Everything's JOK

Project Sweet Tooth Progress - February-June 2009

It has been a long time since I blogged about my project sweet tooth.  I have been diligently recording my efforts to cut down on eating sweets and sleeping more.  Though, based on this night you would no doubt be sure that I am failing at the later objective.

So here is a table of my progress over the first half of the year:

Month	Days w/o Sweets	8+ hr Nights
January	23	5
February	19	9
March	23	10
April	16	6
May	20	7
June	20	7

So things have bounced around a bit. Clearly I need to get more sleep, and I should cut down on the sweets better. Still, I haven't had a soda in over half a year and I consider that an accomplishment.

The incentives haven't worked out terribly well, since at this point I have 42 hours of hobby time unused. I think I need to reduce the payoff to provide the incentive I need.

Finished merging of GRP database

It took me 23 months of long nights, with many fits and starts, but I am happy to say that I am finally done with merging three different GRP databases.  I handed off the final merged data set off to the GRP Membership Director.  Since I resigned from the State Committee and any of the other committees I was on, that concludes any direct involvement I have with workings of the Green-Rainbow Party at the state level.  Both scary and exhilarating.  New projects await.

My recommendation to anyone who maintains a party or non-profit database is to just have one.  I recommend CiviCRM, though there are many others.  If you must integrate other data sources, say a voter list on a periodic basis, then keep past versions of the data set around, extract the new records and merge those into your data set.  Any conflicts will be easier to handle.  If you do not have just one data source, then look at the brief notes I kept.

Treasurer Tim to leave the Democratic Party

WBUR reported this morning that Massachusetts Treasurer Tim Cahill will be leaving the Democratic Party.  It was covered by 35 news sources based on news.google.com, including The Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and others.  I guess I shouldn't be surprised that his departure from the Democratic Party would receive at least an order of magnitude more coverage than his apparent conflicts of interest.

Good luck with the party change, Tim.  Its a lot more fun outside of a party that controls the 80% of the legislature, but still socks it to the poor with a sales tax increase while not halting the decrease in the corporate income tax rate. 

Yes, you heard that right, the 9.5% corporate income tax changes to 8.75% in 2010, 8.25% in 2011 and 8% in 2012+.  Financial institutions rates will change from 10.5% now to 10% in 2010, 9.5% in 2011 and 9% in 2012+.  My how "progressive" these Democrats are.

UPDATE: Apparently Steve Grossman, former head of the Massachusetts Democratic Party and a past candidate for Governor, will run for Massachusetts Treasurer.

MA State Treasurer Cahill voted to double supporter's pension

Wow!  I wish I knew this in 2002 when I ran for Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts: 
Cahill voted to double supporter's pension.  Then again, so do Cahill's other opponents.  Here are the interesting bits (the bolds are mine in case you just want to skim it):

Shea, who retired that year at age 49, has been collecting a pension now worth $47,000 a year, plus health-care insurance, paid by Norfolk county taxpayers. If she had received the kind of pension usually given to sheriff's department administrators, instead of the type Norfolk corrections officers get for their potentially dangerous jobs, her pension would be worth less than half that, $21,230 a year.
...

Steve Kenneway, president of the Massachusetts Correctional Officers Federation Union, blasted Shea's pension.

"I don't see a lot of stress on a paper-pusher, not compared to an officer who might get stabbed or beaten up on the cellblock," he said. "These retirements are meant for officers who get old before their time under the stress and physical demands of the job."
...

Shea's work for Cahill, a Democrat, extends back at least to 1996 when she was actively raising funds for his campaign to become county treasurer, according to three Quincy Democrats who observed their relationship. She also used her contacts from having served on the retirement board to round up support for Cahill around the county.

Shea again worked closely with him in his 2002 campaign to win the state treasurer's post. After he took office, she continued to be on his inner financial team that met in Quincy, sometimes weekly, to plan fund-raising for Cahill's political account, said two Cahill supporters. Shea has also donated to Cahill's coffers, more than $3,000 since Cahill won election as state treasurer.

...

The five-member Norfolk County Retirement Board approved Shea's pension with no questions asked, minutes show. At the time, Cahill was chairman, and Shea was also a member of the board (and still is). Neither Cahill nor Shea recused themselves from the July 2000 vote, according to minutes of the meeting, which state that the vote was unanimous to approve a batch of pension requests, including Shea's.

Additionally:

Shea has since embarked on a second career as a broker for firms seeking to invest state and county pension funds; her firm earned what is estimated to be a substantial fee for helping to arrange a deal for an investment management firm to handle $250 million from the Massachusetts pension fund, which is overseen by Cahill.
...
After she stopped working at the sheriff's office, Shea began work as a pension investment consultant for Connors & Co., a Georgia company that earns fees by matching investment companies with state and local pension funds. Shea is the firm's director of sales and marketing for New England.
...

Paul F. Connors Jr. and his wife have been longtime contributors to Cahill's campaign committee, dating back to when he was first elected county treasurer. Since Cahill was elected to the state post in 2002, they have contributed $12,000. Connors could not be reached yesterday; he has previously not responded to requests for comment about his firm's dealings in Massachusetts.

