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"For many years my primary research interest was in personality disorders, which was a natural segue to politics." - Political Consultant Drew Westen
Good Monday Morning,
The amount of time, money and energy the police spend "infiltrating" anti-war, anti-death penalty and other progressive groups (such as the Quakers) is simply astounding. According to recent reports, police in Maryland spent 288 hours over 14 months spying on peace activists and not surprisingly found, ummm, nothing. But that didn't stop them nor does it stop police elsewhere from doing the same. Local police departments, county departments, State Police and the Feds are all in on it and for all the thousands of hours spent investigating anti-war, anti death penalty and anti-nuclear groups, taking pictures, stealing emails and rifling through garbage cans, not a scintilla of evidence of illegal activity has been found.
Col. Terrence B Sheridan of the Maryland State Police said, "Only when information regarding criminal activity is alleged will police continue to investigate leads to ensure the public safety." and yet, in 43 pages of documents released by his department the other day, no illegal activity was found.
In the meantime, names, personal information and social security numbers of spied upon citizens end up in Federal Homeland Security databases. For example, back in 2007 the Defense Department's Threat and Local Observation Notice (TALON) database contained the names of more than 2800 Americans who were deemed threats to National Security but for whom not a shred of evidence nor a hint of illegal activity was produced or offered then, nor have any of those people been charged since.
Aside from the fact that it makes good politics, allows police to claim they're keeping us safe from international terrorism and gives them something to do as crime rates drop, why do they do it? Largely, they do it for the money. So long as the authorities claim, as Col. Sheridan says that there is 'alleged criminal activity' they can get funds from Homeland Security thus creating - and continuing - a jobs program for local and State police departments across the nation. We don't know what we're collectively spending infiltrating anti-war and environmental groups and there is no way to know. Just like there's no way to know if your community organization is being spied upon. Do you feel safer now?
In a "Community View" from Congressman John Hall on Saturday he writes:
Oil companies already hold leases on 68 million acres of federal lands that aren't being drilled. If they were, the oil companies could produce an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil per day, nearly doubling U.S. oil production, cutting imports of foreign oil by one-third and far exceeding ANWR's potential output. The government has already given them the green light. Over the last eight years, the number of drilling permits has gone up by 361 percent. The question is: Why won't the oil companies start drilling?
Combine this with Friday's news of the millions of gallons of gasoline and other refined product we're shipping *out of the country* each day and you'd think the energy companies - and Congress - would have some explaining to do. The full article from Congressman Hall is linked below the fold.
 If you weren't at Arts on the Lake's Open Mouth night on Saturday it's probably because you couldn't get in. The return of Open Mouth, missing for a few unexplained months, brought yet another full house to the Cultural Center on Lake Carmel. From the opening short play to the music of Steve Kirkman, Mike Latini and Jim Nowak, to a 10 minute stand-up sketch from Kim Blacklock, to a Tennessee Williams reading by Peggity Price that left one in awe, Open Mouth proved again to be the areas most eclectic and entertaining evening. Rumor has it that Open Mouth won't be back again until November but that cannot be! Write to Arts on the Lake and tell them you won't wait that long!
A few weeks back Arts on the Lake's Youth Committee hosted a benefit rock concert for the Invisible Children of northern Uganda. When all was said and done it was the most successful event at the Arts Center, with more paid attendees than any other. The Kent Town Board will honor organizers Andrew S. Vlad and Leah Rogers for their work on that event, tonight at the start of the regular Town Board meeting. Attendance is mandatory.
For Beginners Books, an imprint which specializes in taking complex events and personalities from history and making them understandable and approachable, has just released their newest book, Barack Obama For Beginners. If the right-wing blogs have you convinced that Senator Obama was born in the basement of a mosque in Damascus during the planning of terrorist attacks against the Los Angeles Olympics while eating pork rinds with a milkshake, this book is for you. Actually, since so little factual information is known about the Senator himself thanks to the American media's lack of serious reporting, this book is really for everyone. Check it out. Other books in their catalog are, "Dada & Surrealism for Beginners", "Foucault for Beginners", "Nietzsche For Beginners", "Sartre For Beginners" and "Shakespeare for Beginners". As you can see, they're as eclectic as an Open Mouth Night.
Dappers Unite! While we're on the subject of Senator Obama, when did 'fist bumping' (or 'fist-jabbing', as portrayed on the cover of The New Yorker magazine,) become a signal for international terrorism? A quick Google News search this morning found more than 1100 news stories referencing this as such.
