Charities Run By NY Democrats Can't Track Where Money Went

New York Rep. Gregory Meeks and State Senator Malcolm Smith, both Democrats, call your lawyers. You have some serious accounting to do.

They formed a charity in the wake of Hurricane Katrina to help victims of the hurricane, and raised about $31,000 in the process.

Yet, only $1,392 actually made it to the victims of the hurricane.

Meeks said in a statement that "the funds were utilized to help sustain displaced evacuees," but refused to provide further detail. He said money was administered by an unidentified director and that "a committee of community representatives functioned as advisers to the fund."

But three of those advisers said they had no idea whether cash was given out by the group, New Yorkers Organized to Assist Hurricane Families, or NOAH-F.

"I had nothing to do with any disbursement of any funds," said the Rev. Edward Davis, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of St. Albans in Queens. "I can't tell you. I don't know."

Another advisory board member, Candace Sandy, said she volunteered to help Katrina refugees living temporarily at a hotel near Kennedy Airport, but did not distribute money.

Sandy, who works for Meeks, said another advisory board member, Claude Stuart, was in charge of the money. Stuart did not return phone calls for comment.

Pamela Moore, chief-of-staff to Assemblywoman Barbara Clark, was listed as a member of the advisory board but said that it was a position in name only.

"I never attended any board meetings," she said, adding that she did not know if board meetings were even held.

Clark, a Queens Democrat, said she was upset about the charity's lack of accountability. "I'm very, very disturbed and disheartened," she said.

The lawmaker said she helped set up a gospel concert that raised $11,210 after Hurricane Katrina struck in August 2005.

"We turned this money over to the congressman [Meeks]," Clark said. "I don't know exactly how it was given out."

Where did the rest of the money go?

No one knows. Not Meeks. Not Smith.

It's a mystery.

And it's just the tip of the iceberg as nearly $150,000 is unaccounted for.

Some $150,000 in donations, including thousands the community raised to help victims of Hurricane Katrina, remains unaccounted for, according to Ken Boehm, head of the National Legal and Policy Center.

"When you see lots and lots of consulting fees with large amounts flashing around, at some point one wonders if an elected official is trying to sell their office," said Boehm.

"Sen. Smith, with respect to New Direction, violated several provisions of New York state law," he said.

Boehm says his group will lodge a complaint with the state's Public Integrity Commission this week.

This sounds like a job for NYS Attorney General Andrew Cuomo to investigate and determine whether Meeks and Smith set up a bogus charity where the money meant for victims ended up in someone else's pockets. When only 4% of the money goes to the purpose of the charity in Katrina relief and 96% ends up sucked up in "administrative costs" for lack of a better word, something is up.

Typically, better charities limit their administrative costs to less than 15% so that the bulk of the money goes to the given purpose - not sucked up in administrative costs that enrich no one but those responsible for operating the charity. This "charity" appears to give 4% to its stated purpose.

In fact, a search on the Attorney General's charity database reveals no sign of this charity (NOAH-F) at all. New Direction LDC does show up. New Directions LDC, which operates out of Queens, appears to be little more than a slush fund for local politicians, including Meeks and Smith, for their member items (pork).

UPDATE:
Lest I forget, Smith was the Senate Majority Leader following the Democrats' takeover of the NYS State Senate, and was the minority leader previously. That put him in a position to dole out the member items.

Haitian Missionary Kidnapping Case Takes a Turn Into the Weird

Just when you thought that the case of the 10 members of the New Life Children's Ministries who are charged with kidnapping and criminal association in connection with trying to take 33 Haitian kids into the Dominican Republic couldn't get weirder, it just did:

The Haitian lawyer for 10 U.S. Baptists charged with child kidnapping tried to bribe the missionaries' way out of jail and has been fired, the attorney who hired him said Saturday night.

The Haitian lawyer, Edwin Coq, denied the allegation. He said the $60,000 he requested from the Americans' families was his fee.

Jorge Puello, the attorney in the neighboring Dominican Republic retained by relatives of the 10 American missionaries after their arrest last week, told The Associated Press that he fired Coq on Friday night. He had hired Coq to represent the detainees at Haitian legal proceedings.

Coq orchestrated "some kind of extortion with government officials" that would have led to the release of nine of the 10 missionaries, Puello charged.

"He had some people inside the court that asked him for money, and he was part of this scheme," Puello said.

Coq denied the requested $60,000 payment amounted to a bribe.

Eight of the 10 arrested passed a signed note saying that they were just volunteers and had nothing to do with actual arrangements with the "adoptions". They pretty much say that Laura Silsby is lying.

At the same time, Laura Silsby claims that she had all the papers in order. That clearly wasn't the case as she was stopped and arrested.

Former President Bill Clinton is trying to work out a deal that would release all but Silsby from a Haitian jail.

East River Tidal Power Project Moving Forward

Verdant Power, which had installed a test rig in the East River to determine whether it could generate power from the tidal flow on the river and that it's turbine systems could handle the loads, is one step closer to getting its commercial license approved.

It includes a new "optimized turbine," which is smaller and has fewer parts than the ones it initially used, Taylor said.

The appeal is that, unlike a dam, turbines can be installed and removed quickly.

"You can put in two or three turbines a week," he said. "It's like planting trees."

The new design also includes a gravity-based anchoring system. Rather than being secured to the bottom of the river, three turbines will be set on a triangular frame that sits underwater.

Verdant is planning to submit its final license application to federal regulators in the next couple of months - the last step before the turbines can be installed, Taylor said.

"The regulatory process is very slow," he said. "Because we're putting something in navigable waters, there's a lot of competing interest."

When the licensing process is complete, Taylor said, Verdant plans to research sites on the Hudson River and the Long Island Sound for similar hydroelectric power sites.

The company would install 30 turbines in the East River, and be able to generate 1 megawatt of power. That's enough to power 30,000 homes. The test system had powered a Gristedes supermarket on Roosevelt Island but the new system is substantially different than the test units - both in terms of a reduced number of parts in the new system and that it would be held in place by gravity alone.

On My Nightstand: Swimming With Crocodiles

Will Chaffey didn't know what he wanted to do with his life. He was a high school graduate and awaiting word on college. A trip to Australia seemed like a good idea, and it turned into an adventure and experience of his life in Australia's back country. This is his story.

Doubting the Ratings

It's suddenly become quite fashionable to go after various companies and rating services, particularly Consumer Reports (CR), for auto ratings that have long declared Toyotas to be reliable and recommended.

The consistently strong ratings Toyota vehicles have received over the years from Consumer Reports, Edmunds.com and other consumer auto sites have fueled sales and helped the Japanese company surpass General Motors last year as the world's largest automaker. However, for many consumers, those ratings now appear to fly in the face of serious safety issues spotlighted by the sticky-pedal recall and a separate recall Toyota expanded last fall, aimed at stopping gas pedals from getting caught in floor mats. Both recalls stem from hundreds of complaints of sudden unintended accelerations in Toyotas that have allegedly been linked to more than a dozen fatalities since 1999.

Auto safety experts say consumers might need to adjust their expectations about ratings from private groups because of the limited nature of their testing and the degree to which they rely on government and industry testing that itself is in large part based on trust. And their recommendations are no substitute for proper surveillance by regulators and manufacturers.

Some of the most strident criticism has been reserved for Consumer Reports, which accepts no advertising and is among the most respected reviewers. On Jan. 29, three days after Toyota announced the latest recall, the magazine suspended its recommendations for eight models, citing concerns raised by the recall. Jim Guest, president of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consumer Reports, said in a statement it was doing so because "the vehicles have been identified as potentially unsafe" and "without a fix yet being available to consumers . . . our position is that you shouldn't compromise on safety."

The move sparked a backlash on the magazine's Cars Blog. One reader who identified himself only as Kevin wrote, "instead of giving an automatic 'recommend' rating to Toyotas, don't your think your readership (much of whom looks to you -- and only you) deserves thorough retesting of all Toyotas and revised ratings based on said testing?"

