The Hayseeds blog, No. 94 for the week starting December 18, 2004.
December 4, 2004
Hayseeds No. 93
December 18, 2004
Hayseeds No. 94
December 25, 2004
Hayseeds No. 94
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While I certainly hope that our favorite freedom-to-a-farmlife town (Scaghticoke) won't be choosen, it does look like we will hear the EPA's final decision shortly. Bethlehem says they aren't going to vigrously oppose dredging down along the River, and Scaghticoke says they'll put up a real fight to keep dredging from their backyard.
Think that NYC is this great city celebrating diversity and creativity? Think again. It seems that one artist's impression of the President got him in deep do-do with the management of the exhibit that found his remarks on the President tasteless. Maybe they are, but who defines taste? Not I said the cow.
Do you lie about your past on a job interview to get a job? You always risk that possiblity of being found out (like Ed Holden at the mueseum), but you also realize that you might otherwise not get the job. Your life almost becomes a secret or a tail, created in an individually (vs. socially) created world.
I don't know the short answer to that question. I've lied in job interviews, not about promotions or positions, as much as the troublesome question on whether or not you've been convicted of a crime. What is relevant information for an employeer and what is not? Certainly some so-called crimes don't merit consideration, particularly if they happened long ago enough. You just start to fear the background check will find out something from a world long ago.
I guess they call it youthful indiscresion. Nods head and moves on.
A local judge whose been claiming that judical rules limit first admendment rights, was ruled against claiming that his actions where clearly beyond the scope of the first admendment (and as part of taking a judgeship you should accept certain infringements of your rights):
Spargo faces six counts of judicial misconduct that include paying a pair of political operatives $5,000 each in 2001 to cross-endorse him and pressuring lawyers in 2003—including some who appeared before him—to contribute $10,000 each to his defense fund.
He is accused of trying to bribe voters with food, gasoline and coupons. And his involvement in a public demonstration during the 2000 Florida presidential race recount is also being investigated.
The scary thing is that the man is an elections law lawyer, so he probably knows how to get away with such things, and make them legal at the same time. Still, I don't want my county's judges actively taking bribes or giving out stuff, despite how much some of his friends in Berne might apprecate such things.
For now as they say, with it's $5 billion dollar and growing budget that continues to eat more and more money, while fewer and fewer students enroll in schools that get more expensive. We need to find ways to cut expenses at SUNY scohols, but at the same time give the best education at the lowest cost. Such an equation is difficult to get, but modernizing and elimating part of the SUNY bureaucracy will help (so much money is lost in bureaucracy and red tape in SUNY).
As I've said in the past, reasonably funding both elementary and higher education should be a priority for the state. Yet, it should not be the only priority, and instead we should look at the impact at large of taxes and service cuts. Education effects the individual for only a few years of his youth, except for the ability to hired and promoted in jobs. We must consider broader questions of the environment and quality of life in our communities, before pouring excessive amounts into education.
Not only do those 4x4 Dakotas get worst fuel economy then my Ranger, but they have a tendency to have their wheels fall off or at least their ball-joints collapse. Nothing unusual for some junkers that my friends drive, but that shouldn't be happening to new cars. And yes, my Ford Ranger has the new door tire level sticker, the gas line fix, a battery bag, and all the other exciting recalls fixed.
We all know that it has too with far more then nannies, and the NYT seems to have the scoop. It should be interesting to see how Giuliani reacts to this all and how his political future will be put in jeporady but yet another corrupt cop and NYCer (aren't all people from cities corrupt?).
At least in NYS, it loks like Spitzer's gonna snap up the governorship and Democrats are going to give NY Senate Republican control a run for it's money. I guess with further partisan polarization, Democratic control could become a reality in New York, but that would only create even harder differences between downstate and upstate that would lead to the return of Republican control. Democrats might win statewide office, but don't expect long-term NY Senate control.
You might not be able to imagine the Alcove Resivour with a steel cover over it, but that's what the feds are pushing for on all resivours to control containmentation and protect the water supply from terrorism. Such fears are rather absurd though, as it's nearly impossible to seriously posion or damage a large water supply (due to dillution factors) and most containmates and crap can be filtered out. And just remember Albanians, that nice water your drinking has plenty of grey (sink) water mixed in into it, but dilluted and purified to the point that it does not pose a serious threat.
