Hayseeds No. 174

Where That Corcraft Filing Cabinet Came From.

The Times Union has a fascinating article on the many different things the State Prisons are making for the state and it's agencies, from road signs to file cabinets, keeping prisoners busy and getting the state cheap supplies.

Spitzer to Have to Deal with CFE.

It looks like the Pataki administration's ability to delay the CFE decision indefinately will ultimately fall on the next governor's lap, which will mean the state will end up paying a lot more money to fairly fund out schools. The courts will likely at some point tire of the games our governor has been playing.

How will they pay for this all? It's not exactly clear. Spitzer has some ideas:

Spitzer, who will face Suozzi in a Democratic primary, calls for $4 billion to $6 billion more each year in operating aid for New York City schools and more if a statewide solution is negotiated with CFE. He also called for fiscal reform at schools.

Suozzi would give schools roughly half that amount, and Faso with his group of 5 supporters would find the money through capping school spending, elimating Wick's Law and the Triborough Amendment, which both drive up costs. Certainly Faso's ideas do have some merit (there are few good arguments for Wicks law anymore and Triborough tends to take off the pressure for negotations), but they are unlikely to happen with Spitzer almost certainly our next governor.

Charlie King to Endorse Cuomo.

It looks like King is going to drop out of the AG's race, leaving only a few democrats left for the primary. It looks like Andy Cuomo has won this round.

He's an amazing speaker, taking much from his dad's old style. He certainly deserves a good chance at being Attorney General. As AG he would certainly be able to use passionate rhetoric to move the public, and quite possibly presuade people to act in the state's interest.

Autism and Older Parents.

There is an interesting story that suggests that part of the growth of Autism in our country has been caused by the growth of older fathers in childbirth causing some kind of link to higher levels of autism. It seems that a kid who is born from an younger male is far less likely to be autistic.

Everybody Wants to Be Like Spitzer.

It looks like the Attorney General's legacy has every candidate for this office swearing up and down that they are just like Spitzer and will continue to do his aggressive work at protecting the state's interest.

Police Harassing People in Ferdonia.

The big crime story of late has been the search for Bucky Philips, the man who suppostly shot and killed a cop and injured too others. Apparently it's the most exciting thing to hit Western New York for a while, and with one of the fatally injured officers being an Albany-native seems to also be the most exciting thing people can follow around the big city.

So cops are angry, and they are jamming shotguns in everybody's face who happens to be in Western New York, and violating their consitutional rights and forcing searches of people's cars. Nice stuff. Killing is a terrible thing as is all this violence, but it's one crazy guy that they will either aperhend at some point or find his body in the woods. Seems like a lot of bull for nothing.

All this violence is terrible. Yet, police officers are people like the rest of us. Would some crazy who shot a dairy farmer and injured his kids have such a man hunt? We don't live in a society that's one of rank and guilded class, police officers should be down to earth like the rest of us. The idea that they are using so much of our precious tax dollars to go after one loonitic, while there is piles of warrants setting around for dangerous and violent felons across our state seems like such a misuse of resources.

Permanent Checkpoint for Adirondack Northway Dead.

They've decided it would be too expensive and too stupid to check for terrorists and other exciting people somewhere deep in the Adirondacks, so they will now focus on making the real border more secure and less time on harassing lay-abiding citizens just going down to Albany for the weekend.

There is also some thought on getting cars off the Northway at the old Lincoln Pond rest area for checks:

The Border Patrol has blamed the crashes on driver error.“It is human error (causing the crashes),” Jackson said. “Unfortunately, it’s humans driving.

“Anytime you stop people on a public highway there’s a risk of accidents.”

He suggested the old Lincoln Pond rest area be used to divert traffic off the highway for checks.

“That’s the only thing that would increase safety. If they’re stopped on the road, there’s a chance people are going to plow into them,” Jackson said.

“Getting them off the Northway would benefit safety.”

Interesting. Let's hope they focus on keeping real terrorists out in the border, and leave us alone.

Hybrid Buses Expensive, So Is Fuel.

