Literately Speaking - Beyond Schenectady

Eliot Spitzer

2008-03-11T12:17:00.002-05:00

“Rejoice not when thine enemy falleth, and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth:” – Proverbs 24:17

I admit I stumbled by sporting a broad smile when I heard Eliot Spitzer got nabbed in a prostitution ring. The grin I could not help was telling of my opinion of his activities as governor, not the man. He is only a man after all. And this is what is important to remember; no one is innocent. We all have something we hope never comes back or is found out, maybe only thoughts, maybe a failure to hold to our principles when opportunity comes in perfect arrangement at our weak moments. I realized the error of my grin, but then I realized the truth behind it.

I didn’t wish evil to befall the man, I wished a way out of the fiscal mess his spending spree is causing New York. He is the image of George Bush operating at the state level. Anyone who believes Bush is spending us to national doom cannot fail to acknowledge Spitzer is spending this over taxed state to a similar fate, unless they are hypocritical party partisans. I hoped his resignation would come from this and provide an opportunity for us to have another who might actually cut the spending and shrink the government in New York. Albeit, this is a great deal to hope for.

As far as the man goes, he has issues, one of which is to call this a mistake and against his core values. This only occurred when he got caught, so it is reasonable to recognize that he doesn’t have those core values, really, since a mistake happens once, not many times, deliberately repeated. It is encouraging to know he understands what his core values should be, but he clearly needs to work on that.

The other issue has to do with self-worth. To pay four to five thousand dollars and hour for sex says something about a man’s perceived value of himself. There is nothing a woman could do, sexually, that is worth one-hundredth of that amount. And of course there is his wife and family and the appropriate guilt he should have had while doing these things, not to mention the misappropriation of money.

All this displays a clouded mind out of balance and not capable of the reasoning and judgment needed to create laws affecting public life and to lead the governed.

But he has not yet resigned, and NPR radio is busy, as I write, making apologies for him, dumbing down the moral standard, excusing him because others have done it—the word mistake is making the rounds, in the metaphor of accident, and citations of our permissive trend toward immorality in the vein that it is something which ought to move more quickly and never should have been part of our social fiber.

Scotts Miracle Grow; the Orwellian antithesis of the US Constitution; liberty, pursuit of happiness

2007-09-11T12:45:00.001-05:00

Let;s start with an example of what everyone has heard about lawn care chemicals--thanks to Beyond Pesticides Daily News Blog.
“Scotts Miracle-Gro Company advertising this season is particularly misleading because it suggests practices such as sweeping chemical granules off driveways and pavement after lawn application to protect local waterways, while the program they are selling introduces unnecessary health and environmental hazards given the viability of organic non-toxic practices,” said Jay Feldman, executive director of Beyond Pesticides. Chemical lawn pesticides are linked in the scientific literature to cancer in people and pets, and are known to be toxic to the nervous and immune system, endocrine disruptors, and tied to respiratory effects such as asthma. Organic practices rely on maintenance techniques and soil health that prevent unwanted insect and weeds."

We all have been clued into the concerns of chemicals in the groundwater, but that is not all that concerns us about Scotts.
Recently our local newspaper and the USA Today carried a column by Lisa Cornwell, pulled from the AP, informing us that Scotts charges employees $65 a month for not reducing what Scotts' considers health risks. According to Cornwell, Scotts no longer hires people who smoke and reserves the (what only can be unconstitutional) right to fire employees who smoke. Scotts charges $40 more per month for health insurance for those who do not complete an annual risk assessment; in other words, if you smoke in the privacy of your own home in your free country, then the only way a person can be found to be smoking is by invading the privacy of their body to take samples, and if you don't give up your right to privacy, they effectively charge you for what is already yours. One wonders just how discriminatory this Scotts --which claims, "We pride ourselves on maintaining high ethical standards and a culture that values honesty, integrity and transparency in all that we do."-- is with this campaign. Is it a level playing field? Do you pay more if you drink, get speeding tickets, use power-tools without safety equipment, have homosexual sex--leading cause of AIDS (~$70,000 a year for medicine alone), sky dive, race cars, have unprotected sex with multiple partners, or......use Scotts chemical products on your lawn?!!
It seems Scotts is worried about the good health of the public when it comes to the perceived cost to the company, but the rest of us, well, they don't seem very concerned when it involves profit.
But it's not that, just common business sense I suppose, it's the Nazi type infringement on Americans' rights to privacy and pursuit of happiness.
Some states allow them to do these things, so blame could be placed on our representatives who do not seem inclined to let us know what they've done. But to supersede the rights of the people by use of corporate power and lobby places the guilt equally on the business.
I confess to have used Scotts' products, but having seen this, I have removed any I had from the house. No more Scotts for me and I'll be spreading the word, we all should, for life, liberty, and the right to pursue happiness in our private lives, without discrimination and bigotry qualifying our jobs.

