News That Matters
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Good Monday Morning,

Today is Leonard Bernstein's birthday.

I'm hoping everyone had an enjoyable weekend. The weather was fine, the Tour De Putnam's 800 riders seemed to be enjoying themselves and the skies were clear at night making for some wonderful astronomical viewing.

Correction: In last Friday's edition of News That Matters I ran a chart showing the number of crimes that took place in both Southeast and Brewster. The chart showed 1 murder that was reported for Brewster during 2006. That information is incorrect. The body was found in Brewster, hence the report, but the crime took place fully within Southeast. In 2006 there were no murders in Brewster.

There's a Planning Board meeting in Putnam Valley tonight at 6PM and the County Legislature will be accepting comments on the effort to save the Ryder Farm in Southeast from becoming a housing development. That meeting is at 6:30 at the County Courthouse and we need your voices there to overcome opposition from the County Executive.

In last week's poll I asked "What will it take to get Congress to listen to the American people?" 55% of respondents said armed rebellion, 27% thought that Americans would wake up one morning and realize they'd been hoodwinked while the remaining 18% thought it would take the Second Coming of Christ.

On Saturday afternoon I attended a fund raiser for Assembly candidate John Degnan in Southeast. There were about 50 people from so many sides of the political spectrum you weren't sure which way to turn or what to say! But there were a lot of Republicans there, that's for sure, and I felt like a fish out of water.

The variety of political views on matters of the day were so broad and widespread and often diametrically opposing - that the conversation was always interesting. But there was one thing in common and that was returning respectability to New York's 99th Assembly district.

I cannot urge Republicans (and Independence Party members) enough how important it is to vote in the primary on September 9th and to do so in a way that will undo the mistake of two years ago.

There is no question that at the local and national levels, NY's 99th Assembly district is not perceived as being represented by a grassroots firebrand who has taken on the powers-that-be. Rather, the district is perceived as an extreme right-wing racist enclave in an otherwise civil region. And, in my discussions with other Republican Assembly reps in the area, that is not going to change: Your current Assemblyman is an outcast in his own party and your needs in Albany are not being heard nor met. There are ways of satisfactorily addressing issues but your current Assemblyman has not learned them nor does he show any sign of being able to learn much of anything.

Yeah, we'll hear from Assemblyman Tedesco from the Republican Assembly Campaign Committee and his thieving henchman, Adam Kramer (who, by the way, still owes me a written apology for copyright theft), but aside from Tedesco, there are precious few Republicans in the Assembly willing to admit that your current representative even exists at all.

You may like the braggadocio, the hard-hitting campaign slogans, the push polls and endless robocalls, the distortions and intentional misrepresentation of the facts, the photo ops and the false appearance of standing up to the Feds and to Sheldon Silver on issues - but I can assure you - your voices are not being heard. Your needs as New York State residents are not being addressed - and will not be - so long as you insist on keeping your current Assemblyman. It's really quite simple: Greg Ball must go.

But here's a story that should bring joy to the hearts of Greg's supporters: Over the weekend a man was injured - and almost died from drowning - in a jet-ski accident at the popular Whirlpool Rapids on the Niagara near Queenston, Ontario at about the point where the river crosses into United States territory. The dividing line here runs down the center of the river. After the man was rescued by the Coast Guard and revived at a hospital in Lewiston, NY he was arrested by US Border Patrol agents who charged him with entering the United States illegally.

In other Ball news, according to his website, 75% of Republican voters intend to vote for him in the primary. But, wait! Maybe it's 62% - it's hard to tell from the Junior High level writing. In the end though, according to the Assemblyman, a "devastating" 51% of those he polled have a negative view of John Degnan. I'm wondering, since he has so far refused to release the complete poll as required by law, just what questions were asked?

Did he ask select voters, "Would you support a child molesting pedophile, slumlord, godless, devil-worshiping, left-wing wacko, Islamic terrorist for State Assembly over me?" And, if 49% of the voters said YES, If I were Greg, I'd be devastated, too.

The Democratic National Convention opens in Denver today and no one cares. Republicans meet in a few days in Minnesota and no one even knows where that is. However, the two leading US political parties announced that the 2012 national conventions will held at the same time, in the same city and in the same Convention center since, according to a spokesman, "There's no longer any real fundamental differences between us and this will show our unity and determination to maintain the status quo in Washington, D.C."

In preparation for this year's upcoming Republican convention however, vandals smashed windows and poured paint at an Obama campaign office in St. Paul the other night. Police are investigating.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports today that public artwork at Atlanta's Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport will soon be coming down to make way for advertising. According to the airport's general manager, "We do what we do to benefit customers."

