Debate Continues Over Tappan Zee Replacement

While New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has all but killed outgoing New York Governor David Paterson's proposal to have the Port Authority get involved in building a new Tappan Zee bridge, and much of the focus has been on the rough and tumble language Christie used, it's useful to remember how and why the Tappan Zee was built where it was.

The Port Authority, a bistate agency, wanted to retain a sphere of influence 25 miles in circumference from New York City (and which has since been extended to include the Stewart International Airport in Newburgh, New York). Thus, instead of locating the Tappan Zee at a point where the Hudson River was narrower, it forced the bridge to be built at one of its widest points.

That decision decades ago means that any replacement span will cost billions more than had a narrower site been chosen. The New York State Thruway Authority is the responsible for the construction and maintenance of the bridge and the Thruway (I87 and I287 in this part of the route).

The preferred design, which incorporates 8 lanes of vehicular traffic, bus rapid transit lanes, and heavy rail, would cost $16 billion. That includes not only the cost for the bridge itself, but the heavy rail and bus rapid transit approaches along the entire Rockland/Westchester County alignments and connections to Metro North rail lines in both counties.

Second Avenue Sagas parses out the costs and notes that Christie is ignoring that New Jersey, via the Port Authority, would get to keep half the toll revenues.

That's not quite accurate. The Thruway Authority gets 100% of toll revenues now. If the Port Authority gets involved and shares the costs 50/50 with the Thruway Authority, New Jersey would get 25% of the revenues (a toll amount to be determined but likely much higher than the current $5 toll ($4.75 for EZPass). The Thruway Authority would have to be compensated for the lost revenues since that helps fund the Thruway's operations statewide (the Authority doesn't receive state funding and is self-funding). It would significantly increase the pressure on the Thruway Authority to increase fares elsewhere in the state.

The Port Authority would also have to curtail some of its other capital projects to focus on the Tappan Zee project. Moreover, the benefit for New Jersey commuters for the Tappan Zee project are extremely limited at best. Few New Jersey residents are going to go North into New York to cross the Tappan Zee to go to Manhattan when the Tappan Zee is regularly riddled with traffic jams. Instead, most take the Palisades Parkway to the George Washington Bridge to go into Manhattan as the rail options are poorly scheduled and limited by local opposition to more frequent trips - particularly on the Pascack Valley line and bus options are only slightly better. Opening up a heavy rail option without a corresponding provision for adequate funding of those rail operations makes little sense and is likely to be severely underutilized.

The Port Authority is already committing money from the killed ARC tunnel project to improve its infrastructure at the George Washington Bridge, Port Authority Bus Terminal and Lincoln Tunnel helix replacement. Considering that the commuter buses handle more traffic than rail traffic into Manhattan on a daily basis, this is a far more cost effective use of the funds.

Indeed, the Tappan Zee replacement is likely to be a phased project, where the bridge is built to handle rail and bus rapid transit, but will be built for vehicular traffic first. Thus, when the additional funding is allocated, the bus and rail options will be added on at a later date.

---

Rangel Blames Staffers For Ethics Woes

Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY-Censured) would like people to think that he didn't do anything wrong other than be too trusting of his staffers. That's a whole bunch of nonsense. He says his worst mistake was trusting his staffers.

That's quite the excuse Charlie. Blame the staff when you're the one ultimately responsible for the paperwork. You signed off on it.

Moreover, who are you blaming for being a tax cheat or for the use of a rent stabilized apartment as an office? No staff involved there. That's all on you - and you unjustly enriched yourself by not paying taxes for all those years on your real estate holdings and paying below market rents.

It is an interesting juxtaposition to see Rangel claiming that he did nothing wrong at a time when actor Wesley Snipes is being carted off to prison for a lengthy stay because of being a tax cheat. There are some significant differences in the two cases.

Snipes was a tax protester and his tax obligations were in the millions of dollars. He failed to file and pay taxes on $38 million in earnings going back to 1999. He claimed he was a non-US citizen and engaged in all manner of chicanery to avoid paying taxes. Snipes was sentenced to prison for three years because he was found to have willfully failed to file federal income tax returns under 26 U.S.C. § 7203. His codefendants were sentenced to even longer terms as they were involved in setting up and advising Snipes on his tax avoidance schemes. Snipes will be reporting to prison after his appeals were rejected.

