Companies Lying About Jobs

Our state and local governments give tax breaks to companies for various reasons (in New York, these are often called "Enterprise Zones"). These companies usually have to promise to create jobs or invest in the local area. Sounds like a good deal ... everyone benefits.

But, (I know you will be shocked) many companies do provide the promised job creation or investment in the local area. And (I know you will be doubly shocked), the state government has rarely, if ever, checked up to see if companies have followed through on their promises.

Things may be changing, however. The New York Times (via) reports:

Officials alerted about 3,000 companies on Monday that they could lose the tax breaks they received under the state’s enterprise zone program because they had failed to create jobs or invest in their areas as promised.

I know you will be triply surprised to find out that Wal-Mart is on the list of companies targeted.

This is good. The NY State “Enterprise Zone” program has turned into a way for companies to simply dip into the State’s wallet, to the detriment of the citizens of the state and to the detriment of a company’s competitors. I hope NY is successful at putting a stop to the gravy train, and finding ways that use state resources that truly do create jobs and truly do result in local investment.

The Search for Amelia Earhart, Update

On tiny Nikumaroro Island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, several searchers looking for clues to the disappearance of famous aviatrix Amelia Earhart in 1937 have found “metal artifacts … that correspond to known substructures on the Lockheed 10, and some of them have part numbers on them.” Amelia Earhart flew a Lockheed 10.

Have I Mentioned Cat Osterman Lately?

USA Softball has been having an easy go so far at the Pan American Games in Rio de Janeiro. Four USA pitchers combined for two no-hitters in their first two games. That might seem like a tough act to follow, but not for Cat Osterman. The Cat took the ball for the USA’s third game, and threw a near-perfect game, striking out 14 in a game shortened to 5 innings by the mercy rule. One batter walked, and the only other batter who did not strike out out popped out to the catcher. You go, Cat! I wish I could have seen that game. USA wins 10–0.

The Search for Amelia Earhart Underway

A team of researchers has arrived on Nikumaroro (formerly Gardner) Island to search for evidence that aviatrix Amelia Earhart landed and died there after getting lost on her around-the-world flight in 1937. Read their daily reports here.

Update (7/26): Great graphics and expedition summary here from AP.

The Pillars of Our Democracy Keep Crumbling

We torture people. We detain people indefinitely. The NSA, at the President’s urging, now spies on Americans phone calls without a court order. We out undercover CIA agents with impunity. The list goes on and on and on.

These are not things that America stands for. These used to be human rights violations that we criticized the Soviet Union for as recently as 2001.

Now, Sara reports another pillar of our Democracy is crumbling and may no longer exist. The President now asserts the right to take away our property, our bank accounts, etc. on the say-so of the President and his treasury secretary, without a court trial, and without Congress approving this.

It’s that B clause that concerns me — and should concern all of us who blog, comment, organize, write letters, and otherwise exercise our rights to agitate against this unholy war. “Undermining the efforts” is a term that can be defined very, very broadly. And since those of us opposing this war have been told repeatedly, from the beginning, that our efforts to change our fellow citizens’ minds were in fact treasonous acts that undermined the war effort, emboldened America's enemies, and harmed our troops, it’s not unreasonable to believe that those warnings are now being backed up by official action. “At risk of committing significant acts of violence” is more overbroad weasel-speak: How many of us have said things that could be construed (at least by the certifiable paranoids in the White House) as a threat of violence against the Bush Administration?

Time to start blogging anonymously.

Update (7/22): Magpie talks about another reason to think the Bush “administration” is planning to take our rights away. There’s that Executive Order from May, the classified portions of which have never been seen outside of Bush’s inner circle, allowing the President to run the government in case of a major disaster or terrorist attack. And its the President who gets to determine what a major disaster is.

The Incomparable Miss Osterman

Cat Osterman is widely acclaimed as the best fast-pitch pitcher in the world. And what a treat it is to watch her pitch! Last night, in the Championship of the World Cup of Softball, Cat pitched another trademark gem. She struck out 13 batters in 7 innings, allowing only 3 hits (2 of them cheap hits), as she shut out the second best team in the world, Japan. Only one of Cat’s pitches was hit onto the outfield grass, and none of her pitches was hit hard. Just check out the video here on ESPN.com and watch how the Japanese batters flail wildly at Cat’s pitches.