Considering that the reliability rating comes from Consumer Reports' members satisfaction surveys, blaming CR for recommending the cars for years is misplaced.

Toyota rightfully got those ratings for all those years precisely because the cars were deemed reliable by the very drivers who were reporting. The acceleration issues aren't something that would necessarily come up during testing - unlike the rollover hazards uncovered in CR tests with the Suzuki Samurai years ago that pretty much ended that brand's efforts in the US. It was a problem that would develop over years of time and might not be readily apparent from people who had few problems with their cars.

CR has taken the step of eliminating the recommended ratings from Toyota - and that will have a lasting effect with the company since many people look to CR for its auto ratings when buying cars - both new and used.

A major reason that Toyota overtook GM in car sales was that it began targeting car rentals - fleet sales - which was a bastion long held by GM, Ford and Chrysler, and while they don't provide the profits of sales directly to consumers, they are an area in automakers look for bulk sales. Moreover, the fleet sales took a hit as the recession hit and the fleet purchases declined. With Toyota having a smaller exposure to the fleet sales, it didn't take as strong a hit. Moreover, the GM cars did have reliability issues according to CR consumers who reported their findings to CR - and which made up the long term ratings for the cars. That's why they didn't get recommended ratings.

That isn't to say that you can always trust CR with its ratings. I recently purchased a LED television and CR tested flat panel televisions and gave my particular model a middling rating - not checking it off as a best buy or a recommended. I'm not quite sure how they arrived at that conclusion, even though the tv used significantly less power than any other model and would be cheaper to run over the life of the unit. I find that the picture quality is pretty good and the sound isn't nearly as bad as they claim (and many people use their home theater setups to boost the sound anyways).

Then, there's the issue of retailers. Last year, CR rated electronics retailers, and they notably left B&H Photo off their recommended list, even though the company is widely considered the best place in the US to get camera gear. They know more about cameras than most people have forgotten and their New York store is a mecca for camera enthusiasts (and they now have all kinds of electronics gear for sale there as well - computers, televisions, video, etc.). People come from all over the country (and around the world by the sound of those who walk through the store) to buy their gear and the prices are quite competitive with the other stores (both bricks and mortar and online only).

They rated B&H at the top of the list, but downgraded because of the return policy. J&R got a recommended rating, even though it falls short of B&H in every category except the return policy, which isn't to say that J&R isn't a great place to buy stuff - I get gear from there all the time. It makes little sense, when CR gives Apple a recommended rating, even though it gets worse than average ratings for price, selection, and the same return policy as B&H. What gives there?

So, the real issue is not CR and its ratings, but how Toyota is dealing with this mess - the brake issue on its Prius models and the acceleration issue on nearly every other car it's made for the past couple of years. The company is falling short on its ability to fix the problem, and that the problem may not be in the mechanical systems but the electronics is a serious concern given that it's an electronic problem that is behind the braking issue with the Prius (and certain Ford hybrids).

Misleading Headline of the Day

The New York Times reviewed the 2010 Tesla Roadster, an all-electric car that can get 40 miles between charges. It's a sexy car and has all kinds of earth shaking performance at a steep price tag:

The ride was still harsh in the Roadster Sport I tested, but the adjustable suspension with sport and comfort settings was a mild improvement. With its Lotus-derived wishbone suspension and low center of gravity — not to mention the 992-pound lithium-ion battery pack over its rear wheels — the Roadster Sport hugs the road like a go-kart.

All Roadsters use an air-cooled A.C. induction motor rated at 215 kilowatts — the equivalent of 288 horsepower — but the Sport gets a boost to 295 pound-feet of torque over the regular Roadster’s 273 pound-feet, making acceleration stronger from 20 m.p.h. to 50 m.p.h.

The automatic transmission has a single speed. Tesla says that accelerating to 60 m.p.h. in this 2,723-pound dart takes less than 3.7 seconds; the top speed is electronically limited to 125 m.p.h.

The Sport option also includes forged wheels and Yokohama ultrahigh-performance tires that provide a level of grip you’d need a racetrack to fully exploit.

Brembo brakes will effectively stop the car, but the immediate regenerative braking when taking your foot off the accelerator is more than enough to whoa it down (to about 3 m.p.h.). The car can be driven at least 90 percent of the time with just your right foot.

The problem is the headline.

There's no such thing as a carbon-free car, even if it's an electric car. In most parts of the country, electricity is generated from coal or oil, so the electricity is not carbon-free. The car might have no tailpipe emissions, but that doesn't mean carbon-free.

It just means that the emissions are diverted to someone else's problem - the power utilities. It also doesn't take into account the energy needed to build the vehicles.

The only way to get a truly carbon-free vehicle for tailpipe emissions purposes is to have electric cars that are using electricity wholly generated from alternative sources and nuclear power. That's it. Until then, we're just deluding ourselves that we have carbon-free power for electric cars. We're only shifting around the emissions burdens to someone else - and as more electric cars hit the road, the need to build new power plants will increase. That means that until the US gets serious about building new nuclear power plants and transmission lines, we're stuck with the same old problems with emissions.

Bloomberg Targets MTA Retiree Perks To Balance Budget

I'd say that this is a good start. The MTA has long provided free MTA passes for its retirees among other things (which included free access for LIRR retirees for state golf courses). That means someone retiring from the MTA could get free bus, subway, and rail tickets in perpetuity. It's something that's been bargained for in the MTA contracts for as long as can be remembered.

But, at a time when the MTA is facing a $800 million budget hole - and the city and state can't afford to fill the gap, all aspects of MTA operations have to be examined. The MTA sought to close part of the budget gap by ending the student MTA card program, which provides free and reduced fares to nearly 1 million students in New York City. Mind you, that's how those students get to school every day, so killing the program would be a major hit to the students and their parents.

The union has tried to frame this as an attack against the senior citizens and retirees, yet under the current MTA plan, senior citizens are entitled to reduced fare MetroCards and Access-A-Ride options. That isn't changing. So, instead of a freebie on the state taxpayers, they'd get a reduced fare. Perish the thought of the union doing something that makes fiscal sense for the state; it wouldn't be in the union members' best interests any other way.

The Mayor ought to stick to his guns and get this done. There's plenty of fat in the MTA budget - and in the City budget - and no one can afford it.

A New Paterson Scandal Bubbling Up From the Depths?

The blogosphere is abuzz that there may be a scandal set to erupt surrounding the escapades of embattled New York Governor David Paterson. Gothamist, HuffPo and others are busy saying that there's something there, and that the New York Times is sitting on the story until they're ready to release it, which could have come as early as yesterday and may go sometime this weekend or Monday. The rumor - and I stress that it's rumor - is that it involves wife-swapping and drugs at the Governor's mansion.

Just how much there is actually there? Paterson's infidelities wouldn't actually surprise anyone given that he copped to being unfaithful the day after he took office. He even had campaign funds used to pay for the hotel rooms used in his affair. But wife-swapping at the Governor's mansion? Not so much. Not that I want to picture such things either.

What is more likely is that it's going to focus on Paterson's  banning state troopers from the mansion and how that can be viewed as scandalous or an abuse of discretion.

Yet, we've got rumors of continued infidelity even without the latest rumors. I posted the reports of his apparent rendezvous at a New Jersey steakhouse (Palm River Terrace in Edgewater, which is a great steakhouse for the food btw). Paterson denies any wrong-doing. There are rumors that he was caught in a closet with another woman, yet for all the rumor, there is nothing there.

This is a non-story, and not even the National Enquirer is jumping on this story. For now.

Paterson is wounded politically, and is facing a potential challenger in the form of juggernaut Andrew Cuomo, the state attorney general who has raised funds like there's no tomorrow and would probably crush Paterson in the primary. The only reason that the New York Times would be a delay in running the story is that it would be literally buried behind the news surrounding the massive snowstorm hitting the Mid-Atlantic (and which has pretty much missed New York City except for Southern Brooklyn and Staten Island).

