Good Monday Morning,

Remembering Peter Rossi

This past Saturday evening saw a most wonderful, and sad, event. Kent residents Roy Volpe and Susan Gamache held an open-house in memory of Peter Rossi who passed on last week after his wake at the Beecher Funeral home in Brewster.

More than three score traveled from up and down the east coast gathering together to reminisce about Peter and his life, especially his contributions to the cultural and social justice worlds we inhabit here in Putnam County.

I know a lot of people in a number of different social circles and it was inspiring to see how they blended together and touched each other as Peter’s life touched so many.

Here’s a public Thank You! to Roy and Susan for being so strong, for remaining steadfast and for pulling us all together at such a sad time yet with a wonderful event.

(Photo: Chris Casaburi)

If you live over in Philipstown, (yes, it’s still part of Putnam County) there will be a candidates forum on Wednesday evening at 7:30PM for mayor and trustees at 69 Main Street. Philipstown.info will be webcasting the event live. Good for them.

While we’re on the subject of Philisptown, one of that community’s more famous residents may be indicted today. Roger Ailes, president of News Corp, the parent company for FOX News and the owner of two of Putnam’s weekly newspapers, the PCNR and the FOX Courier, has been fingered as encouraging an employee, Judith Regan, to lie to Federal prosecutors in an effort to protect Rudy Giuliani when he was contemplating a run for President.

The New York Times reported lat week: “Now, court documents filed in a lawsuit make clear whom Ms. Regan was accusing of urging her to lie: Roger E. Ailes, the powerful chairman of Fox News and a longtime friend of Mr. Giuliani. What is more, the documents say that Ms. Regan taped the telephone call from Mr. Ailes in which Mr. Ailes discussed her relationship with Mr. Kerik.”

The New York Journal News has a new website design that if you’re using Firefox as your browser will not work all that well. Even the old site would fail too many times with Firefox but would work well with Internet Explorer. I’m guessing it has to do with delivering third-party content to your machine while you’re not looking. Firefox is much better at filtering that out where IE was designed to integrate your browsing experience while collecting personal data and sending it back to the site you’re visiting.

Putnam Valley’s Michael Sklaar and his wife Vera run an organization called “World Exchange“ that brings foreign high school students for study periods to the United States. School districts in the area that participate are, Putnam Valley, Pawling, Peekskill, Croton, Webutuck, Pine Plains and coming in the fall of 2011, White Plains.

But the business is expanding and they would like to add several more school districts and private schools in Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess to their roster. They have found that it is almost impossible to do so without the aid of an interested language teacher or a school administrator within the school or district championing their cause.

If you know of and could refer them to a teacher or administrator in one of these three counties, they would be very grateful.  Even just having someone’s name and contact info would be helpful.

You can contact Michael and World Exchange by clicking here.

Here in the United States we pay somewhere around 17.6% of its gross domestic product (or about $8,086 per capita) on health care and we’re no where near the top of the charts in health overall. But other countries around the world have figured out how to provide health services their populations at much lower cost with better overall results. For example,

France spends around 11.2% GDP ($4000 per capita) on health services and has the best and most comprehensive public health care system in the world. France has a mix of public and private systems and the public system reimburses up 70% of health costs with private insurance covering the rest. And most doctors are in private practice and see state-funded patients.

Finland spent 7.5% GDP on health care services in a mix of public and private health care services. The state run facility charges 11 euros ($15) per doctor visit with a 33 euro annual cap. For in hospital and/or out-patient services, once a citizen has paid out 590 euros ($810) all further visits and treatment are covered 100% by the state.

And that’s just two examples. I could spend a few hours compiling others but that should send Congress a hint: a national public system is more effective than the private, for-profit system we have now.

Hamas is demanding that UN schools in the territories not teach students about the “so-called” Holocaust of WWII. It blames Washington for the addition of the Holocaust in the curriculum and demands it be removed immediately saying that, “the materials [are] contrary to the understanding and culture of the Palestinian people,”.

While we’re on the subject of twisted logic, the government of Iran, that bastion of openness, liberalism and democracy, is claiming that the logo chosen for the 2012 Olympic games in London is racist and spells “Zion” and is threatening to pull out of the games if the logo isn’t changed.

According to an AFP article, Mohammad Alibadi, head of the Iranian National Olympic Committee said, “The use of the word Zion by the designer of Olympics logo ….in the emblem of the Olympics Games 2012 is a very revolting act,”

Collected from the ‘net:

“I say unto you: Go forth and make a Dutch baby. Then liberally sprinkle it with powdered sugar and a squirt or two of lemon juice.”

“The Amish have a web site. I wonder if they are aware of this?” – Kim Pully

And now, The News:

1. Creating a Wildlife Corridor from Black Rock Forest to Schunnemunk Mountain
2. New round of funding for Orange County energy efficiency and conservation projects
3. Regulation Is Lax for Water From Gas Wells
4. Eviction was last in series of setbacks for Nanuet man
5. Atheist jailed after school board meeting
6. Lost in the blur of slogans
7. Too Much Internet Porn Can Cause Impotence

Creating a Wildlife Corridor from Black Rock Forest to Schunnemunk Mountain

NEW YORK, NY — February 23, 2011 — For the second time in six months, the Open Space Institute has purchased land in Orange County that helps protect a slender “conservation corridor,” while also buffering nearby natural preserves.