Rangel's tax obligations were far less and didn't engage in overt tax avoidance as Snipes did. Rangel's problem is that he didn't declare his income from rental properties and did so for a decade all while being the guy running the committee that sets tax policy for the nation.

Snipes is getting what he deserves, and Rangel's tax problems have yet to be fully resolved. Rangel may end up doing no prison time, but may end up having to pay considerable penalties and interest.

---

Sons of Confederacy Upset History Channel Wont Accept Their Ads

The History Channel used to provide accurate history without such nonsense as UFO stories and revisionist tales and psychobabble. Now, tales of psychics, end times, paranormal activities, and other such blatherings are regular fare. So, with that in mind the Sons of the Confederacy hoped to get an advertisement to run in conjunction with the 150th anniversary about how the start of the Civil War was not about slavery, but about Northern aggression and violated states' rights.

The History Channel refused to run the spot, and the Sons of the Confederacy complained. Indeed, the Sons of the Confederacy tried to claim that because the channel regularly promotes and runs stories about the paranormal and revisionist history programs that they were entitled to have their spot run. They claim that the channel is being politically correct. The channel replies:

We have informed them that the ad is outside the scope of our guidelines and may not be aired during any of our programming. AETN’s advertising guidelines, which are similar to those of other broadcast and cable networks, do not permit such an ad as explained above. Indeed, AETN is not aware of any other network who has accepted or aired the ad.To our knowledge, it is not currently running on any of our networks, including History.

Slavery was a big reason why the war ensued - the Southern states sought to retain one of their few economic drivers - the source of labor that worked the fields and engaged in the heavy labor associated with farming. Moreover, claiming that Confederates fought to defend that right when Union forces “invaded” to prevent secession ignores the fact that it was the South that fired the first shots against the Union at Fort Sumter. Indeed, troops from The Citadel fired shots on Union ships attempting to resupply the Fort prior to the actual first battle of the Civil War.

---

Pearl Harbor Remembered 69 Years Later

Today marks the 69th anniversary of the Japanese attack on the US naval installations at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

It was a day that will live in infamy.

Sadly, many of those who lived through, and fought at Pearl Harbor that Sunday morning, are no longer with us. The number of survivors of that day grows smaller by the day. Four years ago, a new memorial to the USS Oklahoma victims was dedicated. After the Arizona and the loss of 1,177 of the 1,400 sailors and Marines on board when Japanese bombs tore apart the ship's forward magazine, the Oklahoma lost 429 sailors and Marines — the second greatest loss of life among any of the battleships in Pearl Harbor.

The US Navy has a website with photos taken of Pearl Harbor before, during and after the attacks.



Pearl Harbor remains to this day a nexus of conspiracy theories. Just as there are now 9/11 conspiracy theorists, people considered that there were those in the US government, including President Roosevelt, who knew of the impending attacks and did nothing because he wanted to bring the US into the war. What gets forgotten is that Pearl Harbor was just one of a series of Japanese attacks planned on the same day and within two weeks of Pearl Harbor as part of a coordinated effort to eliminate British and American naval and military forces throughout the Pacific and Asian theater so that Japan could have unimpeded sources of raw materials and access.

December 7, 1941 - Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Hawaii; also attack the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai and Midway.
December 8, 1941 - U.S. and Britain declare war on Japan. Japanese land near Singapore and enter Thailand.
December 9, 1941 - China declares war on Japan.
December 10, 1941 - Japanese invade the Philippines and also seize Guam.
December 11, 1941 - Japanese invade Burma.
December 15, 1941 - First Japanese merchant ship sunk by a U.S. submarine.
December 16, 1941 - Japanese invade British Borneo.
December 18, 1941 - Japanese invade Hong Kong.
December 22, 1941 - Japanese invade Luzon in the Philippines.So, within two weeks of the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese attacked everywhere from Borneo and Hong Kong to Mayasia, Midway, Thailand, Borneo, Burma and the Philippines.