And just in case that these rumors do pan out? Meet Lieutenant Governor Richard Ravitch. He was the former head of the MTA and has experience running major agencies and has political ties to pretty much everyone in the Democratic party. More important is the fact that he was central to bailing New York out of the fiscal disaster of the 1970s. That's a skill that's sorely lacking among many of the state and local officials.

Common Sense Is An Endangered Species

The NYC Department of Education has apparently put common sense on the endangered species list. Bureaucrats, teachers, and principals have put together quite a list this week of evidence that common sense is in exceedingly short supply.

Let's start at the top.

A Staten Island student was nearly suspended from school by his principal after the student was found to have a toy gun on school property. This wasn't just any toy gun, but a Lego toy gun that measured less than 2 inches long and couldn't be mistaken for anything but a toy.

Patrick Timoney, a fourth-grader at PS 52, South Beach, was nearly suspended after playing with LEGOs during his lunch period because one of the action figures was carrying at toy machine gun.

He and his friends had planned a playdate with their respective toys, and were sitting around the cafeteria table when the principal walked in and saw the action figure carrying the fake gun.

While the action figure was a standard LEGO policeman figure, the brand of the gun could not be determined.

"She took him into her office in the middle of the lunch period and he was crying," said the boy's mother, Laura Timoney. "He was afraid."

The principal called Ms. Timoney and said she considered the toy suspension-worthy, and that she was going to double-check with a security administrator from the city Department of Education.

According to Ms. Timoney, the administrator said the toy should be confiscated and returned to the parents at the end of the day, and that no other action was necessary.

"It's crazy," Ms. Timoney said. "He's missing class time, all for silly toys. The boys are just trying to relax. If there's a real threat, why not call the Police Department?"

She pointed out that another child had an action figure that was holding an ax, but that only Patrick was reprimanded.

"When are we going to take responsibility for common sense and logic?" Ms. Timoney said.

The DOE's discipline code says that all imitation weapons are prohibited, but, before considering suspension, it is up to a principal to decide whether a fake gun looks realistic, by evaluating the color, size, shape, appearance and weight.

Who in their right mind is going to confuse a Lego gun toy with anything approaching what might be a real gun? Simply telling the student that they shouldn't bring it to school again should have been more than sufficient - that school policy has a zero-tolerance policy on all imitation weapons (which should have gotten the other students a similar reprimand).

Then, there's the student who was arrested and handcuffed for doodling on her desk.

Alexa Gonzalez was scribbling a few words on her desk Monday while waiting for her Spanish teacher to pass out homework at Junior High School 190 in Forest Hills, she said.

"I love my friends Abby and Faith," the girl wrote, adding the phrases "Lex was here. 2/1/10" and a smiley face.

But instead of simply cleaning off the doodles after class, Alexa landed in some adult-sized trouble for using her lime-green magic marker.

She was led out of school in cuffs and walked to the precinct across the street, where she was detained for several hours, she and her mother said.

Instead of teaching the student to not do so or to provide suitable punishment, Gonzales was led out in handcuffs. She was hardly the first to be trotted out in handcuffs for minor infractions, but that doesn't make any of these cases any less egregious. The appropriate punishment would be to make the students go around with cleaning supplies and clean the desks of any such scribbles, not a ride to the police station in cuffs.

At the other end of the spectrum, you've got the staff of James Madison HS in Brooklyn that can't keep their hands off each other, or students, all while Administrators can't quite rid the school system of bad apples and instead keeps them on the payroll in the rubber rooms.

NYC Department of Transportation Already Fixing New Paving On Staten Island

Just as the MTA is now spending time and money to fix the brand new South Ferry station because of problems with waterproofing and other issues, the NYC Department of Transportation is out on Staten Island fixing the brand new pavement that was laid down two months ago. The $3 million paving job on the Expressway was a stop-gap measure while a more lengthy rehabilitation project gets underway, but the pavement was supposed to last 3-5 years. At this rate, it's never going to last that long, and drivers will be treated to a bone-jarring ride before long if the DOT can't keep up with the stop-gap fixes.

About That Latest Jobs Report

The Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has released its latest jobs report and found that the unemployment rate dipped to 9.7% for January. However, it isn't all that it's cracked up to be.

The rate didn't dip because the economy was creating hundreds of thousands of new jobs, but because the BLS decided that they were undercounting the number of people who were looking for jobs. Therefore, the size of the potential workforce was larger by about half a million. That's why the rate dipped. "Unexpectedly"

Payrolls unexpectedly fell in January, but the unemployment rate surprisingly dropped to a five-month low, according to a government report on Friday that hinted at labor market improvement.

The Labor Department said the economy shed 20,000 jobs after losing 150,000 jobs in December. November was revised to a gain of 64,000, up from 4,000. Annual benchmark revisions to payrolls data showed the economy has purged 8.4 million jobs since the start of the recession in December 2007.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast payrolls gaining 5,000 and the unemployment rate to edge up to 10.1 percent in January from 10 percent. Median estimates from the top 20 forecasters expected payrolls to be unchanged last month.

"It shows net-net that we are seeing a slow improvement in the labor market. There are some encouraging signs in the report ... but it wasn't quite good enough to push us into positive territory just yet," said Boris Schlossberg, director of FX Research at GFT Forex in New York.

Here's how the BLS reported the news:

In January, the number of persons unemployed due to job loss decreased by
378,000 to 9.3 million. Nearly all of this decline occurred among permanent
job losers. (See table A-11.)

The number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over)
continued to trend up in January, reaching 6.3 million. Since the start of
the recession in December 2007, the number of long-term unemployed has risen
by 5.0 million. (See table A-12.)

In January, the civilian labor force participation rate was little changed at
64.7 percent. The employment-population ratio rose from 58.2 to 58.4 percent.
(See table A-1.)

The number of persons who worked part time for economic reasons (sometimes
referred to as involuntary part-time workers) fell from 9.2 to 8.3 million
in January. These individuals were working part time because their hours had
been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See
table A-8.)

About 2.5 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force in
January, an increase of 409,000 from a year earlier.

Nonfarm payroll dropped every month in 2009 save November, where it inched up by 60,000. Every other month saw a loss of 38,000 to 101,000.

Ford; Toyota Investigating Brake Issues With Hybrids

Ford is investigating a software issue with two of its hybrid vehicles, the Mercury Milan and Ford Fusions while Toyota is looking at similar problems with its popular Toyota Prius.

The automaker says the problem occurs in transition between two braking systems and at no time are drivers without brakes.

The decision to fix the 2010 model cars came after a test driver for Consumer Reports magazine experienced the problem as he was driving a Fusion Hybrid.
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Ford spokesman Said Deep says braking power seems to drop away as the car makes a transition from regenerative brakes to the conventional system. The Ford hybrids have regenerative brakes, which capture energy from braking to help recharge the battery, in addition to a conventional system that stops the car using hydraulic pressure.

Deep says Ford will notify the car owners to bring their cars in for a software fix. He said there is no safety problem with the cars. The automaker called the repairs a "customer satisfaction program" and said it was not a full-fledged recall. Deep said Ford reported the problems to a U.S. safety agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The move comes on the same day that NHTSA began an evaluation of braking problems on the 2010 Toyota Prius hybrid. With the Prius, antilock brakes can fail momentarily while the car transitions between its gasoline and electric motors.

Ford told dealers about a fix on Thursday. They already had the software to repair it in case it came up, Deep said.

Toyota's woes keep getting worse, even with the head of the company finally offering a mea culpa and steps to prevent future problems.

Addidas and Snoop Dogg Have Gone to the Dark Side

Addidas and Lucasfilm have gotten together to crossbrand new sneakers and other products with a Star Wars flavor. That's put Snoop Dogg under the spell of the Dark Side as well.

The new product line can be seen here (HT: Mrs. Lawhawk).