And while the press is making a big deal of it, it seems that there is no worst time to have a ralley that will fall on dead ears. I happened to stop by on Sunday (I was downtown), and it was a really pathetic ralley. Then again, it served no real purpose except to hoot and horn on the steps of the Capitol. There was no specific demands, just lots of rhetoric about democracy and free elections.
And another 1/8 hope to at least leave the town that they live in. Most don't have a clue how government works in New York (I'm in that group). Those $ numbers from the Cornell survey group probably are rather upsetting to politicans who love to chase smokestacks, though hopefully not smokestakes as dirty as those at Cornell power plant.
I tend to think New York State is overpopulated by something like 17 million people, but that is just my opinion. We might lose more population to the sunbelt and the better paying jobs there, but some of us love the land far more then jobs and we'll stay in New York (allusion to farmers intended). NY is a beautiful state, and it's government for the most part reflects greatness and fundamental fairness for all though the system is far from perfect. Sing along with Hugh Carey: I Love New York.
There are a lot of troubling things in recent letters to TU on this subject—one that claims that these are evil people and must be punished and others that say that such people should be treated fairly and that their disease should be kept in perspective. If you accept theories of mental illness then you'd have to accept the prior, else the former. Or so it would seem: but maybe their is a middle ground. I think we should hold people responsible for their actions, whatever their political beliefs may be.
This NYT Op-Ed notes how mentally ill people spend more time in jail then others, however a careful analysis seems to argue my point and for prison reform at the same time. When people act badly in jail or on the street, it should be the goal to help them reform themselves and not to punish them. Using fear to prevent crime only works so far, reforming criminals successfully is far more powerful. So when a person acts badly in jail, they should not be put in solitary confinement, but instead their actions should be carefully analyized and appropiate treatment be given (in the form of mood-altering drugs or psychotherapy). Yes, this takes money but in the long run it would save us money.
It makes a lot of sense for people who are getting older to find their way back to cities, particularly if they don't have kids to care for them out in the suburbs or country. Not to mention, this brings a level of gentrification and downtown improvement to cities that will help reduce further sprawl.
A simple explanation was in the Getting There Column on Monday, that tells you everything you'd ever want to know about those green highway markers.
Almost every other police department on the face of the planet has been able to run plates instantly when people are stopped in traffic stops, but finally it looks like Albany will be catching up. Now only their pratices could catch up to about the 1965 standard for police pratices.
If you want to enjoy some Love Canal spring water or at least muncipal water from the largest upstate city, you might soon see it on store shelves.
In their effort to prevent people from getting bad ideas, they are now planning on banning all books whose authors are from embargoed countries, whether or not they are going to be making a profit.
People who steal other people's cows are becoming more common as recent crime stats would suggest. Hey, young female holstien hiefers will bring in $400 or $600 and they are virtually untrackable or identifible at a cattle auction (as spots rapidly change when cows are young), so it seems like a good business to steal from, bar the risk of getting caught and the damage to farmers.
There is a really excellent article on the PVC pipe ban, with both sides clearly arguing their points. The Pipefitters stated:
"That stuff's not good for our people," said Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 112 Union Treasurer Jim Rounds. "That stuff is nasty." Rounds specifically spoke about the glue and primer used in the installation of the pipe which could be harmful, especially in an enclosed room.
The nice people at the Vinyl insitute poo-poo'd those arguments, and the Business groups with their desire to save a couple of bucks seemed to concur. But the facts just don't add up for them:
Companies such as Firestone and Samsung are beginning to phase out the use of PVC because of the potential harmful affects.
"Burn PVC waste in incinerators and it creates cancer-causing dioxin," said Kathy Curtis, executive director of Citizens' Environmental Coalition. "Bury it in landfills and it pollutes groundwater. Recycle PVC products and they contaminate the recycling process. The only solution is to phase out the PVC in the products we purchase."
Sound reasonable. National Pipe and Plastic is right about PVC being somewhat flame retardent. If toss some PVC plastic on a fire it won't instantly combust, but when it does you get a stinky and icky black smoke that could make for real problems for a firefighter trying to fight a fires. Years ago, I burned a bunch of toys made out of PVC (sigh), and I can tell you that it doesn't burn easy, but when it does, it burns with a very nasty smoke.
