How The Avengers Should Have Ended

What To Do With $70 Billion in Unspent Earmarks

Senator Tom Coburn has announced that the federal government has more than $70 billion in unspent earmarks on its books that must account for. This includes monies that were designated for state and local projects that those localities later chose not to do.

The $70 billion figure is money that's been unspent for years, including $13 billion in road-building money that was earmarked to the wrong places, or for projects that states and localities no longer want to build.

In one case Mr. Coburn said $29 million was dedicated to a highway interchange in Newport News, Va., in 1998, but the state abandoned the project. The congressman who sponsored the earmark died in 2000, but the money remains unspent.

In another case Atlanta is still holding onto $2.7 million in funding that was allowed to be spent only on the 1996 Olympics.

"A dollar taken from the taxpayers left unspent is a dollar not needed by the government or a dollar that did not go to someone in need," Mr. Coburn said in a letter accompanying his report. "It represents a failure to budget wisely."

That's a small sum of the total federal budget and the ongoing deficit, but it's a not insignificant sum of money that could go to any number of major infrastructure projects around the nation.

It could secure the financing (or outright pay for) for any number of bridge and tunnel projects and other critical infrastructure projects. That includes air traffic control system upgrades that would boost efficiencies for the airlines and travelers by reducing congestion at airports and reduce the amount of fuel needed to reach any number of destinations. The economic benefits of upgrading the air traffic control system could reach into the billions of dollars annually as flight times are cut by routing planes more directly to their destinations.

It could help fully fund the entire 2d Avenue Subway, which would enable hundreds of thousands of commuters to more easily reach their destinations in New York City. It could fund the replacement spans for the Tappan Zee, Goethals Bridges, or the Pulaski Skyway. It could mean the construction of the Gateway Tunnel and Portal Bridges on the NEC.

It could mean construction of replacement spans for hundreds of deficient bridges, overpasses, and roads around the nation.

It could mean addressing deteriorating conditions of sanitary sewers and water delivery systems.

It could mean addressing funding shortfalls for National Park infrastructure, such as rehabilitating roads, visitor centers, and habitat restoration.

All of these have tangible economic benefits - not only immediate benefits due to construction work and the jobs created, but the long term benefits of improving and maintaining long-neglected infrastructure.

This is one of the major shortfalls of the ARRA of 2009 - it didn't sufficiently address infrastructure work, despite plenty of shovel-ready projects around the nation that would have benefited from the work.

Yet Another Federal Judge Rules DOMA Unconstitutional

The constitutionality of the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) will come before the Supreme Court before long. There are too many lower courts finding that its provisions are unconstitutional to contend with. The latest ruling is from the Second Circuit, where District Court Judge Barbara Jones found that the DOMA provision to define marriage intrudes on the states' right of regulating domestic relations. In other words, DOMA violates the 10th Amendment.

She said, "That incursion skirts important principles of federalism and therefore cannot be legitimate, in this court's view."

The judge said the law fails because it tries to re-examine states' decisions concerning same-sex marriage. She said such a sweeping review interferes with a system of government that places matters at the core of the domestic relations law exclusively within the province of the states.

The ruling came in a case brought by Edith Windsor, a woman whose partner died in 2009, two years after they married in Canada. Because of the federal law, Windsor didn't qualify for the unlimited marital deduction on her late spouse's estate and was required to pay $363,053 in federal estate tax. Windsor sued the government in November 2010.

As part of her ruling, Jones ordered the government to reimburse Windsor the money she had paid in estate tax.

The disparate treatment goes to equal protection under the law. Judge Jones' ruling came just days after the 1st Circuit found that DOMA was unconstitutional in denying federal benefits to same-sex couples. Two judges in the 9th Circuit have issued district court rulings along the same lines.

New Massacre Reported In Syria; Assad's Goons Thwarting UN Observers; UPDATE: Observers Take Fire

Multiple reports are coming in from Syria that Bashar al Assad's goons have committed yet another massacre near the city of Hama. More than 70 were killed, with at least half that number being women and children. Despite the presence of UN observers in the country, the bloodletting continues and Assad's forces are blocking the observers from seeing the scene of the war crimes for themselves.

The commander of United Nations monitors seeking to gain access to the site of a reported mass killing in central Syria said on Thursday that his forces were being blocked by army checkpoints and civilians in a standoff that seemed to mirror a looming diplomatic stalemate over the crisis.

If verified, the massacre, reported on Wednesday, would be the fourth in less than two weeks, threatening to inject a new surge of angry momentum into the growing international effort to isolate President Bashar al-Assad and remove him from power.