That's not the sign of a nation that is looking to avoid war, but one that was intent upon carrying out its plans regardless of what the US did. The range of targets was designed to take the Pacific in one fell swoop and to knock the Allies off kilter at a time when the British and Soviets were focused on the European theater and the US wasn't even in the war - they were still technically neutral in the conflict in Europe.

Moreover, Japan had been at war with China since 1937 and that conflict was among the most brutal in Japan's war of aggression. Japan sought to confront the US on Japan's terms - Pearl Harbor was the time and place of Japan's choosing to eliminate and/or seriously degrade the US military capabilities. Japan may have seriously bloodied US forces at Pearl Harbor on that fateful day, but the Japanese forces did not hit the US aircraft carriers and didn't even touch the US military industrial complex that would soon produce more war material than Japan could ever conceive. Within a few short years, the US would not only replace the aged battleships that were damaged or destroyed at Pearl Harbor, but build more than a dozen new Essex class aircraft carriers, dozens of light aircraft carriers, tens of thousands of aircraft, thousands of ships of all types, and train personnel to operate them all.

Pearl Harbor awakened a slumbering giant. The end result was that Japan would see the extent of its military power and capabilities just a few months more before the US began pushing its way to the Japanese home islands.

Legalbgl posted photos of his trip to Pearl Harbor a few years back, and they're poignant in that they show how peaceful and placid the harbor is - much like the hours immediately preceding the attacks when the bolt from the blue brought war to US shores.

UPDATE:
Video and photos added.

---

Wikileaks Founder Julian Assange Arrested In Britain On Swedish Rape Charges: UPDATE: Bail Denied

British law enforcement has arrested Julian Assange, one of the founders of Wikileaks on rape stemming from a purported incident in Sweden. International arrest warrants were issued last week after the Swedish government got its investigation in order.

The arrest is not on any charges stemming from the group's release of hundreds of thousands of classified and sensitive US State Department and Pentagon memos/reports, though more than a few people will make the connection that had Wikileaks not released those documents, the Swedish government would not have come forward with these charges.

But his associates said his detention would not alter plans for further disclosures like those it has made in recent months relating to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and, over the past 9 days, disclosing confidential diplomatic messages between the State Department and American representatives abroad.

“Today’s actions against our editor-in-chief Julian Assange won’t affect our operations: we will release more cables tonight as normal,” a posting on the WikiLeaks Twitter account said.

Mr. Assange, a 39-year-old Australian, was arrested by officers from Scotland Yard’s extradition unit when he went to a central London police station by prior agreement with the authorities, the police said.

Hours later, he arrived at the City of Westminster Magistrates Court near the Houses of Parliament on the banks of the River Thames.

Travelling in an unmarked car with his lawyer, Mr. Assange used a rear entrance to the eight-story building to skirt the scrum of television cameras, satellite vans and international reporters. Officials said he would appear in court at around 9 a.m. Eastern time.

The court was likely to set the date for a further, more substantive hearing to consider whether Mr. Assange is granted bail, legal experts said.

In a statement earlier on Tuesday, the police said: “Officers from the Metropolitan Police extradition unit have this morning arrested Julian Assange on behalf of the Swedish authorities on suspicion of rape.”

Some people think that Assange is a hero for releasing all these documents and that such classified information should be freely available.

I'm not one of them. He and his cohorts violated US law and should be punished for their criminal acts. They undermine international relations and US diplomatic and security initiatives, but that was the point. Moreover, Assange threatens still more releases as a result of his arrest.

In the process, he's also unwittingly caused a reevaluation of what information will be made available through various channels that ended up being released in the cache of documents - and will likely result in fewer documents ending up in that status classification. It will result in less information being transmitted and may make diplomats and personnel less candid about their evaluations.

Assange is only the latest in a long line of anarchists who want to upend the international order. Assange thinks that he knows better than those in government about classified information and what should be available to the public. Christopher Hitchens thinks that he's a micro-megalomaniac, and he's on to something, but what exactly is Assange's endgame? Clearly, it's to upset the international order by the means at his disposal.

UPDATE:
British authorities have denied bail, meaning that Assange will remain in jail.