Apparently the SUNY trustees who oversee Charter Schools has approved Albany Prepartory Charter school, that will focus on educating 300 Albany children in the critical middle school years. Hopefully this school will give some minority and poor kids a better chance at getting a decent education and better life, thanks to it being seperated from the oppressive bureaucracy of a city school district.
The regular Albany City School District is having a fit about this development. They are increasingly finding their business cut into and having to change their plans. Jennings thinks the resources sent to Charters (about $8,000/student) can not be made up by cuts to staff and building space. I disagree, as they can get rid of or reduce Kelton Court Middle School, and move the school bureaucracy into existing parts of the large Albany High, rather then have them in seperate buildings. And if that doesn't save enough space, there are plenty of other city offices that can move into schools. You could for example, use a quarter of one of the schools for social services office (subdividing a large building isn't hard).
Plans change, and the construction and utilization plan for Albany High should also change to reflect the growth of charter schools. Staff who will be laid off by the school district, should be assisted through NYSUT and Albany High to find comprable jobs in either other public schools or in Charter Schools. Education will improve by having smaller companies run it, rather then stiffling education bureaucracies.
Are bloody mayhem and adult situations atop your child's wish list this holiday season? That may sound ridiculous, but it's possible. Some of the year's hottest video games feature material that is highly inappropriate for children.
Somehow this is not surpising, and it represents a serious question for concern and debate. Not only do we get questions of the first admendment involved, we have to deal with the rights of children and the place of corporations in limiting access to material inappriopiate to children.
Kolb looks at the rather tacky and disgusting JFK: Reloaded and less disgusting Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Both seem rather tacky and brash, but they might have some kind of redeeming social value at least for adults who can vote and should not be censored against. I have played Grand Theft Auto and I wasn't all that impressed by the level of violence, as it was very much animated and artifical looking. Yeap, there is shooting, car hijacking, and outrunning the cops, but it's very much a racing game and not one centered around shooting like that awful game Doom or JFK: Reloaded (which I've never seen).
I don't think we want the government explicitly prohibiting sales or rentals to minors, but government should use carrots and sticks to force the video game industry to rate and keep out of the hands of minors, like we do with movies. Unfortuantely, we have to worry about slipping standards like we see with movie rating system, but at least it's far more nuetral then having a partisan governmental offical deciding what's fit for consumption for kids.
Yes, parents need to be more responsible. Kids will continue to get these games even without parental permission, like they can sometimes get R- and X-rated movies. There is however a bigger taboo to doing this, and that will discourage the majority of kids from regularly consuming large amounts of unneccessary violence. And without hormone driven teens to consume these games, they will quickly fade into the background.
We need to get kids involved into real sportsmanship, including the shooting sports and not into videos. Yes, this requires a lot more parental supervision, but families should think about their kids before getting into bed (of a truck or with a mattress) at the start. Encourage citizenship and social change in our minors, rather then mind numbing video games.
If you registered your truck in Catskill like I did, then the local government will benifit from your registration fee, rather then Utica, NY for registrations that are done through the mail. It makes sense to pay the people who are doing the processing, but it's also good to support the local community. But, it's a pain and a waste of gas to drive to the DMV, so it makes more sense to do mail registration except for new car registrations.
Think your paying already too much for overstaying the meter? Well it's gonna cost you even more.
It looks like Amtrack is screaming breach of contract, seemingly kiling our hopes for high speed access to NYC. Too bad, eventhough trains are way overpriced, as they are decent way to get NYC from Albany or even Hudson.
While everybody assumed the governor would do this, he has quickly signed this bill into law. It doesn't do that much to most people who are convicted under the Drug Laws, but it will help those who have been in prison since the 1980s for drug convictions.
It pay for ever increasing prices of bureaucracy that is totally unneccessary and could be greatly cut if we went to a free system without the Thruway Authority and all it's duplicative equipment (they have their own plows, trucks, materials, etc.).
It looks like I was right about the EPA not choosing Scaghticoke and instead going for the other two priority sites. Both of these sites are in largely industrial neighboorhoods, and assuming the project is done somewhat adquately, the impact should be minimal while under construction, and not noticable after the construction.
