No, it’s not another Tom Cruise post.

The post at Buffalo Rising starts…can you imagine if Buffalo had a waterfront like this…
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What Craig said:

The trustees of Erie Community College are shocked, shocked I tell you that the County Legislature had the audacity to suggest they roll back some hefty pay raises.

ECC trustees sharply defended President William J. Mariani and other managers, saying they have worked hard to boost enrollment and finances and deserve their pay.

I have no information which would refute that, but a lot of people around the County “deserve” pay raises. In our economic situation that’s not enough. And here’s a real knee-slapper.

The trustees slammed legislators for attacking the college - which has a balanced budget - while doing little to prevent the county from slipping into its current financial morass.

The college has a balanced budget? I say the college has a balanced budget? Um, not if the County doesn’t give it all the money it’s “requesting,” it won’t. Duh.

That’s $15.4 million in County money that goes to ECC as a subsidy.

Several legislators blasted Mariani’s contract, which provides him $185,498 per year, a county car with gas, incentive-based raises and a Buffalo Club membership paid for by the ECC Foundation.

Jesus Tapdancing Christ. $185k to run a 2-year school? You’ve got to be shitting me. And with 185k/year in Buffalo, you mean he can’t afford his own goddamn car to get from OP to Buffalo to Billyville and back again? And with 185k/year in Buffalo, you mean he can’t swing a tank of gas a couple of times a week?

And this:

Also Wednesday, trustee Raymond F. Gallagher and other trustees criticized the college’s agreement to host games of the Buffalo Rapids.

Gallagher said he’s concerned the team’s fans could damage the Flickinger Center - particularly if alcohol is served at games - and ECC may not be paid its full rental fee because of the league’s shaky finances.

“I don’t think it’s in the best interests of the college,” he said.

ECC had signed an agreement with Gary D. Nice, president and chief executive officer of the Rapids, to host 18 home games. The Rapids will pay at least $9,540 per game in rental fees, and the college should make $80,000 after costs, according to Daniel Penfold, executive vice president for student affairs.

The board considered denying permission to serve beer and wine at the games, a move that would cancel the deal.

But several trustees said the college needs to be consistent in its alcohol policy and noted other events have received permission to provide alcohol at the Flickinger Center.

So: basketball fans = destructive. No facts to back it up - just a wholesale fact-free prejudgment. Whoopdeedoo. We pay these guys?

It was a rather disgusting article.

I really don’t want this to become a Kelo blawg, but let me clarify something:

1. The Kelo decision merely follows 100 years’ worth of takings jurisprudence. Back in 1896 the SCOTUS expanded its definition of “public use”, and in the decades since has further expanded and/or clarified what constitutes a public use. You see, public use isn’t defined in the Constitution itself, so it’s up to the SCOTUS to fill in the blanks.

2. Kelo didn’t change much. The majority examined 100 years’ worth of takings jurisprudence and believed that its decision viz. Kelo was in line with that line of cases. The majority opinion isn’t some liberal big government imposition of arbitrary judicial power. And reasonable people can disagree with them. But the major theme I see in Kelo’s majority & concurrence is the idea of deferring to the local government’s decision as to what constitutes a “public use.” The court seems loath to override local elected officials. State’s rights, that.

3. O’Connor’s dissent is, in my mind, substantively much more reasonable and thoughtful than Thomas’ knee-jerk reaction. O’Connor would not get rid of the idea that the state can take property for a private use to, say, eliminate a blighted area. She objects to the idea of a taking for a directly private purpose with an ancillary public benefit. She might very well be right. But O’Connor wouldn’t and didn’t just ignore that same 100 years’ of takings jurisprudence; instead, she examined what the majority examined and came to a different conclusion. And she might very well be right.

4. Thomas’ dissent is just a knee-jerk strict constructionist diatribe that Scalia might as well have written. Thomas was doing nothing more than asking that the court completely obliterate that 100 years’ worth of takings jurisprudence. Just read his conclusory paragraph:

The Court [majority] relies almost exclusively on this Court’s prior cases to derive today’s far-reaching, and dangerous, result. See ante, at 8—12. But the principles this Court should employ to dispose of this case are found in the Public Use Clause itself, not in Justice Peckham’s high opinion of reclamation laws, see supra, at 11. When faced with a clash of constitutional principle and a line of unreasoned cases wholly divorced from the text, history, and structure of our founding document, we should not hesitate to resolve the tension in favor of the Constitution’s original meaning. For the reasons I have given, and for the reasons given in Justice O’Connor’s dissent, the conflict of principle raised by this boundless use of the eminent domain power should be resolved in petitioners’ favor. I would reverse the judgment of the Connecticut Supreme Court.