In October 2005, the state retirement board chose EARNEST Partners, an Atlanta-based financial firm, to manage $250 million in pension money. EARNEST used Connors & Co. as a broker on the deal. Cahill also chaired the selection committee that reviewed the proposals.

If normal industry standards were used, Connors & Co. would have earned between 1 and 12 percent of the $6.8 million fee that the state pension board paid EARNEST to manage the funds. EARNEST's disclosure statement did not include the fee Connors & Co. received.

Cahill served on the state pension board selection committee that recommended EARNEST and also voted for final approval. He has said he does not excuse himself from participating, even if his political supporters are involved, because he is not told which third-party brokers helped arrange an investment.

Please go read the Boston Globe article: Cahill voted to double supporter's pension.  It does make for interesting reading.

Congratulations to the European Greens

Congratulations to my fellow Greens participating in the 2009 European Parliamentary elections.  Ecolo in Belgium, Europe Écologie/Les Verts in France, the Socialist People's Party in Denmark, Bündnis90/Die Grünen in Germany and Sweden's Miljöpartiet de Gröna did particularly well.  All got over 10% of the vote.  Unfortunately, Comhaontas Glas in Ireland and Strana Zelenych in the Czech Republic, both in government, were trounced very soundly and did not receive any MEPs.

Also, congratulations to the Swedish Pirate Party for its strong showing and electing an MEP.

I am so proud!

One of my daughter's preschool teacher's remarked that my daughter got her bunny out of her cubby yesterday and gave it to a crying classmate.  She said she'd never seen a kid do anything like that.  I am so proud!

Spanish Communist town provides jobs and housing

From the Dollars & Sense blog comes this NY Times piece about a Communist run town in Spain providing jobs and housing.  The NY Times focuses far too much time on what the mayor does than on how they put their Communist economy into practice.  Last I knew towns had councils that acted as a municipality's legislature.  My guess is that they are approving the town's municipal housing program and farming cooperative.  Here is the wikipedia entry that lists more about the town council.

The reporter wrote a similar article for the International Herald Tribune that appeared in the Boston Globe a month ago.

Happy Birthday to Us!

Today is my birthday.  On the actual date of my birth Kyle Eastwood, American jazz musician & son of Clint Eastwood was born.  I share a birthday with:

• Malcolm X
• Kevin Garnett
• Ho Chi Minh
• Mustafa Kamal Atatürk
• Mohammed Mosaddeq
• Grace Jones
• Nora Ephron
• André the Giant
• Joey Ramone
• James Gosling
• Pete Townshend
• Peter Mayhew
• Nicole Brown Simpson
• Pol Pot

Today is a weird day.

Increase the sales tax: Is our legislature crazy?

On the 27th, the Massachusetts House of Representatives approved an increase in the sales tax from 5% to 6.25%.  Strangely, my own legislators in Somerville, who are viewed as very progressive and who I know and like, voted for it.

I understand that our Massachusetts' government is facing a very large deficit and that vital programs will be cut to balance the budget.  If we don't raise taxes then vital programs that help our cities and towns, children and provide the little safety net we have, will be axed.

However, increasing the sales tax is not the way to do it!

The sales tax is incredibly regressive.  Page 58 of The Institute on Taxation & Economic Policy's Who Pays: A distributional analysis of the Tax Systems in All 50 States lists a break down for the total tax burden faced by people at different levels of income in Massachusetts. 

Those in the lowest 20% by income, pay 9.3% of their income in taxes.  The poorest 20% pay 5.4% of their income in sales and excise taxes.

Those in the top 1% by income, pay 4.6% of their income (6.8% before they get a kick back from the federal government because of our state income tax) in taxes.  The richest 1% pay 0.6% of their income in sales taxes.  

Basically the Massachusetts House has decided to fund services used by the poor and middle class (as well as corporate welfare) on the back of the poor.

There are alternatives to a blanket increase in the sales tax. 

Short term, we could raise corporate taxes and eliminate the Fidelity and Raytheon tax breaks.  We could also raise the income tax rate while also increasing the value of deductions and exemptions so the higher rates don't hit the poor and middle class.  If need be, it would be more preferable to change the sales tax to cover services, or items bought over the internet.  While not perfect, both changes in the sales tax are more likely to effect the well off.

Longer term we could make the income tax progressive, or impose a wealth tax.  Yes, I know "that's not possible" because the rich and the corporations own our government.  Still, we have to fight for a just tax system.

The financial corporations and rich are getting a bailout, but the poor and middle class are getting the shaft.  Please urge your State Senator to vote against this increase in the sales tax and to seek fairer taxes.

Email appears to be working

I finally tracked down the problem that caused some, but not all, mailers to fail to send mail to jokeefe at jamesokeefe dot org. 

I had setup a CNAME record for jamesokeefe.org that pointed to jokeefe.typepad.com.  This setting resulted in some servers getting the typepad domain name server and not the correct domain name server. 

Those servers that got the typepad dns would email to jokeefe@jokeefe.typepad.com.  Removing this CNAME record and instead setting up an A record that pointed jamesokeefe.org to www.jamesokeefe.org appears to have fixed the problem.

Various folks who have had problems in the past, are now able to email jokeefe at jamesokeefe dot org.  I am most pleased, though it took me too long to fix it.

Thanks to R. Scott Perry's helpful DNS Oversimplified page.