The Alchemist

On August 21, 10:25:20 and 10:51:16, a mid-level aid on my opponent's staff signed up on my Political Action Committee's website to "Turn out voters, Make policy, Fundraise, Volunteer in general" on both occasions.  This occurred only 4 days after an annoucement was sent to the broader Columbia Alumni Community.  A few days later a lobbyist from a large Albany Law Firm asked for a call.  "What do you want kid?" He asked me.  "You can't be serious about trying to unseat a sitting speaker.  There are easier ways to get into public office." 

The Political and Financial Leaders of today have ransomed our future.  No one is innocent.  People of the earth you have all been poisoned.  The only antidote is a drastic program of retraining, retooling, and reform.  Short of this, a Jeffersonian call to revolution is the only alternative, and one which I do not relish.  Our debt per capita is more than most people's retirement accounts.  A quick reading of history will show that the French had the same problem before their problems started a few hundred years ago.  As they say, "the only war the french have won since then has been the French Revolution."  Our atmospheric and oceanic  environments have degraded to the point where ecosystems are soon to be

 New York State would achieve significant cost savings, while also creating opportunities to generate revenue with state owned assets by shifting to Real Time Pricing. Furthermore, the state may act as an innovator by helping to mature developing technologies which would facilitate the adoption of real time pricing for residential constituents. It is believed that the complete migration of all New York customers to RTP is inevitable in the future. Real-time pricing (RTP) is a rate class where customers pay for the electricity they consume based on wholesale hourly market prices.

For too long, scientists have ducked away from public service, not because their peers have been unwilling to elect them, but because there is a sense among scientifically educated people that politics is something to be avoided -- something that is inherently corrupting about the idea of becoming a politician causes most scientists.  For too long, our long term public welfare has been held hostage by our public representatives who act as primarily as politicians rather than statesmen and stateswomen.  The distinction between the two being that politicians seek only to advance policies which secure their next election, while statesmen and stateswomen seek to secure the next generation.

In the past, support for environmental initiatives in the United States has been embraced by those on both sides of the aisle. Democrats have also made leaps and bounds in environmental protection laws including their staunch defense of the EPA. Republicans can lay claim to one of the most militant conservationists, Theodore Roosevelt, who established national parks and forests.  However, today, the cooperation between the two parties has broken down to the detriment of everything from the environment to the economy.

Initial Conditions as the Determinate Factor in Russia and China’s Transition OutcomeIt is widely acknowledged that China has been vastly more successful than Russia in her transition from a planned socialist economy to a market-based economy.  The literature on the subject focuses on two major themes to explain the explosive growth in the Chinese economy and the precipitous fall in the economies of the Former Soviet Union (FSU). 

International Environmental law and Nuclear WinterNearly thirty years after its introduction in the 1980s, the Nuclear Winter hypothesis has gained additional quantitative confirmation, providing a robust argument for the illegality of nuclear weapons under the Law of Armed Conflict.

In New York State, under the Public Corporations law, so called "Authorities" or "Public Corporations" can be created that have the ability to raise capital, make autonomous decisions, and act independently fro the state government. Normally, these semi-public institutions are governed by small boards of political appointees and operate with little or no oversight. However, there are ways to make these public corporations return financial decision making power to the very people these decisions affect people.