blogspot.com vs. wordpress.com

In a post sometime ago Dave Lucas wondered why I post my blog both on wordpress.com and blogspot.com. Here’s why. When I initially wanted to blog, I didn’t know about wordpress. I did know that blogspot was where most of the serious blogs were. I wanted to be taken seriously and knew that places like livejournal and myspace were not where I wanted to be.

I really liked blogspot when I started out, but I wanted to be able to index all of my posts by using categories. I could not figure out a way of doing it. Then I discovered wordpress. Wordpress makes it very easy to add categories. You can also add additional pages that show up as tabs at the top of your blog. You can add pages like about us, contact us, etc. Wordpress also allows you to import ALL of your posts from your old blog.

I imported all of my posts from blogspot to wordpress and was working on categorizing all of the old posts, but I had yet to let anyone know about my blog, when one day blogger went down for hours and people could not access my blog. That’s when I decided it would be a good idea to let people know about my wordpress blog, so they could access it when blogger was down. Blogger has gone done several times since, which made me realize that a back up blog site was important to have.

At first traffic on my wordpress site was low, but now it has outstripped my blogspot site. It runs about five times the traffic on blogspot. In fact my blogspot blog traffic has remained relatively constant now for months. I also do not have to add any tags to my wordpress posts, because the categories work as wordpress tags. Furthermore, wordpress tags, in my experience, are picked up better by search engines than technorati tags are. Not having much computer savvy, I have yet to learn how to add technorati tags in the graceful way that Dave and other bloggers have.

On the downside, you can't modify your template with wordpress (although you can if you pay a one time $15 upgrade fee), and it’s not easy to add links, although I think that would be corrected by upgrading. I am also not sure that you can have a blog with multiple contributors. Using html is not as easy as with blogger and there are other minor quirks as well.

Posting to two blogs is a pain, even when you cut and paste. I have been tempted to upgrade my wordpress account so I can modify my template and abandon blogspot altogether, however, I understand that blogspot is coming up with a better version so I will wait and see.

For those of you who would like to add categories to your blogspot blog, Dave has come up with a fairly simple method, one I would have never thought of.

If I do abandon my blogspot blog, I won’t delete it but will leave a post there with a link to my wordpress blog.

Dumb Belles-Lettres To The Editor Of The Daily Gazette.

The Daily Gazette has published a number of letters to the editor lately that I can only characterize as dumb.

The other day, Barry Groat was complaining about how WMHT is always asking for money. It seems that about every other month, the Gazette publishes a letter like this. But no one ever writes in and complains about WAMC always asking for money. WMHT provides the only classical music in the Capital Region and Mohawk Valley. It also provides some of the best television. Furthermore, while WAMC’s staff pleads, begs, chastises, and guilt trips the listener in the manner of an Elmer Gantry or a Tetzel (as soon as the coin in the coffer rings, your soul from purgatory springs) in order to get listeners to drop money in their tin cup, WMHT’s auction lets you get something for your money.

On a side note, a little research on Barry Groat turned up a story I had forgotten--Groat’s brother’s conviction for trying to extort money from the CIA. Groat’s brother used to be a cop in Glenville, until he got kicked off of the force. I don’t mean that to be any reflection on Barry Groat. It’s just an interesting side note.

On 8/17/06, Norrine Thompson wrote to The Gazette making fun of another woman who had written about the properties of scented bleach. Norrine seems to have missed the point of the first letter. The first letter writer was letting people know that scented bleach does not disinfect. If you live in areas of New York State that were flooded in June, that is a useful piece of news. The fact that you can’t disinfect your flooded house with scented bleach is at least as important as which movie star is pregnant, getting married, getting a divorce, etc.

On 8/22/06, Anne M. Fitzgerald wrote to say that Child Protective Services only takes children away from parents who are neglecting or abusing them. She must believe that cops only arrest guilty people. I have written a response to The Gazette. Look for it soon.

Going back a ways to June 7, Elaine Pastore of Scotia wrote a letter making fun of Carl Strock who had written about how much Mary Carroll has to spend each month keeping in touch with her husband, who is incarcerated, by phone. Pastore, like Thompson, learned her ABCs, but is still functionally illiterate. She’s missed the point of Strock’s column. The State has a contract with MCI to provide phone service to the prisons that borders on being criminal. Prisoners can only call collect and the price of the calls are exorbitant. The Department of Correctional Services is essentially punishing prisoners’ families along with prisoners. Why haven’t Alan Hevesi and Eliot Spitzer criticized this deal. Teddy Roosevelt would have trust busted this arrangement. Rumor has it, that Elaine Pastore may have written this letter at the instigation of Patricia DeAngelis, but I haven‘t been able to confirm it.

