The Hayseeds blog, No. 106 for the week starting March 12, 2005.
February 26, 2005
Hayseeds No. 105
March 12, 2005
Hayseeds No. 106
March 19, 2005
Hayseeds No. 106
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CSX's whose malfunctioning railroad gate, that went for weeks without repair and ended up killing a person outside of Rochester is going to be paying a big chunk of change for their carelessness. So if you have a railroad in NYS, you gotta be careful.
The paper of record has an fairly comphrensive article on rural trash burning, including the opinions of some environmentalists, local governmental officals, and the farm bureau. The article gives you an idea how common this is in rural areas: No one seems to know exactly how many households rely on burn barrels. But a 2003 survey by St. Lawrence County showed widespread use, with an estimated 10,000 burn barrels, representing 48 percent of households.
It also mentions how it's more then a mere environmental issue; it has real emotional ramifications as the shadowy Chris Neurath of burnbarrel.org says:
"It's become a polarized issue because of the attitude that, 'We've always done this - it's a tradition - and the elitists in town are trying to tell us what to do out here in the country,' " he said. "Then there's the pleasure involved in the process of making fires. So it's not as simple as saying that it's bad for public health."
Yeap, yeap. Munis don't want to touch these people burning plastic containers with a 12-foot metal stick, not only because it would stick to the stick, but because it's bad for their political health. At best, activists have found education as a solution: Joe Bruno has said he likes burning trash or something like that.
Not only do people find burning trash a rather entertaining thing to do (what else do you do to past the time in Broome Center on Saturday nights?), but for some in rural New York it's the only affordable way to get rid of trash:
"Incomes in the Adirondacks are 25 percent less than the rest of the state," said Fred H. Monroe, supervisor of Chester, 55 miles north of Albany. "In our town we charge $1 for a small bag and $2 for a larger one. People feel it's one way they can save money - if they can just burn it."
Not only does NYCRR 6 Part 215 allow for people to burn trash, NYCRR Part 360 allows people to have dumps on their farm or single family residence in rural areas. NYS has long protected the rights of individual, when it appears there is no compelling issue for the state to get involved with people in their house.
Peter Gregg of the Farm Bureau sums it up nicely: All the burn barrels in the state wouldn't equal the amount of pollution emitted from the average traffic jam on the Tappan Zee Bridge
. I know I'm not worried about pollution from Schoharie County, despite the fact that 90% of new houses around there are built without construction debris dumpsters, with most of it being burned or burried out back. To say nothing about burn barrels.
One person in the TU LtE noted that advocating for more state funds for SUNY is hypocritical if their organization is getting funds. Maybe, but it seems like keeping tution low is good for all people, and based on the sucess of NYPIRG it might be worth what we pay for it through our mandatory service fee. NYPIRG also provides other services, when evaluating it's worth on campus, those benifits must also be included.
Don't like NYPIRG? I don't particularly like that organization, but I have no issue with supporting them. If you don't like them, then advocate through student government to have them get a smaller part of the comphrensive service fee. The same rule applies with government. I don't like my tax dollars going to subsidize poverty, landfills, war, and suburban sprawl, but I don't claim that it's hypocritical for my government to spend money that way. Instead, I write my representive to change such things.
It sounds like the Morrelle dirty-air bill that will unneccessarly slow snowmobiles on lakes and the alike, according to a Syracuse 10 NBC story that states that's his first priority. Manatory safety classes would come second according to the article. However, as the article notes, snowmobile clubs and private property owners often set their own limits, that are more reasonable to the terrian then one statewide limit. 55 MPH is rather slow on large lakes, and the alike.
I guess that is not a surpise, and you don't see much at all out of the upper floors of One Commerece Plaza as witnessed from WRGB Skycam that overlooks Rocky's Plaza. As the traffic cams show people aren't moving that fast. I know 32/9W where particularly slow this morning. Welcome to upstate New York in March.
NYS has the dubious title of being the last state to go for the previsions of the Help America Vote Act, thanks to gridlock in the legislature over voting machines. So we are losing out on the funds that we otherwise would get. Voting laws are even more controversal then lowering the DWI level to .08, which took NYS forever to do.