Osterman’s victory gave the United States the championship in the World Cup for the second straight year (Osterman also pitched last year’s championship game). In the World Championships last year in Beijing, Osterman won both games of a doubleheader, allowing only one run, to give the USA the World Championship.

The USA this year has outscored its opponents 134–4, and dominates both in the batter’s box and on the mound and should be the favorite to win the gold medal in next year’s Olympics.

As a side note, ESPN did their typically excellent job of covering the World Cup, and my only complaint is that ESPN usually cuts away from one game almost as soon as it ends to go to their next show on the schedule. This isn’t just a problem last night, but it is a problem on most broadcasts in most sports. And because last night’s game ran long and ended with an unusual play, the USA didn’t get to celebrate as they waited for the umpire’s ruling. Viewers didn’t get to see the USA team celebrate, nor did they see Cat hoist the championship trophy. Fortunately, you can see a little bit of Cat lifting the trophy in the video. Also, ESPN has so many sports to cover that its amazing they can even fit softball into their schedule, so I’m very grateful that they covered every one of the USA’s games. SportsCenter is even more crowded, but Cat Osterman seems to be the one name from the world of softball that SportsCenter covers (they covered both of her wins in the World Cup) and Cat is the only softball player that makes it to the front page of ESPN.com.

Update (7/22): ESPN’s Graham Hays reports: “Television ratings [for the World Cup of Softball] in the United States grew 40 percent last year, topping out with a 1.1 rating for the 2006 final game between the United States and Japan (a rating comparable with the NHL Stanley Cup finals).”

Baby mammoth discovery unveiled

The frozen carcass of a nearly complete female calf mammoth was recently discovered in Siberia. Click the link to see the photo of the mammoth (it’s cute!).

USA Softball

A year ago, I lamented how every USA national team failed to make the championship game in their respective world championships — except for USA Women’s Softball, who won the world championships in China.

Last year, in the World Cup of Softball (not to be confused with the World Championship), USA Women’s Softball outscored their opponents 59–3. In this year’s World Cup, USA Women’s Softball has outscored their opponents 17–1 in their first two games. In the first game, the top power hitter in the world, Crystl Bustos, hit a mammoth three-run homerun to lead USA to a 9–1 win over Venezuela. In the second game, the top pitcher in the world, Cat Osterman (pictured), was dazzling as she pitched a one hitter, striking out 9 in the five inning game (including the last 7 batters she faced).

Two more games are scheduled today, one more on Sunday and the championship game on Monday night. All games are shown on ESPN or ESPN2. Check out USA Women’s Softball, and scream your lungs out for the good old USA. You will enjoy it.

All-Star Game

Some of my favorite memories as a child were from the Major League All-Star Game, the Mid-Summer classic. Not only did you get to see all of the biggest stars from both leagues, but the teams played the game as if the game meant something. I did my best to keep score, and stayed up way too late, but I think my parents understood that this was a special night.

One of those Mid-Summer Classics of my childhood still sticks out in my mind. It was the 1967 All-Star Game, played in Anaheim, California. That night, the game went 15 innings, and I watched every single pitch. And at the end of that game, in the fifteenth inning, the following stars were still in the game: Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Roberto Clemente, Orlando Cepeda, Brooks Robinson, Harmon Killebrew, Tony Oliva and Carl Yastrzemski. Of those names, all were starters except shockingly, for Willie Mays, who was not voted by the fans to be a starter and entered the game in the 6th inning. What drama! Some of the biggest sluggers in the game, coming up several times in extra innings, with the fate of the game on the line.

In 1967, the teams played like the wanted to win, badly. The managers managed like they wanted to win, badly. The biggest stars were still in the game in the 15th inning.

Today, the All-Star game is still special, but it has come down a few notches. Despite what the players and managers say now, they don’t play or manage like they want to win. The best players only play a couple of innings, and then they have the rest of the night off. In fact, Barry Bonds was scheduled to have just two at-bats last night. How is that managing like you want to win? How is that playing like you want to win? In fact, the main goal of the managers now seems to be to make sure virtually everyone on the team gets to play in the All-Star Game, which is quite different than managing to win.

Now, instead of seeing the biggest stars in the game in the late innings when the game is on the line, we see second-tier and third-tier stars. The drama just isn’t the same. And last night, NL Manager Tony LaRussa’s failure to put first-tier star Albert Pujols into the game with the bases loaded, two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the NL trailing by 1 run, is inexplicable and rubs salt into my own personal All-Star Game wounds. Instead we saw second or third-tier stars like Orlando Hudson and Aaron Rowand come up with the bases loaded.