NYS Supreme Court Provides Awkward Moment For DA Trish DeAngelis.

By now I’m sure you’ve already heard that Christine Wilhelm’s murder conviction was overturned by the Third District of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court on Thursday. Wilhelm, who suffers from a severe psychotic condition, was prosecuted in 2002 by Rennselaer County DA Patricia DeAngelis (DeAngelis was an ADA at the time) for drowning her one son and attempting to drown the other.

You can read the entire 16 page decision yourself.

Carl Strock wrote a great column in yesterday’s Sunday Gazette about the court’s decision. The Times Union also wrote an editorial praising the decision and blasting Ms. DeAngelis. Even The Record came out from under its rock long enough to say that the DA "may have had the last nail pounded into her political coffin."

There is little to add to what Strock, The Record and The Times Union had to say except to note that DeAngelis has yet to post a press release concerning the decision on her web site. This is odd because if a court’s decision is favorable to her, she posts a press release before the ink is dry on the decision.

I also note an oddity that is mentioned on both pages three and fifteen of the decision. The prosecutor was at the Hoosick Falls Police Department shortly after Wilhelm was arrested and monitored Ms. Wilhelm while she went to the bathroom. DeAngelis did apologize for being with Ms. Wilhelm at such an “awkward” moment.

It seems that the court’s decision has provided another awkward moment for Patricia DeAngelis, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for an apology.

Ames, New York. "The Loveliest Town Of All."

In one of the loveliest sentences in the English language, E. B. White describes “the loveliest town of all.”

In the loveliest town of all, where the houses were white and high and the elm trees were green and higher than the houses, where the front yards were wide and pleasant and the back yards were bushy and worth finding out about, where the streets sloped down to the stream and the stream flowed quietly under the bridge, where the lawns ended in the orchards and the orchards ended in fields and the fields ended in pastures and the pastures climbed the hill and disappeared over the top toward the wonderful wide sky, in this loveliest of all towns Stuart stopped to get a drink of sarsaparilla.

The town that E. B. White is describing is Ames, New York, a small village located in the southwest corner of Montgomery County, where White often visited. The quote is taken from Chapter XIII of Stuart Little. Here Stuart Little meets Harriet Ames, a young girl, who is as small as he is.

Stuart Little and Harriet Ames might be Ames’s most famous fictional characters, but Alexander William Randall is its most famous native son.



My wife and I looked at this old house in Ames when it was up for sale. It came with 40 acres and was less than $100,000, but when we got inside we found that it had been redecorated in a style that here in Montgomery County we would refer to as “Fulton County.” It would have taken another $100,000 to put the house right.


Ames has its own museum, which was formerly the Ames Academy.

Parking his car in front of the general store, he stepped out and the sun felt so good that he sat down on the porch for a few minutes to enjoy the feeling of being in a new place on a fine day. This was the most peaceful and beautiful spot he had found in all his travels. It seemed to him a place he would gladly spend the rest of his life in, if it weren’t that he might get homesick for the sights of New York and for his family, Mr. and Mrs. Frederick C. Little and George, and if it weren’t for the fact that something deep inside him made him want to find Margalo.

View an old postcard of Ames, NY.

Memo To Ed Girtler.

Note: I was away the last two days without access to this blog or to my e-mail. Several comments were left on an old post I wrote about Jack Carroll and Ed Girtler. Some of them were written by Girtler and some were responses to his comments. I have posted those comments and you can read them here. For background on the Jack Carroll case, go to the web site run by Justice Now.

Ed,

The first thing I need to say is that I am not anti-cop. I need to say that before some bozo tries to make that comment. My father was an MP in World War II. My uncle George was a cop in Media, PA and was shot when he interrupted a burglary in progess. He recovered and remained a cop his entire life.

One of the problems I have with your comments is that you seem to equate legality and morality. Something may be legal; that does not make it ethical or moral. Killing Jews was legal in Germany during World War II, but it wasn’t moral. Slavery was legal in the United States at one time, but it wasn’t moral.

Lying has a corrosive effect on a person. We just saw that in the Christopher Porco case. Even when you lie for a “good” purpose (e.g. in order to get a confession out of a defendant), it has an effect on you. I’m not sure that a person can just put on a liar’s persona and take it off at will. A cop who lies on a regular basis in the station house, may not be able to stop lying when he gets on the witness stand.

