non-commerical use (ie. what people like Carl Anderson call 'play farmers'). It might just cover tresspassing by ATVers on posted land that has piles of manure on it for storage. I knew I kid years ago who thought riding up and down big piles of manure was quite a fun thing. After all, cow dung doesn't really smell once it's dried up. Bad for him, assuming that he was tresspassing to ride on the cow dung.
After a long night last night, the Assembly has gone home for the year and the Senate will finish up today by passing the health-care reform bill that supplies neccesary money to nursing homes. It's over though. Let's take a big deep breath.
Legislators didn't want to be called child molesters (who likes that label?), sot hey finally came to some kind of agreement to renew Megan's Law. There was some kind of reform of state authorities and other quasi-governmental corporations. We saw the big campaign finance reform of the executive branch earlier this week. Everything else that happened, and even the major details of what happened last night is increadibly sketchy as I wasn't there and the papers printed before session finally came to a close.
Oh, by the way, today is Friday. Time to get out my brown stetson, the Corona that's chilling in my basement (too hot for Sam Adams), and head to the woods. Yehaw. Going to be a very hot today, so it will be fun after it gets nice and dark out. Have to be careful though as Plan B won't be avalible over-the-counter for at least 90-more days, and even when it is, one in ten babies will survive. Have to bring my pet cow instead or do it safely. I hate it when people leave condomns in the woods.
Some brief thoughts on what's going on in the bigger US of A.
Both of these men have been saying some controversal stuff lately that's gotten them in trouble. First Rove:
(P)erhaps the most important difference between conservatives and liberals can be found in the area of national security. Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers.
While Rove's comments where obviously an insult to Democrats, the suggestion of indicting and procecuting terrorists in a lawful way makes sense in a democracy. We shouldn't be taking out revenge on our terrorists, as that's no more mature then shooting somebody for taking your parking space. What happened on 9/11 was a tragity, but those who did it made a mistake, mislead by powerful ideology that blinded them from reality. You have to wonder why did people go this far? What in their socialization made them so anti-American? Was it one event deep down in their psyche, or was it something bigger? I wish we could have some of the terrorists for use in anaylsis of their psyche. We could learn much from studying and treating the terrorist mind. It's a question of enlightened response to terrorism versus an immature slapping around of your opponent.
Now Dean:
Republicans are "a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party."
This statement bothered me more if only because it implies that Democrats aren't the party of white Christians. We know that couldn't be farther from the truth. On the other hand, Republicans are largely made up of white Christans, and in many cases they feel excluded from the democrats. Democrats need to embrace them and find ways to make their liberalism compatible with those who are deeply spirtual.
