The Hayseeds blog, No. 265 for the week starting July 13, 2008.
June 29, 2008
Hayseeds No. 264
July 13, 2008
Hayseeds No. 265
July 20, 2008
Hayseeds No. 265
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So it would seem, reports the NYT.
This Times Union editorial on the millionaire's amendment is interesting.
An interesting TU LtE on demolishing 118-120 state street.
The late governor of New York State for 14 years, will be celebrated on his 100th birthday at the plaza.
They plan some really exciting things to remember the governor by around the plaza and in the museum, starting Tuesday.
And, when it comes to leaving a tangible legacy, Rockefeller is undoubtedly the kingpin. The Empire State Plaza, the 10 buildings and 98 acres of land that Rockefeller said created “the most electrifying capital in the world,” was his idea. The man and his vision will be celebrated Tuesday, his 100th birthday, in a special ceremony on the fourth floor of the New York State Museum at 10:30 a.m.
“I was familiar with what that area looked like, and it was mostly a collection of tenements and bars that we all called the gut,” said author Joseph Persico, who served as Rockefeller’s speech writer for 11 years. “The Empire State Plaza is a great example of the vision of the man. Where other people would see an acorn, he saw an oak tree.”
To help celebrate Rockefeller and his legacy, the New York State Museum, the Office of General Services and the New York State Archives have joined forces for “Rockefeller at 100,” a series of exhibits throughout the Empire State Plaza that will remain on display until Oct. 12. Along with various pieces of art showcased on the fourth-floor terrace, there will be political memorabilia and a model of the Empire State Plaza will be on display in the lobby of the museum. Also, the limousine that carried Rockefeller through his 14 years as governor (1959-1973) will be available for public viewing at the south end of the concourse.
Persico, who wrote “The Imperial Rockefeller: A Biography of Nelson A Rockefeller,” will be among the special guests on hand to share reminisces of the man who three times ran for president and served as Gerald Ford’s vice president from 1974 to 1977. Among the other speakers will be OGS Commissioner John Egan, one of the individuals Rockefeller selected to help form the OGS back in 1960.
“In my judgment, he was way ahead of his time,” Egan said of Rockefeller. “He felt that public places should also have beautiful art. Now, some people disagree with his taste in art, but his notion was that the artwork should complement the architecture. He made believers out of all of us. Before we all met Rockefeller, we built buildings to be functional and any artwork was secondary. Now the artwork and the architecture go hand in hand.”
The other day at the state museum, I took a look at the fascinating exhibit of bumper stickers and campaign literature from Rocky. The other exhibits, including Rocky's Cadillac should be fascinating to look at.
Disgusting, but true that meth is effecting and continuing to have such destructive effects on communities far beyond their users.
It seems they've set their goals too high and are trying for things that might happen in time for the convention this summer.
This article on Al Jazerra is worth a view and read.
This is quite fascinating.
So, for example, that guy with the flat-top haircut who looks like a cop could be one of the people following you. In fact, there are some scenarios in which the FBI wants you to think he's actually following you. But what you probably won't see is the roster of other people who are with him. Those people, the members of the FBI's Special Surveillance Group team, or SSGs, operate just below the radar — and that is where they are most effective.
Definately worth a read.
They are fighting it out.
Vote Vets on the left and Vets for Freedom on the right are competing to deliver the political message for those who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They're both endorsing candidates for Congress — not the same names, of course — and they debate regularly on talk TV.
Interesting.
It looks like Bennington Paperboard Will Close.
A New Jersey company is closing its 154-year-old paper recycling mill in northern Rensselaer County.
The Newark Group last week announced it will close two mills — including Bennington Paperboard in North Hoosick — to give its earnings an annual $10 million boost. The Cranford, N.J.-based recycled paperboard company Thursday notified the state Department of Labor that the North Hoosick mill will close Aug. 30, resulting in the elimination of 64 jobs.
The closure of Bennington Paperboard will come a decade after the Rensselaer County Industrial Development Agency awarded the Newark Group $750,000 for new equipment and product expansion initiatives. The funding from the New York Environmental Investment Program was intended to dissuade the New Jersey company from closing the North Hoosick mill, which it acquired in 1995.
That's too bad for all those who work there.
Sometimes I get so frustrated with peace advocates who insist that some how there is a government conspiracy going on, that corporations are buying and influencing government unduly, that government is taking all our civil liberties away, and that things are worst now then ever before.