---

Lame Lawsuit of the Day

Cheryl Sibley, 53, of Hasbrouck Heights, New Jersey is suing Manhattan institution McSorley's Ale House over injuries she claims to have suffered at the "paws" of the bar's cat. Unless this cat mauled her and caused serious injuries requiring hospitalization, this is one of those cases that doesn't quite pass the smell test.

Cheryl Sibley, 53, of Hasbrouck Heights, says she suffered the mini-mauling in October 2009, according to papers filed in Manhattan Supreme Court last week.

The suit doesn't say exactly how the terrible tabby made a meal of Sibley.

But the woman claims the "live animal" attack left her with "serious injuries" that required medical care, the court papers state.

McSorley's owner, Matthew Maher, says he is shocked by allegations about the bar's peaceful house cat, Minnie the Second.

"I have no recollection of any attack," he said. "If I would have known, I would have been the first to call her and say 'Are you OK? Can I do anything for you?' "

Maher says he doesn't allow Minnie to roam the sawdust floors during drinking hours, which is a violation of city law.

I guess we're finally now hearing about this particular lawsuit because the plaintiff needed all of this time to locate a lawyer willing to take the case and that causes a problem all its own.

New York's statute of limitations on tort actions is one year, which means that unless she filed this action before November 2010, it isn't going to hold up in court. The article states that the papers were filed with the court last week, which means that she's got a statute of limitations problem.

So, even if she manages to avoid the statue of limitations problem, there's the issue of not only proving the injury, but being compensated for the injuries that makes it worth the lawyer's time and effort - not to mention the time of the court.

---

Why This Giants Fan Is Rooting For the Cowboys

I'm a longtime Giants fan, but I know my division rivals well enough to know that to maximize the Giants playoff possibilities, it will require winning of their remaining games and hoping that the other division rivals beat each other up.

It wont hurt if the Cowboys win their remaining two games against the Eagles.

Cowboys can still make some noise.

At 4-8, the Cowboys are even more cooked than the 5-7 Vikings. But the Cowboys still can screw things up for other teams as they continue their climb to respectability.

Specifically, the Cowboys can throw a wrench into the Eagles’ playoff hopes. A year after Dallas took three from Philly, the Cowboys still have not one but two cracks at their NFC East rivals.

Lose both, and the Eagles could end up home for January, especially since they still have to travel to New York to face the Giants. The Vikings likely won’t be a pushover, either.

But it all comes down to Dallas and Philadelphia, and it starts on Sunday night in Dallas, where the Eagles lost twice in six days to end their 2009 season.

The Cowboys are showing life for interim coach Jason Garrett. They're 3-1 after he inherited a lifeless 1-7 team. Garrett has made the Cowboys dangerous and while the Cowboys are an outside chance for winning a playoff slot - they'd have to overcome both the Eagles, Giants, and a slew of other teams who are ahead of them in the NFC playoff hunt, they could derail some of those other teams - particularly the Eagles.

And nothing would make me happier than to see the Eagles implode to the Cowboys except seeing the Giants make a return trip to the playoffs on route to the Super Bowl.

---

Tax Revenue Shortfalls Hit MTA Hard Again

Once again, overly optimistic tax revenue projects are going to hit New Yorkers hard. The MTA is again facing a massive deficit because tax revenues from payroll taxes, fees and other revenue sources for the MTA have fallen short of their projections by over $300 million.

The controversial business tax -- which hits all business owners in the MTA region with a 34-cent levy for every $100 of payroll -- appears to be $321 million under expectations, MTA data show.

Overall, it will bring in about $1.34 billion instead of the $1.66 billion that bean counters projected.

And the "MTA aid" levies -- like a 50-cent surcharge on every yellow-cab ride along with car-rental, garage-parking and license fees -- are under projections by $60 million, the numbers show.

"The riders have done their part with service cuts and fare hikes, but motorists aren't doing their part," fumed Andrew Albert, an MTA board member.

He added that the bailout bill "is not a good package" and that city's free bridges should be tolled to help finance mass transit.

It's those poorly performing taxes and other moves -- like Gov. Paterson yanking $160 million from the MTA to help the state budget -- that hit straphangers in the wallet.

At first, the state thought the MTA would get mounds of payroll-tax cash because many business owners didn't know to pay it in late 2009.

