News That Matters - January 27, 2010

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Quote for the day: "[Jews] had always been a problem in European countries. They had to be confined to ghettoes [sic] and periodically massacred. But still they remained, they thrived and they held whole governments to ransom. Even after their massacre by the Nazis of Germany, they survived to continue to be a source of even greater problems for the world." -- Malaysia’s former premier, Mahathir Mohamad, at a Palestinian conference last weekend. Good Wednesday Morning, Yeah, we're back. If you read to the end of Monday's column you'll know it was just a joke. But not only did I receive a number of responses but it seems there were enough key words/phrases that the column was picked up by right-wing blogs. If that's what it takes to get new readers maybe I'm on to something? Heck, with Limbaugh, Beck, Gannett and Ailes' all in competition for extreme right-wing readers and viewers I might as well get in their game too. If you live in the southwestern corner of the county the wailing you should be hearing at about 10:30 this morning is just Indian Point testing their sirens. The NYJN reports this morning that debt collectors have become more aggressive. Tell me about it. Four times a day, every day save Sunday, they call. As early as 8:15 AM and as late as 8:30 PM. I don't answer since they won't say "why" they are calling and they don't leave messages. So a note: if you're a debt collector and you're looking for money from me please leave a message. Then I'll call you back. One of the things I find interesting about debt collectors is that if you're a major bank you can tap your local Congressman for a huge taxpayer funded donation or you can walk away from your obligations with no pain and no penalty. (See the article below.) But if you're a poor sap stuck in the morass of the recession there's no one you can call for help. While the Bush Administration was happy to give direct cash handouts to Wall Street there were no provisions for direct cash handouts to you and/or me nor were there concessions forced from the recipients to make life a little easier for you and me. The tea baggers are blaming Obama when, more honestly and properly, they should be hanging Bush and Cheney in effigy. For those of you who support the Supreme Court decision handing the electoral process over to the highest bidder as an extension of "free speech", answer me this: Since you're all about supporting free speech are there any forms of political speech you don't support? Write and say which ones. Average life expectancy vs per capita spending on health care vs visits to the doctor. And you still think the American health care <cough, cough> system is nifty neato? Check this out. While we're talking about Health Care, Indymedia Boston is claiming that Israel's field hospital in Haiti is there for only one reason: to harvest organs. The TSA's manual says that people are allowed to film or photograph their operations so long as the filming does not interfere with their work. Fair enough. But then why did the TSA harass a guy in Detroit for doing just that? Watch these videos to find out. Actually, it becomes pretty clear that TSA hasn't a clue what's going on. It's your rights that are being violated but apparently you simply do not care. Maybe you will when the agent behind the screen titters while you stand in the full-body scanner? There's a Tea Bag rally schedule for April 15th in Carmel hosted by Greg Ball. Do you think they'll invite me to speak? They should. I've been fighting their issues for decades and though they keep missing the mark and hitting everything BUT the target they are generally shooting in the right direction. It's war! I got my phone bill from Verizon the other day as many of you did as well. I'd like you all to open to the part where it has the Breakdown of Charges and specifically, "Taxes, Fees and Other Verizon Charges". Let's take a look: Yo Wait! Before we do, remember that New York gave Verizon permission to raise their rates recently because they had lost business to their competition. So, rather than improve service and attract more customers in that good old American Capitalist way, they went begging to the State and the State said, "yeah, sure." And keep in mind that an increase in the basic rate (which was $2 a month per line) also represents an increase in sales tax receipts for the state. Back to our regularly scheduled rant... Federal Tax .20 NY State/Local Sales Tax 2.81 911 Surcharge .35 Federal USF Surcharge .97 USF - Long Distance .99 Surcharge(s) 1.14 FCC Line Charge 6.41 Total Taxes, Fees & Other Verizon Charges $12.87 This is based on a bill totaling $59.99 bringing the total amount to $72.86. That's a lot of money for a  telephone. That bill includes $8.79 as a Basic charge... but we'll see just how much bullshit that really is... The USF Surcharge should be combined with the USF- Long Distance surcharge as they are one and the same. In effect, they