But efforts to establish what happened in the village of Qubeir, the site of the reported mass killing, suffered a severe setback on Thursday as United Nations monitors were “being stopped at Syrian army checkpoints and in some cases turned back,” according to Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the observer team, in a statement issued by the United Nations office in Geneva.

“Some of our patrols are being stopped by civilians in the area,” the statement said, an apparent reference to armed militiamen controlled by the government and known as shabiha.

General Mood also said that, while United Nations observers were still trying to gain access, “we are receiving information from residents of the area that the safety of our observers is at risk” if they seek to enter the village.

The developments on the ground echoed a deepening standoff in international diplomacy, suggesting that hitherto intractable differences over the crisis were likely to endure or worsen.

Assad continues to claim that the reports are baseless all while blaming this and other mass casualty incidents on the rebel groups.

As with the Houla massacre, it appears that the Hama massacre involved multiple executions with knives and close weapons. Many of those killed appeared to be from a single extended family.

Assad continues playing by the Hama rules - conducting massacres and brutal crackdowns in drips and drabs rather than one fell swoop. In the process, he doesn't completely piss off his patrons in China, Russia and Iran who continue backing his regime and thwarting more serious action at the United Nations. However, the body count is piling up and it is an inescapable conclusion that Assad must go - and the rebel forces will need more than just talk to make that happen.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on Assad to go, but unless the US backs those words with military power and/or assistance to the rebel groups, that's all it will be - talk.

UPDATE:
UN observers were shot at while trying to reach the scene of the latest massacre in the Hama province. They don't have the authority or ability to fight (let alone defend themselves) and aren't peacekeepers, so they're in the worst kind of position imaginable. They can only bear witness to the atrocities committed by Assad and his goons, as well as those carried out by the rebel forces.

There's no way to know who fired on the observers, but expect Assad to blame the rebels for this attack, even though the rebels have every reason to want the UN to see this if Assad's forces were behind the massacre. But then, Assad blames all the casualties on the rebel forces, even though there's little evidence that the rebels have the kinds of artillery needed to open fire at a distance (as reported in each of these massacres), when militias then finish the task with execution style murders.

Stop and Frisk Hasn't Reduced NYC Shootings

Despite the soaring number of stop and frisk encounters by the New York Police Department, the number of shooting has continued at the same level as before stop and frisk became official NYPD policy.

While the NYPD was stopping and frisking a record 685,724 people last year, 1,821 people were victims of gunfire, according to NYPD and city statistics. That's virtually the same number as in 2002, Bloomberg's first year in office, when 1,892 people were shot, but just 97,296 people were frisked.

The year before, there were 1,845 shootings with a similar number of frisks.

"If you have a flat-line situation with shootings, and the stops are this high, you are throwing everyone up against the wall and you are losing the community, then you have to reassess," a former top NYPD official told "On the Inside."

There's a couple of points to address. If the number of shootings has remained constant during the past decade, but stop and frisk has increased exponentially, something is wrong with that policy since it was intended to get guns off the street. While proponents might argue that the number of shootings might have been even higher had stop and frisk not been in place, the numbers don't exactly bear this out as other reports have indicated that the number of guns recovered during stop and frisks is exceedingly and shockingly low.

Indeed, the number of guns recovered during stop and frisk has gone from 1 in 266 stops to 1 in 3,000. Doing the math, that works out to roughly 228 guns recovered in 2011 as compared to 365 recovered in 2003.

It's also interesting that the number of shootings has remained constant even as the number of murders has remained at or near historic lows. That could be attributed to better life-saving techniques or that there was more random and non-lethal gunfire (firing in the air and random people were struck in a non-fatal manner for instance). This points to the fact that the NYPD has gotten lucky with the low murder rates, considering that the gunfire hasn't decreased.

And that brings me back to stop and frisk. If the policy isn't getting guns off the streets (and a gun-buyback program might accomplish more without totally isolating a community and creating more problems for community policing efforts), then something needs to be done to refocus efforts on those criminal elements bringing the guns into the city. Stop and frisk isn't working and it is taking valuable resources away from other more vital services at a time when the NYPD is being pulled in multiple directions (think continuing counterterrorism work) with an ever more limited budget.

Venus Crosses the Sun

Like millions of others in the New York City metro area, we were thwarted from seeing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to watch Venus cross in front of the sun in an eclipse.

However, NASA was all over the event, and they recorded the transit from multiple locations, including the Solar Dynamics Observatory in space.



