Hank Kalet

This disc should be real cool, an R.E.M. anthology covering the early years, replacing “Eponymous.”

Here’s the track listing:

“And I Feel Fine … The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987” (the single CD):
1. Begin the Begin 2. Radio Free Europe 3. Pretty Persuasion 4. Talk About the Passion 5. (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville 6. Sitting Still 7. Gardening at Night 8. 7 Chinese Bros. 9. So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry) 10. Driver 8 11. Can’t Get There From Here 12. Finest Worksong 13. Feeling Gravity’s Pull 14. I Believe 15. Life and How to Live It 16. Cuyahoga 17. The One I Love 18. Welcome to the Occupation 19. Fall on Me 20. Perfect Circle 21. It’s The End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)

“And I Feel Fine … The Best of the I.R.S. Years 1982-1987” (This is the second disc of the collector’s package, which also includes the above disc):
1. Pilgrimage (Mike’s pick) 2. These Days (Bill’s pick) 3. Gardening at Night (slower electric demo; previously unreleased) 4. Radio Free Europe (Hib-tone version) 5. Sitting Still (Hib-tone version) 6. Life and How to Live It (Live at the Muzik Centrum, Utrecht, Holland 9/14/87; previously unreleased) 7. Ages of You (Live at the Paradise, Boston 7/13/83; previously unreleased) 8. We Walk (Live at the Paradise, Boston 7/13/83; previously unreleased) 9. 1,000,000 (Live at the Paradise, Boston 7/13/83; previously unreleased) 10. Finest Worksong (other mix) 11. Hyena (demo) (previously unreleased) 12. Theme from Two Steps Onward (previously unreleased) 13. Superman 14. All the Right Friends (previously unreleased; later version released on Vanilla Sky soundtrack) 15. Mystery to Me (demo; previously unreleased) 16. Just A Touch (live in-studio version; previously unreleased) 17. Bad Day (session outtake; previously unreleased) 18. King of Birds (last song cut from the best of … ) 19. Swan Swan H (live, acoustic from “Athens, GA — Inside Out”) 20. Disturbance At The Heron House (Peter’s pick) 21. Time After Time (annElise) (Michael’s pick)

When The Light Is Mine … The Best Of The I.R.S. Years 1982-1987 Video Collection (DVD) :
1. Wolves, Lower 2. Radio Free Europe 3. Talk About The Passion 4. Radio Free Europe [“The Tube” 11.18.83] 5. Talk About The Passion [“The Tube” 11.18.83] 6. So. Central Rain (I’m Sorry) 7. Left of Reckoning 8. Pretty Persuasion [“The Old Grey Whistle Test” 11.20.84] 9. Can’t Get There From Here 10. Driver 8 11. Life And How To Live It 12. Feeling Gravity’s Pull 13. Can’t Get There From Here [“The Tube” 10.25.85] 14. Fall on Me 15. Swan Swan H [Athens, GA — Inside/Out] 16. The One I Love (3:22) 17. It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine) 18. Finest Worksong (3:51)
Extras: “The Cutting Edge” October 1983 — Broadcast segment and additional interviews; “The Cutting Edge” June 1984 — edited broadcast segment and additional interviews; Driver 8,
Wendell Gee, (Don’t Go Back To) Rockville, Time After Time (annElise), Pageantry

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

So the Township Council has approved its budget despite not getting the extra aid it was hoping to get from the state. That leaves township taxpayers facing a 5-cent — or 9.6 percent — tax hike.

The Township Council had hoped that state extraordinary aid totaling $700,000 would cut the tax hike by 2 cents, but the state saw through the ruse — South Brunswick is a rather well-off municipality and the extraordinary aid fund is designed to help towns like Jamesburg, which face huge tax hikes and have little ability to do anything about them.

South Brunswick’s fiscal problems, on the other hand, were largely self-inflicted — caused by the refinancing of debt and the decision to seek extraordinary aid two years ago. The township got the aid, but had no way of replacing the revenue last year or this year.

What makes the aid gambit such a gamble is that it requires the township to spent nearly all of its surplus. Surplus is a fairly straightforward concept. It’s generated yearly and is essentially the difference between what is raised in revenue and what is spent.