This & That: Illegal, Pervs, and Anyone can be a Journalist

2007-08-29T12:14:00.000-05:00

In New Haven Conn. the law of the land became a matter of choice recently. According to the Courant. "In July, New Haven rolled out the Elm City Resident Card. The program is designed to provide identification cards to those who may not have them, including ... illegal immigrants." This allows people who are here illegally to have access to bank accounts and public services which they do not legally have a right to.
Meanwhile Tyrone Williams has received additional charges including conspiracy and harboring illegal immigrants, which come to 33 years and nine months in prison. This is what Hew Haven is doing, harboring and conspiracy, and I want to know why the Law hasn't arrested Mayor John DeStefano Jr. and the New Haven Board of Aldermen.

On the perv front we have the Anglican Church of Canada and the U.S. Episcopal Church feign a desire for unity while rewriting the Bible to suit their whims. The Anglican leader Archbishop of Canterbury isn't rewriting the Bible for them and things will soon be coming to a head.
The conservative side stands on the obvious: the Bible straight out bars same-sex sex. The liberals expose their twisted logic on the premise: the overarching message of Scripture is full acceptance of all people, which is wishy-washy and disingenuous. The misleading premise suggests that conservatives will not accept all people, but nothing is further from the truth; they accept all people who wish to confess their sin and be saved by grace. The liberal acceptance, if indeed full, means that a person can deny their sin, continue in it, and still be in the will of God. The Bible makes it clear that a person can not deny their sin and have the truth in them.

The Big Gay Cruise is leaving Albany for a three hour tour on 8/25 to benefit AIDS.
The party includes drinking, drag show, and massages. Imagine a straight cruise to obtain funds for sexual abuse victims that included a strip act and body massages along with alcohol for its lubricating effects; sounds a bit twisted doesn't it. Well maybe the cruise is for the benefit of spreading AIDS and not prevention.

On the "Anyone can be a Journalist," we have Emily Fredrix, carried by the AP, writing that New York City has a minimum fine of $440 "for having a muffler or exhaust system that can be heard within 200 feet." This is aimed at motorcycles, and It says that if you can hear it beyond 200 feet, you are OK, but if it can be heard within that distance, you are going to be fined. So if you put your ear to the muffler and can hear it, you are breaking the law.
Additionally we have a local wanna-be who calls people who have paid for their crimes and have received their right to live back in free society "convicts." Now ex-convict is the right term, albeit still slanted. But the issue here in Schenectady County is the making of new laws to apply retroactively to past sex-offenders who have committed no new crimes; Schenectady wants to re-sentence them according to the new law. Calling these folks "convicts" does not exactly follow a rule of unbiased journalism.

Erin Davies' Fagbug-contrived or coincidence or absurd

2007-06-16T09:31:00.000-05:00

On the 4th of May 1925, John T. Scopes did not find himself caught and arrested for breaking Tennessee’s newly enacted antievolution law. Scopes became the defendant by agreement to an idea by George W. Rappleyea—a man with his nose out of joint by disdain of the law—and conspiring attorneys Herbert E. Hicks and Sue K. Hicks to manufacture his arrest, facilitating the ACLU to begin argument with intent for an eventual constitutional test through the courts, effectively bypassing the will of the people. The deception supplants minimal or non-occurring offenses, tolerant balances, and processes of critical, rational thinking with artificially generated offenses tuned to raise feverish panic, relative moral ground and victim status.
Arguably, the case may never have occurred due to a balance between the law’s toothless penalties and the state’s approved text for biology complete with a section on human evolution. Such a balance irritated the agenda of social engineers intrigued with eugenics. When one knows what precipitated it, the convenient time of “discovery” of Scope’s “crime” calls for questioning coincidence. In this case, the actors attempted no clandestine operation, freely admitting their purpose; but if they had not, it would be just and prudent to consider that they had.

