Good new blog to check out about New York state politics:
Planet Albany.
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Friday, November 28, 2008
Empty the Asylums Day
A conversation overhead at my office:
1st woman (proudly): I stood in line outside Wal-Mart for over 2 1/2 hours in freezing weather!
2nd woman (admiringly): That's amazing! There's no way I could've done that.
I felt like telling the 2nd woman that the reason she couldn't have done that is because she's sane. Even more so considering that I've heard there was a brawl at that Wal-Mart in (where else?) the electronics department.
An acquaintance of mine's Facebook status reads, "everyone who shopped early today deserves all the crap they put up with."
I couldn't agree with him more.
People think sports fans are deranged fanatics. But I'd feel safer around Italian soccer hooligans than Christmas shoppers.
Update: The Season of Peace began badly for one Wal-Mart worker in Long Island who was trampled to death by a rampaging herd of lunatics released for the day from their cages. A tragedy in any context, but even more so considering the scenario.
1st woman (proudly): I stood in line outside Wal-Mart for over 2 1/2 hours in freezing weather!
2nd woman (admiringly): That's amazing! There's no way I could've done that.
I felt like telling the 2nd woman that the reason she couldn't have done that is because she's sane. Even more so considering that I've heard there was a brawl at that Wal-Mart in (where else?) the electronics department.
An acquaintance of mine's Facebook status reads, "everyone who shopped early today deserves all the crap they put up with."
I couldn't agree with him more.
People think sports fans are deranged fanatics. But I'd feel safer around Italian soccer hooligans than Christmas shoppers.
Update: The Season of Peace began badly for one Wal-Mart worker in Long Island who was trampled to death by a rampaging herd of lunatics released for the day from their cages. A tragedy in any context, but even more so considering the scenario.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The cable TV racket
Common Cause NY recently issued a report regarding the huge campaign donations made by cable television companies to New York politicians.
The three largest cable companies in the state (Verizon, Time Warner and Cablevision) along with the cable industry's trade group have coughed up over $4.3 million in legal campaign bribes (euphemistically referred to as "donations") in the last 10 years to NYS candidates for political office. Like most corporations, they are non-ideological: they bet on winners. In 2002, they gave 80 percent of their "donations" to the heavily favored Republican incumbent governor (who won); in 2006, they gave 82 percent to the overwhelmingly favored Democrat (who also won).
The industry has also spent a staggering $24 million just since 2005 on lobbying in New York. That's just for this one state.
These "donations" have accomplished their goal. Despite the theoretical legalization of competition in the industry some years ago, I am not aware of a single municipality in the state where residents have more than one cable choice.
Furthermore, these three companies have a virtual stranglehold on cable service in the state. A bill sponsored by powerful Assemblyman Richard Brodsky that would've legalized statewide franchises and provided stronger consumer protections for cable subscribers was defeated in the legislature, thanks to heavy industry lobbying. The industry continues to resist a la carte channel choices, despite strong support among consumers.
With their oligarchical control and no competition even amongst themselves in any municipality, the market leaders have no incentive to improve their lousy, overpriced service.
The three largest cable companies in the state (Verizon, Time Warner and Cablevision) along with the cable industry's trade group have coughed up over $4.3 million in legal campaign bribes (euphemistically referred to as "donations") in the last 10 years to NYS candidates for political office. Like most corporations, they are non-ideological: they bet on winners. In 2002, they gave 80 percent of their "donations" to the heavily favored Republican incumbent governor (who won); in 2006, they gave 82 percent to the overwhelmingly favored Democrat (who also won).
The industry has also spent a staggering $24 million just since 2005 on lobbying in New York. That's just for this one state.
These "donations" have accomplished their goal. Despite the theoretical legalization of competition in the industry some years ago, I am not aware of a single municipality in the state where residents have more than one cable choice.
Furthermore, these three companies have a virtual stranglehold on cable service in the state. A bill sponsored by powerful Assemblyman Richard Brodsky that would've legalized statewide franchises and provided stronger consumer protections for cable subscribers was defeated in the legislature, thanks to heavy industry lobbying. The industry continues to resist a la carte channel choices, despite strong support among consumers.