The transit is helpful to scientists who are looking for planets outside our solar system since one of the ways that astronomers look for those planets is by seeking out changes in brightness due to eclipses.

UPDATE:
Here's an even more impressive video - showing some of the same images as above, but in multiple wavelengths:

Wisconsin Gov. Walker Holds On To Job In Recall Election

Governor Scott Walker, a Republican, held on to his job in yesterday's recall election. His win has more to do with how people view a proper use of recall elections than any of the policy choices he made or getting out the vote.

The results had nothing to do with the GOP or President Obama (which exit polls found to still be favored over Romney in November, even as both aren't seen as getting the job done on the economy), but rather that most Wisconsin voters didn't think that a recall was warranted over policy differences/preferences. 60% saw recalls as warranted only in cases of official misconduct. That was the real issue here. Walker came into office saying that he'd change how things were done - and while ending union collective bargaining was a huge change, it's a policy position - not official misconduct.

Sixty percent of Wisconsin voters in today's recall election say recall elections are only appropriate for official misconduct, according to early CBS News exit polls. Twenty-eight percent said they think they are suitable for any reason, while nine percent think they are never appropriate.
Today's recall election in Wisconsin pits Republican Gov. Scott Walker versus Democratic Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, in a rematch of their 2010 race. According to the early exit polls, 6 percent say they decided on their candidate in the last few days, with 93 percent saying they made up their minds before that.

The recall effort was brought about mainly in response to Walker's plan that restricted collective bargaining rights for public union workers. Today, 52 percent of Wisconsin voters in the early exit polls said they have a favorable view of unions for government workers, while 43 percent have an unfavorable opinion of these unions. Among voters in unions households (public or not), 69 percent view these unions favorably.

On the issue of collective bargaining, 50 percent of Wisconsin voters say they approved of the recent changes to state law that limits collective bargaining for government workers, but 48 percent disapproved of these changes.

Other exit polls break down the consequences going into November further, and it only reinforces the fact that it will be a money battle all the way to the end.

And Then There Was One

Since the 9/11 attacks, the US has gone after al Qaeda all around the globe, and those efforts have paid off. The group is now down to essentially one recognizable face - Ayman al Zawahiri, who was Osama bin Laden's right hand man since the group came into existence.

Zawahiri is believed to be in the frontier provinces of Pakistan, and he's probably spending most of his time trying not to get caught by US spymasters who have the quite lethal UAVs at their disposal.

As a result, according to senior U.S. counterterrorism officials, there now remains only one leader of any consequence in al Qaeda and that is Ayman al Zawahiri, the tetchy Egyptian surgeon who became the head of the group following the death of its founder, Osama bin Laden, in a U.S. Navy SEAL raid in Pakistan in May 2011.

Zawahiri, presumably, is keenly aware of the fate of so many of his longtime colleagues in al Qaeda. He will be expending considerable energy not to end up on the business end of a missile fired by a CIA drone if he, too, is hiding in the Pakistani tribal regions where the drone strikes have been concentrated.

Meanwhile, Zawahiri faces an almost impossible task to follow through on al Qaeda's main mission: attacking the United States, or failing that, one of its close allies.
Al Qaeda hasn't conducted a successful attack in the West since the bombings on London's transportation system on July 7, 2005, and of course, the group hasn't succeeded in attacking the United States for more than a decade.

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remains committed to carrying out attacks against the US and its interests around the world but hasn't managed to successfully carry out the kind of high profile attacks that the group was known for previously. Attempts to take down airlines have failed, though the group only has to do so once in order to achieve its aims.

It's a far cry from the 9/11 attacks and the terror group's largest effort since the 9/11 attacks was in the London subway bombings in 2005.

The group remains committed to carrying out attacks, but the threat has morphed into concerns about lone wolf individuals or groups - terrorists who share goals but aren't directly tied to al Qaeda or Zawahiri.

Just because there are lesser known terrorists (though that list still includes Adam Gadahn and Adnan G. El Shukrijumah) involved in the group doesn't mean we should discount the threat. We need to recognize the work done to get to this point, and the hard work ahead in trying to keep the nation safe from these terror groups and individuals who are intent upon doing harm to the US. At the same time, the risks from a successful attack are quite low to most Americans.