Yet, we all know none of those things are true.
There are intrusions into our civil liberties. But there is no House Committee on Un American Activities or Blacklist.
There is high gas prices. But there is no gas lines, and because our cars and homes are more efficient then in the 1970s, the pain is much less.
The war in Iraq is a massive waste of resources and human life. But it's far less destructive—at least to American life—then the Vietnam. Far fewer of our colleagues and have died in this in war then Vietnam.
Media consolidation is real. Few places have multiple newspapers any more, corporations are buying out local radio stations, and grabbing more media holdings. Yet, at the same time, there is a explosion of internet news and podcasts, along with blogs and multiple cable channels. You can find almost anything you want if you look.
I'm not totally sure why they are proposing to rehab the front of 401 State Street in Schenectady. It looks pretty nice already, still quite new and fresh, and fitting for downtown Schenectady.
The biggest problem with the building I can see right now is the lack of doors into it. How exactly is one suppost to access such a building? Through the alleyway, the backdoor where the parking is? That doesn't seem right.
This continues to be debated.
A confusing flap over whether a north country legislator was offered a state patronage job two weeks ago has not gotten any clearer.
In a meeting last week with the editorial board of the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper, Gov. David A. Paterson repeated earlier statements that his administration "never" offered state Sen. Darrel J. Aubertine, D-Cape Vincent, a position as the head of the New York Power Authority.
But in a Saturday Post-Standard article recounting the meeting, the governor praised the senator's qualifications to lead NYPA, and described a meeting between members of his staff and Mr. Aubertine about the job as a "good showing of good faith."
The matter began June 21, when the Watertown Daily Times reported that Mr. Aubertine had been offered and had turned down the leadership post at NYPA, which operates 18 generating plants and more than 1,400 miles of transmission lines throughout New York. During his tenure in the state Assembly, Mr. Aubertine served on that body's energy committee.
Who knows. It certainly is very strange.
This will be impressive on television.
Borrowing from the political repertory of John F. Kennedy, Senator Barack Obama will accept his party’s nomination outside of the main Democratic convention hall this August, in the Denver Broncos’ football stadium that seats more than 75,000 people.
Senator Barack Obama between events on Monday in Charlotte, N.C. No stranger to large crowds, he is planning for another one on Aug. 28.
The move, rumored for days and announced by the Obama campaign on Monday, set off a round of complaints from news executives, who for more than a year have been drawing up elaborate plans for a convention that was to culminate in the main hall, at the Pepsi Center in Denver.
But Mr. Obama’s aides were clearly willing to pay the price of some carping among the news media in the dog days of July in return for being able to take advantage of the candidate’s ability to draw stadium-level crowds when millions will be tuning in toward the end of August.
I can't wait to watch this—well not on TV—but on the Internet or Youtube. The last president to do this was JFK:
The lines couldn't be clearer.
Ask people to blurt out their first words about the two presidential candidates and one in five say ''change'' or ''outsider'' for Barack Obama and ''old'' for John McCain, according to an Associated Press-Yahoo News poll released Monday. Those are not only the top responses for each man but the answers that have grown the most since January, when fewer than one in 10 volunteered those descriptions.
Four months from Election Day, the survey underscores that people see quality and question marks in both contenders as they struggle to control their images. Lack of experience is the next most frequently offered view of Obama, 46, the Democrat who came to the Senate from Illinois less than four years ago; for McCain, 71, the Republican senator from Arizona and Vietnam prisoner of war, it's his military service.
This will be so interesting to watch.
Then again, I always thought anybody on MySpace needs help.
This is disgusting.
From the moment you walk through the metal doors of what was once San Quentin's gymnasium, all you can see are men and bunk beds. Packed together from front wall to back, more than 360 inmates live here because there's no room anywhere else.
A lone correctional officer, Michael McClain, sits on a riser in the middle of the gym, about 6 feet off the floor. Below, the conversations are loud and tense.
"It can get ugly. It can go at any moment, just at the drop of a hat," he says, watching the floor.
This may be an example of good intentions paving the road to hell.
Yesterday, they had the first of big celebrations of Nelson Rockefeller at 100 Years Old, at least if he hadn't died in bed with happy.
If Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller hadn't existed, the Empire State would have had to create him.
On Tuesday, many came to praise him at the opening of "Rockefeller at 100."
