The Hayseeds blog, No. 227 for the week starting October 15, 2007.
Monday
A Really Werid Conspiracy Theory?
Ray Marnitez Doesn't Like the Governor's License Plan
Tuesday
Understanding The Spitzer's License Proposal
Thursday
Not So Many Kids Going to College
Friday
US Border Fence Made From Imported Steel
Boondocks is about farms, rural life, and power toys.
Energy looks at high energy prices and our future.
Enviroman looks at man and the environment.
Individual looks at myself and how I'm changing
Outblog is all about my outdoor experiences.
Transit looks at the changing ways we get around.
Truck gives you stories and trips in my Ford Ranger.
A Really Werid Conspiracy Theory? While I'm less then happy with NYRA being recommended for the racing franchise by the governor, it looks like Empire Racing Associates is suggesting that that some werid consipiracy is behind the governor's recommendations. P'Link
Ray Marnitez Doesn't Like the Governor's License Plan. Of course he doesn't—after all he was Pataki's former DMV commissioner. How many of Pataki's people like what the governor does these days? P'Link
Bruno on the Governor. This interview is interesting to watch:
See the Times Union Blog. P'Link
Albany's Abandoned Homes. Vacant buildings are a real problem in many cities. And for those who live near vacant buildings they often have little that they can do to clean up the mess.
Read also the Times Union story on this.
A quote from that article.
Radliff cites the $1.2 billion in government backing for the proposed chip factory in Malta. "Just think what we could do for 900 vacant buildings (in Albany) with $100 to $200 million. We need a commitment to solve the problem."
What's happening in inner cities is the "back end of sprawl," said Eric Dahl, managing broker of Community Realty, which helps first-time home buyers. "The Capital Region has seen a 3 percent growth in population and a 10 percent growth in land use. When everything is sprawling out, what's left behind are a bunch of vacant buildings. What if we refuse to give any more public funding for new water lines outside the already built-up areas?"
Anybody whose done a little bit of door-to-door campaigning in Albany knows well about the problem. Drive around the south-end or Arbor Hill, and there is rows of buildings that are unoccupied. All the value of those houses is lost when they are allowed to rot away.
The issue of vacant buildings is a real one across the city. People don't to live next to abandoned buildings, crack houses, or other deteriorating structures that decrease the value of life. People move out to the suburbs as soon as they can afford to, so they don't have to live with those kind of urban projects.
We need a city with leaders who are tough on owners of vacant buildings. Unfortunately, the the US constitution and state laws can make that difficult. The city can't just take vacant structures and demolish or sell them without paying just compensation. There is little money to do it to boot. But they need to something. P'Link
Understanding The Spitzer's License Proposal. It really doesn't sound so bad when you get beyond the Republican spin-machine:
Spitzer last month reversed a portion of motor vehicle law that requires a Social Security number, or an explanation of why an applicant doesn't have one, for a driver's license.
Under the new plan, to be fully phased in by next spring, someone lacking a Social Security number can provide a passport instead. Such applications will undergo special scrutiny under a newly formed investigatory unit of DMV.
The change could allow thousands of illegal aliens to get driver's licenses. Spitzer says it would bring such people "out of the shadows," and at least let police have a better idea of how many illegal aliens are on the state's highways.
It should be noted that the Republicans in the Senate are threatening to hold up DMV funds to implement this program. How they plan to do this before the 2008-2009 Fiscal Year is unclear, unless the Assembly goes along with them to pass new budget bills and/or new law. P'Link
Not So Many Kids Going to College. The baby boomers kids are in college or have graduated. They aren't having kids right away. That means that is a growing gap of college students, meaning that colleges will have to pull from new markets.
That is very encouraging or discouraging news. It could mean that historically discriminated against minorities could be getting into school in greater numbers, as college market to them. Or it could mean that colleges could slip in further desprate fiscal straits, and have to lay off employees.
By 2015, the number of high school graduates in New York State is expected to decline by 14.5%, and many private colleges are already attempting to compensate for the shrinking application pool by recruiting more international students and looking to high school graduates in the South and West to fill their freshman classes.
A drop in local college applicants is likely to hit public institutions, which enroll only 13% of New York's out-of-state student population, the hardest.
"We're beyond the baby boom, we're beyond the baby bust, and now we have the baby bust echo effect," the director of Cornell University's program on applied demographics, Warren Brown, said. "These things are like ripples." Kindergarten enrollment in New York State has dropped by more than 14% since peaking in 1995, and that decline is expected to hit colleges and universities in two years. If colleges don't begin recruiting students from new markets, they can expect a 10% decline in the number of applications they receive by 2014.
After I graduated from college it seems that now everybody else is graduating at about the same time. P'Link
US Border Fence Made From Imported Steel. The silly fence they are building along the US-Mexico board is using steel imported from another country. This is of course the fence we are building to keep the illegals out from stealing all our jobs, they say. Apparently those steel making jobs are less desirable then those slaughtering pigs.
That and the terrorists. I still remember last winter walking across the Canada border outside of Mooers, NY. There actually is "The Gulf Unique Area", a 10,000 or so acre state forest with a 2 mile trail leading to the Gulf and ending at the Canadian border. A map of the parking area and the trail end.
There is no sign at the end telling you that you are leaving the US and are in Canada. All there is a 10 foot gap in the forest cover and a small nondescript granite marker with Canada carved in one side, and United States carved in the other. It looks like the gap is occasionally patrolled by ATV, but not all that regularly. From there it's about a mile and a half to Covevy Hill, an small Quebec farming town.
No, I'm not saying I've ever been an illegal in Canada or are encouraging people to cross illegaly. I'm just pointing out the hypocrisy of the whole illegals debate. P'Link
Copyright ©1999-2008 Andy Arthur.
All mistakes are intentional or otherwise.
Mind where you step in a cow pasture or legal mindfield.