OSI, through its land acquisition affiliate, the Open Space Conservancy, announced today the acquisition of two adjacent parcels in the town of Cornwall, both previously owned by the Merrill family, that total 32 acres and abut the southern boundary of the 3,800-acre Black Rock Forest.

The Merrill parcels protect the eastern end of a mile-and-a-half corridor that connects Black Rock Forest and Schunnemunk Forest State Park. OSI began targeting the corridor last year, as it provides roaming ground for wildlife traveling between Black Rock and Schunnemunk. In September 2010, OSI acquired 151 acres of farmland on the western end of the corridor. Press Release.

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New round of funding for Orange County energy efficiency and conservation projects

Midhudsonnews.com

GOSHEN – A new round of grant funding totaling $721,000 will be made available to Orange County municipalities for energy efficiency retrofits.  The money is in addition to the initial $430,000 that was granted last year for energy audits.

The new round of money will be allocated to communities that have already performed energy audits on their facilities and are prepared to move forward with energy retrofits on buildings or facilities they own. No matching funds or in-kind services are required to qualify for the grant program.

“As the costs of doing business escalate and energy expenses skyrocket, finding ways to save money and conserve energy is more important than ever,” said County Legislature Chairman Michael Pillmeier.

Funding for the program was made possible by an energy efficiency and conservation block grant awarded to the county through the US Department of Energy through the stimulus program.

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Regulation Is Lax for Water From Gas Wells

by IAN URBINA  •  Feb. 26, 2011 For the NY Times

The American landscape is dotted with hundreds of thousands of new wells and drilling rigs, as the country scrambles to tap into this century’s gold rush — for natural gas1.

The gas has always been there, of course, trapped deep underground in countless tiny bubbles, like frozen spills of seltzer water between thin layers of shale rock. But drilling companies have only in recent years developed techniques to unlock the enormous reserves, thought to be enough to supply the country with gas for heating buildings, generating electricity and powering vehicles for up to a hundred years.

So energy companies are clamoring to drill. And they are getting rare support from their usual sparring partners. Environmentalists say using natural gas will help slow climate change2 because it burns more cleanly than coal and oil3. Lawmakers hail the gas as a source of jobs. They also see it as a way to wean the United States from its dependency on other countries for oil.

But the relatively new drilling method — known as high-volume horizontal hydraulic fracturing, or hydrofracking — carries significant environmental risks. It involves injecting huge amounts of water, mixed with sand and chemicals, at high pressures to break up rock formations and release the gas.

With hydrofracking, a well can produce over a million gallons of wastewater that is often laced with highly corrosive salts, carcinogens like benzene and radioactive elements like radium, all of which can occur naturally thousands of feet underground. Other carcinogenic materials can be added to the wastewater by the chemicals used in the hydrofracking itself.

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Eviction was last in series of setbacks for Nanuet man

NANUET: Kevin Dowling’s impending eviction from his second-floor apartment appeared to have been the last of a series of setbacks.

The 52-year-old unemployed house painter was due to be out of his 205 S. Main St. home, on orders from the Rockland County Sheriff’s Department, on Friday morning. A judge’s decision on his eviction came down about a month ago, on Jan. 20, said Mary Barbera, chief of the Rockland County Sheriff’s Civil Enforcement Division.

Dowling’s eviction warrant did not state a specific reason, said Barbera, who added that she was “absolutely shocked and saddened” by Dowling’s action.

“I hope somebody helped.” He could have reached out and gotten some help rather than to take his own life,” Barbera said.

When police found Dowling’s body on his bed, his rifle and the eviction notice lay next to him, said Clarkstown Detective Sgt. Tim O’Neill, who responded to the scene.

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Atheist jailed after school board meeting

BARTOW – The Polk County School Board is bracing for a lawsuit. The Atheists of Florida say they are going to sue the board after what happened at the Polk School Board District Office earlier this week.

The president of Atheists of Florida, John Kieffer, was arrested on disorderly
conduct and other charges. The group’s legal counsel, EllenBeth Wachs, was given a no-trespass warning, meaning she is not legally allowed on school board property anymore.

“I am absolutely appalled at what happened. I am outraged. I am floored at what was an egregious violation of his First Amendment rights and my First Amendment rights,” Wachs told FOX 13 on Wednesday.

Kieffer says he was just standing up for what he believes in.

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Lost in the blur of slogans

Too Much Internet Porn Can Cause Impotence

(NewsCore) – It may not make you go blind, but Italian scientists have identified a worrying side-effect of watching too much pornography.

Researchers said Thursday that young men who indulge in “excessive consumption” of internet porn gradually become immune to explicit images, the ANSA news agency reported.

Over time, this can lead to a loss of libido, impotence and a notion of sex that is totally divorced from real-life relations.

“It starts with lower reactions to porn sites, then there is a general drop in libido and in the end it becomes impossible to get an erection,” said Carlo Foresta, head of the Italian Society of Andrology and Sexual Medicine (SIAM).