Imagine instead the drama if Pujols had been up. Imagine if sluggers Barry Bonds and Ken Griffey, Jr. and David Wright and Prince Fielder had still been in the National League line-up. It breaks my heart to see the game so degraded. The All-Star Game doesn’t mean what it used to. Now, it is an exhibition game and nothing more, and unless there are dramatic changes to the way the game is played and managed, baseball might as well cancel the game.

Perhaps the only redeeming value of the All-Star Game now, in these days of 24 hour sports channels, is the tribute to legends of the past. In 1999, we saw a touching tribute to Ted Williams at the All-Star Game. Last night baseball put on a memorable and touching tribute to Willie Mays. Last night, after the players were announced, they walked out to centerfield in San Francisco’s new ballpark, and then Willie Mays entered the field from behind the outfield fence. Willie Mays, in centerfield, in San Francisco! What a thrill! And then, today’s players followed Mays as he walked back toward the infield — today’s players symbolically following in Mays’s footsteps. A fitting tribute to the man who was my boyhood idol, and to a man who was thought by many to be the best baseball player ever.

Joe Lieberman: Out of Touch?

I can’t understand why television networks continue to put Joe Lieberman on their network. His comments are always out of touch, or deliberately misleading. Here’s what he said yesterday: “Give the American soldiers a break. It’s as if the American troops have the enemy on one side and Congress is sniping at their heels on the other side.”

Let see, how many ways can Lieberman be wrong? There are no Congressmen sniping at the heels of our troops. Not one. There are Congressmen (mostly Democrats) sniping at the heels of the troops’ civilian leadership. I suppose that’s a distinction that is too difficult for Joe to grasp.

Lieberman’s crappy statement is wrong on another level as well. If we wanted to give the soldiers a break, we would end the war bring them home so they can resume their shattered lives, or at least not return them to combat until they have had sufficient rest. Joe, you have not done a thing to end the war or to ease the soldiers plight in any way shape or form.

In fact, recently, Lieberman failed to show up for a funeral for a soldier from Connecticut who was killed in the Joe Lieberman war. This led Tparty at My Left Nutmeg to dig up Lieberman’s duplicitous speech as his primary campaign was foundering last year.

I know as well as anyone we have made a lot of mistakes in Iraq and we have suffered more casualties than we should have. Don’t think for a minute I do not grieve for every casualty of this war.

In fact, as someone who voted for the war, I feel a heavy responsibility to try to end it as quickly and successfully as possible.

I have been to the front lines four times. I have been to Walter Reed and visited the brave men and women who have suffered awful injuries and sacrificed for their country the way Max Cleland did. I have visited with the families who have been devastated by the death of a son or daughter, a husband or a wife.

The last thing I want to do is needlessly add to that kind of heartbreak. I want to get our troops home as fast as anyone, probably more than most, and as I have repeatedly said, I am against an open-ended commitment.

You disgust me, Joe.

Update (7/11/07): CNN’s Michael Ware, reporting from Baghdad, says: “I’m afraid that Senator Lieberman has taken an excursion into fantasy.”

Where Are Those Republicans Now?

Think Progress has a nice study of those who were involved in the planning of the Iraq war. Seems they have all prospered either inside the Bush Administration, and none have been penalized for their incompetence.

How about those Republican Senators who voted to convict President Bill Clinton of charges of perjury and obstruction of justice when Clinton was impeached in 1999? Of those Republican Senators, 25 are still in office, and not one of them has spoken a single public word about President Bush’s commutation of the sentence against I. Lewis Libby, despite their impassioned rhetoric against Clinton and why it is not proper to lie.

And then there is Fred Thompson, formerly minority counsel for the Senate Watergate Committee in 1973. Thompson, now a likely candidate for president as a Republican, seems like a hero on his website and in his book for his role in Watergate. However, according to a Democratic investigator for the committee, Scott Armstrong, quoted in The Boston Globe: “Thompson was a mole for the White House. Fred was working hammer and tong to defeat the investigation of finding out what happened to authorize Watergate and find out what the role of the president was.” Naturally, Thompson believes I. Lewis Libby deserves a full pardon.

Lovely history of these Republicans, isn’t it? Kind of makes me proud I have never been a Republican.