The Town of Derby Line, Vermont sits, as its name claims, on the line between the United States and Canada. This little town has been sharing a library and a 106 year old Opera House with the adjoining town of Stanstead, Canada and is so closely situated that the Library has the words Canada written on three sides of the building and United States on the 4th. Since the US's determination that Canada - and not Saudi Arabia - is a haven for terrorists, US border patrol agents have been forcing people to drive through checkpoints to enter the library. The border patrol has also decided that fences should be erected on all streets that lead from one town to the other stirring up some righteous indignation from residents who have, forever, been intermingled. In the image, the crosshairs mark the location of the Haskell Free Library. According to a NY Times article, "Whatever happens, Corporal Lavergne said Canadians would still be allowed to visit the library and opera house building, which is mostly in Canada but can only be entered through the United States, without border inspections. Provided, that is, that they walk into the United States at Church Street..."

And now, the News:

The clamor for property-tax relief isn't going away
Timeless tunes take a step back in time
One 400-Gallon Argument Against Offshore Oil Drilling
Teenage DNA detectives expose US fish fraud
Sweden's carbon-tax solution to climate change puts it top of the green list
EPA fails to collect chemical safety data
No Fords allowed in Texas driveway

The clamor for property-tax relief isn't going away

Laurie Nikolski
Have New York's taxpayers been heard? Or have they been had?

Advocates and analysts across the state have echoed the same word to describe last week's two-day special session of the Legislature, which resulted in almost a half-billion dollars in budget cuts: "unprecedented.'' Indeed, the actions taken at the insistence of Gov. David Paterson to close a $5.4 billion budget gap were, on one level, impressive. The Assembly and Senate even took off the books $40 million for "pork barrel'' projects, money that would come in handy in an election year. Those cuts, however, obscure the fact that Albany made no progress on the item topping taxpayers' wish list: containing or reducing school property taxes.

In the end, lawmakers cut $427 million from the $121.3 billion 2008-'09 state budget. Paterson wanted $600 million. Additional planned reductions, however, will trigger $1.14 billion in cuts from next year's projected budget deficit of $6.4 billion. In the absence of any action, Paterson warned in advance of last week's session, the budget gap could rise to more than $26 billion two years from now.

Just getting most of the lawmakers back from their August vacation was a win for Democrat Paterson, who became governor March 17. It wasn't just for a public-relations show of leadership. Paterson has been saying for months that the state is facing its gravest fiscal crisis since the 1970s. "I'm not going to minimize the gravity of this budget crisis,'' Paterson told reporters in a Capitol briefing the day after the cuts were agreed to. "It is continuing . . . if we do see (revenue) going south, we will be right back here.''

Timeless tunes take a step back in time

Ken Valenti
The Journal News

PUTNAM VALLEY - The sounds of Depression-era folk, timeless standards and some gentle acoustic guitar arrangements written by young songwriters filled the historic Tompkins Corners Methodist Church yesterday afternoon.

About 100 fans gathered on the cushioned pews in the simple interior of the church with stained glass windows of a blue-and-yellow diamond check pattern on either side.

As seven acts took their turns, the audience listened to "Shenandoah" and a Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter song and originals.

Introducing the Depression Era song "Brother, Can You Spare a Dime," with lyrics by E.Y. Harburg, guitarist Ron Gluck said: "This song that we're going to play is just as appropriate today as when he wrote it."

He played the mournful standard with renowned klezmer violinist Alicia Svigals and Tim Pitt on guitar. They followed it with one to get everyone singing: "All of Me."

One 400-Gallon Argument Against Offshore Oil Drilling

EPA Fines Exxon-Mobil for Ignoring PCB Leak on Rig for 2 Years

The argument for offshore oil drilling has focused, wrongly, on current gasoline prices.

It's been well established that increased offshore oil drilling would make, at best, a few cents of difference on pump prices in about 10 years, assuming that the world's insatiable thirst for oil doesn't continue to increase, which is about as likely as Dick Cheney giving up hunting.

The argument against oil drilling has, also wrongly, focused on the potential environmental disasters in store from offshore drilling. Congress and past presidents restricted offshore oil drilling because of catastrophic spills that turned public opinion, particularly the opinion of beach-goers and wealthy coastal landowners, soundly against the idea of energy exploration near their ocean views.

At least, I thought the environmental disaster argument was wrong -- because it misses a larger point: Investing in oil now is like deciding it's a good time to get into the subprime mortgage business. The game ending, and you've already lost. Better to invest in alternatives now, while we still have enough oil to run the economy, than to postpone the inevitable and invite a future of persistent scarcity and high costs that dwarf those we've endured recently. (This is the pragmatic argument, ignoring completely for a moment that weaning ourselves off oil and coal will be essential to solve the global warming crisis.)