You mention “the higher power” that you and Jack Carroll will have to face some day. I am glad you are thinking about God because that is where my mind has been a lot lately also. I especially think about that commandment, “Thou shall not bear false witness.” I also think about the words of one of the Jewish prophets who said there are two great evils--the first is letting a guilty man go free, the second is making an innocent man suffer.

Anyway, according to one comment on the previous post, you still have an open invitation to sit down and talk with Ernie Tetrault about the Jack Carroll case. I also extend to you an invitation to write a guest column for this blog and I will post it. My only caveat is that you be willing to field questions from people who read this blog. Lately, the number of people reading this blog has been more than a thousand a day so you would have a good audience for your story.

You have already been presented in an unfavorable light in Pulitzer Prize winning columnist Dorothy Rabinowitz’s book, No Crueler Tyrannies*, and I believe there is a documentary and book in the works on Jack Carroll and I don’t think you are going to come off too well in those either. So it might be time for you to speak up and to answer questions about the Jack Carroll case that have plagued many of us.

Dan

*If you haven’t read this book, you should. All of the people accused of abuse in this book have been exonerated, except for Jack Carroll. However, Mr. Carroll’s case is the most recent case in the book, and I expect that eventually he too will be exonerated. Rabinowitz would not have included Carroll in this book if she didn’t think he too was innocent and had the same chance of exoneration that the others did. Some people in the book had to wait almost twenty years before they were vindicated, but eventually they were. By the way there is a great story in there about a cop who went to prison because another cop falsely accused him.

Ed Girtler Opens His Mouth & Removes All Doubt.

Retired Cop Ed Girtler responds to an old post I wrote on Jack Carroll. Read the post and comments.

Grandmother Speaks Out About Saratoga Child Protective Services.

I live in Saratoga County and the Trauma that my daughter suffered was unbelievable. I asked for help at a time when I was weak from chemo to the point where I had to take procrit and had to get help. CPS instead helped themselves to my grandson and told me that my daughter had to earn him back. They used her disability to keep my beautiful grandson; and pulled stunt after stunt on my daughter who has recently turned to the drug world in order to deal with the pain of losing her son. They constantly called her at her job; I know because she complained to me. She lost job after job; two apts, then started to lose her sanity with the cruel tricks they played on her. They then made a false accusation, called the police hoping to find a bruise on a two year old child. When they couldn’t find any signs of abuse, they tricked her by saying that if you admit to permanent neglect, you will get your child back way sooner. So she admitted to what they were accusing her of, figuring they would use it anyways. Her child is with the foster parents and she turned to drugs and went to jail. Now she is out and I cannot even say where she is anymore. I tried to get her son and have been trying for three years (in court constantly and visiting, never missing a visit). However they have terminated her rights and couldn’t find anything on me (don’t have a record), so they decided to say that I am guilty of not knowing that she would not get better. Now we have to appeal and all I can afford is a court appointed attorney who is exactly that, owned by the court.

Thank you,

Deborah
However, yesterday I recieved a Nationwide class actions v. family courts & CPS alert from Tom Howse, President of Civil Rights Council www.indianacrc.org

Horse Trade.

We got burned when we bought our first horse--a pretty, eleven year old, tri-colored paint mare with the not very original name Flicka. A veterinarian sold her to us, never telling us her bad habits. She destroyed the gate to her pasture and chewed up and ruined the entire top rail of the fence, and she had other bad habits to boot.

Well we finally found someone who was willing to swap even with us, even after we explained all of Flicka’s faults. Our new horse, Jitterbug, is a three year old, Quarter Horse gelding. He needs training, but at least we won’t have to break him of bad habits.

Our New Horse Arriving.

Our Old Horse Leaving.

Please note that for the time being I will only be blogging on Monday, Wednesday and Friday.

Ground Fog.

One of the reasons I enjoy walking early in the morning, especially this time of year, is because of the opportunity to see ground fog. These are some scenes taken on my road the other morning.

Porco Family Member Comments On Guilty Verdicts.

Editor’s Note: I asked one Porco family member to comment on the guilty verdicts that were handed down today against Christopher Porco. I thought the response was excellent, and I thank ”Insider” for taking the time to share with us.