On September 17, 1998, Harris County sheriff's deputies, responding to a false report of an armed intruder, coincidently broke into the apartment at just the right time to catch two men breaking the state’s sodomy law. Inflammatory fallout came quickly, widespread, and remarkably organized in final draft quality asserting routine invasion of privacy and, for that reason, ostracizing anyone opposed to buggery. Rebutters became villains, accused by a tide of the beleaguered.
Since activists and attorneys could cite no Texas case in which consenting adults were prosecuted for engaging in private sexual conduct (two or three sodomy law cases had been prosecuted over the last 30 years, witnessed by others in a public jail), it was a fortuitous opportunity for a group which “needs to get this off the books…to see it move all the way up the ladder and be declared unconstitutional.” (Bagby, HGLPC)

More recently Erin Davies, residing in Albany, New York, appeared with “UR GAY” and “FAG” spray painted on her car. She reported having no enemies. She believes the vandals do not know her since words used usually describe male homos and not female. She thinks the vandals did the deed upon seeing a rainbow sticker on her car. A routine vandalism by any consideration. In such cases police would normally advise the victim that they have encouraged the problem by putting controversial statements on their property and file the report. Not very newsworthy.
What does this share with the first two stories? First, we are to believe that with all the inciting stickers on cars-—ie. Abortion statements—and the huge number of rainbow stickers representing everything from Jesse Jackson to God’s promise through Noah to Homosexual behavior, that someone saw Erin’s rainbow, went and obtained spray paint, came back and painted the car, and they got the meaning of the sticker right even though they didn’t know her or her gender. This happened while the thousands of other vehicles with inflaming messages are left alone.
And then by coincidence news of this petty crime spreads into major circulation. Although "gay" and "fag" are not words associated with "hate", in no time flat Erin appeared in Metroland, an alternative publication, with her story, fluffed with disbelief, emphasizing accusations of hate speech, and stated intentions to really go big with this ground shaking crime; local news carried the “hate speech” story; she suddenly has this idea to drive the car as is and supposedly has many people regularly consoling her; messages came within days from across the world bearing sympathy and encouragement (imagine, a routine vandalism and the report turns up in places like Australia, moving people to make contact; horrors and disasters happening everywhere in the world pale next to this chance to be a victim); she conveniently has the time and financial fundraising to drive her fagbug, as she now calls it, across country with a film crew that is apparently instantly available and funded, to raise awareness (awareness of what, her over the top reaction to ordinary vandalism?); T-shirts with pretty pictures of her car are already out and for sale.
Isn’t it amazing, all this instant, ready availability of time, publicity, money, and organized promotion and film crews just fell into place when most groups plan months in advance just to try and get a chicken BBQ reasonably organized? How remarkable of a coincidence, how convenient for the homosexual crusade, which seeks to have any written or stated objection to their lifestyle prosecuted as hate. These are the folks that, in this land of liberty and free speech, silenced the popular Dr. Laura remember?

Note: Harris County District Attorney John B. Holmes Jr. said two or three cases had been prosecuted over the last 30 years, although those involved homosexual contact witnessed by others in a public jail.
Gay activists have tried for years to have the sodomy statute struck from the books, arguing that it is often used to justify anti-gay discrimination in such areas as hiring and adoptions. But with no defendant in a criminal case, efforts to remove the law have met with mixed success.
Clarence Bagby, president of the Houston Gay and Lesbian Political Caucus. "We certainly hope to move this forward, and we'd love to see it move all the way up the ladder and be declared unconstitutional. We need to get this off the books."

*The willingness of a group to create such events requires that some purpose for deception be considered when there is one or more of the following: exceptional vigor applied by law; sudden, unprecedented far reaching interest; a remarkably instantaneous, well organised response plan; a litigious organisation affected.

Foreclosures just say no to bailouts Chuck Schumer

2007-04-13T11:13:00.001-05:00

My letter to Sen. Charles Schumer
I've just read your call for millions of taxpayer's dollars to be used to bail out the expected foreclosures in the housing market. My wife and I would really like a house a bit larger than the tiny one we are currently crammed into, but we are responsible enough not to enter real estate's irrational frenzy and go into debt for price rises that exponentially exceeded inflation. Now, for our responsible restraint, for recognizing the market as absurd, for realizing prices are way to high and debt is way too high, you want to take our hard earned money and hand it to the 20-30% who are either flippers caught at the peak, or participants that did not belong in the market; the actors who helped price us out of a home--the market would not have inflated to this extent without them. This is offensive. I have been an appraiser for 20 years; the best thing that could happen right now is for the ridiculous 220,000$ median price to fall rapidly back by 30%. That will put housing realistically where it belongs and where the most number of buyers can sustain it.
Your pursuit of regulations regarding subprime lenders is very appropriate, as is seeking to make these lenders responsible where they have deceived buyers that legitimate Realtors knew better than to work with. But as for the rest: I urge you not to artificially float this industry on the backs of those of us who have behaved responsibly. This will only keep affordable housing out of the reach of many and more painfully postpone the inevitable.