Our friends over at the Congressional Budget Office are doing more liberal bating by suggesting that we need more gun control to prevent terrorists from buying guns. They claim to cite several cases of people suppostly on terrorist lists that shouldn't be buying guns, eventhough there is no law against that. We don't want people like my hero, listed terrorist Ted Kennedy from getting a gun. He might shoot other members of the US Senate. ;) Some suggest that the 1968 Gun Control Act be modified to do such a thing. It could be done, except then we'd have cases where people where accidentally placed on the terror list and unable to buy guns.
I guess that's a minor issue compared to the vaugeness and possible unconsitutionality of the mail-order saturday night special law of 1968. As the article notes, some of the so called terrorist would be prohibited on grounds that their state suppostly has claimed that they are mentally unsound. Unfortuantely, the law does not define exactly what that means, instead relying on wishy-washy language such as with NY's Mental Hygeine Law 9-43. Likewise, it prohibits anybody from owning a (hand) gun that has been involuntarly committed at any point of their life, despite the fact that people change or get treatment.
If anything, we need to scrap the 1968 Gun Control Act and replace it with something that reflects modern realities. People who have been convicted of serious violence offenses should be the only ones prohibited from gun ownership. And instead of focusing on some theorethical possibility that some terrorist some day might buy a gun in a gun shop in Center Brunswick without Joe Bruno noticing, we should be spending money in useful ways like rebuilding our cities and making America a nicer place to live. If people love the place where they live, they aren't so likely to become terrorists.
While I'm rambling on about stuff, I want to mention that I think if we need anything it is television control. If we had fewer televisions in our world, there would be less violence and noise, and more freedom. Instead of watching crass commericalism, violence, and playing video games, kids should be out having real fun.
I happened upon an interesting commentary by Blair Horner on open burning in New York State. Nothing particularly new out of the words of Blair Horner (he's said it all before), but it suggests that environmentalists interests are peaked by this bill once again this year, as it makes its way through Assembly Codes and possible out on to the floor again. Still, no Senate sponsor. Let's keep it that way.
Some people learn that you can't really beat farmers at their own game, so it's not worth trying. It seems that the good people in Malta came to their senses and decided that requring an acre per horse and non-dirt stable floors was impratical and burdensome to already-marginal or at least claiming-so farmers. This is good as we don't need to burden people more with more government, just to keep suburban sprawl growing. Don't like the smell of horses? Then don't move next door to a horse farm. Downtown Albany doesn't usually smell of horses nowdays.
Some brilliant students outside of Syracuse took pictures of them getting stoned and drinking, and put them on the internet. That drew the ire of their school district, but they couldn't do much legally. There is some talk of getting the police together, but unless they can show jursidiction from backgrounds it's pretty hard to procecute.
That seems rather inevitable with the brand new Tacoma truck, which may become the most popular kind of compact truck out there. I know I would have bought a Toyota Tacoma if they where more reasonable prices used, but that's in part due to how long those truck last. Certainly, when I get out of grad school in 3 or 4 years, and I'm in the market for a new truck, I'm probably going to get a Tacoma.
Those new trucks have six-speed manuals, bigger cab, nicer looks, Toyota quality, and electronic transfer cases. The later isn't so hot from my experience with the Ranger, but it sure is convient and saves some floor space. I can't wait 'til the day when I can own one. Keep dreaming, as they say.
I was bored at work and reading through one of many articles on Schizophrenia and mental illness and this one on the President's Commission on Mental Health caught my eye, particularly in relationship to how the iron triangle of National Insitute of Health - President - Drug Companies, and how we tend to see all behavior that we dislike as being something needing treatment. As I've noted before, Schizophrenia is Largely A Social Construct to describe behavior and thoughts that we don't like.
The people at the Catholic Conference have been asking for this kind of a tax break since before the 1967 Can-Can with little luck. It would give a lot more flexibility to educating our youth, allowing the poor to send their kids to religious schools, but the state secular ones would never accept that. And when NYSUT wants something it gets it or the reverse. Kind of like the farm bureau, but with more money.
Around these parts, we always think tractorcades are funny, when farmers invade the city (this case Ontario) to protest the lack of providential support for farmers. Not knowing the specifics of their demands, its impossible to comment, but tractors in city traffic are funny to watch.
