Ooh! Finally my year and a half of Latin came to good use!

I’d meant to comment on this article in the D&C, but Exile > stlo7 beat me to it. The source of my post’s headline is “emboldened” below:

Are problems emerging in Razing Midtown Plaza? Only if this is 2010 not 2007 || rochesterturning.com: turning the tide upstate

Geez, let the first doubt be cast. Reading the D&C this morning one would think that there are problems. I mean HUGE PROBLEMS. How could you not with a blaring headline - Problems Emerge in Razing Midtown.

I think what might have stayed my keyboarding fingers was all the pointless drivel in the comments section of the D&C article: there seem to be those in the habit of commenting at the D&C who will simply bitch reflexively whenever any government body spends any money at all. You can’t reason with that kind of logic. So, my mood for blogging on the issue was soured.

But Exile > stlo7 is right: the D&C seems to be lunging at the chance to pour cold water on the PAETEC project. And their eagerness to do so will doubtless have an effect on the public’s patience for the new start. So in the absence of anything approaching fairness in our major publications, its up to us lowly bloggers to fill in the gaps.
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RochesterTurning has a link to the new online petition demanding a roll-back of the tax intercept theft plan Maggie Brooks and the Republican Monroe County Legislators chose to pass in lieu of actual budget balancing.  There’s also an interesting discussion brewing in the comments.

I posted this article to the DFE News Updates section a moment ago (BTW, pick up the feed!), but I thought this one deserved a lot more attention than the national media has given it. A little-reported and highly important battle is being waged within the Senate over the appointment of members to the Federal Election Commission.  The line is being drawn over a Hans A. von Spakovsky, who was formerly a member of the highly-dubious “Justice” Department of the Bush “Administration.”

And the battle lines are of immediate concern to the primary antagonist of the battle, Barack Obama.  His political future may depend on the makeup of that body, especially given all the hanky-panky the Republicans have been willing to play.  But in putting up the fight against this nomination, Obama is playing a very dangerous game for which I see only very scant chance of victory:

Senate Battle Over FEC Nominee May Hamper Agency’s Ability to Act - washingtonpost.com

“Historically, they’ve been done as a group to prevent one party’s nominees from going through and not the other’s,” Stewart said. “That’s the way we’ve always done them, and Senator McConnell sees no reason that should change.”

Obama and three other senators who have formally objected to a Senate vote on von Spakovsky said they want each FEC nominee to be voted on separately. They said it should take 60 votes for him to be confirmed.

As for the fate of the FEC if the stalemate persists, those on both sides agreed that members of the commission’s staff would be able to continue to conduct routine work, but little else would get done, at least until Bush made four new recess appointments. Such a move would mean he was conceding defeat on the von Spakovsky nomination.

I don’t mean to suggest that there aren’t perfectly good ethical reasons for concern over the von Spakovsky nomination: he has presided over some very dubious Justice decisions including the Tom DeLay Texas redistricting scheme.  Even if it means a partisan fight where there has previously been none, this does seem like a fight worth having.  But if the end-game here is that Bush can just nominate whomever he so chooses in a recess appointment, that’s not a game Republicans can lose by playing.  If the media won’t even pay attention to the story, where is Barack’s ammunition coming from?

Technorati Tags: Barack Obama, Federal Election Commission, Disenfranchisement, Florida 2000, 2008, President

Former governor of Massachusetts and current Republican Stooge Mitt Romney, in a bid to show off his foreign policy chops, has made this stunning announcement:

Romney Open to Iran ‘Bombardment’

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - Republican Mitt Romney said Thursday he would be willing to use a military blockade or “bombardment of some kind” to prevent Iran from gaining a nuclear weapon. The former Massachusetts governor’s comments came as the Bush administration announced new sanctions designed to isolate the government in Tehran. Romney applauded the move, while several Democratic presidential contenders spoke out against it—and used it as an opportunity to criticize front-runner Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Ah. This was your opportunity to criticize Hillary Clinton?  It would have been as well had you not bothered.
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Whilst looking up my referred visitors and other SEO stuff about the site, I happened upon an incoming link from an article on Mustard Street. I haven’t read their stuff in a while, but this article in particular is a well-written piece that deserves an answer. I was going to just comment, but then I realized that this could get wordy, and decided to make my own post.

The thrust of the article is that a report by the RBJ (which is not available online, even if you paid for it, as I discovered to my chagrin) shows that the top fifty highest-paid public officials in Monroe County are almost all school administrators. Only three slots in this field are employees of some other section of our government. Philbrick is quick to point out that we don’t know whether or not a given administrator has earned that pay, but the theory goes as follows:

Mustard Street: The Highest-Paid Local Officials

But this list helps to illustrate why, we think, Maggie Brooks has the political wind at her back for her FAIR plan, which reduces suburban school district revenues by 1 – 2 %. It explains why it resonates with the public when Brooks says, as quoted in the same RBJ article:

“…these well-paid and non-elected officials are choosing to sue Monroe County rather than finding a 2 percent savings in their total budgets.”