When a town uses surplus in revenue, as all do to some degree or another, it affects more than the current budget. The more surplus used, the more stress that puts on the next year’s budget. In the case of South Brunswick, it is using $4.3 million of its $4.7 million surplus. That will leave $400,000 or so in the account and require the township to generate at least that much before the end of the year or the township will face a fall-off in revenue. If it cannot rely on $4.3 million in surplus as revenue next year, it will have to find some other means of raising that revenue — most likely the taxpayer. Or it will have to cut the budget (which it should have done in the first place).

Township officials say they expect the surplus account to grow this year to $5.2 million. If that happens, the township should be OK — though I’d be concerned that the council would be tempted to use more surplus next year as revenue and not give the surplus account a chance to grow some and lend some stability to the budget.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

More on Tom Kean Jr.’s murky position on Social Security here and here.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

Tom Kean Jr. tells The Star-Ledger that he opposes privitization of Social Security, responding to Democratic attacks that he backs the president’s plan for private accounts.

They pointed out the state Senator voted against a state Senate resolution opposing the Bush plan, saying it would drive “millions of Americans into poverty” while “destroying the most successful social insurance program ever created in the United States.”

Kean told the Ledger that

the resolution was nothing more than a “partisan attack” and that the state Senate should have been more concerned with dealing with state issues it has control over, such as New Jersey’s troubled pension system. If elected to the U.S. Senate, Kean said, he would push for a bipartisan plan to strengthen Social Security.

What that bipartisan plan might be remains a mystery, of course.

Talking Points Memo, in this post, dissects the Kean story and the GOP strategy on Social Security more generally.

The upshot is that, while it might appear that Tom Kean Jr. has taken a position, what his position is remains unclear.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press

I never thought I’d call U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter heroic, but his decision to take on the White House over its use of signing statements to skirt the law makes him, well, heroic.

The Republican senator from Pennsylvania, who is chairman of the Senate Judicial Committee, plans to introduce legislation that would allow the Congress to challenge the president’s use of signing statements as de facto vetoes in court, hoping to have the president’s actions declared unconstitutional.

Specter was responding to a report from the American Bar Association that called the manner in which the president has used the signing statements — as extra-legal vetoes — “contrary to the rule of law and our constitutional system of separation of powers.”

The report, issued Monday, outlined the history of signing statements, demonstrating that President Bush’s use of them (800 so far, 200 more than all other presidents combined) is far different and far more pernicious than any of his predecessors. Earlier presidents used them but never as a replacement for the veto — the president’s sole avenue to enter the legislative process.

The president, the report says, has resisted the veto (until last week), avoiding the potential that Congress might attempt an override. Instead, he has used the signing statements to announce his intention to ignore all or parts of new laws with which he disagrees. The signing statements, the report says, generally lack any kind of documentation supporting the administration’s contentions.

The report cites several examples. The president has refused to carry out laws involving “Congressional requirements to report back to Congress on the use of Patriot Act authority to secretly search homes and seize private papers” and “the McCain amendment forbidding any U.S. officials to use torture or cruel and inhumane treatment on prisoners.”

The report also pointed to signing statements that made clear that the president did not believe he was mandated to make reports to Congress on intelligence issues — as required by the Intelligence Authorization Act of 2002. Instead, his signing statement announced that he viewed Congress as having an advisory capacity.

That’s the key to understanding the signing statements. The president views the legislative branch as the junior branch, believing that the executive can operate — especially in what the president determines as a time of war, as hazily defined as this war may be — without oversight and without interference.

Dick Polman, in his American Debate blog, describes the Bar Association report this way:

(T)hese pillars of the legal establishment are arguing that this particular president is potentially wreaking havoc with the Constitution, and that the only way to thwart him is for Congress to take drastic action that could put it on a collision course with the White House. I haven’t heard talk like this from the legal establishment since Richard Nixon’s executive excesses during Watergate.

That’s where Specter comes in. Specter is proposing legislation that would allow Congress to sue the president over his use of signing statements, legislation that he says “will give the Congress standing to seek relief in the federal courts in situations where the president has issued such signing statements and which will authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements, with the view to having the president’s acts declared unconstitutional.”

Dan Froomkin in his Washington Post White House Briefing says Specter’s challenge to the president “has the potential to spark a historic battle over the separation of powers.”

That’s assuming the legislation can get through both houses of Congress and win approval from the president.

Specter, as a Republican and as chairman of the committee that will hold hearings on the legislation, has as good a shot as anyone to move the bill along. And while I doubt it ultimately will make it to the president’s desk, Specter should be applauded for ensuring that there is some level of debate over the issue.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press