But the returns fell short because of "overstated 2009 [payroll-tax] estimates that the state initially believed were delayed," according to MTA documents.

Also, the economy was weaker than expected, the MTA said, "which in turn resulted in lower-than-expected tax receipts."

That means that the likelihood of another round of fare hikes and/or service cuts looms even as new fare hikes are scheduled to take effect at the beginning of 2011.

How is it that once again the state and MTA economists overestimated the strength of the economy when putting together their revenue projections. Instead of being more conservative in their estimates, particularly given the way the local and national economy have been sputtering along for the past two and a half years, overly optimistic revenue projections that fall short means far wider deficits and an inability to make them up with still more tax revenues. The state continues trying to take blood from a stone and the situation is not going to improve anytime soon. Businesses are still limping along, and expecting new tax revenues to come in at or above the projections just makes no sense.

At the end of the day, the tax hikes failed to bring about the financial stability needed for the MTA to operate properly and the deficits mean that the agency will struggle to find ways to plug the hole.

---

Rangel In Hot Water Over New Ethics Woes

Just days after being censured by the House of Representatives for multiple ethics violations, Rep. Charles Rangel is facing new ethics woes.

This time he's being investigated over his use of a group PAC to fund his legal defense against the original ethics charges.

The FEC is investigating a complaint that Rangel misused his political action committee to fund his legal defense over House ethics rules, the New York Post reported Sunday.

Filed by the National Legal and Policy Center, the complaint charges that Rangel used nearly $400,000 raised by his National Leadership PAC to pay his legal bills. Rangel told the House Ethics Committee last month that he could no longer afford counsel in the panel’s proceedings after spending more than $2 million on legal fees.

While a member can use money he raises personally for his campaign to pay legal fees, a member cannot use the sort of PAC money he used in his legal defense fund to do so.

That's a big no-no, and he no one but himself to blame for this latest ethics problem.

Moreover, Rangel continues to peddle the nonsense that he did nothing to enrich himself. He most certainly did. He also blames this on political pressure, but the fact that more than half the Democrats in the chamber voted in support of censure shows that the situation was bipartisan. In fact, it would tend to support the fact that his ethical and legal woes were like

By failing to pay the proper tax on his real estate investments, he profited from the failure to pay those taxes. By unlawfully using a rent stabilized apartment as his office, he was able to profit from the below-market rental. That's unjust enrichment and that most certainly meant more money in his pocket.

A legislator cannot say that what he did is no worse than what other members do (or did). Rangel was caught lying about his taxes and other legal and ethical missteps. He has no one to blame but himself, and his ongoing refusal to accept the punishment shows that he still thinks himself above the law. The sad thing is that his constituents don't think any differently. They had no problem reelecting him twice despite the tax avoidance and multiple ethics issues. In fact, his supporters had no problem cheering him on his return to Harlem.

---

Yanks Resign Jeter and Rivera to Deals

The New York Yankees have closed deals with both Derek Jeter and Mariano Rivera that will essentially see both long time All-stars finish their careers with the Yankees.

That hasn't stopped some from questioning the kind of deal that Jeter managed to get. Mike Lupica, who hasn't been the same kind of sports reporter/editorialist since he went off on a tangent thinking that he was a political observer, thinks that Jeter was somehow disrespected by the deal that saw him take a pay cut over the three year (or four year with option) deal that he got.

This was business. It wasn't personal. Jeter had career lows last year in average and power, and he's sliding towards the backside of his career. It just doesn't make any sense from a baseball standpoint to lock him in on a more costly deal, and the Yankees treated it as a business decision. Jeter's agent, Casey Close, was trying to play up the emotional ties between the club and Jeter, who has been the consummate player and ambassador for baseball and the Yankee organization.

Yet, it ultimately came down to how Jeter performed on the field that led to the lower deal. Jeter just didn't keep to his previous statistics. Had he done so, his argument about being paid comparably to his prior deal would have carried more weight. I'm as big a Jeter fan as anyone out there, but it just doesn't make sense to pay him more money than his just expired deal. This was a business negotiation, and normally such negotiations take place out of sight, but this was done in the full light of public view.

It's that aspect that got so many fans bent out of shape and debating the merits of compensating Jeter even though that is between Jeter and the Yankee organization.