Having lived next door to a large road construction project for the two years that they where rebuilding Route 32, I can say there where many little nuisances. These include backup beepers, dust, smoke from industrial equipment and burning stuff, and of course the foreman fucking his girl friend on a table in construction trailer in perfect view from my neigboor's picture window. Good management would mitigate all those problems.
He's not totally sure, but the poll numbers suggest that he would lose in a bid for a forth term (50% to 38%). He claims he'd like to stick around to see Lower Manhattan rebuilt:
Noting there was still much work to do to complete the recovery effort and rebuilding lower Manhattan in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that brought down the World Trade Center towers, Pataki said: "I want us to be standing at the top of the hill and not trying to dig out of the hill when the day comes I'm no longer leading this state."
The reality is that only Nelson Rockefeller was able to pull off a 4th four year term, and he narrowly won against labor lawyer Arthur Goldberg. Mario Cuomo tried to get a 4th term, but he was mirred in the same kind of problems that Pataki faces—a stagent face on a state that's continuing it's slide downward.
Wow. I never would have expected that Senator Volker would state: before the end of the 2005 session we will have a further bill
. Aubry of the Assembly claims that Volker wants the opposite: the Senate wants to do this to put it to bed and die and we want to do it to move it forward.
. That's interesting difference of opinion, but I sure hope that we see more public hearings and joint committee meetings on drug law reform.
Of course that one comment must be balanced with Volker's (R-suburban Buffalo) other upstate-downstate commens:
"There is a very tough problem in the Assembly," Volker said. "What the minorities and the city people want is something that is very difficult for upstate Assembly people to accept. It would virtually be a jail break."
Pataki says that that intensive treatment, intensive counseling in many cases works better
then putting people behind bars, something that probably is true.
Concluding Remarks: What we need is a middle ground where we ensure that the worst offenders go behind bars and get treatment, and the rest get treatment and help for drug problems. While there is a degree of autonomy when it comes to first taking drugs, the addictive nature of hardcore drugs makes them into a bonafide mental health issue, and not one of choice. We must not only treat people, but find ways to change their environemnts so that they are not exposed to drugs.
By overwhelming margins for an a firehouse that was just too big for the town, that would have featured 8-bays and 28,000 sq feet to park trucks, and would have replaced Verstandig's florist and gift shop. The process was done behind closed doors, and there was no notice of the vote until about 3 months ago. The voting only lasted for 3 hours last night, from 6-9 PM—they obviously did not want a lot of public input. It's as if they wanted to hide something about this project, which makes me think it was done in a pretty questionable fashion. Maybe they'll go back to the drawing board and create something better, or maybe the public will feel so burned that it will never be fixed.
If you didn't think cattle wranglers where enough of a problem in western NY, we now have people stealing sattles and tack from sables on Columbia County. This equipment was locked down in one case, and it looks like it was a job done by professionals. Apparently good sattles go for a lot of money, and when transported out of the area are almost impossible to trace.
Not exactly related, but I want to record my distaste for the idiots who decided to slash tires and dump driveway sealent on a used car lot on the end of my road. That's just a stupid waste of somebody else's private property, it makes us all a little more concerned about our own cars, and it's just terrible. I hope whoever these vandals are, be it kids or adults, they are severly punished to the maximum extent allowed under the law.
I find so-called property crimes get little attention in the news, unlike rapes and murder. It really bothers me that we aren't more aggressively looking into cases like this, as it effects everybody in the community who now feels a little bit more insecure.
It seems that some local communities are considering going back to having cities run power plants, in an effort to bring lower costs to consumers. I guess you could call it re-regulation of power. It might work, or it might not. Certainly it would cut out the bureaucracy of having a private company run it, but at the same time would put the fox-in-coop when it came to regulating it and require the cost of public benifits. It's interesting to hear about such a trend.
Somehow, I'm not surpised. But grow up kids, it's a construction project and only one that's gonna last a few years and then disappear and the former sites will inevitably grow back up to woods or whatever the local want.
The people in the area around the dredging site in South Bethlehem have far more other sources of pollution to worry about then this project. For one, they are downwind of Albany and next to the big Glenmont Power Plant. Second, sprawl planned for just south of that area would likely produce far more in toxic fumes and hazards through the chemicals used in modern construction from the mastics to the vinyl siding.