New Delays Pushing Revenue Service on 7 Line Extension To 2014

Once again, the MTA has fallen behind on another one of its major capital projects. This time, the MTA wont meet its December 2013 deadline to initiate revenue service on the 7 Line extension into Hudson Yards on the West Side. Instead, it will be hoping for a July 2014 open, though parts wont be done until 2015 (more than 12 months late):

The No. 7 subway line extension to 11th Avenue and West 34th Street won’t carry passengers until mid-2014 — six months later than was widely expected — and the new station won’t be entirely finished until the end of 2015, the MTA said yesterday.
The agency had long cited a December 2013 target opening.

But “passenger train service [to the new station] is scheduled for June 2014,” an MTA spokesman told us.

The six-month delay is hopefully not a sign of greater trouble at a project that’s of paramount importance to Gary Barnett’s Extell Development Co. and Stephen M. Ross’ Related Cos.

It’s also crucial to City Hall, which heralds it as the mass-transit gateway to a redeveloped Far West Side.

The station’s at the doorstep of One Hudson Yards, the 56-story office tower Extell plans to build on 11th Avenue and 33rd and 34th streets.

There's no reason given for this latest setback, but it echoes similar problems with other MTA projects, including the East Side Access and 2d Avenue Subway line projects. The projects continue to come in over budget and are delayed long past when they were initially expected to be completed.

These delays are going to affect the real estate developers who were hoping to capitalize on the new service by building skyscrapers in and around Hudson Yards, but the real problem is that the MTA still can't seem to keep its capital costs and deadlines on schedule.

It's a problem that isn't confined to the MTA, or even the New York metro area. Nationally, it's rare to find major infrastructure projects that are coming in on budget and on schedule. We have to do better, and the problems aren't the result of greedy unions either. The companies that are providing the backbone of the work are repeatedly low-balling offers to get the work and then continue to charge overages for work until it is completed. The replacement Oakland Bay Bridge project is one such example. Back when the project was bid, it was expected to cost $1.75 billion. The low bid at the time was a joint American bid (American Bridge Company and Fluor Corporation) for $1.8 billion. The state then rebid and a the same bidder (American Bridge Company and Fluor Corporation) won the bid with a $1.43 billion offer with the state seeing this as a savings for taxpayers. American Bridge and Fluor sought to save money by using Chinese-fabricated steel. Now, the work looks like it will cost at least $1.85 billion and everyone's harping about the potential jobs that were not created by going with the Chinese steel.

Yet, the real question is why anyone thought that we'd see the same bidder with essentially the same bid coming in at $400+ less than its original figure stick to that lower figure when it knew or had reason to know that the final cost would have been closer to the final figure. Costs weren't going to drop. Construction costs only increase over time.

We've got a bunch of competing interests, but the problems start with unrealistic bidding. Everyone wants to see the bidding low-balled; politicians need to get projects started to show that they're doing stuff, and companies need the projects to get work started. Once work is underway, there's not enough incentives to keep the projects on budget - everyone figures that taxpayers will soak up the difference since politicians don't want to be on the hook for an unfinished project. Inertia drives the projects through to completion, but at tremendous cost.

Would the American bid have stayed on budget? That's doubtful given that most projects go overbudget. Would it have created more jobs in the states? That's quite possible. But would California have gone ahead with the project had the up front cost been at the $1.8 billion point? We're talking about a $500 million difference, which in a cash-strapped state is big money (including on lending terms, bond offerings, etc.).

1,000 Acre Fire Hits Sequoia National Monument

The headline is somewhat misleading.

Fire Threatens Grove of Giant Sequoia
The blaze in the Sequoia National Forest covered more than 1,000 acres by Monday morning.

Yes, there's a fire, but fire is integral to propagating sequois and clearing out deadwood and underbrush. It's not exactly a bad thing. This particular fire is away from the roads and is in the backcountry of the park. It's a part of the park we never had the chance to see when we were there last year.

Protecting human-made structures is important, but fire has to be part of the environment, particularly in the national parks to maintain the ecology. In fact, the National Park Service has essentially indicated that fire suppression within the confines of various national parks, including Sequoia and Kings Canyon has made protecting the very trees that give the park its name all the more difficult.

Fire suppression had eliminated one of the key factors in propagating the trees - it requires fire to set the pine cones and release the nutrients stored within the forest floor all while eliminating lower-tier trees that block the sequoias from getting enough sun.

All throughout Sequoia and neighboring Kings Canyon National Park, one sees the results of fire - the sequoias themselves are quite resistant to fire - trees that are scarred and even cored by fire are still standing and growing around the damage.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 162

Despite the fact that there's been no work done on the WTC 9/11 Museum for months, that doesn't mean that the fight over what the museum will contain and display hasn't continued.