But ultimately, if you disagree with Kelo, the remedy is through legislation. Not through some farcical and facetious retaliatory taking of the home of one of the 5 judges who makes up the majority of the court. Again: Why is Souter being singled out, and not Stevens, the author of the majority opinion?

And if local governments get too out-of-line in taking unfair advantage of the Kelo decision, then the issue will be re-examined. But one thing that’s clear from Kelo is that the local government in New London was taking the property as part of an overall economic development plan. The court said that it was the comprehensive plan for the public good that partly convinced them. A single taking of one’s property and transferring it to another, the court said, would not pass muster.

So: if you disagree with Kelo, I’m not the guy you want to be arguing with. Because I really really don’t care about it. I read the decision and the concurrence and both dissents. I understand how and why they decided what they did, and absent a new member of the court or new federal lawmaking to restrict the definition of “public use”, there’s nothing I can do about it. I don’t care primarily because it doesn’t affect the work that I do, and I don’t care because I don’t think that there will really be some slippery slope of governmental handovers of private property to other private entities. It’s a politically poisonous thing to do, and I don’t think it’ll be abused.

I don’t get excited about takings clause cases.

But you’ll notice from my earlier post (which didn’t have much to say about the merits of Kelo), I strongly disagree with some nut’s singling out of Souter for special negative attention.

I do get excited by obnoxious people threatening public officials - who have done nothing wrong - with obnoxious things.

Especially since the proposed obnoxious thing doesn’t even make the point, since even Stevens & Souter would strike down a taking such as that proposed by D. Logan Darrow Clements Thurston Howell III.

To sum up:

Kelo: I don’t really care.
Clements: Is an asshole who should leave Justice Souter alone.

I haven’t posted about Kelo because it merely re-states hundreds of years worth of Supreme Court jurisprudence.

My knee-jerk reaction about Kelo was also negative. But then I read the decision.

In the meantime, most people I’ve read have been laughing with ironic retributitive hilarity at the idea that someone wants to go take Souter’s house to build a hotel with an ironic name, because that’ll show him.

I disagree. I don’t think it’s fun or funny to retaliate against Supreme Court Justices for adhering to their understanding of what the law is. I also disagree with it because it ignores the fact that four other Justices necessarily voted with him - Stevens wrote the majority opinion - so singling Souter out seems rather silly.

I think Souter was singled out by the Randian prankster because Souter wrote the decision on the unrelated Kentucky 10 Commandments Case.

People need to make up their mind: do they or don’t they want an activist court? Because with Kelo, the court defers to the local legislature on the issues dealing with the justifiability of the taking. Had the court gone against the determination of the local authorities, it would be tantamount to judicial legislation or veto; activism, no?

It might all be a joke, which I hope it is. But to me it seems that the real opponents of Kelo might be better served directing their energies toward changing the law of the land through persuasion and legislation, rather than inflicting cruelty on a guy who’s just doing his job.

Notice that not one person heh-ing and indeed-ing the proposed retaliation against Souter has actually addressed the text and reasoning of the decision itself. Just the outcome.

Furthermore, based on Kelo’s own reasoning, a retaliatory government taking of Souter’s home wouldn’t pass muster.

It is further argued that without a bright-line rule nothing would stop a city from transferring citizen A’s property to citizen B for the sole reason that citizen B will put the property to a more productive use and thus pay more taxes. Such a one-to-one transfer of property, executed outside the confines of an integrated development plan, is not presented in this case. While such an unusual exercise of government power would certainly raise a suspicion that a private purpose was afoot, the hypothetical cases posited by petitioners can be confronted if and when they arise. They do not warrant the crafting of an artificial restriction on the concept of public use.

If public officials are doing their jobs in good faith, they shouldn’t be retaliated against by vindictive vigilantes.

Canada has become more libertarian than the US on an issue.

A bill passed in Canada’s parliament making gay marriage legal from coast to coast. The Canadian Senate is expected to pass it next week.

Somehow, I don’t think that gay marriage will cheapen or weaken or otherwise compromise the “sanctity of marriage” or whatever other bullshit secular-sounding excuse the homophobe lobby dreams up to oppose gay marriage. Nor do I subscribe to the Santorum slippery doggy slope theory, whereby gay marriage would lead to the legalization of polygamy, bigamy, bestiality, or child molestation.

And this isn’t a liberal big-government victory. Oh, no. This is a victory for that concept that the conservatives purport to glorify: individual liberty.