are both charges that Verizon makes you pay for their participation in the Universal Service Fund which is geared towards providing schools, libraries, rural America and the poor with telephone service though, being poor myself I somehow don't seem to qualify. Contributions to the fund are set to estimated quarterly earnings so you should see it shift and change each quarter. Your mandatory contribution (remember, it's not a tax) raised $7.1 billion in 2008. The Fed requires that interstate communications providers pay into this account but there is nothing in the code that requires them to pass the cost on to you, at least not as a "fee". In essence, however, though Verizon collects this from you and sends it to the Fed, the Fed uses it to subsidize programs which means the money goes directly BACK to Verizon. In one hand and into the other... directly. And for the record, the High Cost component of the USAC has seen some $4 billion returned directly to phone companies as subsidies. Surcharge(s). Who the hell knows? FCC Line Charge. This charge also is known as the Federal Subscriber Line Charge, the Federally-Ordered Subscriber Line Charge, Federal Line Cost Charge, and the FCC Subscriber Line Charge. In reality it's the missing portion of your basic line charge mentioned above. That $8.79 fee should be, if Verizon were open and honest about their charges, $15.20. But they get to "cheat" to give you the impression your actual costs are lower and that the Fed is responsible for $6.41 of it. They're misleading you and getting away with it. Verizon tells me this charge is mandated by the FCC and must be collected in order to satisfy the Fed but I honestly cannot find independent confirmation of that. Instead, what I've found is that the "FCC" part is a cheat to encourage you to believe that money is somehow going to Washington DC as a fee or tax or corporate bribe or something. But the truth is that it's none of those things. It is, in fact, a charge to you by Verizon to provide a line to your home. The only FCC part of it is that the FCC has mandated it's maximum which was $6.44 in 2007. This charge does not go to fund the FCC. It's not a tax nor a surcharge. It is simply another revenue stream for Verizon. But Verizon tells me that it is Federally mandated and so I looked it up and sure enough, in USC Title 47 §201 it reads: (b) All charges, practices, classifications, and regulations for and in connection with such communication service, shall be just and reasonable, and any such charge, practice, classification, or regulation that is unjust or unreasonable is declared to be unlawful... So, it doesn't say diddly about the charge and only that Verizon can charge. The FCC however, has set the maximum (as stated above) and that's the only thing the FCC has to do with the FCC Line Charge. Someone at another time might have said that Verizon has fabricated their bill to reflect something that it is not. That was at another time. For this time I'll say this: Verizon has fabricated their bill to make you think the FCC wants your money when in reality they're nothing more than a money sucking corporation that needs your tax dollars to pay their stockholders because they can't seem to turn a profit by providing good service at an affordable price. Sue me. But even if we assume that the total $12.87 are taxes alone, on a $60 bill that's still a lot of often hidden taxes and each and every one of us is paying it and we're doing so quite happily. It really is time to break a few dishes around here and I'm open to suggestions. How many more tax breaks, kickbacks and forced subsidies do taxpayers need to give to Corporate America? When is it enough? Remember, Friday brings the Things To Do Edition of News That Matters and to tell you the truth I don't have anything to list. If your club or organization has got something going on this weekend or early next week please get it in to me by tomorrow (Thursday) noon. And now, The News: It's war! Putnam and Southeast working to close their landfills Eminent Domain Returns to New York A gust of energy California Adopts Mandatory Green Building Codes Nolon and Salkin on Teaching Land Use Corporate developers abandon "underwater" property -- why not individuals? Boing Boing Unfree Spirit: NASA's Mars Rover Appears Stuck for Good 'Oral sex' definition prompts dictionary ban in US schools Putnam and Southeast working to close their landfills By Michael Risinit • mrisinit@lohud.com CARMEL — A Putnam County consultant is estimating the county could sell its former landfill property on Old Route 6 for $1.6 million if it could persuade Southeast to consolidate the county's trash in its soon-to-be-capped landfill. County Executive Robert Bondi and Southeast Supervisor Michael Rights favor putting the county's garbage in Southeast. But time is running out to get a consolidation agreement in place between the parties, some of whose members remain cautious. Both sides are under orders from the state Department of Environmental Conservation