His team drew their conclusions from a survey of 28,000 Italian men which revealed that many became hooked on porn as early as 14, exhibiting symptoms of so-called “sexual anorexia” by the time they reached their mid-twenties.

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“Please remove your hat, it is interfering with my wi-fi.” – Boron Elgar

“And if you judge me tonight, judge me by the songs I write, That’s who I am to you” – Dan Bern

Good Monday Morning,

Today is “President’s Day”, another day where we merge a whole bunch of stuff into a meaningless national “holiday” designed for no other purpose than to drive people into the malls helping to delineate the line between the working classes and the white collar classes. Tomorrow, February 22, is actually George Washington’s birthday, just in case you’ve forgotten.

News That Matters is being read far and wide these days. I even get email and page visits from within the hallowed halls of the State House in Albany. And the logs show a growing number of regular readers across the region and the nation. There are now several ways you can access the column. Here, through your daily email (you can sign up in the column above and to the right), at PlanPutnam.org, through Blogspot, and Posterous. Take your pick!

It seems that the 5-7 inches of snow that was predicted for this morning did not materialize and it’s over for the day. Driving back from Lake Carmel at around midnight was a little rough as the snow had just started, laying a slick sheen on local roads but this morning all looks just fine.

The Methodist church at Tompkins Corners is about to go up for sale. The United Methodist Conference is in the process of obtaining an independent assessment of the property they hope will be higher than the town-assessed $200,000.

Standing on this site since April of 1891, the church is one of the most important historical structures in Putnam County and has been a landmark for 120 years. And though the structure is listed at the National Register of Historic Places, listing offers no protections to the integrity of the building and it can be as easily wiped out as 36 acres of trees at Patterson Crossing.

The 0.63 acres the church sits on is zoned commercial but the lot has some problems especially in that it’s very narrow from road-front to the back. (120 feet at one end and ~90 feet at the other.) Tearing down the building and putting up a commercial structure on the site presents problems, few of which lend themselves to high profits or a successful commercial venture.

A better option is for a family to purchase the building and turn it in to a private home, a project that has many successful applications in our area most notably one at the north end of Bullet Hole Road in Patterson.

But the best option would be that the building be bought, internally renovated, and used as a permanent performance space and home to a successful summer Farmer’s Market, uses that have been ongoing for several years now.

To that end, if you are interested in preserving the structure as a performance space, (or to investigate other appropriate uses), please contact me so that we can meet to see if there is enough interest and energy in the community to privately raise the funds required. Write to me here.

We Have Arrived.

Yes, that’s us, the generation that is now somewhere between 50 and 60. We are the average age of Congress. We are the heads of nations. We are the corporate board presidents. We are the dudes that run things and my, have we made a mess of them.

While it might be fair to blame the previous generation, i.e., our parents, that would only work if we were striving to repair the damages they have done to our communities, our nation, the Constitution and the world around us. But like the miscreant teenagers we once were, we are inclined to disregard sage advice and are seemingly hell-bent on making things worse.

So just keep in mind the next time some idiotic law is passed, some stupid policy comes from government, some corporation pollutes this or that or makes people sick: the “they” you refer to is actually, quite honestly and most definitively, us.

The New York State Discount Prescription Program was developed by County Executives and Legislatures in New York State and sponsored by the NY Association of Counties, to help lower prescription drug costs for residents. The program also provides access for vision and hearing benefits as well. Sullivan County just came on line bringing the total to 39 counties in New York State that offer their residents these discounts and all at no cost to consumers. Since the inception of the program more than 1 million discount transactions have been made.

Well, you know where this is going…. Click here and look for Putnam under the list of counties.

Sine Verbis:

According to a report in Philipstown.info, which has quickly become the preeminent source of news from that side of the county, the Village of Nelsonville will be having its first contested election since 2003 on March 15th as Steven Dubroff faces off against Anthony Merente for village trustee.

Rhonda B was shopping at the Fairfield Commons Mall in Beavercreek, Ohio when her baby girl got hungry. So what do you do when the baby needs food? You sit down, and feed the kid. Right? Apparently not if you’re in the mall. Because we’re a such a free, liberal nation and the very idea of a bare nipple offends the god-fearing, breastfeeding is not allowed so Ms. B was asked to leave. From what I’ve heard, Jesus himself was raised on Enfamil.

While passengers are shivering in their underwear under the steel-eyed gaze of Homeland Security, TSA agents who are supposed to be probing your package were instead stealing your goods. At JFK, $160,000 was nabbed.

Dan Takes New York

As noted in last Friday’s News That Matters, Dan Bern was in New York last night at the Highline Ballroom, (W16th Street between 9th and 10th) playing with Common Rotation to a sold out crowd. Thanks to a fortuitous circumstance, CC and I were able to attend and it was certainly more than worth the drive down and back.

I’ve been a fan of Bern’s for years, from back in a time when no one – and I mean *no one* even had a clue as to who he was, hearing him quite by mistake at a long-forgotten source.