Islamic Terror Barbarism Again On Display

Al Qaeda and its many splinter groups continue targeting Muslims in its latest attacks in Pakistan and Iraq. First, there was a pair of bombings in Karachi, Pakistan. The first bomb blew up a bus carrying Shi'ite women and children for an Arbaeen procession. The second bomb targeting the hospital where the victims from the first blast were treated.

The first blast targeted a bus carrying worshippers, most of them women and children, killing 12 and wounding 49, officials said. The bomb was attached to a motorcycle and detonated as the bus drove to an Arbaeen procession, witnesses said. One witness said it may have been a suicide bombing, but that could not be confirmed.

The second bomb exploded outside the entrance to the emergency ward at Jinnah Hospital, which was packed with victims and relatives of those killed and wounded in the earlier attack. It was either hidden on a motorbike or in or close to an ambulance, a witness and a government official said.

Meanwhile, a bombing outside Baghdad killed Shi'ites attending Arbaeen commemorations:

A suicide attacker detonated a car bomb alongside a crowd of Shiite pilgrims walking to a holy city south of Baghdad, killing at least 27 people and wounding 70. It was the third deadly bombing this week against Shiites converging on the holy city of Karbala, where Imam Hussein was killed in battle in 632.

New Life Children's Ministries Facing Serious Charges Over Orphan Situation

The legal situation facing the American charity New Life Children's Ministries in Haiti is a serious one and one that could have been wholly avoided had they chosen to follow the law and procedures for orphans and adoption rules. 10 of its members are now facing possible criminal charges over human trafficking; they were caught trying to take 33 kids out of Haiti without any documentation or authorizations.

How many valuable resources are now going to deal with this mess that could otherwise be devoted to actually providing humanitarian aid and helping orphans in need?

Here's how the situation apparently unfolded:

It all began last week when a local orphanage worker, fluent in English and acting on behalf of the Baptists, convened nearly the entire village of 500 people on a dirt soccer field to present the Americans' offer.

Isaac Adrien, 20, told his neighbors the missionaries would educate their children in the neighboring Dominican Republic, the villagers said, adding that they were also assured they would be free to visit their children there.

Many parents jumped at the offer.

"It's only because the bus was full that more children didn't go," said Melanie Augustin, a 58-year-old who gave her 10-year-old daughter, Jovin, to the Americans.

Adrien said he met the Baptists' leader, Laura Silsby of Meridian, Idaho, in Port-au-Prince on Jan. 26. She told him she was looking for homeless children, he said, and he knew exactly where to find them.

He rushed home to Callebas, where people scrape by growing carrots, peppers and onions. That very day, he had a list of 20 children.

Desperate people in desperate situations make all kinds of decisions that we might not otherwise consider (like sending their kids away with a bunch of strangers claiming that they'll get a better life somewhere else. Yet, the group claims that the kids were orphans.

The group claims and those of relatives of the kids claim two different things. One side says that the kids were orphans. The other says that the church group got permission from family members. In no case were government authorizations provided.

The problem with the various versions is that regardless of which version you believe (that they had permission from family members or that the kids were indeed orphans, the group had no government approvals or documentation to do any of this.

As such, at a minimum, the group should be expelled from Haiti and prevented from doing business there. It does seem thought that 9 of the 10 will get released, while 1 will likely stand trial - Laura Silsby (and Silsby's track record back in her homestate of Idaho isn't much better with lawsuits and unpaid obligations all over the place).


In the meantime, the kids are being cared for at Austrian run orphanage in Port au Prince.

UPDATE:
Charges have been filed against all 10 members that were arrested. They face counts of  kidnapping and criminal association.

New Jersey's Budget Troubles Coincide With Affluent Moving Away

If you want yet another lesson as to what high taxes and a crushing tax burden will do to a state's finances, look no further than New Jersey. It's problems aren't nearly as bad as New York (for now), but the affluent have been steadily moving away for years, and that leaves an ever higher tax burden on those who remain to pay the bill. The state has lost billions in revenues as the net worth of those who have moved away was $70 billion.

More than $70 billion in wealth left New Jersey between 2004 and 2008 as affluent residents moved elsewhere, according to a report released Wednesday that marks a swift reversal of fortune for a state once considered the nation’s wealthiest.

Conducted by the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College, the report found wealthy households in New Jersey were leaving for other states — mainly Florida, Pennsylvania and New York — at a faster rate than they were being replaced.

• Rutgers University economists say it could take seven years to recover from recession

“The wealth is not being replaced,” said John Havens, who directed the study. “It’s above and beyond the general trend that is affecting the rest of the northeast.”

This was not always the case. The study – the first on interstate wealth migration in the country — noted the state actually saw an influx of $98 billion in the five years preceding 2004. The exodus of wealth, then, local experts and economists concluded, was a reaction to a series of changes in the state’s tax structure — including increases in the income, sales, property and “millionaire” taxes.

“This study makes it crystal clear that New Jersey’s tax policies are resulting in a significant decline in the state’s wealth,” said Dennis Bone, chairman of the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce and president of Verizon New Jersey.

While the number of people moving away during that time was only slightly below the number of people moving into the state, the average net worth of those individuals moving away was more than double:

Findings from the report show that about 302,780 households left New Jersey between 2004 and 2008, only slightly lower than the 323,350 households that moved into the state. However, the average net worth of the departing households was about 70 percent higher, at $618,330.

That puts the state in an unsustainable economic path and the revenue projections have not taken any of this in to account. Instead, taxes keep rising to maintain a budget level that has been unsustainable for years and it continues to drive people out of the state. Many of those who do come to New Jersey are fleeing the even higher tax burdened states and localities like New York City, although with the rising tax burden in New Jersey, the migration from New York and Connecticut has slowed, and with it the high income taxpayers that the state relies heavily upon to balance its books.

The migration affects the state budget, charitable giving, endowments, and the standard of living throughout the state.

A copy of the full report is here.

Enough With This "Unexpected" Economic News Nonsense

It seems that the only people who think that the unemployment figures and other bad economic data reports are unexpected are the so-called experts polled by various news outlets and deliver headlines such as this. Week after week, month after month, we're treated to "unexpected" rises in jobless claims, unemployment rates, and various other economic news that is all consistent with an ongoing recession.

Wishful thinking by economists and media outlets that this is turning around so quickly is driving the "unexpected" headlines, even though the evidence continues to mount that the economy remains stuck in a recessionary atmosphere and that job losses are set to grow - again. In fact, we're about to be hit with an "unexpected" loss of more than 800,000 jobs that may never have been created in the first place for the period of April 2008 to March 2009. That would be the largest downward revision in decades.

New York's Tax Troubles Reflect Wall Street's Woes

Tax the rich. Make them pay their fair share.

Those are the incessant refrains coming from the Democrats these days (and most days). Well, the reason that New York is facing a multibillion dollar deficit is that all those taxes piled on the rich simply aren't bringing in the revenues that they did when Wall Street was roaring ahead.

New York State officials staring at holes in the budget this time of year generally have had a trusty cushion to fall back on: a mattress stuffed full of Wall Street bonus money.

But this year is what is known in business schools as an outlier. The tide of negative sentiment toward the big banks has thrown the normal flow and structure of pay on Wall Street out of whack. The taxes on those bonuses, in turn, are falling well short of expectations, widening the state’s budget deficit by the day.

On Wednesday, the state’s Budget Division said that the deficit for the next fiscal year, which will start April 1, was already $750 million larger than it appeared when Gov. David A. Paterson laid out his proposed budget two weeks ago.

The state had expected to collect $1 billion to $1.5 billion in taxes on Wall Street pay in the last two weeks of January, said Robert L. Megna, the budget director. But at the end of the month, tax revenue was about $1 billion shy of what had been projected, Mr. Megna said.

“We know that big guys typically pay us at the end of January,” Mr. Megna said, referring to large banks like Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase. “Last week, after the budget came out, they didn’t pay us.”

