Catch-All Post for Wednesday
Next week I have a particularly busy schedule, and this week I’m preparing for it, so posting will be light from me. Buffalo Geek will fill in over the next three weeks with content that snarky and fresh as a daisy, and if you’d like to contribute throw me a line, and I’ll see what I can do.
Seriously, I’m too busy even to ask people directly.
Anyhow, in the meantime, consider this for today:
1. Andrew Galarneau names Vizzi’s in Kenmore as the home of the best burger in WNY. The talk of the town right now is the deep-fried Parkside Burger, described thusly:
If nothing else, the Parkside Burger, at Parkside Burgers and Fries, had already provided grounds for legal action. You know what happens when you take a whole cheeseburger — patty, cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickle, bun — dip it in batter and deep-fry that sucker?
You get a burger that comes with a side of self-loathing. It was crunchy from the batter, but juicy in a bad way, from fryer oil that soaked into the bun. We ate half, then slipped out the door.
2. I have largely stayed out of the Jayvonna Kinkannon/Michelle Stiles story, but it’s morphed into more than just a ham-handed overreaction to a student’s question. Now, it’s a story of imperial arrogance, nepotism, favoritism, theft, cheating, and other nouns that pop into one’s mind when one thinks of people given just enough power to be assholes.
3. In pledging to run Erie County like a business, Chris Collins has carried on the business-and-governmental tradition of fudging the numbers. When he says shutting down county cellphones will save “nearly $150,000″, he really means just-over-$142,000. Hey, Nancy Naples said there was no deficit just a month or two before the county declared a multimillion dollar deficit.
Channel 4 had the story of a woman who works for the county, but whose pay and cellphone are reimbursed by the federal government. She used the cellphone to keep in direct contact with about 100 new mothers as a lactation consultant. Cellphone gone, and this woman can’t fulfill her duty and obligation to her clients.
Also, Collins is targeting something called “beeper pay”, where county workers who agree to be on 24-hour call (and back in the 80s they did so via beepers) get an extra $35 in their paycheck per week. He wants to abolish that because he’s taking away their beepers. What gets lost in translation here is that it’s not the carrying of the beeper that triggers the extra money, it’s the on-call status. The union will grieve, and Collins will lose this particular, specious argument. Then, he’ll have to pay back-”beeper pay” and pay for the cost of the grievance arbitration. Savings? Diminished.
I’m all for saving money and abolishing crap we don’t need, but can’t someone make sure we’re not throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Can Collins be a bit more clear on the savings? Does everything have to be a butting of heads with the union? That strategy might not turn out quite as well as Collins hopes.
4. The Sabres as political candidate.
Cell Phones » Blog Archive » Catch-All Post for Wednesday Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 9:35 am
[…] unknown wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptWhen he says shutting down county cellphones will save “nearly $150000?, he really means just-over-$142000. Hey, Nancy Naples said there was no deficit just a month or two before the county declared a multimillion dollar deficit. … […]
iNdAbUFF Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 10:31 am
Alan…time to get over your hate for Collins…has he done anything you liked?
Buffalopundit Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 11:06 am
iNdAbUFF: time to get over your love for Collins…is he completely above reproach and not subject to criticism of any sort?
iNdAbUFF Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 11:53 am
I have been both critical and a thrower of love towards the man…I know the thought of not having Keane as our CE was a devastating mental blow to some, but it is time to move on now BP…you shouldn’t take out your frustrations out on Collins…when your only approach to the man is reproach, there seems to be a bit more going on than objective criticism…
Tbone Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 12:01 pm
Maybe we shouldn’t be asking why Collins has taken a cellphone away that when its costs were being reimbursed, maybe we should be asking whether the County should be funding a lactation consultant. After that question is answered, maybe we should ask what other things the County is funding.
STEEL Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 12:10 pm
Maybe they could keep the phones and get rid of 2 paper shufflers or 50 or 100 or 1000.
Buffalopundit Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I am too busy and in too foul a mood to let shit go this week, so:
If you’re insinuating that Keane’s loss was a “devastating mental blow” to me, you’re wrong. I couldn’t give two shits about it.
And you’re saying that my mental distress at Keane’s loss is fueling my criticism of Collins. A dumber fucking thing I’ve not read in months.
What “frustrations”, precisely?
I’ll note, for the record, that in two comments on the matter so far, you haven’t provided one single, solitary substantive defense of this particular move on Collins’ part. Instead, you’ve criticized me and my supposed subjectivity and unfairness towards poor, dear Mr. Collins.
You’ll have to forgive my obnoxious tendency to criticize things which - and people whom - I think deserve it.