How is it that the American media, that bastion of honesty and accuracy, the fair and the balanced, missed this common male greeting for all these years and then recreated it as something else? How is it that no mail room clerk or editor about to go to press has stopped to think, "What the hell are they talking about?" One has to wonder what else corporate media has "created" as fact over the years.
As it turns out, this is the new darling of Conservative bloggers and news outlets who explained to their readers that this is some sort of Hezbollah sign and proof that Osama bin Obama is indeed the Manchurian candidate.
The reality is a lot different. Known as a "dap", it's been around forever.
If you come across a news article or a blog that repeats this ridiculous fallacy, write them canceling your subscription and tell them why. Then reach across your desk and do what you've been doing with male colleagues since college - since the 60's - bump fists, and do it proudly. And you don't even have to shout, "Allahu Akbar!"
While cleaning up the last vestiges of the Garden party the other day, I found a Styrofoam cooler back in the woods. Written on the side was "Will Not Leave". I do not know if the owner meant that he "will not leave" the cooler behind or if the cooler "will not leave" the party. If the former, you left without it.
Correction: In a post of future events sent out this past Saturday morning, the date for the Daniel Nimham Intertribal Pow Wow was incorrect. Thanks to JM, an alert reader from Mahopac for noticing. The paragraph should read: "Coming to the County Park in Kent on August 16th and 17th will be the annual Daniel Nimham Intertribal Pow Wow hosted by the Nimham Mountain Singers..."
Lastly, as of this morning, I'm still awaiting a buy-out proposal from Elizabeth Ailes.
And now, the News:
- Southeast supervisor arrested on 2nd DWI in 13 months
- Ryder Farm to vie for preservation grant
- Putnam Valley, landowner at war over use of Cimarron Ranch
- Vine removal in LaGrange postponed; see video
- Bush drilling plan benefits oil companies, not consumers
- Texas Approves a $4.93 Billion Wind-Power Project
- Judge Returns Gray Wolves to Endangered List
- Some Earthworms Make Septic Systems Work Better, Others Do The Opposite
- Illinois town outlaws baggy pants
Southeast supervisor arrested on 2nd DWI in 13 months Jonathan Bandler
The Journal News
SOUTHEAST - Town Supervisor Michael Rights was arrested for drunken driving early today following a traffic stop on Route 22 near his home, the Putnam County Sheriff's Office said.
It was the second time in 13 months that Rights was charged with driving while intoxicated, although he disposed of the June 2007 charge by pleading guilty to driving while ability impaired shortly after he was elected in November.
Rights was driving north in his 2009 Jaguar shortly before 3 a.m. when Deputy Sheriffs Kevin McManus and Matthew Tunney pulled him over near Route 312 for allegedly failing to dim his high-beam headlights, according to a press release issued by the Sheriff's Office.
Read More
Ryder Farm to vie for preservation grant Michael Risinit
The Journal News
SOUTHEAST - A sycamore tree that towers over the farmhouse at Ryder Farm in Southeast most likely was part of the landscape when George Washington was running the country.
Since then, the fields on a ridge above Peach Lake have been tilled in some form of agriculture. If the farm's owners - a family corporation whose shareholders are 86 cousins - are successful, the farm on Starr Ridge Road will be around for many more generations and presidential administrations.
"I love the farm. I always have. I worry for the future," Stella Gibson, a high school junior from Charlottesville, Va., said this week while standing beneath the massive tree.
Read More
Putnam Valley, landowner at war over use of Cimarron Ranch Susan Elan
The Journal News
PUTNAM VALLEY - The green street sign at an entrance to the 450-acre Cimarron Ranch reads "Vineyard Trail" and a painted wooden sign welcoming visitors to the property is labeled "Valley View Organics."
But several hundred feet up the wide dirt entry road, the scene is anything but bucolic. A backhoe loads dirt into a 10-wheeler. Mountains of hacked-up tree stumps, leaves, roots and branches stretch along one side of a muddy clearing. On the other side, tires and boulders are strewn over a denuded hillside.
Residents say property owner Alexander Kaspar has transformed their wooded neighborhood into an industrial zone where rock grinding, earth moving, clear-cutting and wood chipping go on from sun up to sun down six days a week. Sundays and evenings when heavy machinery and chain saws are not in use, motorcycles and ATVs tear over roads carved out of once-tree-covered hillsides, further disturbing their tranquility, they say.