Bern continues to grow musically and his fan base is expanding thanks to his native, inherent talent and allowing the audio of his shows to be recorded and traded online, a contra-indication for the music business in general, but one that has proven successful for new musicians and contrary to what the industry says, increases the sales of recorded commercial CD’s and attendance at shows and concerts. It also hasn’t hurt that his songs have appeared in several recent Hollywood films such as “Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story” and last June’s “Get Him To The Greek“.

Bern, (nee: Bernstein) the son of an eastern European concert pianist and a German singer and poet who fled Europe at just the right time, was raised in Mt. Vernon, a small college town in Iowa and has got it. I don’t know to explain it any better than that: He’s Got It.

Comparisons to Bob Dylan and even Lenny Bruce flow regularly from reviewers and for good reason; His poetry is as metaphorically deep as the former and as devilishly humorous as the latter. Combine that with his rough-and-tumble strumming guitar style, the mid-western twang in his voice and high-energy, personable stage presence and you end up with a new American voice that stands out on the crowded singer-songwriter scene.

From “Black Tornado”

“And every place I go is one less place I could call home
And every girl I kiss, well I just cross her off my list
I don’t go far, I just go crazy
I buried all of my old clothes out in some field in West Des Moines
And if you judge me tonight, judge me by the songs I write
That’s who I am to you”

A Dan Bern show is an audience-wide sing-along and regardless your age you’ll find generational compatriots sitting around you and unlike so many musicians on the scene today, Bern’s audience is as varied as his 400 song repertoire. He even has a children’s album. And if your voice is bad and you just can’t sing, you’re still expected to sing along as it’s not about how good you sound, it’s about reveling in community and the poetry penned by a songwriter that actually has something to say.

From “Hannibal”

“Hitler never hurt a soul, I read it in a book
That I finished up just this morning
I was happy and I just couldn’t wait to tell the good news
To all of my dead uncles.”

Woven into the fabric of Dan’s regular crowd-singing repertoire at the show last evening were a few old nuggets culled from the back of the record collection and dusted off for a new audience. Buck Owen’s 1964 “Crying Time” led the evening and with a little prompting from the stage, had the crowd singing along.

Wayne Kemp’s 1976 “One Piece at a Time”, famously recorded by Johnny Cash and reaching Number 1 on charts that same year, was the next dusted off gem. And in his 20-minute long encore, and curiously combined with Bern’s “Go Said No”, one of his most pensive songs, he finished the show with Shel Silverstein’s 1972 classic, “Sylvia’s Mother”. And yet, as incongruous as it seemed, it worked. On that, while the audience sat thinking, “I know that song” but not really sure they did, once the famous line, “And the operator said, forty-cents more, for the next three minutes…” came around, pretty much everyone’s brain cleared their cobwebs and the words and tune came flooding back in chorus.

The only caveat from last night’s high-energy show was that the backup band, Common Rotation, a band of rather high quality and wonderful personality, was off, sometimes overpowering the main performer himself. A little less informal jamming (or better knowledge of Dan’s chording and structure) and a few less electronic effects and better audio balance on the banjo would have made this most excellent New York stage outing even more successful.

Not in our area all that often, you can catch Dan tonight at Club Helsinki in Hudson, NY and at the famous Club Passim in Cambridge, MA on Tuesday and Wednesday, February 22nd and 23rd.

And now, The News:

 
• Nan Hayworth applauds GOP plan to kill 380 jobs in her district
• Going Green Doesn’t Always Mean Plugging In When It Comes To Cars
• Security Alert Status
• When In Doubt, Slam Israel

This article was first posted at Left of the Hudson: Progressive News and Views for Rockland County by LotH News.

Hayworth

“If jobs are lost, so be it,” has become the mantra of the Republicans in the 112th Congress and their representative in New York’s 19th District, Nan Hayworth, is cold-heartedly backing a budget scheme that has grim ramifications for her constituents.

Hayworth’s backing of the GOP’s reckless cuts will cause nearly 400 jobs to be lost in Orange County, as it would deny government loan guarantees for a local small business operating there.

The spending bill presented by the House GOP would rescind a loan guarantee for the Taylor Biomass Project, which would create more than 300 construction jobs an then 80 permanent positions thereafter, giving a desperately-needed boost to the local economy.

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Going Green Doesn’t Always Mean Plugging In When It Comes To Cars

You don’t have to buy a car that plugs into an outlet to be green or run on batteries, says a new scorecard of the most eco-friendly vehicles on the road.

The American Council for an Engery-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) released a list of its picks, including the natural gas Honda Civic GX at the top, with 54 points, for its eighth year, reports USA Today.

The rest of the well-rated cars include a mix of gas-powered, hybrid and electric cars. Top scorers include hybrids like the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight, as well as gas-powered vehicles like the Hyundai Elantra and the Mini Cooper. The new electric Chevy Volt did well too, with its backup gas engine.

Ratings aren’t just about tailpipe emissions — electric cars have none — they’re also based on also fuel consumption, emissions that cause global warming and emissions associated with battery manufacture and disposal.