I find it mind-boggling that there's a fight over whether to include photos of the 19 Islamic terrorists who carried out the attacks. We need to see the faces of those who are responsible. It's like having a museum about the Holocaust and not including any of the names and faces of the key Nazi officials behind the Wanasee Conference and the orders to carry out genocide against the Jewish people.

Displaying the photos is necessary and critical to the museum's mission to reflect what happened before, during, and after the 9/11 terror attacks.

New York City’s fire chief protested that such a display would “honor” the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center. A New York Post editorial called the idea “appalling.” Groups representing rescuers, survivors and victims’ families asked how anyone could even think of showing the faces of the men who killed their relatives, colleagues and friends.

The anger took some museum officials by surprise.

“You don’t create a museum about the Holocaust and not say that it was the Nazis who did it,” said Joseph Daniels, chief executive of the memorial and museum foundation.

Such are the exquisite sensitivities that surround every detail in the creation of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is being built on land that many revere as hallowed ground. During eight years of planning, every step has been muddied with contention. There have been bitter fights over the museum’s financing, which have delayed its opening until at least next year, as well as continuing arguments over its location, seven stories below ground; which relics should be exhibited; and where unidentified human remains should rest.

Even the souvenir key chains to be sold in the gift shop have become a focus of rancor.

But nothing has been more fraught than figuring out how to tell the story.

The entire process has been an absolute mess, as my ongoing Rebuilding of Ground Zero series (and the preceding Battle for Ground Zero) has detailed for nearly a decade. Every proposed move has been scrutinized and yet key details are likely to get short shrift.

Yet, I think the most important detail that has yet to be worked out is the one that has tremendous symbolic meaning. After all, we're talking about the National September 11 Memorial Museum, and yet museum officials are contemplating imposing entry fees to defray the costs for operating the museum. That's absolute hogwash, and Congress needs to set aside the necessary funds to make sure that the museum is free to the public.

Future generations need unfettered access to the site to understand what happened, what was lost, and what the ongoing effects are on those who went to Ground Zero to help with the rescue and recovery operations.

Bloomberg Supports Cuomo's Call To Revise New York Marijuana Possession Laws

Arrests for marijuana possession are among the top crimes caught under the NYPD's Stop and Frisk policy. That policy has been under attack for its disproportionate focus on minorities throughout the city.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has now floated a proposal to reduce the penalty for possession of a joint to a violation, essentially decriminalizing the possession of amounts under 25 grams.

Mr. Bloomberg, whose administration had previously defended low-level marijuana arrests as a way to deter more serious crime, said in a statement that the governor’s proposal “strikes the right balance” in part because it would still allow the police to arrest people who were smoking marijuana in public.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, plans to hold a news conference at the Capitol on Monday to announce his plans to seek the change in state law. Administration officials said the governor would seek to downgrade the possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana in public view from a misdemeanor to a violation, with a maximum fine of $100 for first-time offenders.

Mr. Bloomberg said his police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, would attend the governor’s news conference “to show our support for his proposal.”

“We look forward to working with legislative leaders to help pass a bill before the end of session,” the mayor said, referring to this year’s legislative session in Albany, which is scheduled to conclude in three weeks.

In his statement, the mayor noted that last September, Mr. Kelly issued a memorandum to officers clarifying that they were not to arrest people who take small amounts of marijuana out of their pockets after being stopped by the police.

Mr. Bloomberg said that the governor’s proposal was “consistent with the commissioner’s directive.”

Bloomberg's changed stance increases the chances that the proposal may gain traction in the state. Reducing the penalties would also reduce the number of people who would be brought into the criminal justice system and reduce costs over the long haul - though that has the potential to be offset by an increase in crime. Expect Republicans to focus on the potential for higher crime, though they may also see the reduced costs for incarceration and processing of low-level drug crimes. Even Gov. Chris Christie in New Jersey has called for revision of drug crime penalties to reflect the fact that the state can't afford to incarcerate low-level drug offenders.

California Considers Tobacco Tax Hike With Legislature On Sidelines

California currently imposes a cigarette tax of 87¢ per pack of 20 cigarettes. That's well below the rates imposed in a number of other states, including neighboring Arizona ($2 per pack) or Oregon ($1.18 per pack). It's slightly higher than Nevada's 80¢ per pack. By comparison, New York imposes a $4.35 per pack (NYC is $5.85), New Jersey is $2.70 per pack, and Connecticut is $3.40. Out on the West Coast, Washington imposes a more than $3 a pack tax.