…Non licet bovi.

HT the Buffalo Beast:

Can’t wait to hear George tonight…
In 1999, he criticized President Clinton for not setting a timetable for exiting Kosovo:

THEN
George W. Bush, 4/9/99:
“Victory means exit strategy, and it’s important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is.”

George W. Bush, 6/5/99
“I think it’s also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long they will be involved and when they will be withdrawn.”

VERSUS NOW

George W. Bush, 6/24/05:
“It doesn’t make any sense to have a timetable. You know, if you give a timetable, you’re — you’re conceding too much to the enemy.”

I’m getting quite sick of it, thanks.

Allegedly, a cold front is coming through Friday night.

If I wanted Atlanta weather…

“Tom Cruise: the Game” for X-Box:

(from the Defamer)

Should the teachers’ union switch to a single health insurance carrier; Blue Cross-Blue Shield, which 75% of their members already carry, and where the switch would cost no more money and in no way affect coverage…

…or…

Keep the system that’s in place now and lay off 250-300 teachers?

Can you actually believe that the union has to think about that decision?

Can you believe they’re actually choosing the path that leads to layoffs? That’s a nice howdy-do to those members.

Even weirder is that the new Buffalo Schools superintendent refers to himself in the 3rd person. That’s seldom a good thing.

Incoming School Superintendent James A. Williams, interviewed Tuesday by phone from Tennessee, said there is this major change since earlier negotiations fizzled: “James Williams was not at the table then.”

Those developments were set in motion Monday when a state judge placed a temporary halt on the Board of Education’s plan to save $27 million over the next two years by switching to a single health insurance carrier. At stake next year is $10 million in the district’s general operating budget and an additional $2 million in its grants budget.

Although the case will not be decided by an arbitrator for at least a few months, the preliminary decision by State Supreme Court Justice Patrick H. NeMoyer set off alarm bells in City Hall and prompted district officials to begin preparing a contingency budget with $12 million in cuts for the fiscal year that begins on Friday.

Rumore’s explanation?

“

Just because you need the money, you can’t go out and violate somebody’s contract,” he said. “What are we supposed to say? Thank you very much? It’s not just an issue of money. It’s an issue of what they did to get the money.”

With respect, it is an issue of money. The city doesn’t have it. A perfectly reasonable concession is requested, yet somehow miraculously can’t get negotiated. I’d love to be in the room when those 250-300 teachers are laid off, and I’d love to hear them make comments to Mr. Rumore about the circumstances surrounding their firing. I’m sure it’ll be one big union brotherhood lovefest.

The Greater Rochester blog has a roundup of good news from our neighbor to the East. Bausch & Lomb. Kodak. Xerox. Paychex. Infotronix. Finger Lakes Wineries. All of them have good news to report.

WNY Progress Report had Jack Davis on yesterday. Jack Davis is a hero in WNY because he owns a local factory that’s still operating, and he treats his employees well. That’s unique in this day and age, and he is to be commended for it.

As everyone knows, he’s a big proponent of Lou Dobbs’ wet dream; withdrawal from NAFTA & the WTO and any other free-trade agreement to which the US is a signatory. Davis would return to the old system of bilateral “fair” trade agreements, and impose tariffs on just about all imports.

I called in and (politely) disagreed with him.

I’m no WTO scholar or expert, but it’s my understanding that the WTO is not just a multilateral trade agreement, but that it prescribes specific member-nation conduct. When a member-nation behaves improperly and a complaint is made, the WTO will investigate and adjudicate the complaint. Businesses like insurance companies do this on a regular basis - they agree that if a dispute arises, they’ll arbitrate the dispute rather than spend thousands of dollars on lawyers prosecuting a federal case out of it.

Davis’ answer was that we always lose in the WTO. (is that true? always?)

I then suggested that tariffs haven’t always been great - although Smoot-Hawley was passed after the stock market crashed in 1929, most economists agree that it hastened and worsened the great depression. I also argued that NAFTA and CAFTA have positive effects, too. Central America is a political and economic basket case, with a few exceptions. If the poorer countries in Central America have an easier time getting their products to the US market, that will help lift up those people and those countries. I was then countered with the sweatshop argument - but a later caller made my point for me: until recently the EU (fka EC / EEC) was nothing more than a free trade zone. Prospective members have to meet certain economic, budget & political requirements for membership. That was an expression of political will and policy by the founding members, and there’s no reason something similar could have occurred with any other trade agreement. That comes down to political will and courage: negotiate fair labor practices into the agreement, if that’s a concern.