“Vehicles running on electricity emit nothing from the tailpipe, but their ‘upstream’ emissions can be substantial, depending on where they’re charged. As U.S. power generation becomes cleaner, these vehicles’ scores will rise,” said Therese Langer, ACEEE’s transportation director.

Check out the full results, including emissions info and miles per gallon tallies at greencars.org.

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Security Alert Status

By John Humberstone

The English are feeling the pinch in relation to recent terrorist threats and have raised their security level from “Miffed” to “Peeved”.

Soon, though, security levels may be raised yet again to “Irritated” or even “A Bit Cross”.

Londoners have not been “A Bit Cross” since the blitz began in 1940 and tea supplies all but ran out.

Terrorists have been re-categorized from “Tiresome” to “A Bloody Nuisance”.

The last time the British issued “A Bloody Nuisance” warning level was during the great fire of 1666.

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In the United Nations Assembly, where the 56 states of the Organization of the Islamic Conference pay a pittance of the dues but hog a plethora of the policy, it’s standard practice. Gang up on Israel. At the UN Human Rights Council, it appears to be mandatory for the majority of members. Bypass such gross violators of human rights as Cuba and Zimbabwe, gloss over the provocations of such terrorist outfits as Hamas and Hezbollah, and, as UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer testified recently to Congress,  devote 70% of the resolutions to condemning Israel.

Now we come to a moment in which the Middle East is in turmoil. Protests began in Tunisia, ousted the aging dictator, spread to Egypt and ousted another aging dictator. In Yemen, Jordan, Bahrain, Algeria, Iran and Libya, across a spectrum of polities that range from autocracy to some of the world’s most brutal despotisms, people are rising up. What better time for the despots of the Middle East to push to the fore a Palestinian campaign for the UN Security Council to — you guessed it — slam Israel.

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PUTNAM VALLEY — Town Highway Superintendent Earl C. Smith has been arrested on two misdemeanor counts in connection with a report he filed on missing town equipment, the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said today.

Smith, a three-term elected highway chief who has worked for the town since 1979, was arrested Thursday afternoon and charged with third-degree falsely reporting an incident and making a punishable written false statement, police said. Sheriff’s investigators conferred with the District Attorney’s Office before charging Smith, police said.

In July 2009, Smith, 69, gave a sworn statement to sheriff’s investigators that a tailgate missing from a town truck had been stolen, the Sheriff’s Office said in a statement. However, Smith knew that the reported theft never happened and that his sworn statement was false, police said.

via Putnam Valley highway chief is arrested over statement on missing equipment | LoHud.com | The Journal News.

I’m just now coming off a stomach flu. Sleeping 24 of the last 36 hours has been, um, well, a blessing.

That bright star in the east upon waking is Venus, our sister planet sitting this morning at the foot of the constellation Virgo. She, along with Mercury, are the only two planets one can see in “phases” such as we see the moon because of her location in front of us toward the sun. Shining at a magnitude of -4.51 (don’t ask me why negative magnitudes are brighter than positive unless you can do the math which is over there,) it is the brightest object in the sky.

If you look up a little and to the right the next bright star is Spica which is glowing at 0.95 and just above that and to the right a tiny bit more is Saturn, dim in the sky this time of year at a magnitude of 1.26 but looking good in any pair of binoculars.

But before you go out bundle up! as the weather is only promising a high today of 30º, a low tonight of 13º and a high tomorrow (Thursday) of 25º and a low tomorrow night (Friday morning) of 6º. There’s a possibility of measurable snow on Friday. We don’t break 40º again until Sunday and that with a chance of rain or snow. In fact, the long range forecast through the end of December shows temps only reaching the upper 30′s for the rest of the month and well into January.

In regards to an Arab head of state, February 2009:

¶6.  (S/NF) Hamid Thani senses indications and warnings the Israeli
government now being formed will likely attack Iran.  He thinks the
new (Netanyahu) government will be very determined to eliminate the
threat of Iranian missiles, especially nuclear tipped ones, which
they fear may come raining down on Israeli cities.  He also stated
Israel would be justified to take such action as it must protect its
citizens just as any nation has the duty to do.  He feels that a
breakthrough in international efforts in regard to Iran's armament
programs may slow Israel's actions.  However, the COS knows that
Israel must maintain all its options.  He also knows the Iranians
have toyed with the international community for over ten years as
they built their capability.  He stated the Israelis are also very
aware of Iranian tactics.

However, the Poughkeepsie Journal, also a Gannett vehicle, showed a bit more gumption in an editorial yesterday morning where they wrote:

“It’s downright sickening that a state senator can admit his guilt to two federal felonies yet still be eligible for an annual $70,000 pension, courtesy of New York’s taxpayers.”

“That scenario has got to change, and lawmakers should get to it.”

Here at News That Matters we are not side-stepping like the NYJN. And though there is little we can do to change the current law today we can work to see that it is changed in the future.

Sandy Galef, the Assemblywoman for the more progressive side of Putnam County has written an article in the JN this morning that is worth a read. In it she writes:

“I have always had a problem with our system of legislative pork, and have never taken member items, even when I was criticized for not doing so. Just last year, I introduced a bill, with the support of good government groups, to overhaul the member-items process.”