With their oligarchical control and no competition even amongst themselves in any municipality, the market leaders have no incentive to improve their lousy, overpriced service.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The first casualty
I'm reading an intriguing book entitled The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart by Bill Bishop.
The basic premise of the work is that while America as a whole has become very evenly divided, communities are becoming increasingly homogeneous and that polarization is being aggravated by these millions of little echo chambers.
In the part I'm reading now, the author talks about how more and more positions are being taken not because of any ideological or principled basis but out of a reflexive reaction to 'the other side.'
When I was one of the very few on the American left to condemn the Russian aggression against Georgia, I was struck by the ferocity of the criticism against me.
But the fact of the criticism didn't surprise me. I was taking what was perceived to be 'Bush's side' and that was unacceptable.
My critics trotted some token criticism of an alleged Georgian war crime. But it was just that: token. If they really cared that much about it, they'd still be beating the drum for the alleged perpetrators to be brought to justice.
Their main objection was clearly that Georgia's president was too friendly with Bush so he deserved to have his country get the crap beat out of it by the Russian behemoth.
Never mind that this seems grossly inconsistent with the normally expressed progressive position against imperial wars and militarism.
Why do I think it was just token? Virtually no mention of these alleged Georgian crimes were made before the Russian invasion.
And here's another reason: in recent months, both rebel militias and the national army in the eastern DR Congo are guilty of far more extensive, far more brutal and far more devastating war crimes and crimes against humanity than anything the Georgian military is accused of.
Yet there's nary a mention among those who were so quick to condemn Georgia's alleged shelling of the civilian area of one city. The Congolese combatants are guilty of savagery that dwarfs anything the Georgians did, in a manner that's much longer and on a far greater scale.
The only difference I can see is that none of the combatants in the DRC are seen as pro- or anti-Bush so there's no Pavlovian bell to react to.
I opposed the Russian aggression on grounds that were consistent with my ideologies in favor of human rights and against militarism. And I've written several times about the nightmare in the DRC. Both are wrong. And Bush has nothing to do with either.
Bishop talks about this sort of knee jerk behavior in his book.
He points out that the first town in the US to place limits on DNA research was none other than Cambridge, MA, home of Harvard. One of the most liberal cities in America nearly outlawed genetic research in 1977.
But something changed.
When the religious right came out against embryonic stem cell research, however, it created "this reflexive response to that religious point of view", noted a San Francisco scientist.
Liberals like to think that questioning this kind of science is the unique provenance of uneducated, Bible thumping rubes.
So how do they explain this in the home of the most elite university in the nation? Do they forget that a century ago, the progressivism of the time supported eugenics?
I am pro-science but I'm not fundamentalist. When I was in West Africa, a colleague of mine often said to me, "Science without conscience will be the ruin of mankind."
He was no Einstein. He had no fancy degrees from elite institutions. He was a humble middle school biology and chemistry teacher in a tiny village in the West African jungle. I do not know his politics. He may not have been highly educated but he was very wise.
Of course, such knee-jerk behavior is not unique to the left. When Republican George Bush decided to launch his unprovoked aggression against Iraq, Republicans rallied behind him and intoned the mantra that it was treasonous to criticize a president during war time.
Many of these same Republicans were the most bitter critics of Bill Clinton and his decision to launch a NATO intervention in Kosovo. Bill Clinton was a Democrat.
People today are more concerned about being with 'their side' than about being right than anything else. Professed values just get in the war. That's why values get tossed out the window and rabidly anti-war citizens will eagerly get behind pro-war candidates. It's easier to pick a side than to search for what is often a messy, nuanced truth.
They say truth is the first casualty of war. The saying was directed toward conventional military conflict. But apparently it's also true of the culture wars.
The basic premise of the work is that while America as a whole has become very evenly divided, communities are becoming increasingly homogeneous and that polarization is being aggravated by these millions of little echo chambers.
In the part I'm reading now, the author talks about how more and more positions are being taken not because of any ideological or principled basis but out of a reflexive reaction to 'the other side.'