I would have written more, but I couldn't be sure if I was not falling on deaf ears anyway. What makes this particularly bad is the additional whining of the real estate industry complaining over the median price falling 0.7% to 220,000$--well they weren't complaining when the price went up 60+% in five years or less. What a bunch of greedy bastards. I know maybe 100 people, and out of that I would guess three of them would be able to save 200,000$ over the next 20 years. Think about this: a 200,000$ mortgage at current rates for 30 years comes to 455,090$ in payments; this is enough to retire on. Now divide that by the 30 years you work----ready--it's going to cost 15,169.68$ a year just to service that loan, after income taxes which will run you about 10,000$ for the feds bite alone if you're at the median income. Now, if I have your interest, go to Google and search out the median income in this country.
Now think, use your God given head, and go out and offer at least 30% less than the asking price for any house you may really want, and when you don't get it, celebrate; you're not broke for the rest of your life.

Power Before The People: Bruno's Bourbon Empire Again

2007-02-09T12:28:00.000-05:00

We know now what most of us have known for some time, New York's Bourbon King, Silver, and Cronies place their kingdom ahead of the best interests of the people of New York. With their nose out of joint and fixed on teaching the new Gov. Spitzer a lesson, they have voted DiNapoli to the $151,500-a-year Comptroller job.

Optimistically, it is said DiNapoli has but little financial experience. He now serves as the chairman of the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee and previously headed committees overseeing local governments, consumer affairs and ethics. His best foot forward for past experience is working at New York Telephone Co. and AT&T in various management positions, rising to oversee an office of more than 100 employees; a resume that resembles a hamburger flipper vying for an airline pilot's job. This isn't comforting when the man will be responsible for the office’s 2,400 employees and auditing government operations and managing a $150 billion pension fund.

Martha Stark, in contrast, has been City finance commissioner since 2002, and has experience as Portfolio manager for Edna McConnell Clark Foundation. Stark is obviously the better choice, but once again it's all about building the kingdom and power for the Bourbon King and his followers at the expense of the people of NY State.

Blair's Intolerance

2007-01-31T00:08:00.000-05:00

So, Britain will not exempt Catholic adoption agencies from new anti-discrimination laws which require the Church to place children with gay couples.

Blair said in a statement, "Everyone is agreed that, above all, the interests of the child and particularly the most vulnerable children, must come first."
I suppose placing a child in a home with a pair of homosexuals is good for him? Well maybe if he's queer, but if not, then should the child be subject to suffering a regular gag reflex and disgust when exposed to the affections of the unnatural couple? The children placed in these "families" are indeed the most vulnerable, once placed.
Apparently Tony is a regular pervert, setting aside a sensible foundation of decency and respect for the Church and its rights, in favor of demanding everyone swallow a human defect and immoral lifestyle as acceptable. Tony is a very sick man.

But he is right in step with a sicko nation where the mayor of London forced the transit authority to remove advertisements for Sandals Hotel chain because the chain serves couples only and, with one exception, doesn't allow same sex couples. This is a Caribbean destination which said nothing in its ad about homosexuality, but the bigots and hate mongers in the queer community got the ads pulled, no doubt by threatening to out some politician; the usual persuasion. Many hotels operate resorts appealing to niche markets and there are markets for homosexuals. Sandals could be called a niche for heterosexual couples who don't want their stomach turned by queers on honeymoon. The hotel is doing two things; serving its market and preventing singles from teaming up and spoiling the couples only atmosphere. But the homosexuals see things one way. What they need to do is see their way to homosexuals anonymous and get help, just like the alcoholics who cannot help how they are must do.

A STEP TOWARD HUMAN

2007-01-25T13:00:00.000-05:00

Thanks to the long hard work of New York motorcyclists who are supporters of
ABATE November 1st 2006 brought legislation to stiffen penalties for drivers who fail to yield the right of way to motorcyclists and cause them injury. The increased penalty is most welcome, albeit still quite light considering the damage these people do--and it doesn't force the prejudiced cop to deliver the ticket, which is another sad problem. But even drunk driving laws started small, and I hope this is the beginning step toward more appropriate action against those who view bikers as less than human and carelessly use their vehicles as weapons to murder and maim on the roadways.