It should be noted that Ms. Galef does not accept member items. And in another article today by Michael Risinit, Carmel attorney William Saygh said that, “The familiarity among Putnam’s legal community would have prevented any kickback schemes from hatching,” but we all know just how specious that is. We know, based on past history, that sleeping with the devil is something we just do here. It’s a Putnam thing.

We also hear that MaryEllen Odell is apparently positioning herself for the County Executive’s seat either as an appointment from the Legislature or in a possible special election in the spring. Coming in second in the race there’s an oft heard believe that if the top vote getter cannot serve that the role should go to the second. This is perhaps not the best idea for several reasons.

For one, neither candidate reached out to Democrat, blank and independent voters during the campaign instead focusing solely on members of the Republican Party. That disregard led to more than 4000 voters opting to skip the CE’s race on election day. That 104 people – on 72 hours notice – wrote someone in speaks volumes. This failure to speak to all the voters underscores their combined disdain for the majority of residents of this county who are not registered with her party. Thus, how can she properly govern?

Secondly, do we really want to hand the county over to Greg Ball? The alliance between Ms. Odell and the Senator-elect runs deep and it’s clear that she was a creation of his in the personality battle between himself and outgoing Senator Leibell. Ball is now the highest ranking Republican in the county yet he is not favored within the party organization. If MEO becomes the county executive then the top two spots in county government will be in his hands. And, seeing that he has come to us as a Vice President of Exceed Development and his temporary Chief of Staff is the president of that development corporation, how far away are we from simply handing the county to Paul Camarda? Right now Mr. C. has to go through the appearance of formality but as we’ve seen in Carmel and Patterson, where corrupt town boards are in his pocket, those formalities are only paper thin.

Then there’s the tea bagger thing. MEO and Greg Ball, along with incoming State Assemblyman Steve Katz all proudly ran for office as tea baggers. You know, smaller government, lower taxes, no handouts. So where were they when the Town of Patterson gave $1.5 million taxpayer dollars to Paul Camarda? Where were the baggers when the County Legislature tired to do even more earlier this year? Is the mantra only for *some* Americans and not for all? Their silence underscores the lies they’ve perpetrated on the American people for the last two years. Oh sure, we see them moaning and groaning in Washington but where are they when it comes to local issues – the ones that actually matter? Are these the folk you want running Putnam County?

And just in case you need a reminder of who the ‘baggers are, there’s this:

It’s your county. You decide.

The Wars in Putnam Valley

Once again residents of Putnam Valley are at war with their elected government, this time over an “incentive zoning” proposal (which you can read here). There will be a meeting at 6PM this evening in that fair town to discuss it.

Putnam Valley resident Kate Hoekstra had this to say:

This is one of the most worrisome attempts ever by our Town Board to garner more power to itself.

If there is so apparent a need for more liberal zoning, why can’t the Planning Board be trusted to provide it — as it always has?

Is there such a need?  As far as I know, need has NOT been demonstrated. If this were a grant proposal it would be summarily denied before the first page was read. There is no statement of need. NOTHING of such scope should ever be done unless need is demonstrated. In sum, this legislation is a guarantee that a handful of people will be allowed to continue to disregard public opinion as well as our Comprehensive Plan and our Planning Board. That adds up to a power grab. One has to ask why? This legislation has “Camarda and shopping center, garbage disposal center (Remember 301?), Sports Arena and Conference Center at Bryant Pond” written between the lines. I don’t want a shopping plaza in my neighborhood–however “tasteful”.  Do you? Do you NEED it?

This is Mr. Tendy’s guarantee that he will never again have to put up with arguments from the public while he’s about doing what he wants to do anyway.  One would think that, in the current climate of corruption and “public be damned” attitude of lawmakers, our Board would be more circumspect than to dare to propose such legislation. This is not the time to ask us to trust blindly. History is filled with examples of rulers who first got absolute power such as this legislation provides, and then went on the destroy the places they ruled.  Power corrupts…absolute power corrupts absolutely.

The Putnam Valley Residents Coalition has this to say:

We would like to present to you a map of our town’s undeveloped land parcels that are 30 acres or more in size.  As you can see they are located in every neighborhood and have the potential to be developed using the proposed law. We urge [you] to attend the Wednesday, Dec. 8th Public Meeting at Town Hall at 6 P.M.

The law as it is currently written applies to the whole town, not specific areas and gives a laundry list of amenities the developer can chose to offer the town as a trade off for higher density development.

The law allows commercial development in areas currently zoned residential.

The law makes the Planning Board only advisory, which means their comments and expertise can be ignored.

The law is so general, that it will incur lawsuits against the town regarding specific development proposals that will have a negative impact on a neighborhood.

The law allows high density development in one part of town and allows a developer the option of preserving land in another part of town, not contiguous to the developed land.

Finally, with more development of a higher density comes higher taxes to the town as a whole. Town services and school enrollment costs can never be fully recouped by the taxes levied on the development, requiring residents in the rest of the town to pick up the tab.

To view the proposed law you can you can go to our website: www.putnamvalleyresidents.com the tab is on the right hand side of the home page.