One reason for the shortfall is that the banks have been cowed by public outrage and political rhetoric into cutting back sharply on the amount of cash they pay as bonuses. Citigroup, for example, capped cash payouts at $100,000 this year, a fraction of the millions some top producers and senior executives have taken home in the past.

When you have a tax scheme that is disproportionately reliant on any one sector of the economy, you're going to run into serious trouble when that sector enters a recession. New York has known for years that the Wall Street cash cow was susceptible to recessions, that further taxes and fees might drive business out of the state, and that consolidation in the financial sector would reduce tax revenues to the city and state.

Yet, the state has done nothing to address this by reducing spending. They've maintained or grown their state spending above the rate of inflation, and put New York on the precipice of a gaping budget deficit, which depending on who you talk to is anywhere from $8.2 billion (up from $7.4 billion estimated a few weeks ago - precisely because of the falloff from the tax revenues) to levels far in excess of that. State Comptroller Tom DiNapoli says that the Governor is underestimating the problem and basing its figures on wishful thinking of increased revenues coming in over the next two months to make up for a massive shortfall to date.

At least Paterson is astute enough to note that Wall Street isn't going to be able to bail the state out of the mess this time; they've milked it for all it's worth and there's nothing left to give without destroying the financial markets and forcing them to look for somewhere that has a lower tax burden (and New Jersey will gladly offer up tax breaks to lure Wall Street firms to Jersey City and Newark - within shouting distance of Lower Manhattan just as they've been doing for their back-office functions for years).

On My Nightstand: The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean's Are One

Sylvia Earle's The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean's Are One recounts her experiences and observations about the ocean ecology after diving around the world, and how we've used and abused the world's oceans in the past century. While many consider the ocean's ability to rebound is endless, continued overfishing and pollution will lead to irreparable harm.

With the planet covered in mostly water, that pollution and overfishing is starting to add up - and the consequences are significant. Better conservation is needed to protect this most precious natural resource.

Aafia Siddiqui Found Guilty of Attempted Murder

Even with all her antics, Aafia Siddiqui was found guilty by a jury after a 3-week trial.

A U.S.-trained Pakistani scientist was convicted Wednesday of charges that she tried to kill Americans while detained in Afghanistan in 2008, shouting with raised arm as jurors left the courtroom: ``This is a verdict coming from Israel, not America.''

A jury deliberated three days in federal court in Manhattan before finding Aafia Siddiqui guilty in the third week of her attempted murder trial, which she often interrupted with rambling courtroom outbursts.

After declaring the verdict came from Israel, she turned toward spectators in the packed courtroom and said: ``Your anger should be directed where it belongs. I can testify to this and I have proof.''

Siddiqui, 37, was convicted of attempted murder, though the crime was not found by the jury to be premeditated. She was also convicted of armed assault, using and carrying a firearm, and assault of U.S. officers and employees.

Before her arrest, U.S. authorities had called Siddiqui an al-Qaida sympathizer. She was never charged with terrorism, but prosecutors called her a grave threat who was carrying bomb-making instructions and a list of New York City landmarks including the Statue of Liberty when she was captured.

It wouldn't be complete, however, without her engaging in yet another outburst claiming that the verdict was phoned in from Israel.

It was likely much easier to prove the attempted murder charge rather than risk outing any national security secrets or classified information related to her involvement with al Qaeda.

Canadian CYA Over Newfoundland Premier Seeking Surgery In USA

Canadian health officials are trying to CYA claiming that Newfoundland Premier Danny Williams could have received the heart surgery in Canada and that he didn't have to go to the US for the procedure.

The surgery Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Danny Williams required may not be available in his home province, but chances are it's available in his home country, experts say.

Williams — an outspoken proponent of public health care — went to the U.S. Monday morning for a heart procedure his office said couldn't be done in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Williams' office has been tight-lipped about the situation, refusing to disclose what type of procedure he's undergoing, or where. Canadian medical experts insist that when it comes to heart procedures, there's nothing you can get in the U.S. that you can't get here. You just have to wait a bit longer, and the accommodations aren't as nice.

Dr. Arvind Koshal, a prominent Alberta cardiac surgeon, told the Globe and Mail Williams is sending the message that if you have money, you can forgo the hassles of public health care and pay for quicker service south of the border.

“The optics are very poor, especially for people who are proponents of the Canadian health-care system,” said Koshal.

Dr. Wilbert Keon, a heart surgery pioneer in Ottawa and a Conservative senator, told the Globe there is “no question” Williams could have chosen to remain in Canada.

Meanwhile, U.S. opponents of President Barack Obama's proposed health-care reform have made Williams their poster child. Obama aims to extend health care to the country's uninsured — a move critics say will extend wait times, turning America's health-care system into the Canadian model.

Patients First, an American organization against Obama's health-care reform plan, cited Williams' decision as proof the Canadian system is flawed.

Note the part I set off in bold. You have to wait longer and the accommodations aren't nearly as nice. For someone who needs heart surgery, delays can add to the costs and reduces quality of life. That's not a good thing. Neither is the fact that the Canadian officials admit that the accommodations aren't as nice. There is something to spending lots of money on health care infrastructure - you more often than not get what you pay for.

Astronomical Image of the Day

This one has got scientists baffled.

"Two small and previously unknown asteroids recently collided, creating a shower of debris that is being swept back into a tail from the collision site by the pressure of sunlight," said principal investigator David Jewitt of the University of California at Los Angeles.

The object - dubbed “P/2010 A2” after it was discovered in early January by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research program sky survey - has traits similar to a comet, but the x-shape appears disconnected from the tail.

"The filamentary appearance of P/2010 A2 is different from anything seen in Hubble images of normal comets," Jewitt said.

Some folks think it looks like an X-wing fighter or a spacecraft from the Last Starfighter or Wing Commander.

It's no moon. But it isn't a space station either.

UPDATE:
We now have a video that might be the unidentified object in action:

Where the MTA Can Find Savings

The MTA is staring at a $400 million budget gap, and they're looking to close it through a combination of service cuts and other measures that would basically mean more crowded subways and buses during off-peak hours and longer wait times.

So, what else can be done to reduce the budget gap going forward?

How about better construction practices so that we aren't forced to fix or rebuild brand new stations that are already showing signs of decay despite being open less than a year. The South Ferry station was opened in the past year, and is already showing serious signs of decay. Water stains and leaks are everywhere, leading to tile damage (and likely other damage that is hidden behind the walls).

But the contractor, Schiavone Construction of Secaucus, botched the waterproofing for the station, which is located deep under the water table, according to the MTA’s independent engineer. For its part, Schiavone claimed that the MTA had flubbed the project’s design. An independent dispute board ruled last year that both parties were at fault and must share costs for the remediation.

"They gotta fix what the problem is," said Jay Ferrer, 37, a Lower Manhattan straphanger.

Schiavone did not return a request for comment. Next month, the MTA will grout and add new tiles to the station with $3 million, which came from the contractor as part of the settlement, agency spokesman Kevin Ortiz said. The grouting should cure the problem, he said.

“Water infiltration will be addressed,” he said.

But the leaking could continue, as workers will basically fill in joint cracks instead of reengineering the station with better waterproofing technology, Henderson said.

It's basically a band-aid for a problem that will be with the station for the foreseeable future.

Poor construction methods and inadequate design considerations means that the estimated life of the infrastructure is reduced and increases maintenance costs going forward. Better and more stringent design, construction and maintenance would reduce overall costs. So, why is the MTA continuing to work with the same contractors who keep making the same kinds of mistakes?

A system to evaluate contractors’ performance, in place for 12 years, was intended to help the authority keep inadequate contractors from landing future jobs, many of which are worth upward of a million dollars in public funds.

But fewer than 5 percent of the 2,579 contractors evaluated between 2006 and 2008 received a grade of marginal, and fewer than 1 percent were graded unsatisfactory, the lowest mark, according to the report, which was released Tuesday. In several instances, evaluators reported feeling pressured by upper management to raise their ratings, apparently to avoid hampering the authority’s ability to deal with vendors in the future.

