Discovery's Last Flight

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Space Shuttle Over DC

Courtesy mringlein on Flickr

Yesterday, a NASA Space Shuttle took to the skies for the last time in history. The Shuttle program came to be during the 70s, as I was growing up. Apollo missions to the moon had ended earlier that decade, and we were sending missions to Skylab, but the Shuttle held the promise of regular space exploration for decades.  It didn’t look like a spaceship or a capsule – it looked like an airplane – an everyday thing. 

I vividly recall watching the first Shuttle mission takeoff, and by 1986 they were so routine that our high school didn’t wheel out the TVs to watch the tragic Challenger explosion until after it had happened. 

But with all of this, it’s downright disappointing that the Shuttles have been mothballed, and NASA has nothing new in the pipeline to replace them. Certainly the technology to create a reusable spacecraft has improved since the mid-70s, and certainly we oughtn’t rely on the Russian space program to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, and the private carriers are suborbital, not equipped for complex missions. 

Yesterday, the Shuttle Discovery was ferried aboard a 747 from Cape Canaveral to Dulles Airport in Virginia. Adjacent to Dulles is the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum annex hangar, which houses all manner of historic aircraft from the time of the Wright Brothers to Concorde. It’s massive, majestic, and pure eye candy for a fan of airplanes. Discovery will replace a replica Shuttle that’s been there since the facility opened. 

Before landing in Virginia, the Shuttle flew by Reagan Airport and along the National Mall. People poured out of their offices and shops to watch the spectacle, and applauded.  It was a bittersweet event.  

We should have something new to applaud. I echo the sentiment expressed last night by comedian Lewis Black. 

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/TheLewisBlack/status/192384427840643072″]


Discovery’s Last Flight

5 comments
Space Shuttle Over DC

Courtesy mringlein on Flickr

Yesterday, a NASA Space Shuttle took to the skies for the last time in history. The Shuttle program came to be during the 70s, as I was growing up. Apollo missions to the moon had ended earlier that decade, and we were sending missions to Skylab, but the Shuttle held the promise of regular space exploration for decades.  It didn’t look like a spaceship or a capsule – it looked like an airplane – an everyday thing. 

I vividly recall watching the first Shuttle mission takeoff, and by 1986 they were so routine that our high school didn’t wheel out the TVs to watch the tragic Challenger explosion until after it had happened. 

But with all of this, it’s downright disappointing that the Shuttles have been mothballed, and NASA has nothing new in the pipeline to replace them. Certainly the technology to create a reusable spacecraft has improved since the mid-70s, and certainly we oughtn’t rely on the Russian space program to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station, and the private carriers are suborbital, not equipped for complex missions. 

Yesterday, the Shuttle Discovery was ferried aboard a 747 from Cape Canaveral to Dulles Airport in Virginia. Adjacent to Dulles is the Smithsonian’s Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum annex hangar, which houses all manner of historic aircraft from the time of the Wright Brothers to Concorde. It’s massive, majestic, and pure eye candy for a fan of airplanes. Discovery will replace a replica Shuttle that’s been there since the facility opened. 

Before landing in Virginia, the Shuttle flew by Reagan Airport and along the National Mall. People poured out of their offices and shops to watch the spectacle, and applauded.  It was a bittersweet event.  

http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=109615

We should have something new to applaud. I echo the sentiment expressed last night by comedian Lewis Black. 

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/TheLewisBlack/status/192384427840643072″]


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Sirius setback for Stern Suit

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New York City Supreme Court Justice Barbara Kapnick rendered a decision yesterday on a motion for summary judgment brought by SiriusXM against Howard Stern’s production company and agent. Stern listeners will know that he took SiriusXM to court alleging that they are in breach of his first 2006 – 2011 contract with Sirius. He alleged that, under the contract, the post-merger influx of XM subscribers into the merged company should count towards his performance bonus, which dealt with how many subscribers Stern had attracted to the service. Listeners will be aware of his recent comments mocking the fact that SiriusXM claims to be one company, or two, depending on how it might convenient for it. 