• Revealed: Assange ‘rape’ accuser linked to notorious CIA operative
• Lame duck’s golden eggs
• Resigned NY pol admits to tax evasion, obstruction
• BoA admits fraud
• Raul Castro Celebrates With Cuban Jews
• Defend WikiLeaks or lose free speech
• Red Sea Sharks Made in Israel?
• ‘Naughty’ joke gets Santa Claus fired from Macy’s
• April 11, 1954: The most boring day in the 20th century

Revealed: Assange ‘rape’ accuser linked to notorious CIA operative

By David Edwards

One of the women that is accusing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of sex crimes appears to have worked with a group that has connections to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).

James D. Catlin, a lawyer who recently represented Assange, said the sex assault investigation into the WikiLeaks founder is based on claims he didn’t use condoms during sex with two Swedish women.

Swedish prosecutors told AOL News last week that Assange was not wanted for rape as has been reported, but for something called “sex by surprise” or “unexpected sex.”

One accuser, Anna Ardin, may have “ties to the US-financed anti-Castro and anti-communist groups,” according to Israel Shamir and Paul Bennett, writing for CounterPunch.

While in Cuba, Ardin worked with the Las damas de blanco (the Ladies in White), a feminist anti-Castro group.

Professor Michael Seltzer pointed out that the group is led by Carlos Alberto Montaner who is reportedly connected to the CIA.

Shamir and Bennett also describe Ardin as a “leftist” who “published her anti-Castro diatribes (see here and here) in the Swedish-language publication Revista de Asignaturas Cubanas put out by Misceláneas de Cuba.”

Shamir and Bennett noted that Las damas de blanco is partially funded by the US government and also counts Luis Posada Carriles as a supporter.

A declassified 1976 document (.pdf) revealed Posada to be a CIA agent. He has been convicted of terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of people.

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Lame duck’s golden eggs

By James M. Odato Capitol Bureau

ALBANY — Even as he urged lawmakers to help him cut spending, Gov. David Paterson last week quietly authorized $16.7 million in grants from a fund he controls — to pay for chess tournaments in New York City, foreign trade offices in Chile and Australia, and to promote a New Jersey Super Bowl in four years with the National Football League.

In an act one policy analyst called “outrageous,” Paterson’s budget director on Nov. 30 signed 20 grants from the governor’s member item account.

The discretionary awards — from the community projects fund — are for new contracts, mostly to New York City organizations. And in many cases, the money will not go to a New York state community.

The grants are well above traditional amounts some of the recipients usually receive from the state — such as the $500,000 for Chess-in-the-Schools Inc. for schools in New York City. It helps pay for chess competitions and supplies as well as programs to encourage college enrollment.

Other awards are going out of state — such as $5 million to New Meadowlands Stadium Co. in New Jersey for the NY/NJ Super Bowl XLVIII Host Committee Inc.

The money was approved the day after Paterson demanded the Legislature return to pare spending and assist in reducing a $315 million budget gap so this year’s shortfall won’t roll into next year’s $9 billion deficit. The governor said he wants the Legislature to work with him to make cuts “to clear my conscience” that he had done whatever he could to spare the next administration a bigger budget mess.

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Resigned NY pol admits to tax evasion, obstruction

Associated Press – Wall Street Journal

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. — A Republican state legislator who served 28 years before resigning last week admitted Monday that he filed false tax returns and tried to influence a grand jury investigating him for corruption.

Ex-Sen. Vincent Leibell of suburban New York City pleaded guilty to tax evasion and obstruction of justice, both federal felonies. He is likely to spend 18 to 24 months in prison, according to federal guidelines.

After listening, his head bowed, to a recitation of the charges and evidence against him, Leibell said, “Guilty, your honor,” to the two counts. His wife was in the gallery. He apologized to family, friends and constituents, saying: “I deeply regret these actions.”

Besides resigning from the Senate, Leibell gave up the position of Putnam County executive, to which he was elected in November.

The 64-year-old Leibell admitted he filed false tax returns for 2003 through 2006, failing to report a total of $43,000 in kickbacks from attorneys who did business with a not-for-profit organization he founded. He demanded half the money they made, court documents say.

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BoA admits fraud

Bank of America will pay US$137.3 million to settle allegations that it defrauded schools, hospitals and dozens of other state-run organisations. — PHOTO: AFP

WASHINGTON – US BANKING giant Bank of America has admitted it committed fraud in the bond derivatives market and will pay US$137.3 million (S$179.9 million) in damages, the government said on Tuesday.

‘Bank of America entities have agreed to pay a total of US$137.3 million in restitution to federal and state agencies for its participation in a conspiracy to rig bids in the municipal bond derivatives market,’ the Department of Justice said in a statement.

According to the agreements, Bank of America employees engaged in illegal conduct, including bid rigging, in connection with the marketing and sale of tax-exempt municipal bond derivatives contracts, the department said.

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Raul Castro Celebrates With Cuban Jews

By Paul Haven

HAVANA — President Raul Castro celebrated Hanukkah on Sunday with Cuba’s tiny Jewish community, a heavily symbolic act at a time when his government is holding a Jewish-American subcontractor on suspicion of spying.