to clean up their respective dumps, and Southeast has to decide by next month whether to accept Putnam's refuse. Read More Eminent Domain Returns to New York In 2005, when the Supreme Court handed down its 5-4 decision in Kelo v. New London in favor of the Connecticut town, it had a ripple effect across the country, with some 43 states changing their eminent domain statutes.In New York, the decision seemed to reverberate in a different direction. Instead of reform, a wave of new eminent domain–driven projects sprang up. One—Bruce Ratner’s Atlantic Yards arena cum condos plan—verges on groundbreaking while another—Columbia’s proposed Manhattanville campus—has just lost a crucial court case, with others—Willets Point, a casino for Niagra Falls—on the horizon. Now, a clutch of Albany pols are preparing to begin changing what some consider the worst eminent domain laws in the country. Leading the charge is state Senator Bill Perkins, whose district covers much of Harlem. “I think the forces are coming together for change to take place,” Perkins said. “There is, from my observation, growing interest on a grassroots level.” As chair of the Committee on Corporations, Authorities and Commissions, Perkins oversees the main executor of eminent domain in New York, the Empire State Development Corporation. Read More A gust of energy The great hope for powering a sustainable world is renewable energy. The great barrier to powering a sustainable world is the cost and complexity of building a new national transmission grid that will transmit the carbon-free electricity generated by remote wind farms and solar power plants to population centers. "The $93 billion is roughly what the U.S. spends in eight months on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Or to use another metric, a little more than what Joe Taxpayer forked over to bail out AIG." In 2008, the U.S. Department of Energy released a report that concluded the United States could obtain 20 percent of its electricity from wind power by 2030. This week the Energy Department’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory issued a study that shows how the eastern half of the U.S. could obtain as much as 30 percent of its electricity from wind by 2024. The study focused on what transmission geeks call the Eastern Interconnection, six linked regional power grids that run from the Great Plains to the Eastern Seaboard and from the Canadian border to the tip of Florida. “Although significant costs, challenges, and impacts are associated with a 20 percent wind scenario, substantial benefits can be shown to overcome the costs,” the report’s authors wrote. “Such a scenario is unlikely to be realized with a business-as-usual approach, and that a major national commitment to clean, domestic energy sources with desirable environmental attributes would be required.” Essentially, all we need to do is come up with at least $93 billion for new power lines and infrastructure and get myriad transmission operators and local agencies to cooperate on the design of a new high-voltage grid. Sounds daunting. But let’s put the numbers in context. The $93 billion is roughly what the U.S. spends in eight months on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. Or to use another metric, a little more than what Joe Taxpayer forked over to bail out AIG. Read More California Adopts Mandatory Green Building Codes Last week, California adopted the U.S.’s first mandatory green building codes called Calgreen, which are expected to help the state reach its goal of cutting CO2 emissions by a third by 2020. According to The New York Times’ Green Inc. blog, every new building will have to “reduce water usage by 20 percent and recycle 50 percent of its construction waste instead of sending it to landfills. Commercial buildings will be required to have separate water meters for indoor and outdoor water use. Mandatory inspections of air conditioner, heat and mechanical equipment will be also be instituted for all commercial buildings over 10,000 square feet.” Tom Sheehy, acting secretary of the state Consumer Services Agency and chair of the California Building Standards Commission, the group that passed the rules, told The San Francisco Chronicle: “This is (something) no other state in the country has done – integrating green construction practices into the very fabric of the construction code. These are simple, cost-effective green practices. California should be proud.” The California Building Standards Commission unanimously approved by new rules, which also allows cities with stricter codes to keep their independent standards. Read More Nolon and Salkin on Teaching Land Use John Nolon and Patricia Salkin have just published a fantastic piece on teaching land use law and its relationship to Best Practices.  The work of the UGA Land Use Clinic is profiled, as is Chad Emerson's teaching method.  