Notes — Andy Arthur.org

A Fairport Convention 🌼

Andy | August 26, 2026

Across the evening sky
All the birds are leaving
But how can they know
It’s time for them to go?
Before the winter fire
I will still be dreamin

I have no thought of time
For who knows where the time goes?
Who knows where the time goes.

Six o’clock on a Wednesday morning with the Fairport Convention ⌛ and memories of last autumn with Big Red 🛻 up at Horseshoe Lake smoking dope and riding my mountain bike down those remote roads of conservation easement through the rain showers. I don’t know why everything comes back to that point in my mind, it was a fairly quiet mid-week I spent up there at Horseshoe Lake, saw hardly another person being mid-October in drizzle, but it does. Maybe it’s just the music. The feel of autumn, soon enough to be upon us. 🍂

Looks like it will be a nice day, ☀️ and a nice weekend. Tomorrow I get the first oil change on the SuperDuty. It seems werid in my mind to get the oil changed at only 3,000 miles but I want to get it done and the break-in oil replaced, and then I should be good for another six months when I need a state inspection. I don’t think there is any recalls outstanding on SuperDuty, but the dealer can take care of that while it’s there. And everything will be documented should engine blow up, though the second generation Godzilla and Minizilla are both pretty reliable engines. The weekend also looks good, yesterday I updated Windows 10 on my laptop and thoroughly tested out the VPN to make sure everything is good when I am remote working from Dolgeville on Friday. Not brining the kayak north, but I will definately have the truck innertube for floating and mountain bike which should be good enough for the weekend. Labor Day Weekend up in Speculator I’ll have the kayak.🛶

The Postelli development is on the agenda 🚧 for tonight in Guilderland, but I don’t know if I am going to hearing as it’s late on the agenda and I should go to the store and get packed. Tomorrow is going to be a busy day with everything going on, so I should shop tonight and possibly top off the tank on the SuperDuty. Honestly, I get tired of showing up and speaking out against every development in the Pine Bush 🦋 while the planning boards roll their eyes and have grown increasingly hostile to public comment. I get the game, need to put constant pressure, but at the same time, I am somewhat checked out. I don’t love the endless plastic suburban tract houses 🏘️ and the warehouses that continue to chop away at the few remaining acres of Pine Bush. While I think about building my own homestead, on 20 or 30 acres. 🐐 Or maybe more land, it all depends on location and neighbors – and ultimately how much money I end up having once the AI boom is in the landfill – and I decide to hang up my hat from work. I know I still want to retire as soon as possible 🐷 so I can build that off-grid property but that’s still a decade and half off, but I know to enjoy the time in meantime, even if that just means exploring the back roads and smoking dope in wilderness. 🌲 Must be that ever so powerful cannabis that suddenly the politicians are so concerned about needing to ban because people are giggling and getting addicted to. Just like cigarettes. Maybe I believe too much in will power and social conditioning but I think chemical addiction is overrated.

Last night with the thunderstorms ⛈️ around, I decided to head home straight after work on the mountain bike. 🚵‍♂️ It gets dark pretty early now, something to consider tomorrow after work after I head north. Still I want to stop at Samdill’s to get more zucchuni, and might swing by Erie Boulevard to get a pallet to burn as I head out from campaign committee downtown, 🅿️ assuming they let me park in that lot after picking up the SuperDuty from the dealership dealership. As I’ll probably not be on the road until 6 PM, it will likely be fairly dark by the time I set up camp, but I’ll bring the electric lights and I have the lantern. Then Friday morning, have to have a fairly early breakfast 🥞 and head down to Dolgeville to spend the day working. The VPN is working well on my laptop, and they have that nice patio there at the library, though I have to be careful about drinking too much coffee ☕ on Friday or beer on Thursday night, lest I need to pee 🚻 before the library opens.

I keep looking at cabin and homestead videos 🐐 and dreaming of the days to come. Still I enjoy my freedom these days to spend the days in the wilderness, and I want something more then a suburban house that smells like cow shit. 💩 I got watching a bunch of David Freese’s Illinois homestead videos with his Highland Cows, burning netwrap and other trash, feeding and other cattle care activities. 🐄 AI reminds me that people don’t burn as much nowadays as they used to. 🔥 Still I like the self-reliance part of it and views of wilderness and farm country 🐺, the pines and mountains without a million people around and the pollution of the sewage “treatment” plants 🏭 and garbage “recycling” plants – and endless growing mounds of crap. I know some black smoke or cow poop can’t solve all the world’s problems, still. It will still be good to be back out the city this weekend, last weekend was tough.

Regardless, I’ve been trying to get to work each day by 8 AM and working until 5 PM to ensure I have sufficient legislative hours, 🧑‍💻 as the campaign committee consumes more and more of my time. It’s been good riding into the work, traffic is light🚗 as the schools aren’t open yet 🚸 but next week will be a different story. Yet, I want to work as many long weekends remote as possible this autumn from camp, 🥾 and be away from the insanity of the city. 🏙️

United Steaks of America map: If each state could have only one meat, what would it be?

Forked Mountain – 1907/1910

Andy | August 25, 2026

Prior to the 1920s, there was no road developed along the east side of the Scanadaga River north of wells heading up to Speculator, just a foot path. What would become NY 8 would run along the south-east side of East Branch of the Scanadaga River, and Gilmantown Road was the main route from Wells to Spectulator.

Why is the stock transfer tax rebated in New York?

Andy | August 25, 2026

New York phased out the practical effect of its Stock Transfer Tax via a 100 percent rebate in 1981 primarily to halt the flight of the securities industry from New York City and protect the city’s global competitive position against rising regional exchanges.