The judge, however, sided with SiriusXM, pointing out that the contract had a specific clause providing for a $25 million bonus in the event of a merger with XM, which was honored. The judge interprets the contract to not count incoming XM subscribers – only 1 million of whom opted to actually listen to Stern via the “Best of Sirius” add-on package – as part of the bonus structure. 

I fully expect that Stern and Buchwald will appeal this ruling, but it makes for interesting reading and a unique glimpse into Stern’s business dealings. 

Stern Dismissalhttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/89702610/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list

Occupy the ECIDA

20 comments

In order to dissuade Occupy Buffalo from “creating a disturbance”, which is newspeak for “exercising their first amendment right to free speech in front of a public entity”, the Erie County Sheriff’s office overloaded the library auditorium with Deputies.

Occupy Buffalo issued the following on its site:

Slumlord Carl Paladino has a net worth of $150 million, and yet he wants more taxpayer money so he can make a profit by turning his dilapidated Greystone Manor into an upscale apartment building that none of us could ever afford to live in. Moreover, once the renovations are done, no further jobs will be created from this endeavor. It is all about Paladino making a profit at the taxpayers’ expense.

If you want to know more about where your taxes go, then come to this meeting and find out. Occupy the economy!

Also, please be aware that armed security may be present at this meeting. This is the reality in which we live. They try to instill fear in us with the threat of violence. But it will not deter us from pursuing truth and justice.

The jobs created by these tax breaks are temporary construction jobs.

The ECIDA meetings – during which politically well-connected people decide how other politically well-connected people get to spend public money – do not provide for public comment. The public hearing on the matter took place on April 9th, during which people were permitted to speak. So, when the Erie County IDA votes to give multimillionaire land speculator Carl Paladino hundreds of thousands of dollars in sales and mortgage tax breaks – incentives that cost the people money – the people are required to sit silently. We don’t get to vote for the ECIDA members, and we get to comment only in a limited way.

Occupy is active as the lobbyists for regular people who are undeserved by this rudderless system of myriad IDAs, which seldom develop anything industrial, and who regularly poach WNY businesses from one WNY community to another. If we had one regional IDA, which sought to attract business and people from outside WNY, that would be great. So would an ida scheme that didn’t routinely substitute “residential” or “hospitality” for “industrial.” Occupy took similar action recently at the Clarence IDA, which has come under harsh state criticism for its practices.

It would appear that something is desperately wrong with that sort of system. Thanks to Occupy Buffalo for attending these meetings and questioning the ECIDA’s policy of subsidizing projects that generate few, if any, permanent jobs and likely would be completed anyway.

Occupy the Senate

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Had the Occupy movement not captured headlines, and had its messages not engendered sympathy from a middle class that has been systematically harmed by the axis of money and politics, then it’s possible that the Buffett Rule – a change to the tax code that would ensure that millionaires whose income comes largely from investments pay taxes on that money at a rate similar to that earned on other income, like business profits or regular wages. It’s named after Warren Buffett, the billionaire whose income comes largely from his myriad investments, who lamented that his secretary pays a higher tax rate than he. 

Last night, the Senate took up this change to the law, and it never made it to a vote. A single Democrat voted to block it, and a single Republican voted to bring it to the floor.  The Republicans filibustered, and the Democrats didn’t have the 60 votes needed to pass this legislation. (It’s high time to abolish the Senate filibuster, because the Constitution has been systematically circumvented – by both sides – to require that every legislation receive a supermajority for passage. This is unconscionable.) Without the threat of filibuster, the Buffett Rule would have passed the Senate 51 – 45. 

The bill would impose a minimum 30% effective federal tax rate on those with adjusted gross incomes above $1 million, although it phases in for those making between $1 million and $2 million.

Taxpayers subject to the Buffett Rule would still get a break for charitable deductions and could count both the income and payroll taxes they paid when calculating what they would owe

There’s nothing about that plan that should make Republicans reject it. Frankly, it makes sure that the wealthiest Americans don’t avoid paying taxes through an impossibly large, byzantine system that is specifically geared to lend loopholes to those who can afford them. 

The Buffett rule isn’t even controversial. 