Here's the abstract. The changing dynamics in the field of land use and sustainable community development law demand that land use law professors rethink the way in which we prepare law students to practice law in this area. This needed paradigm shift converges with the growing momentum of the best practices movement which urges law schools to dramatically revise the curricular approach to legal education, arguing that traditional models are no longer effectively serving the goal of producing competent and fully prepared new lawyers. A perfect storm is present and a unique opportunity exists through the application of many “best practices” concepts for land use law faculty to lead the academy in reinventing curriculum and teaching strategies to better prepare students for the practice of law. A brief history of the best practices movement is described in Part II, as well as an assertion as to why land use should be the “poster child” for best practices. Part III reports on an empirical survey of land use law professors conducted by the authors in 2008 that examines, among other things, the opportunities to apply best practices to the subject of land use law. It also offers additional innovative examples of teaching methods that can be effectively utilized within the confines of the traditional classroom, using the land use law course as a model, as well as an example of how the land use law course can be used across the curriculum as a best practices capstone experience. The article concludes in Part IV with the observation that the shortcomings of the traditional casebook approaches to teaching land use within the four walls of the classroom can be easily converted into exciting opportunities that engage student learners, stretch the limits of student creativity, continue to instill and refine a sense of professionalism in law students and, consistent with the findings and recommendations of the Best Practices report and related literature, prepare students to be more effective lawyers when they graduate. Read More Corporate developers abandon "underwater" property -- why not individuals? Boing Boing Tishman Speyer Properties and its co-investors just walked away from the largest real-estate deal in US history, simply defaulting on the properties and the loans that bought them and leaving their creditors in the lurch. The properties, Manhattan's 56-building, 11,232-unit Peter Cooper Village and Stuyvesant Town, were "under water" (worth less than the debt hanging over them), so the corporate developers elected to simply jettison them. They're not alone -- Morgan Stanley recently dumped five San Francisco office buildings, stiffing their creditors when the buildings went underwater. As a business-strategy it makes sense: why repay loans secured by assets that are worth less than the loans? Just turn the assets over and cut your losses. But individuals are shamed, bullied, and counselled not to do this when it's their private homes that fall underwater. Everyone from former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to credit counsellors to the Mortgage Bankers Association tell you that defaulting on underwater property is low and dishonest (unless you're a Wall Street player -- then it's just "protecting shareholder value"). Read More Unfree Spirit: NASA's Mars Rover Appears Stuck for Good Now designated a stationary science platform, Spirit's next order of business is bracing for a long, harsh winter By John Matson The Mars rover Spirit, which this month passed its sixth anniversary of landing on the Red Planet, will apparently rove no more. NASA announced in a teleconference Tuesday that Spirit, stuck for months in a patch of soft soil known as Troy, has been designated a "stationary research platform". Spirit has not managed to free itself in a series of extraction maneuvers that began in November, and the rover's controllers say that their focus must now turn to preparing for the onset of winter in the Martian southern hemisphere—a harsh season, lasting nearly half an Earth year, that Spirit may not survive. Doug McCuistion, director of NASA's Mars Exploration Program, said that Spirit's driving days are likely finished. He called the rover's plight "a golfer's worst nightmare—the sand trap that no matter how many strokes you take, you can't get out of it." Read More 'Oral sex' definition prompts dictionary ban in US schools Dictionaries have been removed from classrooms in southern California schools after a parent complained about a child reading the definition for "oral sex". Merriam Webster's 10th edition, which has been used for the past few years in fourth and fifth grade classrooms (for children aged nine to 10) in Menifee Union school district, has been pulled from shelves over fears that the "sexually graphic" entry is "just not age appropriate", according to the area's local paper. The dictionary's online definition of the term is "oral stimulation of the genitals". "It's hard to sit and read the dictionary, but we'll be looking to find other things of a graphic nature," district spokeswoman Betti Cadmus told the paper. 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