This theory doesn’t hold much water for me, but there are a lot of moving parts, so I’ll take a post to explain my position.
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Every year I wonder the same thing: if journalists are expected to be so obsessed with “objectivity,” in the sense that they’re expected to suppress all intellect in the pursuit of Absolute Zero Opinion, why are newspapers permitted to give endorsements?  It seems a tacit violation of that most sacred of principles. . .

And certainly, when the D&C gets into the act, I’m especially chagrined.   Yes, the D&C Editorial page is awash in endorsements of Republican incumbents, as you might have expected.  They do support Carmin Gumina in Webster, but I mean, it’s not like you could have endorsed Dave “Teachin’ ‘tards is For Suckers” Malta.  And they also had to add in there that Gumina “doesn’t consider himself a staunch Democrat,” like it’s OK for Republicans and other decent people to vote for him.

There’s also an endorsement of Ted Nixon in the 10th, but here despite many worthy reasons to support Mr. Nixon, it seems the D&C was caught between endorsing the old guy or endorsing the Republican.  Hmm. .  Which constituency to pander to?

I guess what really frustrates me about these endorsements isn’t so much the implicit lack of “objectivity”: I don’t believe you can be intelligent and not have an opinion in such things.  What I object to is the fact that all this supposedly deep cognition of the candidates happened behind a closed door.  Where were the interviews and the head to head comparisons?  No, those comparison charts don’t often reveal subtleties, but at least they reveal something.  The D&C’s coverage of the elections has thus far been nonexistent, and their coverage after this will be slanted.

So, yeah.  I’m less than excited with the endorsements . . .

I linked through this from an Albany Project post. The New York Times has a great interactive Flash map showing the breakdown of subprime mortgage lending across the state. You can use the map to center on Rochester and see what our city looks like. It is, as you might have expected, not pretty:

Subprime Mortgages in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut - The New York Times

High-cost subprime loans became widely popular across the region in 2005 and 2006. They were especially numerous in low income and minority areas, but even middle class and high-income areas had many subprime mortgages. Chart shows the percentage of mortgages for 1 to 4 family residences, either for purchase or refinancing, that were subprime in 2006.

Another ripple in all of this to consider is the relationship to Maggie Brooks’ Great Sales Tax Heist: schools that had budgeted for much more money than they ended up with after the filtching are going to need to make up the difference in property taxes. However, with 30 - 40% of all new mortgages in Irondequoit, Gates, Greece and Henrietta - not to mention as much as 80% in parts of Rochester - you can probably count on a whole lot less property tax revenue when people default on their mortgages and properties sit empty.

Technorati Tags: Maggie Brooks, Tax Intercept, Subprime Mortgages, Economy

Entitled “The Idiot Son of an Asshole.”  Guess who it’s about?

It’s a toe-tapper, but be cautious not to start singing it at the next staff meeting. . .

Well, this is fun.  It seems my wife and I are victims of Bally Total Fitness’ unethical sales practices, which they were supposed to have settled in 2004, after the Attorney General’s office sued them.  I guess nothing has changed.

I don’t remember reading about any of this.  But apparently, the AG got enough complaints back then to reach a settlement with Bally.  You would have thought that they would have stopped their practices, but I guess old habits die hard:

CONSUMER COMPLAINTS LEAD TO HEALTH CLUB SALES REFORMS

Bally Total Fitness Corporation, which operates nearly 40 health clubs throughout the state, settled an investigation by Spitzer’s office after hundreds of consumers complained that deceptive ads and high pressure sales tactics tricked them into signing long-term contracts and misrepresented the total price of the memberships.

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One of the excuses cited by the Monroe County Executive, our beloved Maggie Brooks, for stealing your kid’s lunch money is that Medicare expenses are squeezing the county to the breaking point. Well, in fairness, this is certainly true: the rising cost of health care pushes up the cost of Medicare, which does indeed raise the costs for the county.

But to blame Medicare, while accurate from a certain point of view, is to assume that the costs of medical coverage affect the county alone. This is simply untrue. You probably remember going to school and having to see the school nurse, correct? Well, there’s a lot more to your kid’s medical coverage within the school system than simply one woman, a mop and a puke bucket. There is insurance; there is the entire school medical staff; there is the cost of band-aids, gauze, stretchers and aspirin. » Continue Reading…