On "Summer For The Gods" by Edward J. Larson

2006-09-24T17:01:00.000-05:00

o It isn’t often one reads a technically correct non-fiction account of a historical period, or worse, a specific issue of the period containing multi-faceted ideas, truths, and fictions of social, scientific, and emotional divide and not find its readability comparable to watching paint dry. But Edward J. Larson’s book, “Summer For The Gods” is one of those we all hope to experience when spending our hard earned money on something which was deemed publishable.
A remarkably well researched book, complete with pages of citation, Larson has given us a clear and orderly picture of the Scopes trial bracketed in the events leading up to it, and some unexpected – or at least little understood – events following it that illuminate just how effectively emotion and the prevailing social influences can trump the facts.
For many of us, the sole record of the Scopes trial came bundled in a high school reading of “Inherit the Wind” and a brief summery in a social studies class, usually based on the same book. Larson discusses that book and its intended purpose, which was not written to be an accounting of the Scopes trial, and offered more fiction than fact.
If you believe Bryan wanted evolution tossed out of schools and religion taught instead – or continued to be taught - or that he was a Bible literalist, you will find a very different man exposed here. You will also find the influential actors behind the defense and prosecution exposed.
There were driving issues in that day that are forgotten today and some which are still with us. The swell of Darwinism brought a very serious interest in eugenics – the cornerstone of planned parenthood – and a question of responsibility. Darrow has won a case defending a brutal murder – 1924 Leopold-Loeb case – with arguments of psychological determination and free will, challenging concepts of morality and religion. Bryan holds concerns regarding the taxpayer’s right to the education of their children, and he believes the State should not control them via the public schools.
The players are all identified, their motives and positions revealed, and the plot unfolds in a well-organized fashion that keeps a reader turning pages, as in a story well told by the best of writers. History was never so pleasant to read.

Real Estate Opportunity Time

2006-08-12T15:36:00.000-05:00

It’s fast approaching opportunity time for all those who patiently sat on their cash while the Real Estate market went stupid.
It’s hard to imagine what went through buyers’ minds the past four or five years. Didn’t anyone tell them that cost does not equal value; the market is them and if they don’t pay the price it has to come down; that prices exceeded actual income potential; that mortgage products such as 40 year loans, adjustable rates - followed by rate increases that anyone could see on the horizon - and interest only loans are tell-tale signs that prices were higher than anyone can afford, higher than can be sustained? Did they believe the media pumping out nonsense about a soft landing and no crash, the need to jump in before it was too late?
Now the interest rates have predictably gone up. This alone reduces Real Estate values, just as declining rates increased it; but people who needed the lower rate and the interest only loan now face the payments that drove them to these sucker products to begin with.
Foreclosure is rearing its ugly head and currently investors are only buying about 35 percent of them - smart, they know what’s coming. This is only the beginning of the carnage. Fueled by external forces such as energy prices (gas is approaching $3.50 per gallon here), heating and cooling these monster homes, and, if your unfortunate enough to live in a state like New York, property taxes going through the vaulted ceiling, mortgage defaults are only beginning.
Add in the reduction in health care coverage by employers, the refusal to honor contractual pensions by simply eliminating them (and getting away with it), and real - not Government measured - inflation devaluation of the dollar, the money simply isn’t going to be there to pay the mortgage, and people will soon be handing the keys to the banks.
Fortunately we probably won’t all have to pay for many of the stupid people and greedy lenders this time around. Last time our taxes bailed out the banks which were eviscerated by loan defaults. This time the REIT’s investors will take it on the chin - at least those who haven’t gotten out by last week.
Since I called this a few years ago and now it appears I’m right on track, my recommendation is for the person with cash to continue to wait. Resist getting jumpy and enjoy watching it materialise before your eyes awhile longer. Watch the trends and the HUD foreclosures, and be prepared to act later next year. Things ought to be getting real juicy by then.

Illegal Immigration - Borders Make The Country

2006-04-27T12:10:00.000-05:00

It isn’t immigration that is the problem on the media top-list these days. That would be like grouping people that work to earn their money in with people stealing the money. Of greater concern is we have politicians shoulder to shoulder with the absurd demonstrators who steal it, and they are saying we should fix a way for them to keep it and that will solve the problem. How, you may ask, will it be solved given that more will come in the same fashion and eventually we will be at the same place again (the number of aliens grows by a half million per year).
In 1986, 2.6 million aliens were legalized and now we have 11 million aliens being discussed for some form of legal conversion – it becomes a revolving door, which routinely fills up with aliens expecting some form of amnesty. Now, they are so bold as to petition government by demonstration while they have no rights of citizenship. More perverse is that our president and congress are paying them attention.
What Bush should be doing is his job. His only job is to protect our borders, and so far he has spent us into debt attacking Iraq – a debt that is so large that we are too cash poor to take care of our own. Meanwhile, border security is at the lowest it has ever been (steadily declining since the early 90’s) and 91% of the American people rightfully believe it to be a serious problem. Terrorist concerns should be highest at our borders where a person can walk right in; this is the most basic protection we expect from a President. What good is a leader that will not control a country’s borders? Does a country without borders qualify as a country?