Consumption rates have dropped in the NYC metro area with the combination of higher taxes and more restrictive locations where smoking is permitted, which creates its own problems.

Health programs funded with tobacco taxes would see lower appropriations unless the taxes are increased to cover losses (and those who kick the habit because of higher taxes/restrictions). If the state doesn't hike the taxes periodically, the programs lose necessary funding and have to curtail their operations or else draw upon general funds instead (which in CA isn't possible due to its budget woes).

The question becomes whether the tax hikes will deliver the revenues projected, and what happens to the programs when the revenues fall short (does it require higher and higher taxes or shifting funds from other programs to cover the health programs funded by the tobacco taxes).

Californians not only have to deal with the potential windfall due from a potential $1 per pack tax hike on cigarettes, but a general distrust of the state legislature to spend the money wisely. They might be for a cigarette tax hike, but they're against the legislature spending it.

The tax, which would raise an estimated $735 million, is being voted on as California is reeling from a new wave of bad budget news. Gov. Jerry Brown announced last month that the state was facing a deficit of $16 billion, and he proposed a round of severe spending cuts to deal with it.

But none of the $735 million would go to close the deficit. Organizers argued that the tax would have less chance of passing if voters thought it would go into the state coffers, and said that their only goal here was cutting down on smoking. Raising the cost of tobacco has proved to be the most effective way of discouraging smoking, particularly among teenagers.

“The voters in this state are disinclined to give money — even tobacco money — to the Legislature to spend: they don’t trust them with the money,” said Don Perata, a Democrat and former president pro tem of the State Senate, who is the author of the proposition. “We’ve become such a damned antitax state that we’ve demonized any kind of tax.”

Still, the image of a $735 million windfall rushing in at a time when California is facing a three-week cut in the school year has proved, at the least, discordant. The editorial board of The Los Angeles Times, while proclaiming itself uncomfortable to be siding with the tobacco industry, urged voters to defeat it.

“It just doesn’t make sense for the state to get into the medical research business to the tune of half a billion dollars a year when it has so many other important unmet needs,” it said. And opponents have seized on this as one of their central arguments.

“Isn’t that a little strange?” said Michael C. Genest, a former director of finance for the state who worked as a consultant to the “No on 29” effort, noting that Mr. Brown had just announced the state’s latest budget shortfall. “It’s astonishing to me that someone would go to these lengths to have a major tax increase and none of it would go to the budget.”

At 87 cents, the cigarette tax here is about half the national average, and it ranks 33rd in the nation — down from the third highest in 1999. California is one of only three states that have not raised the cigarette tax over the past decade. About 12 percent of Californians now smoke.

The money would be dedicated to cancer research and smoking cessation programs, not balancing the budget. Proponents believe that the limitation on where the money goes in the state budget is a plus; anti-tax sentiment is such that no one trusts the legislature to spend the money appropriately.

Opponents in the tobacco industry are apparently so fearful of this initiative's passage that they're throwing serious money to stop it: $47 million.

Inside the Second Avenue Subway Construction Site

A video of the construction process, including the tunnel boring machines that are critical to the effort.



It's interesting that they are using one machine, tunneling one bore, and then pulling the machine back to run the second tunnel. That seems to be extremely time consuming and much more costly than had they run two machines simultaneously and allowed the machines to continue running south towards Hanover Square (the 2d Avenue Line's ultimate terminus should it ever be fully funded).

Look Out Below!

 

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 161

Construction remains at a near standstill on the WTC Museum. The anticipated September 2012 deadline will be missed and it's looking like mid 2013 is the earliest that anyone should expect the museum to be opened. That's perhaps being optimistic considering the money involved and that the Port Authority and the Museum Board, which includes Mayor Mike Bloomberg are fighting over the development costs that differ by hundreds of millions of dollars.

Even if both sides are able to work out a deal, there's no word on whether entry fees that could be as high as $25 per person will be imposed to help cover the $50-$60 million annual operating costs. As it stands, Congress appears completely unwilling to foot that bill, even though this was the site of the worst terror attacks in world history and more than 3,000 people were killed in the attacks (and subsequently falling ill and dying of injuries sustained from working on the Pile).

Within the next few days, a federal officials will rule whether certain cancers will covered under the 9/11 Victim Compensation Package for first responders who have suffered a variety of health ailments since working in the rubble of the Twin Towers.

Despite the problems with the museum, and even a small fire at 1WTC (Freedom Tower), President Obama will be visiting 1WTC on June 14 to see the progress at the site first-hand.