When I was one of the very few on the American left to condemn the Russian aggression against Georgia, I was struck by the ferocity of the criticism against me.
But the fact of the criticism didn't surprise me. I was taking what was perceived to be 'Bush's side' and that was unacceptable.
My critics trotted some token criticism of an alleged Georgian war crime. But it was just that: token. If they really cared that much about it, they'd still be beating the drum for the alleged perpetrators to be brought to justice.
Their main objection was clearly that Georgia's president was too friendly with Bush so he deserved to have his country get the crap beat out of it by the Russian behemoth.
Never mind that this seems grossly inconsistent with the normally expressed progressive position against imperial wars and militarism.
Why do I think it was just token? Virtually no mention of these alleged Georgian crimes were made before the Russian invasion.
And here's another reason: in recent months, both rebel militias and the national army in the eastern DR Congo are guilty of far more extensive, far more brutal and far more devastating war crimes and crimes against humanity than anything the Georgian military is accused of.
Yet there's nary a mention among those who were so quick to condemn Georgia's alleged shelling of the civilian area of one city. The Congolese combatants are guilty of savagery that dwarfs anything the Georgians did, in a manner that's much longer and on a far greater scale.
The only difference I can see is that none of the combatants in the DRC are seen as pro- or anti-Bush so there's no Pavlovian bell to react to.
I opposed the Russian aggression on grounds that were consistent with my ideologies in favor of human rights and against militarism. And I've written several times about the nightmare in the DRC. Both are wrong. And Bush has nothing to do with either.
Bishop talks about this sort of knee jerk behavior in his book.
He points out that the first town in the US to place limits on DNA research was none other than Cambridge, MA, home of Harvard. One of the most liberal cities in America nearly outlawed genetic research in 1977.
But something changed.
When the religious right came out against embryonic stem cell research, however, it created "this reflexive response to that religious point of view", noted a San Francisco scientist.
Liberals like to think that questioning this kind of science is the unique provenance of uneducated, Bible thumping rubes.
So how do they explain this in the home of the most elite university in the nation? Do they forget that a century ago, the progressivism of the time supported eugenics?
I am pro-science but I'm not fundamentalist. When I was in West Africa, a colleague of mine often said to me, "Science without conscience will be the ruin of mankind."
He was no Einstein. He had no fancy degrees from elite institutions. He was a humble middle school biology and chemistry teacher in a tiny village in the West African jungle. I do not know his politics. He may not have been highly educated but he was very wise.
Of course, such knee-jerk behavior is not unique to the left. When Republican George Bush decided to launch his unprovoked aggression against Iraq, Republicans rallied behind him and intoned the mantra that it was treasonous to criticize a president during war time.
Many of these same Republicans were the most bitter critics of Bill Clinton and his decision to launch a NATO intervention in Kosovo. Bill Clinton was a Democrat.
People today are more concerned about being with 'their side' than about being right than anything else. Professed values just get in the war. That's why values get tossed out the window and rabidly anti-war citizens will eagerly get behind pro-war candidates. It's easier to pick a side than to search for what is often a messy, nuanced truth.
They say truth is the first casualty of war. The saying was directed toward conventional military conflict. But apparently it's also true of the culture wars.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Are you dumber than an 11 year old?
I'm sorry to rant but... is there anything more flat out stupid than observations like "With really cold weather we're having tonight, I have a hard time believing in global warming."
The scary part is that people with this sort of comprehensive ignorance of the most basic tenets of science, stuff I learned way back in 6th grade... these are the people who've been running the country and overruling informed scientific policy for the last eight years.
It was 63 here last Wednesday afternoon. I guess that proves global warming!!!
The scary part is that people with this sort of comprehensive ignorance of the most basic tenets of science, stuff I learned way back in 6th grade... these are the people who've been running the country and overruling informed scientific policy for the last eight years.
It was 63 here last Wednesday afternoon. I guess that proves global warming!!!
