I’ll be on the air with the mighty Ernest Hancock, the Yoda of libertarian activists, discussing The Walton Street Tycoons this Sunday on 1480 KPHX-AM in Phoenix. The show airs at 4:00 p.m. Phoenix time, which I think works out to 7:00 p.m. NYC time. (The no-daylight-savings-time thing in Arizona always throws me off.) You can listen to it on the intertubes here.*
*(Actually, the station link seems to be down at the time I’m posting this, but hopefully it’ll be back up by Sunday.)
The Bush Administration has been much criticized for a culture of arrogance that has led them to disastrous decisions on the war, spending, civil liberties and just about everything else.
Well if you like the arrogance of the Bush Administration you will love President Giuliani. Mayor Rudy picked fights with the cab drivers, street vendors, recreational drug users, live music venues and probably the best known most tragic - with the Port Authority (see The Grand Illusion, Barrett and Collins). In an ego driven power play Mayor Rudy attempted to starve the Port Authority for cash which contributed to delaying installation of new fire radios in the World Trade Center. According to Barrett and Collins fire fighters died needlessly on 911 as a result. (more…)
For those Serf City readers of the Jewish persuasion, be advised that you’ll need to dispose of the kind along with the chometz before sundown Monday:
“Marijuana is not kosher for Passover, a pro-cannabis advocacy group says, advising Jews who observe the week-long holiday’s special dietary laws to take a break from smoking the weed.The Green Leaf Party announced Wednesday that products of the cannabis plant have been grouped by rabbis within a family of foods such as peas, beans and lentils that is off-limits to Jews of European descent during Passover.The Green Leaf Party, which has made several unsuccessful attempts to win election to parliament on a platform urging marijuana’s legalisation, said it was issuing its advisory as a service to Jews who don’t want to break ritual law.”
In my ‘hood on the lower east side, it’s a pre-Passover tradition to burn all the chometz (leavened bread) in steel barrels along Grand Street. If any of my neighbors need help, um, burning their stash before the holiday, please don’t hesitate to call.
Some Columbia alums and fellow Libertarians are p.o.’d that their alma mater is attempting a land grab:
Columbia University president Lee Bollinger’s plan to use eminent domain to obtain land for a new campus in the Manhattanville section of West Harlem faces new opposition from the Libertarian Party of New York (LPNY) led by Columbia College alumni. State Chair Richard Cooper, Christopher Garvey and Mark Axinn condemn the University’s resort to the Empire State Development Corporation to condemn property-owners who will not sell voluntarily from West 125th to 133rd Streets between Broadway and 12th Avenue. The ESDC designated the area as “blighted.” Cooper responds, “Hands off Harlem!”
Cooper notes that he previously fought SUNY-Stony Brook’s eminent domain grab of Flowerfields in St. James. “Eminent domain is a legalized assault on tenants, taxpayers and property-owners. Moses said to Pharaoh, “Let my people go.” The Libertarian Party says to our modern pharaohs, the politicians and bureaucrats, “Let the people stay.” Bollinger cites our beloved Columbia’s educational mission and the infamous Kelo decision. Is it Columbia’s mission to teach that legalized theft is just and constitutional? Is it to teach that the end justifies the means?”
Mark Axinn, a Manhattan real estate attorney and Manhattan LP treasurer, laments “I am particularly appalled that Columbia University, which already has significant real estate and financial resources far in excess of others is desirous of relying on the thuggery of government to force other real estate owners to relinquish their property rather than simply purchasing any land it desires on the open market. Surely an institution with the power and wealth of Columbia could simply buy property. By seeking to usurp others’ legitimate property rights by eminent domain, a university of which I should be proud lowers itself to the level of the street bully simply taking what it wants from those weaker individuals who might also be on the schoolyard.”
Christopher Garvey, a Long Island patent attorney and former LPNY candidate for Governor,is outraged. “On The Brian Lehrer Show (3/8/07), President Bollinger stated his case for expansion into the Manhattanville section of West Harlem. He described the activities of his private university as “public purposes”, which justified having the government invoke its powers of eminent domain to steal property from existing owners to give to the University. How arrogant! Declaring one’s “purposes” to be “public” is so much easier and cheaper than buying property fairly, from willing sellers on the free market.”
Not bad for a bunch of Lions. Of course, all the really cool Libertarians went to NYU (Julian Sanchez, Chris Sciabarra and yours truly, to name a few.)
That’s the title of my column today at Strike The Root, in which I discuss how the State sinks its hooks into our children literally from the moment we leave the womb, and what parents can do to mitigate the damage.
Lest anyone think that Rudy Giuliani’s campaign trail conversion to RKBA believer is sincere, this damning video from 2000 should wake them up:
According to Rudy, if guns aren’t sold for “hunting or law enforcement,” they must be “going to a criminal market.” If a mere civilian wants a handgun, he must be up to no good.
We, the NYC queer community, are outraged that City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who claims to speak for *us*, has endorsed this plan, calling the new permit regulations “a practical approach to traffic and public safety issues” (NYT 10/18/06). The same Christine Quinn who claims to speak for the queer community is now attacking the very civil rights gains that have made it possible for her, an out lesbian, to become speaker. Did the Stonewall veterans ask the police for a permit? Quinn betrays those who fought hard for civil right by allowing and supporting police violations of basic tenets of the Constitution.
To protest Quinn’s betrayal, the Radical Homosexual Agenda is organizing an Unpermitted Queer Parade in Honor of Christine Quinn. The parade starts at 4:00 p.m. on April 19th at City Hall Park.
April 19th is the perfect date for anti-government activism. The American Revolution started on that date in 1775 at Lexington and Concord. On the same date in 1943, the Warsaw Uprising began. And, sadly, on that date in 1993, Janet Reno murdered 79 men, women and children at Mt. Carmel in Waco.
We Manhattan Libertarians, of course, have our own history of unpermitted protests. Godspeed, Radical Homosexuals.
The NY Sun is reporting that the Parks Department spends $1,100 each time it plants a sapling in New York City. That is exponentially higher than the cost to plant trees in other locales, and it’s $400 more than NYC itself was paying just four years ago.
The reason for the astronomical price hike is no mystery: Comptroller William Thompson (who aspires to be our next mayor) unilaterally decided in 2003 to raise the pay of tree planters more than threefold, from $15 an hour to $55.
Even the landscapers themselves are baffled by the reclassification of an unskilled job:
“We got lumped into the laborer category, but we’re landscapers,” Mr. DeBartoli [owner of Robert Bello Landscaping] said. “We don’t come out with cranes and all kinds of fancy equipment. We come out and dig a hole and plant a tree and put stones around it.”
Also adding to the high cost is the fact that the city now requires landscapers to guarantee their trees againt vandalism for the first two years after planting. Why should the landscaper be on the hook if someone damages a tree after the job is done? It’s a mystery to everyone but the geniuses at City Hall.
According to the Times, Wal-Mart has written off New York. Thanks, union a-holes. I love overpaying for groceries and sundries. Really, thanks a million.