Hi Dan,

I guess here’s what I’d say: While we’re obviously pleased with this outcome, sending Chris to jail for 50+ years will not bring Peter back or turn Joan back into the wonderful woman she was. I still won’t be able to pick up the phone and call Peter when I want to, and our family will never again sit around the dining room table at Brockley Drive and enjoy one of Joan’s famous dinners. So while I don’t blame anyone for celebrating, tonight I’ll raise a glass on my own in Peter’s memory. My hope for the future is that we can support Joan and do our best to make sure that she doesn’t waste any of the limited money she has left on the appeal Terry is already planning. Chris is entitled to his appeal, and I’m sure there are plenty of public interest lawyers and bright law students who will be willing to help him with it. I just don’t want to see Joan driven any further into poverty by Chris’s selfish act.My sincere thanks to McDermott and Rossi who are smart, patient, and honorable lawyers. Thanks also to the BPD and everyone who has said kind words or sent warm thoughts our way. I sincerely appreciate that while the community expressed their outrage at what Chris did, you all were able to see that a very normal and loving family still existed outside of that act. With any luck, we’re going to work on getting back to being that family.

Insider

Chris Porco Guilty On Both Counts.

I said I would not post again about Christopher Porco, but I feel it necessary to mention that he was found guilty on both charges today, as I (and many others) predicted he would be. I did not expect the jury to return a verdict in six hours, however.

I would like to repeat one more observation. Now that Christopher has been found guilty, someone, either family members or crime victim’s advocates, should see that none of his victims’ money is used to pay for his defense.

On Vacation.

I'll be back on Monday.

Dan

As Others Blog It.

Here are a handful of posts from other blogs that I have wanted to point out for a long time.

York Staters wrote a great piece back in June on the meaning of the name of the town of Niskayuna. The names of cities and towns in New York State seem to have at least four major sources: Indian names (Niskayuna); Classical names (Utica, Troy, Ithaca), names from the old countries (Albany, Amsterdam), and Biblical names (Sodom, Goshen).

The state has been wanting to ban open burning for years, thus depriving kids of one of life’s simple pleasures--bonfires. I-Saratoga blogged in June about Schenectady's health officer wanting to shut down another of life’s simple pleasures--the potluck supper.

Albany Eye blogged recently about another of life’s simple pleasures--drive-in movies. If you live out in this part of the Mohawk Valley you can choose between Ozoner-29 in Broadalbin or El-Rancho in Palatine Bridge. Ozoner 29 was built in 2003. El-Rancho has been around since 1952. At one point, in the late 70s or early 80s, District Attorney Howard Aison had to shut down El-Rancho. At the time, it was only showing pornographic movies, and the locals dubbed the theater, El-Rauncho. It has long since returned to family fare.

Finally, Dave Lucas of Capital Region People blogged about a number of people who have unexpectedly died or disappeared, then asks one of life’s ultimate questions, “If this was the last day of YOUR life, would you ‘be ready?’”

Neighbor of John Behrmann Speaks Out On Officer Geraci Incident.

Note: An Albany Grand Jury refused to indict Officer Michael Geraci on assault charges this past week. Upstream received the following comment from a neighbor of Mr. Berhrmann, the man Geraci was accused of assaulting.

Hello I'd like to comment on the John Behrmann incident here in Albany New York. If anyone one saw the video of Mr. Berhmann being dragged out of the police van, it was absolutely horrible. No one should be treated like that by the police unless of course they are being assaulted. Knowing Mr. Behrmann personally, it takes him fifteen minutes to get in and out of a vehicle with free hands, so imagine at 73, hands cuffed behind his back and a much needed hip replacement how assaultive he could have been. Mr. Behrmann has lived in Albany for about 18 months without problems until an officer back in November questioned him about speaking to a person that he (the officer) didn't like. It's been down hill every since.

On December 31, My husband came in the house and told me that Mr. Berhmann had been arrested and he was unsure of the cause. Later we found out that it was trespassing (a lie), public intoxication (um maybe tipsee) but who isn't on New Years Eve, and some other miscellaneous charge which by the way happened to be another lie. All of which was dismissed in police court. None of it was true. From the police station Mr. Behrmann was taken to the Va hospital where he was treated for injuries sustained while he was in police custody. He had no injuries before that. The following day Mr. Behrmann came to see my husband and me and he was terribly bruised and bleeding, I took pictures and we reported it. That is how this case started. Now Mr. Behrmann is a target for Albany Police Department.