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Coverage of the Adirondack Climate Conference
Today and tomorrow, John over at Adirondack Almanack is providing live blogging coverage from the climate change conference being held at Tupper Lake's Wild Center. Check it out!
Monday, November 17, 2008
Churches' special rights
It's no secret that churches are the main opponents of attempts to offer state-recognition of gay unions. These are proposals that only affect what the state does and has no impact on religious organizations, who remain free to be as bigoted as they want.
Something's occurred to me recently. Organized churches benefit great from one enormous special right: the tax-exempt status that society (via governments) chooses to accord them. They are not allowed to explicitly endorse or oppose candidates for political office. But obviously, there are no restrictions to what they can do related to other political issues.
Given this special right that society gives them, you'd think they'd be a little bit less in your face in lobbying about public policy issues that don't affect them.
There's a huge difference between a church saying "We won't recognize gay marriages" and it saying "The state should ban anyone from recognizing gay marriages."
The state doesn't dictate how churches regulate themselves. Churches should return the favor.
After all, churches risk a backlash. Revulsion against creeping theocracy may create a movement to revoke this special right.
If they want to be political, so be it. They just shouldn't be subsidized by the rest of us.
Something's occurred to me recently. Organized churches benefit great from one enormous special right: the tax-exempt status that society (via governments) chooses to accord them. They are not allowed to explicitly endorse or oppose candidates for political office. But obviously, there are no restrictions to what they can do related to other political issues.
Given this special right that society gives them, you'd think they'd be a little bit less in your face in lobbying about public policy issues that don't affect them.
There's a huge difference between a church saying "We won't recognize gay marriages" and it saying "The state should ban anyone from recognizing gay marriages."
The state doesn't dictate how churches regulate themselves. Churches should return the favor.
After all, churches risk a backlash. Revulsion against creeping theocracy may create a movement to revoke this special right.
If they want to be political, so be it. They just shouldn't be subsidized by the rest of us.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Is a dead fetus in Kansas worth more than a dead toddler in Baghdad?
"They say we're disturbing the peace. But what really disturbs them is that we're disturbing the war." -Howard Zinn
The US Catholic bishops are at it again. They've issued their periodical call for Catholic politicians who support legal abortion to be denied Holy Communion.
There is one hypocrisy that infuriates me to no end. And that most Americans who claim to be 'pro-life,' define the term EXCLUSIVELY in terms of one's position on the legality of abortion.
The reason this infuriates me is because there are two other central 'life issues' that ought to be given equal consideration: wars of aggression and state murder, more commonly known as the death penalty.
I do not wish to devote this essay to a debate over whether the fetus should be considered a child. But I will say this.
If you consider an unborn fetus to be a full-fledged human being deserving of all the rights therein, shouldn't you expect the same rights be accorded to former fetuses that now live outside the womb?
In short, if the unborn have rights, why are rights for the born forgotten?
It infuriates me that so many people demand the unborn be afforded special protection but then don't give a crap what happens once they leave the mother's fetus. It's too bad that 'pro-life' and 'pro-quality of life' seem unrelated.
And here's the point. The Vatican regularly speaks out against abortion. It regularly speaks out against the death penalty. It regularly speaks out against war generally and against the catastrophe of the Iraq Aggression in particular. The Vatican, for its many faults, believes that all three are key questions related to the sanctity of human life. Agree or disagree, it is consistent not only in its positions but in its emphasis.
So why do American bishops SINGULARLY FOCUS on only one of those three key 'life issues'? Why do they seek to deny Communion to politicians who support legal abortions but not to politicians who support state murder like the death penalty or Iraq Aggression? Do they pick and choose which Vatican positions to support and which to ignore? Doesn't this make them the 'cafeteria Catholics' many of them denounce?
If the US bishops were to deny Communion to politicians who went against Vatican policy on ANY of these issues, I'm not sure I'd agree with it but I'd respect its consistency. This inconsistency sends the message that a dead toddler in Bagdhad is worth less to them than a dead fetus in Kansas?