Read More
(Ed note: if you are going to comment on the above article, (or any article, for that matter), post only your comment and please, do not post the entire newsletter again. Thanks.)
Vine removal in LaGrange postponed; see video Mowing planned for invasive plant
By John Davis
Poughkeepsie Journal
FREEDOM PLAINS - It appears the LaGrange town government will not attempt to eradicate the invasive mile-a-minute vine until the spring.
This is because it will take at least two months to obtain a necessary state conservation permit to mow or pull out the weed along Jackson Creek. And the spring is the best time to combat the annual by either spraying with a herbicide or mowing the sprouting weeds.
"Mowing is probably the cheapest way to go," said Wendy Wollerton, a horticultural lab technician with Cornell Cooperative Extension in Millbrook.
Read More
Bush drilling plan benefits oil companies, not consumers John Hall
Re "An indelible mark," a Tuesday editorial calling on Congress to oppose President Bush's proposal to allow oil drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf, which includes the Atlantic Coast:
With the price of gasoline more than $4.30 per gallon in the Hudson Valley, it's clear that working families are facing a crisis that threatens their economic security. The situation requires serious solutions that will deliver real results.
Unfortunately, the oil companies and their allies in the Bush administration aren't interested in advancing such solutions. Instead, they have chosen to exploit the anxiety Americans are feeling to make another push to open lands like the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling.
The facts show that drilling in ANWR is not a solution to spiking gas prices. Even under the most aggressive Department of Energy projections, almost 20 years from now ANWR oil would only lower gas prices by a nickel. The companies selling oil would benefit, but American drivers need help now.
Read More
Texas Approves a $4.93 Billion Wind-Power Project By KATE GALBRAITH
Texas regulators have approved a $4.93 billion wind-power transmission project, providing a major lift to the development of wind energy in the state.
The planned web of transmission lines will carry electricity from remote western parts of the state to major population centers like Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. The lines can handle 18,500 megawatts of power, enough for 3.7 million homes on a hot day when air-conditioners are running.
The project will ease a bottleneck that has become a major obstacle to development of the wind-rich Texas Panhandle and other areas suitable for wind generation.
Texas is already the largest producer of wind power, with 5,300 installed megawatts — more than double the installed capacity of California, the next closest state. And Texas is fast expanding its capacity.
“This project will almost put Texas ahead of Germany in installed wind,” said Greg Wortham, executive director of the West Texas Wind Energy Consortium.
Read More
Judge Returns Gray Wolves to Endangered List By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: July 19, 2008
Gray wolves in the greater Yellowstone area of the northern Rocky Mountains, which would have been fair game for hunters in three states as a result of a federal government decision in March, were again put under the protections of the Endangered Species Act by a judge in Montana on Friday.
The action by the judge, Donald W. Molloy of Federal District Court, took the form of a preliminary injunction and could be reversed. But Judge Molloy’s language showed serious reservations about the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to remove endangered species protections for the wolves.
Environmental groups, including Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club, which sued the Interior Department and the Fish and Wildlife Service on behalf of the wolves, persuaded Judge Molloy that there was a possibility of irreparable harm to the species if hunts had been allowed.
Read More
Some Earthworms Make Septic Systems Work Better, Others Do The Opposite ScienceDaily (July 20, 2008) — The right earthworms can make home septic systems work better. The wrong ones could do the opposite.
That’s the finding in a study of worm populations living in the soil near trenches receiving septic tank flow outside five single family homes in Arkansas. Carrie L. Hawkins of the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville performed the study in collaboration with Agricultural Research Service (ARS) soil scientist Martin J. Shipitalo of the North Appalachian Experimental Watershed in Coshocton, Ohio.
Read More
Illinois town outlaws baggy pants LYNWOOD, Ill., July 20 (UPI) -- The small Illinois town of Lynwood has passed an ordinance requiring people to cover their underwear in public, officials said.
The ordinance, aimed at ending the practice of wearing pants below the waist, states that people caught exposing 3 inches or more of their underwear will be fined $25, the Chicago Tribune reported Sunday.
Other towns have passed similar laws, including Flint, Mich., where offenders can be fined $500, the newspaper reported.
Lynwood Mayor Eugene Williams said the ordinance was passed to help encourage development in the town.
Read More (If you're not already shaking your head.)
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