It’s supported by 72% of Americans; of those, 53% of Republicans back it, and 70% of independents do, too. Unfortunately, it’s supported by only 2% of Senate Republicans; it’s only controversial among those whom the 1% have paid to oppose it. 

Americans don’t think the rich should get special breaks that regular folks don’t get, yet the Republicans in congress have made class warfare – by the rich against everybody else – a platform plank, and they’re shouting “socialist” at anyone who points it out. Problem is, it’s not working, and they’ve just selected someone who directly benefits from the failure of the Buffett Rule to be their nominee. 

This should be fun. 

The Coopers, Formerly of Lovejoy

11 comments

Let’s dispense for a moment with the “it’s the people” canard about why Buffalo is great – the City of Good Neighbors. 

The reality is that some people are great and neighborly, and others aren’t. Buffalonians are no more or less great or neighborly than any other Americans. Sorry, but you’re not special. 

This comes into stark view as we find out about the violent racist harassment that drove a Black family out of Lovejoy last week. When you have a lost generation of people who can no longer rely on steady industrial work in now-dormant or departed facilities, you get anger and resentment. Young, angry, and resentful people develop irrational hatreds and sometimes act out on them. 

That socioeconomic fact is, however, no excuse. The Coopers of Lovejoy have every right to live wherever they please, without fear of constant harassment from small-minded racists. The Buffalo News stories (here and here) about the issue were well done and provided extraneous details, such as the muttering of racial epithets within a News photographer’s earshot. 

Neighbors thought the family was a “gang” because, well, the Coopers are a large Black family. 

We shouldn’t be tolerating pogroms in 2012 in Buffalo, and another matter comes into stark view. Where is our political leadership on this issue? Rich Fontana is the city councilman from Lovejoy, and he laid blame on the victims. 

“The family was originally harassed, but when they called in other family members for protection, they turned the situation upside down, and they became the aggressors by sending two Lovejoy youths to the hospital and robbing fast food delivery people,” Fontana said. “After that, I got involved and told both sides to stop the aggression. It was calm until 4:30 this morning.”

Cooper took issue with Fontana’s assessment.

She said that white youths and adults threw rocks and bricks at one of her sons and a nephew, prompting family members to fight back, adding that it occurred after months of racial slurs. “It wears on you,” she said.

As for the allegations of fast food thefts, Cooper said no one at her home ordered the pizza or Chinese food and that no one on her porch attempted to take it.

But the delivery workers filed police reports late Tuesday night, with one claiming an order of pizza and chicken wings was snatched from him and the other reporting that he managed to flee with the Chinese food before it could be taken.

So, the Coopers certainly didn’t find any help or sympathy from Fontana. It’s their fault someone pranked them by ordering food for them. It’s their fault they fought back against harassment. Yet that contradicts this: 

“I’m telling all the residents and every kid I can pull into my arms to stop the attacks, unless you’re attacked first. You do have the right to defend yourself, but don’t be the aggressor against anyone in the neighborhood,” [Fontana] said.

Well, too late. The Coopers moved away. Mayor Brown got briefly involved, but this was an opportunity for him to use his bully pulpit for good. Seeing no ribbons to cut, he has shown zero leadership on yet another critical issue facing the city. 

Good people are good, and bad people are bad – and they come in every hue, from every nation. One would have thought that, in 2012, we’d all be on the same page with that. And in Buffalo, we reserve our outrage for important matters, like footballers’ criticisms of our hotels and the giggles of a different Cooper – Anderson, of Manhattan. 

Happy Birthday, Romneycare!

2 comments

Six years ago, Massachusetts’ then-Governor Mitt Romney signed the Commonwealth’s universal health insurance act into law. Try as Romney might, there is no doubt whatsoever that Obamacare directly descends from Romneycare – it is the Massachusetts plan writ large and federalized. Six years is the half-life, apparently, where a conservative path towards universal coverage becomes socialism. 

But Romneycare has resulted in an almost 100% coverage rate in Massachusetts, and though not perfect, has been dubbed a success story. 

Yet the 2012 model of Mitt Romney has nothing whatsoever to say about Romneycare on its sixth anniversary in the middle of a Presidential campaign. It’s his most significant and marketable achievement, and he’s painted himself into a rhetorical corner to avoid drawing attention to the similarities between Romneycare and Obamacare.  They’re almost identical. 