“Managers sometimes allowed what they perceived to be agency ‘business decisions’ to override their true assessments of contractor performance,” the report found, noting that there is “an institutional reluctance, for a variety of reasons, to rate contractors’ work as ‘unsatisfactory,’ even when such ratings are the most appropriate.”

The authority is constantly under fire for rampant delays and ballooning budgets on its major construction projects, including the Second Avenue subway, which are often handled nearly entirely by private contractors. Jay H. Walder, the authority’s chairman, admitted last month that some vendors told him they build an “M.T.A. premium” into their bids, because of the perceived difficulty of working on projects with the authority.

“Too often we have let our contractors slide when they fail to perform, and that is why we have accepted the I.G.’s recommendations and are working to implement them,” Mr. Walder said Tuesday in a prepared statement.

Each time that the MTA let a contractor slide when they failed to perform, the costs get passed on to the commuters and taxpayers who have to pay for the problems in lost time and use and money spent to fix the problems.

It's a problem that has to end. Contractors have to live up to their obligations and fix the problems or they are no longer able to work on projects. Each time the MTA works with a contractor who is not fulfilling its obligations, it costs everyone money - money that no one has.

Congress Warned Terror Attack Likely Within Next Six Months

Well, we've always been threatened by international terrorists for more than two decades, but this is a particularly worrisome report; Congress was warned that we should expect a terror attack within the US within the next six months from an al Qaeda or an affiliate:

The assessment by Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence, was much starker than his view last year, when he emphasized the considerable progress in the campaign to debilitate Al Qaeda and said that the global economic meltdown, rather than the prospect of a major terrorist attack, was the “primary near-term security concern of the United States.”

Citing a recent wave of terrorist plots, including the failed Dec. 25 attempt to blow up an airliner as it approached Detroit, Mr. Blair and other intelligence officials told a Senate panel that Al Qaeda had adjusted its tactics to more effectively strike American targets domestically and abroad.

“The biggest threat is not so much that we face an attack like 9/11,” said Leon E. Panetta, the C.I.A. director. “It is that Al Qaeda is adapting its methods in ways that oftentimes make it difficult to detect.”

As the C.I.A. continues its campaign of drone attacks aimed at Qaeda operatives in the mountains of Pakistan, the officials also said that the network’s splinter groups in Yemen and Somalia were taking on more importance.

But Mr. Blair began his annual threat testimony before Congress by saying that the threat of a crippling attack on telecommunications and other computer networks was growing as an increasingly sophisticated group of enemies had “severely threatened” the sometimes fragile systems undergirding the country’s information infrastructure.

It is highly unusual that the CIA and national security establishment would provide such a specific timeframe for their analysis.

Yet, the DHS advisory system is unchanged: it's yellow generally and orange for flights. It would behoove DHS to increase the threat levels so as to increase scrutiny on those areas it considers to be possible targets if they're really contemplating that a terror attack would be attempted within the next six months.

At the same time, the intel services are concerned that there may be a cyberattack that could result in crippling damage of some form.

Meanwhile, there are reports that the underwear bombing suspect Abdul Mutallab is talking to investigators and giving valuable intel. That could be part of the reason that the intel services believe that al Qaeda is threatening an attack within the next six months.

In recent days, two law enforcement sources said, Abdulmutallab has told authorities more about where he trained overseas and others he met there -- leads that the FBI has shared with other members of the U.S. intelligence community. Investigators are following up to corroborate the information.

U.S. investigators flew members of Abdulmutallab's family from Nigeria to the United States on Jan. 17, the senior administration official said. The family members have proved vital in getting Abdulmutallab to talk, he said -- indicating that it would have been counterproductive to interrogate him under military rules, as some have suggested.

The president is getting briefings on the interrogations of Abdulmutallab, the official said.

All three sources spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is ongoing.

Officials are continuing to flesh out Abdulmutallab's contacts with radical Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Aulaqi, who allegedly met with the suspect before the bombing, one source said.

No plea deal between Justice Department lawyers and federal public defender Miriam Siefer is imminent, the sources said, but both sides began negotiating last week, as reported by The Washington Post.

If convicted, Abdulmutallab faces a virtual life sentence on six criminal charges, including using a plane as a weapon of mass destruction. In exchange for his renewed cooperation, authorities could recommend that a federal judge reduce any prison sentence Abdulmutallab might face, a common occurrence in the criminal justice system.

The best advice is to remain vigilant and to watch for unusual behavior and items that seem out of place.

Rep. Murtha Hospitalized For Complications From Gallbladder Surgery

Pennsylvania Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) is in a Virginia hospital for complications from a gallbladder removal done laparascopically last week. The original procedure was done at Bethesda Naval Hospital last week, and apparently Rep. Murtha had complications requiring admission to Virginia Medical Center in Arlington.

Murtha, 77, had been suffering from gallbladder pain and problems in December and arranged to have the organ removed last week at Bethesda Naval Hospital. A spokesman for the Pennsylvania Democrat declined to discuss the seriousness of the situation that sent Murtha back to another hospital's intensive care unit.

"Congressman Murtha underwent a scheduled laparoscopic surgery to remove his gallbladder last week," his spokesman Matt Mazonkey said. "Complications did arise from the surgery and he is currently at the Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington."

Patients who undergo gallbladder surgery can face significant tenderness and recovery issues, but serious complications are rare -- occurring in as few as 0.6 to 2.2 percent of cases.

One potential complication related to the kind of surgery that Murtha underwent results from accidental cutting of the common bile ducts. These nicks can lead to bile backing up in the blood stream and serious infections.

I'm no fan of Murtha, but wish him a swift recovery.

Study Linking Autism with MMR Vaccine Retracted

The English medical journal, the Lancet, is retracting its 1998 publication of a study which linked the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine to autism. (HT: Mrs. Legalbgl)

LONDON -- A major British medical journal on Tuesday retracted a flawed study linking the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine to autism and bowel disease.

The retraction by The Lancet comes a day after a competing medical journal, BMJ, issued an embargoed commentary calling for The Lancet to formally retract the study. The commentary was to have been published on Wednesday.

The BMJ commentary said once the study by British surgeon and medical researcher Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues appeared in 1998 in The Lancet, "the arguments were considered by many to be proven and the ghastly social drama of the demon vaccine took on a life of its own."

***

Ten of Wakefield's 13 co-authors renounced the study's conclusions several years ago and The Lancet has previously said it should never have published the research.

"We fully retract this paper from the published record," Lancet editors said in a statement Tuesday.

Last week, Britain's General Medical Council ruled that Wakefield had shown a "callous disregard" for the children used in his study and acted unethically. Wakefield and the two colleagues who have not renounced the study face being stripped of their right to practice medicine in Britain.

This does not come as a great shock to many in the medical field. Approximately 25 studies have been published disputing the link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

Personally, I know several parents of young children who either refuse to give the MMR vaccine, or who want to give it later than the CDC recommends, i.e., first dose at 12-18 months, second dose at 4-6 years. However, this places additional risks on the child. Recently, 11 cases of measles were reported in Queens, and previously, 26 cases in New York City in 2008 were reported. Also, in October, a mumps outbreak was reported in both Brooklyn and Lakewood, NJ. If parents fail to vaccinate their children they risk exposing them to these serious diseases, as well as exposing children to young to receive the vaccine, something that has potential for deadly consequences.

UPDATE: From CNN

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention praised The Lancet's retraction, saying, "It builds on the overwhelming body of research by the world's leading scientists that concludes there is no link between MMR vaccine and autism. We want to remind parents that vaccines are very safe and effective and they save lives. Parents who have questions about the safety of vaccines should talk to their pediatrician or their child's health care provider."

Since its publication, Wakefield's study has attracted many critics who argued that the work had been so flawed it should not be regarded as scientific.