We are told by employers that these people take jobs that Americans won’t do. The truth is, the employers want slave labor and Americans need enough money to pay the bills or there is nothing accomplished by working. The employers are to aliens what drug dealers are to users; the dealer is the criminal that causes the user to proliferate. America claims to abhor slavery; they should demonstrate this by convicting these employers (who are enjoying the profits and lifestyle of cheap labor) with enough penalties to stem the use of alien workers.
For the average American: job scarcity and unemployment are supplemented by growing numbers of employers seeking to underpay employees; the economy suffers an annual loss of 39 billion dollars sent out of the country; income - and social security - taxes are lost for every undocumented paycheck; local taxes become more oppressive from social service costs to illegal residents. Then there is crime. In L.A. alone, 95% of outstanding homicide, and two-thirds of fugitive felony warrants are for aliens. Many well-organized street gangs dealing drugs and murder, terrorizing the public safety, are disproportionately comprised of illegal aliens.
Our elected officials, such as the great Rudy Giuliani and Mayor Bloomberg of NYC, have fought a hard fight using sanctuary laws requiring police and employers to, among other protections, keep immigration information confidential from immigration authorities. All the while places like Manhattan’s Washington Heights cowers from illegal aliens who make up 70% of its drug dealers and other criminals.
Once again, the people are losing to politicians looking for votes, and the wealthy business lobby. Who is in charge here anyway?

Ex-mayor of Schenectady laughs to the bank

2006-02-27T11:55:00.000-05:00

George Pataki’s photo appears on the cover of the Real Estate Appraiser Newsletter, the quarterly publication from the Department of State. In the most recent publication, two appraisers received sanctions for "communicating appraisal reports that were inaccurate and misleading." Translated this means: the properties were given a value that was too high and, evidently, unsupported in the subjects market area.

Much has been said regarding shady real estate deals in recent years. The terms, flipping, predatory lending, and misrepresentation are just a few words representing grossly over-priced real estate sales. These sales are presumed not to be arms length transactions, but ones where buyers are either unaware of market values in an area, or they have poor credit and are willing to pay very high interest rates or high sales prices to obtain credit.

The Governor has instructed the Department of State to actively pursue those in a position of expertise and holding a position of fiduciary responsibility that participate in and facilitate transactions which are questionable and do not represent what would be considered an arms length transaction.

Interestingly, the sales pictured in this column (and which have prompted it) are two houses on the same street. One, number 28, is listed as a four unit; the other is a two unit. Both are on record as being between 1800 and 1900 square feet, and they both are in the least desirable neighborhood in Schenectady. The area is so bad that your correspondent was chased when taking photos of the sales by three large black men in a car at high speed through the neighborhood. I avoided a car-jacking and likely being shot by not stopping for traffic control devices and eventually accessing the freeway.

The house with the indicated sale price of $122,500 was listed in the local newspaper, and in the assessor’s records, as being owned and sold by Albert Jurczynski and his wife - Al is the former mayor of Schenectady, and now has been hired by the Governor to fill a nice patronage job in the state. It was sold to a man from the Bronx. The house in the photo next, located across the street and selling for $63,200, is a comparable sale provided by a friend of mine who also indicated that there appeared to also have been sales concessions made by the seller. He was unable to find any recent sales in the neighborhood supporting the $122,500 sale price of Al’s house.

What is interesting is that the price is an eye popper for that neighborhood; for that amount a person can buy a fine house in another area of the city where there is almost no chance of being car-jacked or shot. And the sale was made to someone from a very different market area, but it has caused no eye-brow-raising or investigation by the ex-mayor’s new employer. Here you have the classic situation which the Governor is all in a tizzy about, and there is no news of any investigation into what appears to be an absurdly inflated sale price. You would think that the Governor would be concerned over what appears to be exactly the type of real estate transaction he zealously prosecutes being facilitated by someone right in his own employ.

Of course there could be a perfectly good excuse for the price. Perhaps the house was sold fully furnished and renovations were done with materials, finishes and hardware usually found in Edison Woods or some other fine neighborhood. But that would come out with an investigation exonerating Al, and it would show that the Governor isn’t particularly selective in the way he applies his concerns over people being taken unfair advantage of when purchasing real estate. Meanwhile, we can only assume the worst.

Photo summary of Bush's State of the Union

2006-02-07T14:16:00.000-05:00

SCHENECTADY CITIZENS FIGHT FOR GOV. BY THE PEOPLE

2006-02-04T20:03:00.000-05:00

If you live in or around Schenectady, N.Y., you can’t help but know that citizen activists are combing the city to collect signatures for a referendum to be voted on at the next election. The referendum asks the citizens to decide whether the City Council should have the authority to raise salaries at any time.

The purpose of this referendum is to have a public vote on a decision that was made in a closed door vote by the City Council. The council voted to overturn an existing law, which protects the public from unscrupulous politicians who have in the past voted themselves huge salaries during their term in office. The law that the council negated required all raises to be effective in the next term. The idea had been: if the mayor has done a good job during the existing term, then the public isn’t likely to begrudge him the raise and will re-elect him.