In fact, one could argue that of these three 'life issues,' abortion is the one where politicians have the LEAST culpability. Abortion is the only one that doesn't result from action perpetrated by the government. With legal abortion, government merely allows people the choice to commit what the Church considers a sin. With unjust war and the death penalty, the government itself is actually committing the sin.
Furthermore, many anti-abortion commentators believe the Church's focus on the legal aspect of abortion is misguided. They feel the Church should worry less about punishing politicians who support legal abortion as state policy and more about trying to convince its own flock and society in general that abortion should be avoided at all costs.
Because at the end of the day, the legality of abortion doesn't matter if no one chooses to have one.
Update: If the bishops' position isn't dubious enough, a crazy priest in South Carolina has done them several better. He said that anyone who voted for Obama should refrain from receiving Communion. In addition to falsely referring to John McCain as 'pro-life,' the priest stated that a vote for a politician who supports legal abortion 'constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.'
And the Catholic Church wonders why it's hemorrhaging members.
Of course, such rants merely illustrate why the Church's influence is declining. Despite (because?) of the this kind of hysteria, 54 percent of Catholics voted for... Obama.
The US Catholic bishops are at it again. They've issued their periodical call for Catholic politicians who support legal abortion to be denied Holy Communion.
There is one hypocrisy that infuriates me to no end. And that most Americans who claim to be 'pro-life,' define the term EXCLUSIVELY in terms of one's position on the legality of abortion.
The reason this infuriates me is because there are two other central 'life issues' that ought to be given equal consideration: wars of aggression and state murder, more commonly known as the death penalty.
I do not wish to devote this essay to a debate over whether the fetus should be considered a child. But I will say this.
If you consider an unborn fetus to be a full-fledged human being deserving of all the rights therein, shouldn't you expect the same rights be accorded to former fetuses that now live outside the womb?
In short, if the unborn have rights, why are rights for the born forgotten?
It infuriates me that so many people demand the unborn be afforded special protection but then don't give a crap what happens once they leave the mother's fetus. It's too bad that 'pro-life' and 'pro-quality of life' seem unrelated.
And here's the point. The Vatican regularly speaks out against abortion. It regularly speaks out against the death penalty. It regularly speaks out against war generally and against the catastrophe of the Iraq Aggression in particular. The Vatican, for its many faults, believes that all three are key questions related to the sanctity of human life. Agree or disagree, it is consistent not only in its positions but in its emphasis.
So why do American bishops SINGULARLY FOCUS on only one of those three key 'life issues'? Why do they seek to deny Communion to politicians who support legal abortions but not to politicians who support state murder like the death penalty or Iraq Aggression? Do they pick and choose which Vatican positions to support and which to ignore? Doesn't this make them the 'cafeteria Catholics' many of them denounce?
If the US bishops were to deny Communion to politicians who went against Vatican policy on ANY of these issues, I'm not sure I'd agree with it but I'd respect its consistency. This inconsistency sends the message that a dead toddler in Bagdhad is worth less to them than a dead fetus in Kansas?
In fact, one could argue that of these three 'life issues,' abortion is the one where politicians have the LEAST culpability. Abortion is the only one that doesn't result from action perpetrated by the government. With legal abortion, government merely allows people the choice to commit what the Church considers a sin. With unjust war and the death penalty, the government itself is actually committing the sin.
Furthermore, many anti-abortion commentators believe the Church's focus on the legal aspect of abortion is misguided. They feel the Church should worry less about punishing politicians who support legal abortion as state policy and more about trying to convince its own flock and society in general that abortion should be avoided at all costs.
Because at the end of the day, the legality of abortion doesn't matter if no one chooses to have one.
Update: If the bishops' position isn't dubious enough, a crazy priest in South Carolina has done them several better. He said that anyone who voted for Obama should refrain from receiving Communion. In addition to falsely referring to John McCain as 'pro-life,' the priest stated that a vote for a politician who supports legal abortion 'constitutes material cooperation with intrinsic evil.'
And the Catholic Church wonders why it's hemorrhaging members.
Of course, such rants merely illustrate why the Church's influence is declining. Despite (because?) of the this kind of hysteria, 54 percent of Catholics voted for... Obama.
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