Hot Dog! (Part 2)

In today’s ESPN broadcast of the Nathan’s Famous July Fourth Hot Dog Easting Contest, we saw both Joey Chestnut and Takeru Kobayashi blast through the 60 HDB (hot dog and bun) barrier in a wild, glutonous, disgusting finish. As the clock ticked down to zero, both Chestnut and Kobayashi forced another hot dog into their mouth. Kobayashi appeared to suffer “reversal of fortune”, as they say in competitive eating, but as the buzzer sounded, both Kobayashi and Chestnut appeared to be tied at 63 hot dogs. The judges were given the disgusting task of deciding how much of that last hot dog stuffed into both eater’s mouths counted. Then ESPN went to commercial and when they came back, Chestnut had actually been credited with 66 hot dogs eaten, and ESPN never explained this. Kobayashi didn’t seem to be penalized for his “reversal of fortune”.

Chestnut is the first American champion since 1999. His 66 HDBs breaks his own world records of 59.5, which in turn had broken Kobayashi’s record of 53.5.

In case you missed the actual ESPN broadcast, Jen and Tien at The Gothamist live blogged the event. Extra bonus: Lauren Spirer at The Gothamist tastes 32 different variety of hot dogs, and declares Hebrew National the winner in the kosher category and Nathan’s wins in the all-beef category.

Unrelated bonus: Scientists say Saturn’s moon Hyperion is porous like a sponge.

Hot Dog!

Interrupting the Scooter Libby commutation is another event of cosmic proportions, one so big that virtually every ESPN show has to comment on it. Even Las Vegas has set up a betting line on it. And much like last weekend’s building implosions, I will be glued to the TV.

The event I’m talking about is the Nathan’s Famous July Fourth Hot Dog Easting Contest. This match has been widely anticipated since Joey Chestnut broke six-time champion Takeru Kobayashi’s record a few weeks ago by eating 59.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes. Kobayashi’s record, set last year at the Nathan’s competition, was 53.5 hot dogs in 12 minutes. The anticipation has been amped up a few notches since Kobayashi has claimed to be suffering from jaw arthritis, leading Chestnut to speculate that Kobayashi might be scared to compete this year.

While others spend their time live-blogging the Libby trial, or the testimony in Congress of some big-wigs, Jen and Tien at The Gothamist will be live-blogging the Hot Dog Eating Contest, just as they did last year.

Olbermann to Bush: Resign

Wow! A must see video! Keith Olbermann accuses the President of the United States of lying, subverting the constitution and a long list of other crimes. He asks Bush to resign.

The Libby Pardon: Bush is Compassionate Only to Conservatives

Paul Begala:

George W. Bush is One Tough Hombre
Tough enough to execute Karla Fay Tucker — and then laugh about it. Tough enough to sign a death warrant for a man whose lawyer slept through the trial — and then snicker when asked about it in a debate. Even tough enough to execute a great-grandmother who murdered her husband — after he abused her. A friend of mine at the time asked Bush to commute her sentence, telling him, “Betty Lou ain’t a threat to no one she ain’t married to.” No dice.

Mr. Bush is tough enough to invade a country that was no risk to America, causing tens of thousands of civilian deaths and shedding precious American blood in the process. Tough enough to sanction torture. Tough enough to order an American citizen arrested and held without trial.

But if you’re rich and right-wing and Republican, George is a real softie. As George W. Bush demonstrated in giving Scooter Libby a Get Out of Jail Free Card, he is only compassionate to conservatives.

Also see Glenn Greenwald. Also, David Corn provides a guide to rebutting right-wing lies about the Libby case.

70 Years Ago Today, Amelia Earhart Vanished

Amelia Earhart’s last known transmission, as she was desperately trying to find tiny Howland Island in a remote portion of the Pacific Ocean before running out of fuel, indicated that she was headed on a course that leads to Gardner (now Nikumaroro) Island. Earhart never made it to Howland, and disappeared without a trace.

Soon, a group of researchers will head back to Nikumaroro to see if they can find more clues to the Earhart mystery, to add to the tantalizing clues they have already uncovered, including the presence of a castaway and a skeleton found on the uninhabited island in 1940. The Washington Post profiles the lead researcher Ric Gillespie.

All Implosions, All The Time

R News has been providing live coverage of the implosions of two buildings at Kodak Park this weekend. The actual implosions, dramatic and riveting, take about 10 seconds for the buildings to be reduce to rubble. R News’s coverage, including interviews with spectators and with the demolition crews, has been exceptional. I’m very surprised that they could make it so interesting that I watched a whole hour of the coverage.