The change in the law came moments before a 46% salary increase was given to Mayor Brian Stratton. This amounts to a $28,000 increase in one shot and is equivalent to the median income of the city taxpayers.

The purpose of the referendum has been skewed by opponents claiming its sole purpose is to stop the raise, and they purport that the mayor deserves a raise. Anyone who reads beyond the headlines knows that the method by which the raise was given is the issue and not the raise itself. Opponents seem to believe the end justifies the means – the equivalent of allowing Enron executives to decide whether they did anything wrong when they screwed thousands of people out of their life savings.

The truth about those vocally opposing the petition is they are ‘suckies’ waiting for an opportunity at the public trough; backing the mayor with appearances of support with fallacious logic in hopes they will be remembered when comes that unproductive patronage job picking the pockets of taxpayers who work long and hard at real jobs.

TO THE MAYORS CASE

The Schenectady Mayor is the lowest paid when compared to those in nearby cities. Brian Stratton brings a professional appearance and some political influence to the office because of his father, Sam Stratton.

Brian Stratton has found ways to save money. He has combined some jobs, arranged for tax delinquent houses to be sold in a package to a company that does the collection and foreclosure work - and that means assuming the holding costs as well - and he has gotten rid of a losing parking garage.

Schenectady’s credit rating has been improved and debt has been significantly reduced.

These things all sound good, but…

THE MAYOR’S SMOKE AND MIRRORS

Brian Stratton knew the pay when he ran for the job. Reasonably, if he can produce quality results during this term, there would be no argument over a raise for next term. But Stratton and the Council lied to the taxpayers and included no raise in the budget. Afterwards, they held a private meeting to arrange for the mayor’s huge raise.

A long-term city employee earning $28,000 was fired to obtain the money for Stratton’s raise.

The mayor’s office, which paid $60,000 when Stratton was elected, has been reduced by sourcing the work to new employees. The cost of these employees, not counting benefits, is approximately $70,000, bringing the current cost of the mayor’s office to $130,000, which exceeds salaries from other cities used as comparables to the cost.

Stratton has been praised by his groupies for balancing the budget and reducing the deficit, as if he did this by some wonder of the educated mind. What he did was what any idiot could and would do; raise taxes.

And it wasn’t just any tax increase, but a cruel and cold double-digit increase on the poorest people in the city, while offering the biggest tax relief to the wealthiest.

There are only 26000 households in Schenectady, and 56% of them are tenants; of those, 50% are in the government’s very low-income bracket.
Twenty percent of the cities residents are below poverty. The per capita income in the city is $17,000. The city has 30,200 housing units according to the census. It was to the devastation of poorest people that Stratton placed a flat fee garbage tax on all property; double the amount on two family homes ($260), and triple on three ($390). This caused hardship on the poorest renters and homeowners as well as fixed income retirees. The mayor said this was “more fair” because two family houses often have large amounts of garbage set out to the curb. The fallacy of this is that some two family houses have one or two containers on the curb while single family houses may have anywhere from one to five containers – especially in the wealthier neighborhoods with the largest houses; huge amounts of trash piled on the curb is not the norm for two family houses. So, where is the flat rate more fair? It is not! Stratton put the city in the black with the most hideous, unfair, tax increase on the residents struggling the most just to put food on the table. The wealthy homeowners are grateful.

The injustice does not end there. The city still collects the cost of trash collection in the regular property taxes and supplements that with the garbage fee – supposedly. But if you don’t pay the garbage fee, the city won’t collect; in fact, they will fine you for putting the trash out for them. The problem – the criminal act of the mayor and council – is that these homeowners have paid for the majority of the trash pick-up with their property tax and now the city has taken their money and not delivered the service they charged the homeowner for. Stealing money from the people, isn’t that nice.

Frequently cited as an accomplishment of Stratton’s is the new businesses and jobs coming to downtown. Well, that’s another fallacy. Most of the new business he is credited for was seed planted before he became mayor; now that they are in bloom, he is taking credit. It is to his credit that he supports the improvements, but so did the last guy, Mayor Al, who had as little to do with it as Stratton does.

The business is mostly bars, paid for with the public’s money extorted through an oppressive sales tax and given away by Metroplex (an authority allowed to tax the crap out of the public and give the money away to business, and the business can then charge for the service that they took the people’s money to provide). No private investor would put his money into these places. The jobs, frequently referred to as good paying, are the usual bar jobs and do not pay the rent, and most certainly won’t pay the taxes or the mayor’s raise.