It's going to cost schools big bucks to keep their gas guzzling school buses on the road this year. Some schools are trying to get creative with special block heaters that elimate the need for warm up periods for those big diesels, and others are trying those new hybrid buses. The hybrid technology nearly doubles school bus fuel economy to 10 MPG, but comes at nearly twice the cost to schools.

The new hybrid buses also are a lot cleaner, even then the newest buses on the fleets. I can remember the school buses from the 1980s going to school, and the thick arid black smoke they produced everytime they started up, while the kids inside and outside of the bus breathed in the terrible particulate matter, often in close concentration to other pollutants.

Jon Tsansi's Anti-Hillary Ad.

While Jon Tsansi doesn't have a lot of cash to run television ads, this Donkey Con advertisement is really quite entertaining, and probably protrays Hillary the way many of us think of her. A donkey riding Democrat, who'd probably be more comfortable on an elphant then a donkey if she could only get her hands on it.

Tsansi is a really nice guy, and he's raising some important issues about Clinton. I would hope you would consider voting for him in the primary if only just in protest of Hillary's stance on the war and her very moderate to conservative stance on social issues. Yes, she may be running for President, but if she is then she ought to stand for the right things.

This ad is really funny. Even if you don't care much from Democratic politics, watch it and have a good laugh.

Getting Your Money Locally: John McHugh.

Our great North Country Congressman, John McHugh probably has broken another record: moust out of district contributions. Hell, 95.1% of his contributions come from out of state, to say nothing about his district.

Yes, his district is a lot pretty poor North Country with lots of marginal farms and a few manufacturing and other non-government businesses. Yet, you have to suspect despite his long lead ahead in a solidly Republican North Country, he has a real problem of a week base to stand on.

Got Oil? Lots and Lots of It.

It's a big time election season now, and it seems that Chevron-Texaco oil company just somehow managed to find themselves a big new field somewheres in the Gulf of Mexico in a relatively politically stable region of the world, whose only big fear is hurricanes.

That's good for all of us tired of $2.82 gallons of gasoline, though not so good for conservation and those of us who wanted to enjoy the benifits of high fuel prices influencing the elections towards Democrats. We all knew prices where going to come down at some point, and that it would probably be around election time.

So where to next? This 'big' oil field has roughly enough oil to supply the US alone for 11 months, not exactly the end all solution to the high cost of energy or the looming energy crisis. We still need to look towards cleaner sources of energy, and in particular burning what oil we can get as cleanly and efficently as possible. We also should consider the costs of extracting it, and make sure to follow policies that mimize the ecological impact of oil drilling in the deep ocean.

Sweeney Gets His Horse Slaughter Bill.

It looks like the House leadership has agreed to put up the bill that would ban the slaughter of horses a sort of victory for Congressmen John Sweeney who has probably spent the biggest part of his career fighting for this bill.

Farm groups on the right and left are more then a little rankled by this bill. They simply don't like the idea of there being federal restrictions on the slaughter of any kind of livestock, and they fear that it would create a dangerous precident that could lead the outlawing of slaughter of veal calves. That would certainly irk dairy farmers, many of whom break even or make a few bucks on the side raising their runts to become veal.

Politically it should be interesting to watch in the NY 20th Congressional District Race. Most dairymen and cattle producers are probably pretty familiar with issue, with the farm bureau and other farm news sources covering this in pretty great details and the pitfalls of the precident that this would set. The farm community has been burnt by precident many times in the past, and most farmers (and farm state politicans) are pretty paranoid about what precident will set.

On the other hand, Agricultural Census numbers suggest that there are probably 10-15 horse owners to every dairyman and other cattle producer in the 20th district. Sweeney will probably do his best to inform these consituents about how he's keeping their beautiful, intelligent animals safe from big cruel corporations that want to take them and slaughter them so some wacko culture out in the east can eat them.

Yet, horse owners in general are not as informed as professional farmers and are less likely to get out and vote. Horse owners are a far more diverse group and probably are more split politically between both parties. So it should be interesting to watch what the fall out of this all will be.

See also Common Horse Sense.com, a website that's by a combination of the American Veterian Association, American Farm Bureau, and National Farmers Union.