Romney’s argument in 2012 is that he’s proud of Romneycare, but disagrees with the notion that every state be required to follow one particular model. It’s the cowardly Republican’s disingenuous argument – when in doubt, go with state’s rights. The problem is that the crisis – really the shame – of uninsurance and underinsurance is a national one, one that requires a national response. The problems of medical bankruptcies (handled exclusively in federal courts), and of the uninsured using emergency rooms for primary care, the cost of which is then shunted onto taxpayers are national, federal issues. 

If Mr. Romney even believes these things to be problems needing solving, he should present a plan to fix them. If he wants to be true to his supposed 10th Amendment feelings, the federal government could simply mandate that states reach universal health insurance coverage, and let them each come up with their own ways to do so. 

I eagerly await President Obama to call Mr. Romney on this particular bluff. 

Well, Happy Birthday, Romneycare. Thanks for setting up the system that the federal government modified to apply to the entire country!

 

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WxZK0spa1yI]

Worky Work and the Worky Bunch

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Mitt and Ann Romney are liars. 

They would have you believe that they think being a full-time stay-at-home mom is hard work. They have attempted to re-frame Hilary Rosen’s criticism of Ann Romney in that way. 

But that’s not what Rosen was talking about, and the Romneys know it. 

They know it because just a few short months ago, Romney held a very different view of stay-at-home moms; well, the poor ones, anyway. 

But the attacks don’t gibe with comments Romney made just three months ago on the campaign trail. In January, Romney touted his proposal as governor of Massachusetts to raise the amount of work required of parents on welfare so that they could “have the dignity of work.”

The comment was uncovered and aired on MSNBC’s “Up w/Chris Hayes,” Sunday morning.

“I wanted to increase the work requirement,” said Romney in New Hampshire. “I said, for instance, that even if you have a child 2 years of age, you need to go to work. And people said, ‘Well that’s heartless.’ And I said, ‘No, no, I’m willing to spend more giving day care to allow those parents to go back to work. It’ll cost the state more providing that daycare, but I want the individuals to have the dignity of work.’”

But it was this very idea, that raising children is not “work,” that started the Romney campaign’s “war on moms” attack against Democrats this week. Immediately following Rosen’s comments on CNN Wednesday night, the Romney campaign kicked into high gear attacking Rosen and defending motherhood as “hard work.”

So, which is it? Is motherhood itself “hard work” that provides women with the “dignity” thereof? Or is staying at home and working raising kids a luxury reserved only for those who can afford it? Is being a mom “hard work” for some, but not for others? 

Lying is nothing new in politics, but the frequency and easiness with which the Romneys do so is breathtaking. 

Oh, also – if you’ve been hustling to get your taxes filed and paid on time, you’ve accomplished more than Mitt Romney has. The unemployed multimillionaire corporate raider filed for an extension to submit his return.  His campaign said, presumably with a straight face, that they’ll file as soon as they have “all the information” needed to do so. He paid $3.4 million in estimated tax.  

Did Collins Recommend Closure?

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In reply to yesterday’s story about Chris Collins’ pledge to examine the Niagara Falls air base and Batavia VA center for “efficiency”, and go along with their closure if they weren’t up to Collins’ standards, Erie County Republican Chairman Nick Langworthy writes: 

The allegations that Chris Collins called for the closing of the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station or any of Western New York’s VA facilities is preposterous. He did not say anything close to that. What he did say is that we should strive to have the best services and most efficient federal facilities possible in Western New York and that is the reason why they should stay open. There were over 100 people in attendance at the event. The crowd gave Chris Collins a resounding ovation and became very angry when it was announced that a press release had gone out from one of his opponents attacking Collins and grossly distorting his comments.