The State Museum exhibit honors the 100th anniversary of the birth of the dyslexic, Dartmouth-educated, art-collecting, impossibly wealthy, middle finger-flipping and titanic governor known as Rocky.
He was a man who arrived on Albany's political scene in the late 1950s like a double shot of espresso.
"What a rocket we were on," recalled John Egan, the Office of General Services commissioner now, as well as then.
I have to check this out today.
Apparently some fireworks exploded in the professional show by Bay Fireworks for the Town of Ticonderoga.
For people concerned with tourism in the North Country this is big news.
The Canadian dollar is undervalued and will soon soar above the U.S. currency again if world oil prices hold up as expected, predict two senior economists.
It's something to watch.
Colonie Democrats are trying to sell tough decisions to the voters.
So students will be paying more.
So the Times Union is reporting.
Former Senate Republican Majority Leader Joseph L. Bruno on Tuesday edged closer to leaving public life, telling a group of business leaders and reporters that he would likely leave office before the November elections.
Stickley Audi & Co
"There'll be a vacancy until Assemblyman Roy McDonald gets elected in this district," Bruno said during a news conference about a new railyard planned for Mechanicville.McDonald is a Republican assemblyman seeking to take Bruno's place in the 43rd Senate District, which includes parts of Rensselaer and Saratoga counties.
This could be very interesting. It takes 32 votes to pass a bill in the State Senate, and the Republicans, with Bruno's retirement, would only have 31 votes. Democrats would have 30 votes. This would appear to require the lieutenant governor to cast a casting vote to break the tie.
The acting lieutenant governor is Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos. Whether or not he can vote twice, remains an open question.
This will be a fascinating question, when the legislature comes back into special lame duck session in December, as the state is out of money.
They want a wage increase.
He is the latest one out.
This Gallup Poll is interesting for all of who thought Obama wasn't getting his message out to less educated and rural people.
Suburbs are continuing to grow but at a slower rate in Upstate New York.
Bob Moiser thinks it's possible for Obama to win Texas this year.
They no longer will be providing paramedics to help out the state with their medivac flights.
Since 1993, members of Colonie's Emergency Medical Services Department have flown with State Police air crews in a 75-mile radius from Albany International Airport to perform rescues and fly the most critical patients to hospitals. The program is one of five statewide.
While the crews were not assigned solely to helicopter missions, they were on call when needed. The air crews seldom responded to emergencies in Colonie because of the town's proximity to Albany Medical Center Hospital, but the airport's location at the center of the town made Colonie a natural partner.
The program has historically generated revenue for Colonie—about $150,000 annually after expenses—while giving the paramedics experience with patients they otherwise wouldn't get, according to the department's annual report.
Favro, a retired Troy fire captain and paramedic since 1980, said that's part of what doesn't make sense to the union: In a town strapped for cash, why ax a program that makes money?
That's too bad, and suggests more questions about the way Colonie Democrats are ruling the town.
More abuse from Schenectady Building Codes Department.
Fusco was stunned when he received in early June a notice from the Schenectady Building Department that said, in large, bold letters, "Stop Work Order."
The notice said he had installed new windows at his Nott Street coin laundry without a building permit. He faced fines of $350 per day. The only problem is, "these are old windows," he said. "They were put in a long time ago." It's hard to comply with a stop-work order if there's no work being done in the first place, he said.
A worried Fusco called the building department and spoke to an inspector who told him that the windows "looked new." But the windows in question are on the second floor of the building and the inspector made this judgment call from his car.
"Please, come look at the windows," Fusco said. He contacted an attorney, who advised him to send a letter to the building department explaining the situation and extending a written invitation for city officials to inspect the place anytime they wanted. He never received a response, and his anxiety grew.
Not surpising at all.
Apparently he has a 15 MB maximum quota, so his email continues to have problems with being out of service.
While the poorest of New Yorkers are doing some what better the average New Yorker is seeing very little in wage gains.
A look at the impact of the decline of the auto industry on the many families who derive much of there income by supplying labor to that industry.
More students are choosing online classes to avoid expensive commutes to school.
If your in Beijing right now, the Chinese government will prohibit you from advertising on grounds that it should be preferring official Olympic sponsors to other ad makers.
Apparently they are almost done running electric and sewer lines to the place where AMD is alleged to be building a chip fab.
According to the poster, attached below, you can meet senior lawyers and Attorney General Cuomo to learn more about this important office and how it can help your community.
You find out more on the OAG's website.