Neither Castro nor those assembled at Havana’s Shalom synagogue mentioned the name Alan Gross during the gathering, which was broadcast on the state-television newscast Sunday evening. But Gross’s one-year detention without charge was the elephant in the room.

The U.S. government says Gross was in Cuba as part of a USAID program to distribute communications equipment to the island’s 1,500-strong Jewish community, and both the State Department and Gross’s wife, Judy, made fresh appeals this week for his release. The leaders of Havana’s two main Jewish groups have denied having anything to do with him.

Castro wore a suit and a yarmulke, the head covering which observant Jews wear as a symbol of their deference to God, and was given the honor of lighting the first candle of the menorah. It was the first time in more than a decade that either Castro or his brother Fidel appeared with the Jewish community at a religious celebration like Hanukkah.

The brothers have gone out of their way to show their support for the Jewish people in recent months.

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Defend WikiLeaks or lose free speech

By Dan Gillmor

Journalists cover wars by not taking sides. But when the war is on free speech itself, neutrality is no longer an option.

The WikiLeaks releases are a pivotal moment in the future of journalism. They raise any number of ethical and legal issues for journalists, but one is becoming paramount.

As I said last week, and feel obliged to say again today, our government — and its allies, willing or coerced, in foreign governments and corporations — are waging a powerful war against freedom of speech.

WikiLeaks may well make us uncomfortable in some of what it does, though in general I believe it’s done far more good than harm so far. We need to recognize, however, as Mathew Ingram wrote over the weekend, that “Like It or Not, WikiLeaks is a Media Entity.” What our government is trying to do to WikiLeaks now is lawless in stunning ways, as Salon’s Glenn Greenwald forcefully argued today.

These are also acts of outright censorship. No, Amazon is not bound by the First Amendment. But if it’s bowing to government pressure, it’s helping a panicked government tear up one of our most basic freedoms.

And, no, the government’s campaign is not fully working. Internet “mirror” sites are springing up to host WikiLeaks’ material faster than governments can take them down. But WikiLeaks is the beneficiary, in this respect, of a wide swath of support from people who will make it part of their life’s mission to help prevent this particular instance of censorship from succeeding. How ready or able will they be to defend free speech every time it’s threatened in the future?

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Red Sea Sharks Made in Israel?

Firas Al-Atraqchi – Assoc. Professor of Practice in Journalism at American University in Cairo

A German tourist was mauled to death by a shark off Egypt’s Red Sea coast Sunday, but if popular rumors on the street are to be believed, it was the Israelis who did it.

The attack came days after authorities claimed they had hunted and killed a shark believed to have injured three foreign tourists in previous incidents.

The Egyptian government says that the attacks occurred because a trawler dumped dead sheep into the Red Sea which caused a feeding “frenzy”. Marine biologists say overfishing may have forced the sharks to look in new waters for food.

While Egyptian media are treating the incidents as rare, perhaps in a bid to encourage the millions of foreign tourists who visit Sinai’s coast every year that the area is safe, there have been several reports in the past decade of shark attacks.

That hasn’t dampened the imagination of conspiracy theorists, however. A popular account has it that Israel is “dumping” hungry sharks in the Red Sea in a bid to weaken Egypt’s thriving tourism industry.

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‘Naughty’ joke gets Santa Claus fired from Macy’s

Santa Claus has been canned from Macy’s, and he’s anything but jolly about it.

His fans aren’t happy, either. And there are many.

John Toomey, known for 20 years at the Union Square Macy’s in San Francisco as “Santa John,” was told Saturday he’ll have to take his “ho, ho, hos” elsewhere because an adult couple complained about a joke he cracked.

The joke has been in his Santa bag for decades. But after thousands of tellings, the 68-year-old retired caretaker for the elderly finally hit the wrong recipients – apparently an older woman and her husband, who considered it inappropriate.

Toomey – who stays in Oroville most summers and winters in San Francisco while he does the kiddie-on-the-knee gig – said he’d never had complaints before about the joke, which he saves for the occasional grown-up who visits him.

“When I ask the older people who sit on my lap if they’ve been good and they say, ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘Gee, that’s too bad,’ ” Toomey said Monday.

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April 11, 1954: The most boring day in the 20th century

City computer buff William Tunstall-Pedoe has worked out that April 11, 1954 was the most uneventful day in the whole of the 20th century.

Every day something of significance happens, a person is born who is destined for fame, there is an event in the arts or sports, history is created. With 300 million of these facts fed into the “brain” of True Knowledge, Tunstall-Pedoe’s Cambridge company, the computer was asked: “What was the most boring day in the 20th century?”

Unlike a search engine, which finds relevant web pages statistically using key words, True Knowledge is able to reason. ‘Boring’ is a subjective term. A 14-year old has a very different idea of boring to a 45-year old. In this case it used “uneventful” and found the day when nothing much happened.

Tunstall-Pedoe, who founded True Knowledge, said: “We are building a learning engine that will be a powerful source of knowledge, able to store and process ‘factoids’, bits of information about people, places, events, businesses, and answer questions in an intelligent way.

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