So, there is some doubt as to whether the mayor has acted in a manner really deserving of a raise, but most will agree that the office is underpaid. The important thing is for the public to not be confused by the rhetoric of the Stratton fan club. Particularly bad and misleading were the ones who got themselves published in the local news; Anthony P. De Luccia – who came up with the best political yip-yap about the ‘language in the records to warrant rewriting the law to conform to what has already been established”, which I don’t believe was an original thought by him, but was put on him by a professional political double-talker with the promise of one of those patronage jobs; Bob Mantello – who thinks the economic accomplishment mentioned above warrant a salary far in excess of the $88,000 per year “legally implemented by the City Council”, which goes to show you those patronage jobs aren’t going to be filled by the sharpest tacks in the box. You would think Bob would have included the “esquire” after his name, knowing so much about legal and all. There were quite a few more of these people – whose names, for the most part, all seemed to end with vowels – and they all sounded about as ridiculous, trying to impress their way to a free paycheck.

But let us remember, the issue is about a law that prevents a mayor and council member from obtaining a raise during their term. Even if this administration could be trusted with that power, the ones that will follow can not. That is why the law was made, and that is why the taxpayers need to vote this change down in November.

You can follow the action at: http://www.schenectadyny.info/cgi-bin/Blah/Blah.pl?b=cc

the future will remember them as barbarians

2006-02-03T01:24:00.000-05:00

Normal by not Darwin nor Genesis

2006-02-03T00:55:00.000-05:00

Well so much for what one would expect to be a battle over separation of church and state. After all the fuss between Christians and secular liberals each trying to build society the way they want to live, seculars claiming Christian mores are an establishment of religion and Christians attempting to stem a vulgar tide of rights without restraint, some of the clergy have vacated the camp - or should I say foundation - and brought the church into wedlock with the bible of the state. The mundane had no challenge, and the Word was left to be a decorative paperweight in a meeting where their contention became innocuous and the church took up Babylon’s wine. And after a generous provision had been made for deviance in the privacy of your own home, we now have front row seats.

It has been coming on for a time, but the wine flowed in Massachusetts with the legalizing of homosexual marriage. The media gave little coverage to the churches that have held their conviction, making the event appear to be approved by most churches. A Rev. Carter Hayward announced intent to rebel against the church doctrines and lead her flock down that ever more precipitous slippery slope that began some forty years ago with pressure for tolerance for the baby boomer’s thirst for sex.

In the sixties it was free sex; if it feels good do it. The pill took away the excuses and we found out men were not the only promiscuous ones. When that failed in prevention, we needed abortion to keep it all going; we desensitized ourselves with cell matter, medical procedure, and choice over our own body to extinguish the truth and kill the consequence.

Meanwhile sex needed some help - it just gets same-old after awhile - so came the more unusual forms, helped along with books such as “Joy of Sex”, and homosexual sex began to find a fit among the uninhibited on the slanting stage.
Rebellion against social norms helped keep the slope tipping, and marriage was deemed a false wedding, just a piece of paper when love was all we needed; and an easy escape when things get tiresome.

Well, what was a church to do with all these casual sex people who demanded divorce so they could move on after the frosting was off the cake, excommunicate them and loose all those offerings, or crumble its foundation and follow them to keep the pews filled? Being divorced and remaining in the church was possible; it just wasn’t easy. And that doesn’t feel good. You can’t feel good when there are consequences.

In those days most churches, led more often by the depression era generation, stood on Biblical foundations hoping to prevail before the money ran out. Eventually, with incoming boomers and empty pews, some churches solved the problem by blurring the line between: “I don’t condemn you” and “go and sin no more”, and then getting rid of the sin part all together.

Rebellion in the clergy and by whole denominations has been fed by these boomers who never boomed past the communal notion that everything should be shared in the one-way sense of free; you should just give it to them. In religion it has become not what God has designed, but what they think it should be for them.

So, the final touch is to create God in our own image; He will adjust to us, that’s the new grace. If we can’t control our urges, well, that’s our natural thing, so we can rationalize the Bible - if we must - and legitimize what feels good.

The boomer clergy is erasing the line between church doctrine and state permissiveness, and beating their Bibles into the stardust of the sixties. But the ninety plus percent of heterosexual population is there - over sixty percent against homosexual marriage - and it isn’t star gazing through the new found marriage proposal to a church wracked with divorce, free love, and abortion, no matter how much the media minimize them. This may be the straw that breaks the cradle and wakes the gospel according to the Bible.

The parishioners of the Alpha and Omega school are watching for the final verdicts from church leadership; and after that, there will be the exodus. Make no mistake about it; churches that legitimize homosexual sex by performing marriages are the ones being shaken out. They will still be called churches of course; they will just be in purple haze instead of the Kingdom. In the new age of the church potential members will interview to find out whether its charter is: The Bible and spiritual life, or The Follow Our Urges Social Club.