Wakefield theorized that the measles vaccine caused gastrointestinal problems and that those GI problems led to autism. In his view, the virus used in the vaccine grew in the intestinal tract, leading the bowel to become porous because of inflammation. Then material seeped from the bowel into the blood, Wakefield's theory said, affecting the nervous system and causing autism.

But subsequent research has been unable to duplicate Wakefield's findings.

Canadian Premier From Newfoundland Seeks Surgical Care In US?

Canada has a single payer system, and yet Newfoundland's premier, Danny Williams, is having a cardiac surgical procedure done in the US instead.

If you think that raises eyebrows. It should.

"He has gone to a renowned expert in the procedure that he needs to have done," said Ms. Dunderdale, who will become acting premier while Mr. Williams is away for three to 12 weeks.

"In consultation with his own doctors, he's decided to go that route."

Mr. Williams' decision to leave Canada for the surgery has raised eyebrows over his apparent shunning of Canada's health-care system.

"It was never an option offered to him to have this procedure done in this province," said Ms. Dunderdale, refusing to answer whether the procedure could be done elsewhere in Canada.

Mr. Williams, 59, has said nothing of his health in the media.

"The premier has made a commitment that once he's through this procedure and he's well enough, he's going to talk about the whole process and share as much detail with you as he's comfortable to do at that time," she said.

Ms. Dunderdale wouldn't say where in the U.S. Mr. Williams is seeking treatment.

So, it was never an option to have the surgical procedure in Newfoundland? Is that because there simply weren't any surgeons who could perform the procedure or that there were better doctors elsewhere? It's curious that there's no mention of where Williams will have the surgery done or what kind of procedure is to be performed so that we can judge the kind of expertise necessary.

Those facts would certainly inform Williams' decision. It would also be of interest to know how much he's going to pay for the procedure, since he's found it better to pay for the procedure in the US than stick with Canadian care. What kind of waiting time is there for the procedure.

There are plenty of questions that need to be addressed but that a major politician in Canada is taking his medical care to the US should raise questions for those in Canada who can't make the trip to the States for care.

This report suggests that Williams is in Florida for the heart surgery.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 92

A recent decision by an arbitrator to refuse to give Larry Silverstein billions of dollars in compensation because of missed opportunities to secure financing was just one part of a larger problem. Construction is progressing at Ground Zero, but the continuing mess that is the former Deutsche Bank building demolition looms ever larger.

The building has to be demolished before construction can proceed on the Ground Zero Vehicle Security Center. Without that center, businesses wont be able to conduct business through the rest of the site even if the office towers are built.

But the VSC situation might be the most meaningful, and ominous, of all.

The VSC, one of several projects for which the PA is responsible, won't be finished until late 2013, according to a confidential PA report cited by the arbitrators.

The further delay in that already twice-delayed job gives Silverstein reason -- or an excuse, depending on your point of view -- for not wanting to build his towers any time soon.

Without the VSC, trucks won't be able to get to them, thus making lease-up and servicing impossible.

After all, why put up towers costing $1 billion each with no certainty they could actually be used?

According to the 2006 master development agreement between Silverstein and the PA, the VSC was supposed to be done by February 2011. Then, PA Executive Director Chris Ward's "Roadmap" of October 2008 moved the "target" to finish the VSC back to early 2012.

But that report also said the VSC's "probabilistic" -- i.e., more likely -- completion was the third quarter of that year.

Now, the arbitrators have bared a confidential PA analysis stating that the VSC won't be finished until September 2013. (The PA apparently regarded all previous targets as "aspirational," a level of fantasy even beyond "probabilistic.")

No one is going to want to take leases on office space if they can't actually stock the offices or maintain their daily operations if they can't get the daily supplies through a non-existent VSC. Those delays continue mounting and the interminable delay in demolition is taking its toll on Silverstein to secure leases for the office towers he's supposed to build.

It now appears that taking down a single floor every few weeks is overly optimistic - and there are 20+ floors remaining on the site.

It's little wonder that the construction schedules are all out of kilter for the 3 and 4 WTC sites; there's little impetus to move ahead when the LMDC and Port Authority can't guarantee a start date on the VSC (let alone a completion date).

Meanwhile, New York City is again sifting through debris from Ground Zero to look for remains of those murdered in the 9/11 attacks.

Anthropologists and other forensic experts will hand-sift 844 cubic yards of soil and other material - about the amount that fits in a dump truck - that was gathered since December 2007 from various sites around Ground Zero. A prior sifting operation resulted in identifying 27 additional victims.

To date, 1,629 victims of the World Trade Center attacks have been identified, out of 2,752 killed.

Obama Administration Tinkering With Job Creation Figures

The Obama Administration, which continued to trot out the inane "jobs created or saved" meme every time it was asked about jobs and the economy has now changed its tune slightly - only counting the number of jobs that have been funded by the ARRA of 2009 - the stimulus plan.

Over the weekend, in fact, the administration released the latest figures showing the impact of the stimulus package on jobs, announcing that nearly 600,000 jobs had been financed directly in the fourth quarter of 2009. But it changed the definition of those jobs, making it hard for Congress or the public to keep score and learn how the stimulus is doing.

From February to September, the administration had said, more than 640,000 jobs were saved or created. But in the final quarter of 2009, the administration no longer asked recipients whether all of those jobs were actually created or saved by the stimulus money or whether some of those jobs might have existed without the stimulus money.

Instead, it now simply counts all existing jobs paid for with stimulus money as saved jobs, whether or not they would have been lost without the money.

The new, more expansive definition will make it more difficult to isolate the effects of the stimulus law, which is officially called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, but should make it easier for states and employers to calculate jobs. But the new definition also means that the new tally of 599,108 jobs reported in the fourth quarter cannot be compared with the earlier figures from 2009.

Figuring out whether jobs were actually created or saved by the stimulus ultimately proved too subjective, officials said. The Obama administration originally asked states and employers receiving stimulus money to file reports detailing how many jobs they had created, and how many jobs they had been able to retain “that would not have continued to be filled” without the stimulus money.

But when the recipients filed their first reports last fall, some decided to count nearly every job that was paid for with stimulus money as a “saved” job, while others only counted the jobs that would have actually been lost without the money. Their job tallies varied wildly, even for similar work paid for with similar amounts of money.

Even with the new, simplified definition, there was some confusion.

While you can now get a better idea of the number of jobs that are being funded by the stimulus package, it does nothing to address the fact that the unemployment rate remains at or above 10% (based on the U3 rate, and well above that when examining the U6 rate as per the BLS reports) only because the BLS continues to draw down the actual size of the US workforce.

If you want to know why the Obama Administration is losing support on economic issues; this is it in a nutshell. By trotting out the bogus metric, it showed that the Administration was more interested in showing that money was being flung around without regard to whether it was actually creating jobs and doing what the Administration intended. Unemployment rates continued rising (and are still rising in some parts of the country) and the stimulus package has had no effect on the unemployment rate (though supporters may argue that but for the stimulus package, the unemployment rates would be much higher - and that's countered by the fact that the Administration said that the stimulus package would cap unemployment at rates around 8%, where no stimulus would lead to unemployment at around 9%).  

Fortunoff Resurrection Impending

Fortunoff's, which was a landmark housewares and jewelery store in the New York City metro area entered bankruptcy last year and ceased doing business.

Well, a bunch of former Fortunoff executives, including Isadore Mayrock who was related to founder Max Fortunoff, and a Texas based patio furniture business is bringing back the Fortunoff store name and will be opening stores in several areas around the region. It will focus exclusively on patio furniture and Christmas decorations depending on time of year.

Merkur, a Fortunoff merchandising executive for 39 years, created Furniture concepts with another former Fortunoff executive, Bernard Sensale. Isidore Mayrock, a member of the Fortunoff founding family, and David Barish, president of The Chair King, a Houston-based chain of 18 stores, signed on as investors. Merkur and Sensale also worked out a deal with the Fortunoff family to license the Fortunoff Backyard Store name, and to use a database of former Fortunoff customers.