Moreover, Lupica trying to compare the Jeter deal with Rivera's deal is just asinine. Rivera has been as steady a performer as they come. He has not shown the slightest slowdown in his skills or outcomes. He still closes games as the top closer in baseball. Rivera didn't ask for more than he got previously, and he got what he was worth.

---

Infrastructure Idiocy Abounds Among New York Politicians

It's astounding the sheer gall of Gov. David Paterson in calling on New Jersey to assist in financing the rebuilding of the Tappan Zee Bridge on the New York State Thruway.

At a time when New York couldn't be bothered with coming up with financing for the ARC tunnel to make sure that the interstate project gets completed - such as covering the potential cost overruns that might total anywhere from $1 billion to $5 billion, New Jersey is now being asked to help finance a project that is fully within New York's borders?

It's little wonder then that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie went postal on the idea.

Christie blasted Gov. Paterson's proposal to split the cost of rebuilding the deteriorating Tappan Zee Bridge - even though it doesn't extend into the Garden State.

"I can't make this any clearer to New York than this: Stop screwing with us," Christie told reporters. "You're not going to come and pick our pockets. New Jersey is not going to permit it anymore."

Under Team Paterson's proposal, responsibility for the bridge would be taken from the state Thruway Authority and transferred to the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey.

No dice, Christie cried.

"I'm not inclined to extend the port region further into New York just to bite off a monstrous expense," Christie said.

The Paterson administration was "simply offering" an idea, a spokesman said.

The construction work is estimated to cost up to $16 billion.

He said New York officials years ago deliberately kept the bridge out of the Port Authority's control so the Empire State could keep the toll revenue.

"You want to keep all the money to yourself, then you pay for the cost yourself," Christie quipped.

Paterson recently reached out to Christie to discuss the idea, but wound up making his pitch to Jersey's lieutenant governor.

In pushing the idea, Paterson said rebuilding the bridge "might be too much for New York's finances and it might be too much for New Jersey."

The Tappan Zee bridge is operated by the Thruway Authority and the bridge is structurally deficit and in need of replacement. The state has known of this situation for years, and hasn't determined the replacement cost or the design of the replacement span, but they're looking to transfer it to the Port Authority? Is this a tacit acknowledgment that the Thruway Authority's bonding ability is tapped out? That's troublesome enough, but it isn't as though the Port Authority is in much better shape.

The difference here is that the Port Authority is a bistate agency and is supposed to handle joint projects between New York and New Jersey.

It also shows the limitations of the Port Authority as a development agency when the political interests of the two state governors differs. Expect a different position to be taken when Andrew Cuomo is sworn in as Governor in January as Cuomo and Christie are both on the same page regarding reining in the costs of governance and state spending that are crippling both states. If both governors can build on a working relationship, bistate projects are much more likely to get proposed and backed through completion.

UPDATE:
Gov. Paterson has to explain how the Port Authority is in a position financially to assist in the rebuilding of the Thruway Authority's Tappan Zee bridge when the Port Authority is cutting jobs and still trying to rebuild the World Trade Center.

---

President Obama Makes Surprise Visit To Afghanistan

President Barack Obama made a surprise visit to Afghanistan today although a proposed meeting between the President and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai was unable to go forward due to inclement weather and security concerns.

President Barack Obama slipped unannounced into dangerous Afghanistan on Friday, one year after widening an ever deadlier war and just days before a pivotal review about the 9-year-plus conflict.

Under intense security, Obama landed in night's darkness after a clandestine departure from the White House on Thursday, where plans of his trip into the war zone were tightly guarded.

The White House said rough weather forced Obama to abruptly drop plans to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. The White House determined the wind, dust and cloud cover made it unsafe for the president to fly by helicopter from the huge military complex here to the presidential palace 30 miles away.

In a rapidly changing sequence of events, the White House then said they would speak by secure videoconference — but later said that, too, was dropped. Instead, the two leaders were expected to speak by phone.

While the meeting with Karzai didn't go as planned, the President will get to meet and greet and thank the troops at Bagram air base, and that's worth the visit all by itself.