The decision was driven by intense economic anxiety following the city’s near-bankruptcy in 1975, coupled with fierce political lobbying from Wall Street, which leveraged the threat of relocation during a highly fragile fiscal recovery.

🔎 Why the Tax Was Phased Out

Halting Industry Relocation: By the mid-1970s, advancements in electronic trading and communications meant brokerage firms no longer had to be physically anchored to Manhattan. Financial institutions explicitly threatened to move their trading operations to other states without a transaction tax.
Protecting Regional Competitiveness: City leaders called the tax “the largest single obstacle to the competitive position of the New York financial community in national securities markets”. Other states and burgeoning electronic networks were actively positioning themselves to capture New York’s market share. [5]
Post-1975 Fiscal Triage: Following New York City’s catastrophic 1975 fiscal crisis, Governor Carey and Mayor Abe Beame prioritized long-term tax-base stability over short-term transaction revenues, fearing that losing Wall Street completely would deal a permanent blow to the local economy.

📊 Mechanics of the “Invisible Phaseout”

Governor Carey signed the initial phaseout legislation in August 1977, opting for a gradual ramp-up of rebates rather than an outright repeal of the law. This structure was implemented because the tax itself could not legally be eliminated; its existing collections were already structurally legally committed to paying off debt service on bonds issued by the Municipal Assistance Corporation (MAC), which had been created to rescue the city from bankruptcy.

The state engineered a multi-year clawback system that technically collected the tax but progressively refunded it to brokers:

Phase Timeline	Rebate Percentage Allowed
July 1978	25% rebate on the tax surcharge
October 1979	30% rebate on total taxes paid
October 1980	60% rebate on total taxes paid
October 1981	100% full tax rebate reached

⚠️ Ongoing Fiscal Impact

Because the underlying 1905 statute was never completely wiped from the tax code, the tax is still legally collected by the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance today, only to be instantly and fully rebated back to the trading entities.

This dynamic remains a massive point of political contention in Albany. Critics and progressive advocacy groups frequently introduce legislation attempting to eliminate or dial back the 100 percent rebate mechanism. Opponents of the rebate argue that keeping these funds could net New York State between $13 billion and $16 billion annually to fund public infrastructure, schools, and transit. Conversely, modern financial organizations and business chambers strongly counter that ending the rebate would make New York an aggressive geographical outlier, driving high-frequency trading networks and financial sector jobs completely out of the state into modern cloud infrastructure or competing tax-free zones.

SVGZ Graphic: 2017 Cattle and Calves per Square Mile

SVGZ Graphic: Central NY Population Change, 2000 to 2020

More on Lake America …

Andy | August 25, 2026

“President Trump is about to make an obscure state official, Brad Utter, Senior Historian/Curator from New York State Committee on Geographic Names a famous person for a day.“

The problem Trump faces is his proposal is contrary to NYCRR 8 § 182.1 (a)(2) which specifically says, “Euphonious and other suitable names of Indian, Dutch and other linguistic origin shall be retained.”

The word Ontario originates from Indigenous languages of the Iroquoian family, originally used to describe Lake Ontario before being adopted for the land and eventually the province. Linguists and historians attribute the name to two primary linguistic roots:

1. The Huron (Wyandot) Origin

Root Word: Ontarí:io (or Ontare)
Translation: “Great Lake” or “Large Lake”
Breakdown: In the Wyandot language, ontare translates directly to “lake,” while the suffix -io translates to “it is large” or “great”. [1, 2, 3]

2. The Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) Origin

Root Word: Kanadario (also cited as Skanadario or Onitariio)
Translation: “Sparkling Water” or “Beautiful Lake”
Significance: This described the shimmering, clear nature of the easternmost Great Lake. The translation is highly fitting, as freshwater lakes and rivers make up roughly one-fifth of the province’s total area. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7]

Historical Timeline

1641: The first recorded European use of “Ontario” appeared on French maps to identify the mass of land on the north shore of Lake Ontario.
1867: The name was officially chosen and adopted as the formal title for the province during Canadian Confederation.

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names (BGN) can legally override state geographic names committees, but it rarely does so in practice. Because the BGN holds the final statutory authority to approve names for federal maps and databases, its decisions override state preferences when a conflict arises. However, the federal board heavily prioritizes local and state consensus, treating state boards as essential cooperative partners.

That said, the Lake America move mirrors Trump’s executive order in January 2025, which directed federal agencies to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The BGN complied with that directive for the federal geographic names database, and U.S. entities like Google Maps updated their domestic displays accordingly, though the rest of the world did not.

The state might not update to Lake Ontario to Lake America. In 1988, Governor Mario Cuomo instructed New York State Committee on Geographic Names to rename Bad Indian Swamp in Watkins Glen to Catharine Creek Marsh, and was known as such on all state maps and state agencies thereafter. However, the federal government did not rename the wetland to “Queen Catharine Marsh” until 2025.

Map: Powley Place - East Canada Creek - Kayak Canoe

Too much time on A.I. ?

Andy | August 25, 2026

Lately I’ve been spending a lot of time trying to learn as much as I can about artificial intelligence. Not because I believe the marketing hype or buy into the cataclysmic beliefs that it’s going to destroy the planet or end all jobs, but because I think it’s important to be informed on what it can do, what the actual harms and benefits are of the technology. I still don’t like the consumer nature of many of the products pitched to general public – they seem so gimmicky – but I do find a lot of use little nuggets as a research and writing assistant with the freely avalaible tools on the public web.