But maybe the offshore oil-environmental catastrophe argument is right after all.

Exhibit A: Exxon-Mobil.

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Teenage DNA detectives expose US fish fraud

Two Classmates Collect 60 Samples From New York City Stores and Restaurants
By NEW SCIENTIST STAFF and REUTERS

Up to a quarter of fish in stores and restaurants in New York City was mislabelled as a more expensive variety, according to samples collected by two US teenagers and tested with genetic "barcoding" methods.

In the worst cases, two samples of filleted fish sold as red snapper, caught mostly off the southeast United States and in the Caribbean, were instead the endangered Acadian redfish from the North Atlantic, according to the tests, revealed on Friday.

"We never expected these results. People should get what they pay for," said Kate Stoeckle, 18, of the project with Louisa Strauss, 17.

The two classmates from New York's Trinity school collected and sent off 60 fish samples to the University of Guelph in Canada. Of 56 samples that could be identified by a the DNA barcoding identification technique, 14 were mislabelled.

Sweden's carbon-tax solution to climate change puts it top of the green list

Buses and lorries running on dead cows and a train station using commuters' body warmth to heat an office block are two innovative solutions to lowering carbon emissions that have put Sweden top of an environmental league table.

If there's a paradise for environmentalists, this Nordic nation of 9.2 million people must be it. In 2007 Sweden topped the list of countries that did the most to save the planet - for the second year running - according to German environmental group, Germanwatch. Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its carbon emissions by 9%, largely exceeding the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, while enjoying economic growth of 44% in fixed prices.

Under Kyoto, Sweden was even told it could increase its emissions by 4% given the progress it had already made. But "this was not considered ambitious enough," explains Emma Lindberg, a climate change expert at the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation.

"So parliament decided to cut emissions by another 4% [below 1990 levels]. The mindset was 'we need to do what's good for the environment because it's good for Sweden and its economy'."

The main reason for this success, say experts, is the introduction of a carbon tax in 1991. Swedes today pay an extra 2.34 kronor (20p) per litre when they fill the tank (although many key industries receive tax relief or are exempted). "Our carbon emissions would have been 20% higher without the carbon tax," says the Swedish environment minister, Andreas Carlgren.

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EPA fails to collect chemical safety data

90 products made or used in Wisconsin lack full information
By MEG KISSINGER and SUSANNE RUST
mkissinger@journalsentinel.com
Posted: Aug. 24, 2008

A few blocks from St. Josaphat Basilica on Milwaukee’s near south side, a company called Milport Enterprises makes more than a million pounds a year of a chemical that no one knows much about, not even the company executives. This is despite a decade of promises by the federal government to provide safety information about just such chemicals.

One other Wisconsin company makes a chemical in quantities of a million pounds or more a year but has not submitted any safety data on it, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. ChemDesign Products Inc. of Marinette makes a chemical commonly known as DPE used to coat paper. There are no studies published on the safety of this chemical in any of the online search engines. To date, the EPA has not ordered the company to report information.

It's called sodium glucoheptonate and it's used to clean industrial tubs so that calcium doesn't form rings or clumps. The chemical is regularly used as a cleanser at dairies, breweries and food processing plants. The government estimates that nationally about 75,000 workers come into contact with this chemical on a regular basis.

An Environmental Protection Agency program called the High Production Volume Challenge began 10 years ago, promising to give consumers safety information about roughly 3,000 chemicals like sodium glucoheptonate that are made in volumes of 1 million pounds or more each year.

But the agency relies on companies that make those chemicals to voluntarily gather the safety data.

Many companies, like Milport, have not bothered to come up with the information. As a result, the EPA hasn't yielded a single document on this compound, the Journal Sentinel found.

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No Fords allowed in Texas driveway

FRISCO, Texas, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- A Texas homeowners association says a nearly new Ford truck isn't good enough to be left out in a driveway overnight.

Owner Jim Greenwood has gotten three notices telling him to get the truck out of the driveway or face a $50 fine per event, The Austin American-Statesman reported Sunday.

The homeowners association of the gated community called Stonebriar Village in Frisco, Texas, does, however, allow more prestigious brand trucks such as Lincolns to be parked in driveways. Greenwood tried to explain to the board during a July meeting that his truck and the Lincoln Mark LT were constructed on the same assembly line and basically the same vehicle. He claims a board member responded by telling him that "Lincoln markets to a different class of people."

Greenwood has started parking his third vehicle in the garage but is considering other protests.

"I've got it finished out with some additional chrome and such," he said, noting that he paid nearly $30,000 for the truck, which has about 25,000 miles on it and a dealer-installed metal bed cover painted to match the rest of the truck.

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