---

House Censures Rangel 333-79

Rep. Charles Rangel, the Harlem Democrat, met his comeuppance today with a vote of censure of 333-79. It's still a slap on the wrist and Rangel still thinks he's done nothing wrong.

That mindset is joined by 77 Democrats and 2 Republicans, including Rep. Peter King, another New York Congressman who thought that Rangel lacked the mindset worthy of the sentence of censure.

How sweet. Let's just ignore the tax evasion and failure to pay taxes on income over a period of a decade. Rangel and those who voted against censure would like to ignore or excuse the unjust enrichment caused by the failure to pay taxes even though Rangel was the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

---

New Studies Reveal That MRI Testing Could Scan For Autism

While the study's scientists caution that the study involved only boys and those with high functioning autism, the fact that MRI testing revealed those with autism 94% of the time shows that MRIs may have a place in determining whether an individual has autism or another illness.

The new test is based on a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) screen. In its trials, it was able to distinguish between people who have autism and others by changes in their brains. However, the findings were preliminary — researchers tried out this method of diagnosis on only two groups of patients; both groups were males with high-functioning autism.

But this test brings "the potential for younger people to have their autism diagnosed" earlier, said study researcher Nicholas Lange, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and director of the Neurostatistics Laboratory at McLean Hospital in Massachusetts.

Experts say the earlier that autism is diagnosed, the better the intervention by health care experts. Right now, autism can be diagnosed in patients as young as age 3. The disorder involves having trouble communicating and interacting with others, and behaving inappropriately in social situations.

Previous work has suggested MRIs could be used to diagnose autism. A study published in October in the journal Cerebral Cortex found that changes in oxygen levels in the brains of people with autism were less synchronized than in the brains of people without the disorder, meaning areas of the patients' brains weren't signaling properly. These oxygen changes can also be seen in an MRI of the brain, according to University of Utah researchers.

Who has it, and who doesn't?
In Lange's study, 30 men ages 8 to 26 who had been subjectively diagnosed with high-functioning autism, underwent MRI scans of their brains, as did 30 men without autism. The researchers also conducted an imaging test that let them observe how water flows throughout the brain.

They examined six parts of the brain's circuitry and found one observable difference in the men who had autism. In a typical, healthy person, water flows in an organized manner in the left side of the brain and flows in a disorganized way in the right side of the brain.

But in the men with autism, water flowed in a disorganized way in the left side of the brain and in an organized way in the right side of the brain, he said.

Right now, there is quite a bit of confusion over the diagnosis of autism and the DSM has provided guidance based on symptoms along a spectrum, which means that some individuals may be getting misdiagnosed. The MRI can help distinguish those who are truly autistic from those who aren't.

---

Iran Gets PWNED By Israelis

It only took the Iranians a couple of decades to realize that an Israeli design and construction firm included a Star of David on the roof of the Iran Air National Headquarters in Tehran, just outside the international airport. The revolutionaries didn't notice since 1979 when they flew out of the airport?

Nope, it took a Google Maps search to find this one out.


View Larger Map

Iranian officials are absolutely incensed over this, and are in the process of destroying it (which is a whole lot easier than their usual calls to actually destroy Israel). It's not the first time that the Star of David has been featured on Iranian architecture either. A Star of David was featured on the roof of a building overlooking Revolutionary Square in Tehran, but that too has since been removed.

---

Memorial Sloan Kettering Bilked Out of $3.8 Million in Printer Scam

This is just unbelievable and sucks in a big way. Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in Manhattan, which is one of the premier cancer research facilities in the world, was ripped off to the tune of $3.8 million by a clerk who ordered on the hospital's dime and then resold printer cartridges for personal gain.

A former worker at Memorial Sloan-Kettering stole nearly $4 million from the cancer center in a massive scheme that involved ordering a boatload of unnecessary printer cartridges and reselling them, authorities said.

The loot from the elaborate scam was used to fund a lavish lifestyle that allowed $37,000-a-year receiving clerk Marque Gumbs to move from a Bronx housing project to a luxurious Trump high-rise in the suburbs.

Gumbs, 32 -- who was arraigned yesterday in Manhattan Criminal Court on charges of grand larceny and criminal possession of stolen property -- allegedly began his scheme in 2004 by ordering extra toner cartridges and reselling them.