Remember the officer that I said questioned Mr. Behrmann about why he was speaking to an individual he didn't like? Well he has an office in the apartment building in which Mr. Behrmann lives. This building is for the handicapped, disabled and ederly. Mr. Behrmann went home one day to find his key wouldn't open a door he usually goes in. The key got stuck, he's hitting the door to get his key out and cracks the glass. Mr. Behrmann goes to jail and guess who the arresting officer was? Well a few of us tried bailing him out and let me tell you the response that I received. There are two here in Albany. One bailbonds man (after mentioning John Behrmanns name told me straight out "I know the officer, I'm not BAILING John Berhmann out" and hung up! The second bondsman was much more polite but too said "He knew the officer and didn't want to be involved". The tone of this case was already set. The message was loud and clear.

Last week just before the grand jury hearings were about to be over, Mr. Behrmann along with my husband and a few other people were sitting on my steps and according to witinesses, a patrol car drove up madison ave, made a U-turn and stopped. FOUR police officers approached Mr. Berhmann about having an open container. They never saw him lift a bottle, nor was he intoxicated. They never even questioned my husband or a couple of other guys who were sitting around drinking bear. Their target, John Berhmann. Upon my arrival from work they were asking him all of these questions, "Who's the president", "Whats the day of the month" etc all of which Mr. Behrmann answered correctly. Mr. Behrmann never moved off of the steps nor did he drink. There was a bottle there, but it wasn't his which will come out in court because he was given an appearance ticket. Let me also add that every time Mr. Berhmann tried to open his mouth to tell them he hadn't been drinking or that the bottle wasn't his, the officer retorted with threats of arrest for disorderly conduct. On Monday morning it was on the news. Channel 13 with "John Behrmann Arrested "AGAIN" for open container on Madison ave". The news never said he was at a private residence. They made it sound like he was roaming the street with an open container. I cannot begin to tell you how disgusted I am with the Albany police Department. These are people we are suppose to trust and turn to in times of trouble. I could go on and on but it wouldn't do any good.

I feel bad for Mr. Behrmann because he is out of his element. He practiced dentistry for 37 years, lived in wonderful places and raced horses in Saratoga. Retirement and divorce bought him to Grand Street. I feel bad because If Mr. Behrmann had been in his own element instead of Grand Street where there are mostly (us) blacks he would have never ever been treated this way. My final thought for this entire mess, If the police don't even respect their own kind, then imagine what the rest of us face. We don't stand a chance for justice.

My Last Porco Post.

As of today, I will no longer be posting about the Porco case, even though doing so brought this blog up to number 16 on Wordpress’s Blog of the Day list and brought more readers to this blog than publishing the Muslim cartoons did. For those of you who came to this blog and found other posts worth reading besides the ones on the Porcos, I hope you stick around. The rest of you can go find another fire hydrant to raise your leg up on.

A couple of righteous dudes have complained about “the desperate housewives” who are following this trial too closely, jumping from blog to blog, to read and comment. To you I ask, how do you know this if you haven’t been doing the same?

I will confess that I have been following the trial too closely. I have found that doing so, and writing about various aspects of the family and trial, have been stressful. I guess I don’t have the stomach for this kind of stuff. Journeying into myspace, photobucket and the like was like swimming in a septic tank. The image of Mrs. Porco’s face on the front of the newspaper is one I wish I had never seen. And the hatred expressed by anonymous posters toward each other on various blogs--well I’m just glad they are not in the same room with an ax handy.

Frankly, the trial itself has begun to bore me. It has followed the script that was set out in the opening statements, with little deviation. I have become more and more interested in Christopher Porco’s psychological make-up and the whole tragedy of a divided family than I have the trial itself.

Here is a summary of most of what I have said in the many posts I have written.

1. I believe that Chris Porco killed his father and maimed his mother. As someone not on the jury, I can say that. However, if I were on the jury, I would not be so quick to judge. Too many people have been wrongly convicted in this country, and Christopher Porco deserves his day in court with a fair trial and an impartial jury that will deliberate carefully, neither of which he would have gotten in Albany County.

2. I believe that both the prosecution and defense are doing their jobs well and doing what they are supposed to do.

3. I may be wrong, but I do think Christopher is going to be found guilty.

4. If acquitted, I believe he will be arrested on burglary, sale of stolen merchandise, wire fraud and other charges based on evidence turned up during the murder investigation.

5. If found guilty, steps should be taken to insure that none of his victim’s money be used to pay for Christopher's defense.