But Bellavia’s people were told that Collins threw a fit at the meeting when shown a Tweet from Michael Caputo / modified tweet from Bellavia himself:

[blackbirdpie url=”https://twitter.com/#!/DavidBellavia/status/191175054195826688″]

A woman came forward to release the following press release midday Sunday, posted as a comment to the earlier piece: 

My name is Carrie M. Christman. I am a veteran of the United States Air Force and a Republican Committeeman from Brighton in Monroe County. On Saturday, April 14, I attended the Erie County Republican Roundtable where former Erie County Executive Chris Collins was a featured speaker. After his speech, I asked him a question about keeping the Batavia Veterans Administration Medical Center open and a follow up question about keeping the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station open as well. He told me “you may not like my answer” and went on to say that these facilities must be examined for efficiency and forced to operate in a more cost effective manner. It was definitely my impression from his answers that if the Batavia VA and the Niagara Falls air base did not meet his efficiency standards that he may not consider keeping them open.

My take is, if there are inefficiencies – and I believe we all know that is a major problem with our government – we need to find out what are the causes for these inefficiencies. The solution is correcting the problem at the source. Let’s find that out, then we are on the right path to solving our nation’s problems.

So, there’s some dispute there over whether Collins said he’d close the facilities he deems “inefficient” using some undisclosed standard of efficiency, or whether Christman inferred closure from his remarks, although Collins never expressed precisely that sentiment. 

I submit that it hardly matters. 

When you’re dealing with the matter of providing medical services to veterans, or the duties carried out by the NY Air National Guard – only a cold, sick technocrat who has no experience with military matters or respect for veterans would first jump on the Six Sigma efficiency bus before wondering whether the institutions are adequately funded and staffed to carry out their duties. 

There is more to government than penny-pinching – especially when it comes to medical care for veterans. 

Six Sigma Collins on the Military

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Chris Collins, who is casually running to represent the newly-constructed 27th Congressional District in Congress, hasn’t learned his lesson. He is still trying clumsily to foist his technocratic Six Sigma nonsense onto anything and everything. 

Astonishingly, on Saturday morning Collins told the monthly Erie County Republican Roundtable that he would close the Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station and the Batavia VA Medical Center if they were not “efficient”. This calls into question what Collins considers to be efficient – the quality of care at the VA, or the military services provided by the air base versus their cost. 

Of course, things like the VA and the air base are examples of Keynesian economic stimuli, and their closure would affect the economy-at-large. But Republicans seldom acknowledge their inconsistencies on this point. 

But the measure of whether we need a VA center in Batavia shouldn’t be cold, bean-counting “efficiency”, but whether it serves a public need. Government services don’t exist to make money, and we should hardly take away critical health services from GLOW-area veterans. Likewise, the fate of the air base should be dependent not on economics, but on military need. 

In a press release, Bellavia said, 

“While efficiency is quite important, effectiveness is by far the paramount goal of our national defense,” Bellavia said. “Mr. Collins clearly does not understand this and cannot possibly represent a Congressional district which includes one of the most important United States Air Force bases in the world.”

“Likewise, the quality of service Veterans Administration hospitals provide for our wounded warriors and retired military is the most important metric in the system,” Bellavia said. “Thousands of retired military and many wounded soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines reside in the 27th Congressional District. How would they get the medical care our nation pledged to them if Mr. Collins closes the Batavia VA hospital?”

“What will Mr. Collins do – wrap the air base and hospital in his vaunted Six Sigma values and close them if they don’t pass muster?” Bellavia asked. “Will he shutter Niagara Falls Air Reserve Station if the C-130’s don’t burn bio-fuel? Will the VA hospital have to meet the infamous standard of care of private HMO’s? While I agree we must always strive for cost efficient government operations, Mr. Collins’ slavish devotion to efficiency-above-all will surely destroy our military and veterans services.”

Chris Collins thinks that government serves the taxpayer – it was his mantra throughout his single term as County Executive. But that’s only partly true – while government owes a fiduciary duty to the taxpayer to not be wasteful, its real service is to those who are in need of services. We get worked up over a guy who allegedly defrauded $4,000 – but that’s less than a drop in a massive bucket of regional economic failure. Chris Collins’ IDA doled out millions in tax breaks, loans, and incentives to the connected – that we don’t examine or criticize, because we don’t understand it or bother to wrap our heads around the dollar figures or long-term success or failure of the process. 

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