In one astounding stretch from October 2009 through August 2010, Gumbs ordered $1.2 million worth of toner that wasn't usable for any machine at the hospital, authorities said.

His alleged ruse cost the hospital $3.8 million.

Gumbs, who first started working for Sloan in 1999, instructed delivery drivers to call him when they were close to the East 53rd Street site where he worked so he could personally receive the packages, officials said.

Sources said Gumbs was caught on surveillance video taking the parcels -- which never went through the mailroom -- to a garbage area.

That's $3.8 million that could have gone for patient care, infrastructure maintenance/upgrades, and research.

I donate there regularly, and am shocked that the hospital didn't have sufficient controls over its expenditures to notice the discrepancies. How could no one have noticed that printer/toner cartridges were being ordered that were not usable by any of the hospital printers? It would appear that the accounting, billing, and facilities budgets aren't nearly as scrutinized as they should be.

---

Happy Chanukah 2010

---

When Lego and Star Wars Meets

It's a humorous take on the original films and features some loved (and one much reviled new) Star Wars characters.

---

Proposed NJ Legislation Would Kill Wind Power Projects Across State

A proposed bill by a South Jersey Republican State Senator, Sean Kean, would have the effect of killing wind power projects around the state because of its overly restrictive language that would prohibit the construction of wind power projects within 2,000 feet of a residential zoned property.

Considering that the state is the most densely populated in the nation, finding properties that would be ideal for wind power projects that aren't within 2,000 feet of a residential zoned parcel would narrow the number properties to such an extent that it would essentially kill the industry.

I don't think that this bill has much of a chance of being passed in New Jersey, and it again highlights that NIMBY trumps everything including environmental concerns. Opponents to wind power projects routinely cite the potential damage to migratory birds and the noise generated. Some will even claim that the wind power turbines cause all manner of mysterious ailments:

The bill (S2374) would not affect proposed off-shore wind power projects, which would usually be a longer distance from shore. While the state Energy Master Plan calls for the lion’s share of wind power to be generated off shore, environmentalists say everything counts in developing clean, renewable energy.

"Our off-shore wind potential is much greater than our on-shore wind potential, but beggars can’t be choosers," said David Pringle, political director of the New Jersey Environmental Federation. "We shouldn’t be putting unnecessary restrictions on this resource."

Kean (R-Monmouth) drafted the bill after a proposed 325-foot windmill by Department of Military and Veterans Affairs at the National Guard training center in Sea Girt drew protests from hundreds of residents concerned it would threaten birds, cause noise, pose health risks and decrease property values. The Sea Girt council in September passed a resolution opposing building the turbine on the state-owned land.

While his bill faces an uncertain future — Assembly Environment Committee Chairman John McKeon (D-Essex) says he doesn’t plan to give the lower house version a hearing — Kean says it shows there can be considerable blowback from wind projects.

The bill says it is meant to prevent "wind turbine syndrome," in which close proximity to a turbine allegedly causes a host of health problems, including insomnia, headaches and learning disabilities. But the science behind the phenomenon, first published in a study by Dr. Nina Pierpont, is heavily debated.

"I don’t know what wind turbine syndrome is. I don’t think there’s any scientific basis for that claim," said Fred DeSanti, a consultant for The Bayshore Regional Sewerage Authority, which is building a windmill slated to begin operating in January at a treatment plant in Union Beach, Monmouth County. "It’s a fan that blows in the wind and creates electricity. This is not some alien device."

The article uncritically claims that a study found close proximity to wind turbines caused wind turbine syndrome, but a search of medical literature found no such references. Instead, it's from a woman who opposes wind power projects near her Western New York home and came to her conclusion after studying all of 38 people in her area (10 families). If this were truly a study that found causality, it would have been conducted according to rigorous protocols. Other studies have found that while a segment of the population is sensitive to certain low sounds (infrasound), wind power projects do not produce those sounds in sufficient volume to cause the said problems.

This is yet another attempt to kill an industry and deployment of technologies that improve air quality, reduce pollution, and reduce reliance on foreign sources of energy.

Here's hoping that this bill dies a prompt death in the Senate.

---