6. I also asked several questions in some of my posts. The one question that has not been answered to my satisfaction and probably can’t be is why did the attacker spend nearly three hours in the house? The question may not be very important as far as either the prosecution or defense is concerned, but it’s one that keeps bugging me. (To all of you who suggested that the attacker was showering off the blood, the prosecution has contended from the beginning that the attacker likely did not get any blood on himself, and they produced a blood spatter expert to testify to that effect.)

7. Most of my other posts had to do with information and photos found on other web sites. A couple of people have commented that this material is irrelevant to the trial. That may be true, but if you look at the top of this blog, you will notice that its name is Upstream not The Porco Trial Blog.

The fact that Christopher Porco has been boozing, hanging out with various and sundry women or driving his yellow jeep around has nothing to do with whether or not he attacked his parents. Indeed, Judge Berry chastised the prosecution for trying to bring up Christopher’s drinking and said the prosecution was dangerously close to causing a mistrial.

But the photos of Christopher do serve as character witnesses. The fact that they were taken less than two weeks prior to the first anniversary of his father’s death says something as well. My father died unexpectedly when I was 27 years old, just a little older than Chris. I began anticipating the first anniversary several weeks in advance and was in no mood for partying.

The photos are at least as important as The Daily Gazette’s description of what Mrs. Porco was wearing while she was on the witness stand, or WNYT’s report of running into Christopher at a restaurant.

In an e-mail, another reader asked the more important question: “Why are you posting so much about the trial? It’s just another murder.”

While I don’t think that this is just another murder, I do think the question is a fair one. There are obviously more important things to blog about. On the other hand, if we get beyond the question of whether or not Christopher Porco is guilty, then the attack on the Porcos, the devastation of the family, Christopher’s personality and lifestyle, coverage of the case and even our fascination with it raise psychological, sociological, philosophical and even religious questions that are worthy of discussion.

In any event, I will not be blogging tomorrow or Sunday. So stop back Monday, if you are interested in other things besides the Porco case.

Carl Strock On Chris Porco's DNA.

Carl Strock On Chris Porco‘s DNA.
As usual, Carl Strock wrote a good column in today's Daily Gazette. The major part of his column was about Child Protective Services, but he also had a short section at the end where he discussed the DNA on the toll ticket purportedly belonging to Chris Porco. Strock disputes the math of some local reporters who have said that there is 99.6% chance that Porco’s DNA was on the ticket, since 99.6% of the population does not have that type of DNA. Strock argues that the math is wrong, The .39 percent of the population that have the type of DNA found on the ticket, including Porco, constitutes 1.3 million people (if by population we mean North America), making the odds that the ticket was Porco’s 1 in 1.3 million.

For Breaking News, Read The Obituaries.
There is other news happening besides the Porco Case. Yesterday, The Daily Gazette reported the sad story of a Red Sox fan from Schenectady who was stricken at Fenway Park, taken to the hospital where she gave birth, then died. This story actually had appeared the day before, in the lady’s obituary. When I was reading her obituary, I was wondering why no one had actually written a story about the incident because it’s the kind of thing newspapers like to write about, and as sick as it seems, it’s the kind people like to read.

If Chris Porco Is Convicted, Will Shanks & Kindlon Get Paid?

A lawyer posted on this blog, suggesting that Christopher Porco’s defense was being funded by his father’s life insurance policy. My question is this--if Christopher Porco is found guilty, can any of his mother or father’s money be used to pay his defense fees? If his parent’s money was used to pay his lawyers, wouldn’t that mean that a criminal was financially benefiting from his victims? Does the current Son of Sam law in New York State cover that?

I don’t know the law, so I would love to hear from some lawyers on this issue.

Amish Buggy & Canajoharie's Dummy Light.

Here are a couple of photos, my daughter and I grabbed while out on a ride yesterday. The first is of any Amish buggy that just turned off of Route 5S and was heading up the Currytown Road. It used to be that you rarely saw the Amish on the south side of the Mohawk, but now that they have moved into the Town of Glen you do see them. I thought this photo came out quite well considering my daughter had to take it from the passenger seat through the driver's side window, while both the car and buggy were in motion.

The second photo is of Canajoharie’s Dummy Light, which has been a local landmark for decades. It’s a real traffic light, not a dummy light. My understanding is that it’s called the Dummy Light because it’s not very intelligent to stand out in the middle of the road. You may remember that the state wanted to remove this light, but the citizens of Canajoharie put up such a fuss that the state backed down.