This one is really nasty, and familiar to anybody who cooks with teflan pans or wears boots treated with Gore-tex (work boots, hiking boots), or has a finish on about anything that repels water. It appears that teflon and the alike don't ever break down to anything simpler, even if you try to burn them, expose them to light, water, or bacteria. Most other compounds will break down. So while this stuff is so common, it's pretty scary too.
Because it is unregulated, PFOA is legally released as air and water pollution from DuPont and 3M plants in West Virginia, North Carolina, Minnesota and Alabama; and from carpet, clothing, and paper industries in North Georgia, North Carolina, and other places.
That's pretty frigthening news. Not to be too alarmist, the flip side of the issue is on PFOA Facts.com that notes that PFOAs are essential in manufacturing many products, and the small amounts of PFOA that might be released by teflon and the alike are not particularly harmful. It's easy to be cynical of such a site.
The US Dept of the Interior might soon make surplus and older wild hores and buros for auction to people like slaughterhouses. The US for quite a while now has been rounding up 'excess' mustangs, and putting them in feedlots or trying to action them off. Old mustangs are hard to get rid, as many of the people who have the land to want wild mustangs, don't want older horses. Seems reasonable, although I can see why people object the slaughter of horses. Horses tend to vastly more intelligent then their bovine counterparts and far nicer animals. They are ultimately animals and different then humans..
Democrats are pointing at Republicans for trying to weaken clean air laws, while Republicans are saying Democrats wouldn't give any flexibility to the law. The net result is that clean air law won't be changed, leading to no improvements beyond the existing law. It seems as though the Democrats should have supported a limited version of the President's plan as a stop gap plan, then tigthen them up farther when they got back in power.
The law that allows for outpatient insitutionalization of those that a little known Mental Hygene Court labels mentally ill is back up for renewal. Article 9-60 of the Mental Hygene law, like Article 9-43 allows these courts to imprison or force treatment on people that have not neccessarly violated any law. We allow people to have DNR orders, but not have certain thoughts or beliefs. Fortunately, the Court of Appeals has limited 9-60 to a standard like 9-43, meaning that clear and convicing evidence that a serious and substanial threat exists to the public safety before imposing outpatient or inpatient insitutionalization.
Clearly for this statue to be fair and reasonable the following reforms are neccessary:
Well, the NYSDOT has picked some really discriptive control cities to help you out, namely: Ontario, Quebec, and USA. You go the same way for USA and Ontario.
An email notified me of a rather neat blog that links many stories of economic interest to New Yorkers from issues like the budget to social security.
Many doubt that the legislature would go along with it, as it ties it's fate to the tough proposed rules on state agencies, but at least Pataki is pretending to be reform minded. And sometimes bringing up the issue makes action happen. I don't think NYS ethics are all that bad, but others have had other thoughts.
Speaking of reform, Brodsky is creating rumbles of a consitutional convention, in part because he wants to ride voter discontent into the office of Attorney General when Eliot becomes governor.
It seems like now would be a bad time to be a judge, be it Atlanta, Georgia, Chicago and Lefkow, or in that mess formally known as Iraq. There are just so many judges out there protecting them is almost impossible. It's easy to protect courthouses, but to protect everybody that's part of the bar is a lot more difficult task. People are inheritably autonomous so you can't really stop a determined individual who can figure out the weakest part of security, namely the house. All of this is rather tragic and shocking result of the time we live in (years ago, Judges where respected like gods), but I guess one upside is that the us federal taxpayers won't be spending a lot of money to process Bart Ross or keep him in a cage.
For a few minutes that is, as you ride up the recently reopened Rockefeller tower in the megacity of NYC. Having worked in a high-rise in Albany, being up high is a lot of fun. If someday I get to NYC, I will have to decide between the Empire State Building (tallest building in NY) or the Rockefeller tower. A lot is to be liked about this building.
NYers defeated a proposal a few years back to use general obligation bonds to pay for road rebuilding, but it looks like some in the legislature want to try that route again for fixing the roads. It is good to see that the legislature isn't going for backdoor borrowing right away, but we should also be finding ways to fund the service on these proposed bonds before buying them.