Two of the seven stores will open in their former locations. Fortunoff liquidated all of its stores in early 2009, after filing for bankruptcy for the second time in two years. Merkur said the company plans to open an additional three to five stores a year going forward.

The Totowa store, located on Route 46 in a 12,000-square-foot former Coconuts music store, is scheduled to open Saturday. The Paramus store is expected to open Feb. 9. The 19,000-square-foot Paramus site is located directly across Route 17 from the former Fortunoff Backyard Store, in a building that recently housed a Harrow’s furniture store.

There will be four Backyard Stores in New Jersey, and three on Long Island. The other New Jersey locations will be in Eatontown and Menlo Park.

Merkur said the company has been able to rehire close to 70 former Fortunoff employees for the new venture. All seven stores will be headed by the same managers who formerly worked at the backyard stores near the new locations.

Barish of The Chair King said he didn’t hesitate when offered a chance to invest in a new Fortunoff backyard chain.

“Marty Merkur and I have known each other for at least 20 years,” said Barish. “When the opportunity became available to bring [Fortunoff Backyard Store] back, he called me and we jumped on it because we knew the team, we knew the name, we knew the potential of the marketplace.”

Merkur said the Fortunoff patio business, at its peak in 2007-2008 with 18 stores selling outdoor furniture, was an $80 million venture. Barish said the new concept should be equally successful.

Best of all, they'll be hiring back 70 former employees of the company. The new company website is at www.fortunoffbys.com.

The Paramus location is across from their prior location on Rt. 17, in a space previously occupied by Harrows - another long running company that fell on hard times and went bankrupt. It is in the process of trying to resurrect its brand and will be launching another store in a new location somewhere in Paramus.

Fortunoff's also appears to be following a route taken by shoe store Marty's, which also had undergone bankruptcy and liquidation, followed by rebirth in some of its former locations after eliminating its debt and liabilities. We'll see if this iteration is more successful.

The Coming Water Bill

New Yorkers should expect to pay a whole lot more for water in coming years. Declining use combined with higher costs is resulting in a dangerous combination - the need to continue raising taxes on water usage.

From 2008 to 2009, city water consumption went down 12 percent. Over the same period, debt incurred by the NYC Municipal Water Finance Authority -- which finances the capital needs of the water and sewer system operated by the Department of Environmental Protection -- increased by 12 percent, to $22.38 billion. That does not include the entire $6 billion cost of New York City Water Tunnel No. 3, the largest capital construction project in the state's history.

MANDATORY INVESTMENT

Much of this investment is mandatory because the water system must comply with state and federal standards for water purity. The WFA will issue another $9.35 billion in debt over the next three years to do so -- and water customers will have to cover those costs, no matter how much or how little water they consume.

It only gets worse. A recent study by the city's Independent Budget Office projected the annual water bill for an average single-family home will approach $1,500 by 2015. By 2025, it will more than double that, to $3,500. And that's assuming the city will remain within federal Environmental Protection Agency standards for potable water and not have to build an $8 billion filtration system.

"Get ready. They're coming for your money again," said City Councilman James Oddo (R-Mid-Island/Brooklyn). Oddo and colleague Vincent Ignizio (R-South Shore) are organizing a protest at the next Water Board hearing on the Island, which will be sometime next month.

This is a problem I've been documenting for some time now; municipalities are facing ever higher requirements for water quality, and the only way to cover the costs is to raise taxes or use existing general funds, which are hard to come by in flush times, but are impossible to locate when revenues are down across the board. New York City is hardly alone in rising water bills, but the problem is made worse by EPA requirements that may force new spending to build filtration plants to maintain and upgrade water quality. The City had been fighting some of those requirements for years, hoping to save billions of dollars in the process, but the City lost that battle and the spending is only going to rise from here on.

New York's Pension Time Bomb

Tick. Tick. Tick.

The price of providing state workers with generous pensions and gold-plated health plans could reach a mind-boggling $7.9 billion by 2012 -- a 42 percent increase over the current tab, state budget documents show.

The Paterson administration expects the cost of providing benefits to the average state employee will equal 62 percent of their salary within three years, according to Budget Division estimates.

That's up from 44 percent now and about double typical rates in the private sector.

Today, the average state worker costs taxpayers about $91,724, including $63,750 for wages, plus $27,974 for pensions, health care and other goodies.
Pension Explosion (Dollar)

The average cost of pay and benefits could balloon to $114,000 a year if trends continue through 2012, according to a Post analysis of the data. Perks alone would cost $43,000.

The pension obligations were unsustainable, and future obligations are even worse, even after creating a new pension tier with lower benefits. These obligations are unsustainable in flush times, and at a time when the state is incapable of balancing its budgets, it is even worse.

New York is hardly alone in this, and some states like New Jersey have contemplated withholding funding existing pension obligations to avoid having to raise taxes or cut existing services.

Yet, New York's state workers have a far higher average salary than one would expect, and the pension obligations only add to the costs.

Cutting the size of the state workforce is a start, but reforming the pension system is absolutely crucial to fixing the long term structural deficits due to the pension obligations.

The Job-Loss Recovery

Back in the day, the Democrats were busy complaining that following the 2000-2001 recession, the recovery was deemed a jobless recovery. They've since painted the Bush years as one with an economy stuck in neutral, as employment was flat and bookended with the .com bubble bursting plus 9/11 terror attacks at one end and the crash in the real estate and credit markets at the other.

Well, given that the 3Q and 4Q of 2009 were considered to be quarters with positive growth in the economy, the continued hemorrhaging of jobs would suggest not a jobless recovery from the latest recession, but a job-loss recovery thus far.

THE 2000s—the Noughts, some call them—turned out to be jobless. Only about 400,000 more Americans were employed in December 2009 than in December 1999, while the population grew by nearly 30m. This dismal rate of job creation raises the distinct possibility that America’s recovery from the latest recession may also be jobless. The economy almost certainly expanded during the second half of 2009, but 800,000 additional jobs were lost all the same.

Mind you that throughout 2009, millions lost their jobs as the economy shrank and unemployment rates jumped (although tamped down by the way that the BLS calculates the size of the workforce). Many of the jobs that were created during the preceding years disappeared in the real estate market crash and the credit market disaster that imploded major financial firms and caused upheaval in the financial sectors.

Meanwhile, I wonder how long this AP headline will stand:

Obama unveils $3.83T budget with massive deficits

You can't blame that on the prior Administration. That's President Obama's proposed budget. He chose to massively expand the deficit (while claiming he's going to be a deficit hawk starting next year. The deficit is going to be huge, and it is unsustainable.

UPDATE:
The headline has been replaced with: Obama unveils 2011 budget with $3.83T in spending. I've added the screen capture of the original story.

Female Suicide Bomber Kills 46, Wounds 100 In Baghdad

A female suicide bomber, who was dressed in a head to toe abaya, blew herself up among the faithful Shi'ites who were attending the ritual in Karbala. 46 were murdered, and more than 100 were injured in the attack.

According to the Associated Press, 46 people were killed in the blast, another 122 wounded.

The explosion took place near the Shiite neighborhood of Shaab.

The woman was reportedly disguised as one of the pilgrims, hiding the deadly device beneath an abaya, a dark cloak covering her from head to toe, according to Maj. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi, Baghdad's top military spokesman.

The female had cleared a security check shortly before detonating her bomb, al-Moussawi said.

How could she have been cleared by security with a bomb large enough to do that kind of damage? Well, considering that the privacy afforded by wearing an abaya and a reluctance to stringently check women, it is possible that the terrorists have figured out a way to circumvent security measures (a problem that exists for more than just the Iraqis).

This attack is just the latest in a string of attacks against Shi'ites, who have a centuries-long conflict with Sunni Muslims for supremacy. It is likely that this was hoped to spark sectarian conflict leading to more upheaval and anarchy in Iraq.

Also, this is yet another attack by Islamic terrorists whose victims are fellow Muslims (albeit Sunni v. Shia violence).