I would be a little more convinced with this project if the EPA relied more on carefully monitored independent contractors and not doing everything in house (creating the possibility or the appearance of impropiety), but we have to live with what we have. We don't want the fox guarding the chicken house. Government has a mixed record of protecting the public health when itself it is regulating (be it asbestos in the Corning Tower or chronium from the ANSWERS plant).
Likewise, I think we should be doing something useful with these PCBs that dredging from the Hudson River then dumping them in some toxic waste dump, that's barely a step up from the river itself (inevitably leaking back into the environemnt). We ought to be reprocessing the PCBs or burning off the carbon and hydrogen molcules for energy and recycling the cholrine for other industrial uses.
The health hazards of PCBs are usually overstated, and the project cleaning them is fairly wasteful. Liver cancer is the only serious possiblity from prolonged exposure to PCBs, with the most likely risk being acne and the alike (similiar to our other favorite chlorinated substance: dioxin). Whatever the pratical effects of PCBs, dredging 'em will have a profound psychological effect on our understanding of the Hudson River, and encourage further development and protection of the River. Wouldn't it be great to be able to fish once again (without fears of containmentation) in the upper Hudson in the strech south of Fort Edwards to the Troy Federal Dam?
That's what the vastly outmoded bureaucracy is using to justify hiking tolls, along with it's ambious plan to redo many parts of the Thruway. Too bad that most of the bottlenecks on the Thruway are not actually caused by the road, but in the Thruway booths. And the quality of that pay road, is not particularly better then the Northway or other routes that follow it, it's just that you pay to drive that particular road. And the state continues to loose more and more money between Buffalo and Albany. Gotta love the Thruway Employeement Agency (TM).
Guess what, we are now punishing a kid for bringing a prohibited water pistol into school, not unlike our banning of glass bottles, butter knifes, and nail clippers from airplanes. Welcome to the American Land of Fascism (TM).
We've heard about every possible excuse for the secret bond proposition going down in flames, including the old one from the 1960s: outside agitators. Yeap, people where coming from other towns to vote down the Delmar Firehouse proposal, eventhough they wouldn't be paying for it. The Board of Elections doesn't accurately keep track of who lives in a particular fire district, so it's impossible to know if every vote was legitimate.
And the poor Delmar Fire people are claiming that their existing building violates health and safety codes and is too small for the rapidly growing community
. Cry for them! It's tight parking those big fire trucks (what about buying smaller toys?), and there is some asbestos kicking around in that building. People aren't living or even working in a volunteer fire department all day long, and they aren't tearing up the asbestos all of the time. So their concerns seem silly.
You could say the Fire Department suffers from delusions of grandeur (very common for public officals):
Residents who opposed the bond measure said the department, which also has an EMT service, is ignoring other options in its pursuit of an unnecessarily large and expensive firehouse. The proposed building—double the size of the current fire station, would have had a meeting room for 150 people with a kitchen, several offices, a recreational space with a pool table, an 890-square-foot exercise room, a day room with a kitchenette and television, and eight bays for emergency vehicles.
There will be absolutely no new taxes to pay for schools, that is broad based taxes that are progressive, and instead we will be milking the people who are least able to pay for it through new user fees. Expect to pay more for everything from the state: marriage licenses through hunting licenses.
I'm not sure who is more stupid here, one who wrote a book with words similiar to another or the people who are making a big deal out of it. The key to judging plagerism should be simple: are you making a profit off of somebody else's words, or are they just similiar but give no benifit to yourself or anyone else. The moral of the story is simple: be afraid, very afraid in academia as they're are a lot of pretentous silly people there.
The Record gives a good overview of the citizen's fight to keep that big construction project out of their backyard.
Residents in opposition started the Community Awareness Committee. Going door-to-door and handing out fliers, the CAC was instrumental in getting the word out and making the opposition strong.
He's really impressed at Albany grid lock could both past a minimum wage hike and modify the Rocky Drug Laws, without too much hanky-panky going on in the background. Yeap, it was a lame duck session but a lot of good work was done on issues that for a long time had no resolve.
I guess he's rather afraid of those terrible ethics investigations that might turn up something bad about how he's been running Albany County Democratic elections. Maybe, party hacks know how to twist things but keep it in the law. More likely he's just angry at the party for putting a political opponet into office.