Maybe by looking at it through a lens of “love” versus “hate” is where you’re all wrong. Because I neither love nor hate Chris Collins. I just want him to do a good job and be smart about it. My emotions for him (or, in this case, lack thereof) don’t play any part.
Russell Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 2:45 pm
Sure, BP’s emotions never enter into it. It’s all about party affiliation.
Buffalopundit Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 3:48 pm
Thank you, Russell, for your eloquent, substantive defense of the merits of Collins’ action.
We must hold our leaders accountable for their actions or inactions. We must reject the status-quo policies that have held this region back for the last two generations. We must stop defining success as less failure than the year before.
And if you believe these things, then you agree with this guy.
I don’t think Collins sees himself as above criticism, do you?
iNdAbUFF Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 4:19 pm
Quick…give this woman her cellphone back…
Why?
It seems like someone lactated in BP’s Fiber One Cereal this morning.
- - - - -
BP…
I have got one even more stupider than that.
It ain’t supposed…
Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity critcize politicians too…everyone has the right and politicians certainly shouldn’t be above critcism…but this doesn’t mean that the criticism levied is fair, objective or impartial.
steve Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 4:36 pm
DING…DING…DING…We have a winner!
“It seems like someone lactated in BP’s Fiber One Cereal this morning.”
Merits of the arguments aside, that is funny.
buffalowatchdog Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 5:12 pm
forget Collins, I want to know more about this deep fried burger thing. Has anyone actually finished one yet? Are they alive to talk about it?
Forget BP’s Fiber One Cereal. Just eat one of those bad boys
mike hudson Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 5:48 pm
the best burger in wny is of course served in niagara falls, at kensinger’s diner on hyde park boulevard, which is an actual diner and not some faux trendy yuppie hangout.
mike hudson Says:April 2nd, 2008 at 5:50 pm
and alan, your site’s internal clock seems to be running about an hour behind the time.
Mike In WNY Says:April 3rd, 2008 at 12:04 am
Nearly $150,000 does not equal $142,000. But it’s pretty damn close. Should Collins have just said “screw the cell phone savings, it’s only $142,000?”
Collins may not be the best thing since toast, but don’t criticize the things he does right.
iNdAbUFF Says:April 3rd, 2008 at 1:26 am
@B-WATCHDOGGIE…
You should plan an evening invite some of us blogger types to go down and video the whole experience at Parkside…
I would be a willing participant…
And…I will gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today…
hank Says:April 3rd, 2008 at 8:21 am
Alan–I enjoy this blog–it’s newsy, invites comments from the entire political spectrum, keeps my up on things back home in an entertaining way.
Maybe you NEED to take a few days off–I’ve not seen this side of you much, and THAT was a couple of years ago.
Let me add this–It’s obvious you want to hold Collins’ feet IN the fire. Your perogative–your blog and your choice.
And he’s made some minor errors. What human doesn’t?
I don’t believe as some do your attentive criticism of Collins is party related. One look at “the most Ethical Congress in History”–soon to become known as the “DO NOTHING CONGRESS” is a clear indicator that no one party has a stranglehold on ineptitude.
Collins is not the man he replaced, nor is he trying to be. And for that you should find some level of satisfaction.
Russell Says:April 3rd, 2008 at 10:20 am
I didn’t know I had to give a defense of Collins’ actions, but it is pathetic that you’re trying to take him to task over the difference between $150,000 and “just over $142,000″, especially when he made it clear his number was just an estimate. The way things are going, even a $100,000 savings in our county’s government is progres.
I also don’t understand how you say, “We must reject the status-quo policies that have held this region back for the last two generations,” shortly after you say, “Does everything have to be a butting of heads with the union? That strategy might not turn out quite as well as Collins hopes”
If Collins, or anyone in this area for that matter, is going to do anything about the status-quo policies, it’s all going to center around butting heads with the unions. I don’t know if you’ve noticed it or not, but it sure seems like they are the biggest protectors of that status-quo and have the most to gain by keeping it status-quo.
Niagara-Erie Prognosticator Says:April 3rd, 2008 at 4:52 pm
Collins is asking for certain political doom if he believes that publicly belittling public employee unions and re-fighting the same old “beeper pay” and “contracting out” issues in front of public labor arbitrators is going to get him anywhere. He will lose he beeper grievance and he will lose the Mentholatum park improvement issues because of a wrong-headed insistence by public sector newbies that what works in business will somehow fit into the paradigm of NY’s Taylor law. Like so many that came before, he will wrack his head against a wall while the unions will just sit back, defend their turf and wait for the next “private sector big idea guy” (maybe he should consult with Satish before going to war in public.)