At least in most cases thanks to the HIPPA regulations. Doctor-patient priveledge is a troublesome notion, insofar as it's not absolute, and it allows the hiding of potentially societally relevant information. Particularly with public servants their should be full-disclosure of their compelete situtation, including finances and health. If you don't like having that level of privacy denied, then you probably should have stayed in the private sector. Private companies should use such not scruteney of their employees, but public ones are on the public payroll so we should expect more.
And the rest never do or take longer. But the regents at the same time wants to hike standards on the regents, so it takes longer for some students to graduate.
Pataki claims that he believed in the bill, but it had technical problems that therefore had to be vetoed:
Pataki said Thursday that although the bill's restrictions on the use of polyvinyl chloride (PVC) pipes were "well-intentioned," the legislation had serious technical flaws. He said the bill referenced an outdated version of the state building code, which could lead to confusion among builders, architects and building code enforcers.
That's what the governor always claims. Many groups like the Business Council, Conference of Mayors, Volunteer Firefighters (who felt PVC was no more dangerous then steel), and the alike actually supported the repeat of the ban. But they where misguided:
"PVC is the worst plastic from an environmental health perspective, posing dangerous hazards in its manufacture, product life and disposal," said a statement by groups including the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, the Citizens' Environmental Coalition and the Uniformed Fire Officers Association.
So while you might find the small cost increase to use regular pipe vs. PVC a good reason to use the later, PVC is a frightening material. Maybe the legislature will pass a new bill next year, and the governor will sign it back into law.
Having done some further reading, and given it some more thought, I thought I had left some facts out about PCBs. For one, PCBs are a plastic like substance. In many uses they where replaced with a non-cholrine based silcon. What makes PCBs so potentially dangerous is the presence of cholrine, that nasty green gas that when mixed with the hydrogen and split off from the carbon creates hydrochloric acid.
So any process of recycling PCBs through burning off the carbon is dangerous in the sense that it must deal with large amounts of hydrochloric acid, something that has proven difficult in certain incinerators in the past (as it's such a powerful acidic). Let is escape and mix with the carbons, you have the possiblity of getting dioxin. Nasty.
The alternative that people are talking about dumping PCBs in a hazardous waste dump is not as bad as I portrayed it. For one, PCB-sludge can be reused to seal off landfills. PCBs are heavy and they aren't going anywhere, especially without the current of the Hudson River to move it. They are water-repealant, and few chemicals can seep through it. Think of it kind of as clay, but only better.
Finally, I downplayed the risk of acme from PCBs a little too much in the earlier article. Acme caused by chlorine compounds can be devestating as shown by Victor Yushchenko. Most causual exposure at worst would cause mild acme, but extreme doses can be horrible. Remember that Yushchenko had a high dose of dioxin, a chlorined compound that is far more potent then PCBs.
While most of us where hoping that gas prices, our favorite terrorist is now trying to increase the pain level at the pump.
California and then other New Englad states have been adopting rules that would require a cut in Co2 emissions, and cutting fuel consumption. Detriot is crying unfair and sueing, claiming that it would be impossible to increase efficency as much as the standards dictate. Maybe, but that's what Detriot claimed in 1970s with other types of emissions. California's pension director has a solution to encourage automakers to drop their suit:
Responding to the suit, California Controller Steve Westly said he would ask board members in the biggest U.S. pension fund, the California Public Employees' Retirement System, to pressure auto manufacturers to stop fighting the new emissions standards.
How would you like to see more raw sewage in your local stream? There is a proposed rule change from the EPA that might just do that. It's bad enough how the Hudson River gets after every major rainstorm.
What do farmers, recyclers, environmentalists, ADK, and Sierra club have all in common? They all get money and benifits from spectrum of programs paid through the Environmental Protection Fund, that's been woefully underfunded over the past few years. Basically what has happened is the EPF has remained at $120 million dollars, while the state budget has rapidly grown. Pat Bradly's WAMC report does a good job of covering the many sides including interviewing the American Farmland Trust and Environmental Advocates of NY.
One of our favorite children's songs about Christmas might have a totally evil meaning if this LiveJournal article is be believed. If not, it's still a pretty funny article to read. Thanks to Albany-Bloggers for sending this one down the line.