In any event, Davis started in on the Japanese. But Japan has been in a recession since 1991 - their economy is stagnant & hardly growing at all. They had a good bubble going in the 1980s that popped around 1990, and they still haven’t fully recovered. Davis complained that Japanese cars became very popular in the 1980s. And then I made what I think is the key point:

In the 80s, Detroit’s product sucked. It was the decade of the K-Car. Japanese cars sold well because Japanese cars were made well & designed well. They tended to run better and longer than Detroit’s stuff. Davis couldn’t argue with that, so he made something up. He said that Detroit can’t compete with Japanese workers who are paid less than Americans and have no environmental regulations. That one I’ll have to look up, but that doesn’t seem right to me at all. Japan in 1988 is not China in 2005.

Davis then extolled the virtues of the 1860s, when we had bilateral trade agreements with trading partners. Yeah. And it took over a week to get across the ocean then, whereas you can now fly anywhere in the world from anywhere in the world in 20 hours or less. You simply cannot compare a pre-industrial agrarian clipper-ship economy to our post-industrial service FedEx 767 economy.

My point is that if you believe in capitalism and the way it works in our country, then you believe it can work across boundaries, too. Given the choice, people will compare products’ price and quality. The US can compete on the global market even with our supposedly too-strict environmental and labor regulations, and our higher wages. Even against the Chinese. But we have to make a product that people want to buy. That means we have to trump their price advantage with better quality. From a lot of the stuff I’ve seen with a “made in China” label, that’s not a very high bar.

I’m not talking about China purposely dumping products here; selling them in our market for less than they cost to make. That should be addressed through the WTO’s adjudicatory process and appropriate sanctions imposed.

Davis repeated a mantra: you can’t get China to agree to do something they don’t want to do. Like float their currency, or institute environmental regulations.

Sure you can. We get countries to do stuff they don’t want to do every single day. It’s called negotiating an agreement. Make it worth China’s while to do stuff.

For instance: Germany pays its autoworkers more than US autoworkers are paid, and they get more benefits and vacation time. Yet BMW and Daimler-Chrysler and Volkswagen are thriving.

It’s a new world out there. The industrial revolution is over. While I’m opposed to sweatshops, and they should be shut down, I can’t go along with the idea that we just withdraw from the world marketplace and impose tariffs on all imports.

Because every other country in the world would impose tariffs on our exports. A lot of good that’d do.

There are, I’m sure, better ways for New York to Save American Jobs than to revert to the 1860s way of doing business. Lowering taxes would seem to me to be a start.

Finally, I’m somewhat bummed that Davis started his own minor party over this: but only because I disagree with the existence of minor parties in New York altogether.

From WB49 News at 10:

An exclusive WB 49 news investigation found that Salvatore Campobello is back on the county’s payroll.

Campobello is County Executive Joel Giambra’s brother in-law. He was laid off in march, but re-hired 2 months later in the county’s parks department. Campobello is a recreation instructor and making $27,300 per year. The Giambra administration confirms the hire but says the position is funded by the City of Buffalo through a merger agreement. Erie County Legislature Majority Leader Lynn Marinelli is looking into the hire, and may even request the county personnel director appear before the legislature.

HRH Joel I strikes again!

How hard is it to run a restaurant properly?

After all that waiting, after all the hype & hoopla, could it be that the owners of Shanghai Red’s are just running it into the ground?

If not, then they quite obviously need to whip their staff into shape, but fast.

Maybe they can get this guy to do it.

From comments:

Hey folks.. Tune in to Discovery Channel if you can on Wed, June 29th.. Discovery Channel is showing Urban Explorers which will feature Buffalo and it’s history in the show.. and it also includes music produced by Buffalo’s very own (ME).

Urban Explorers Buffalo - June 29th at 5:00PM On Discovery Channel

Music for the show produced by ElaCid Studios Buffalo

Courtesy of Autoblog:

With Explorer sales dropping 25% and Expedition sales down 21%, Ford has backed away from their previously announced goal of $7 billion in pretax profit for 2006. What’s interesting is that while GM has maintained that their SUV sales are sagging because they’re at the end of a model cycle (with the implication that the upcoming GMT900s will be the cure-all solution), Ford flat-out admits that fuel prices are the problem. According to Ford VP Steve Lyons, “With gas at $1.80 per gallon, like it was a little over a year ago, we’d have a very different picture here at Ford.”

The SUV craze is over. Ford has also helped itself with the hot new Mustang, and the upcoming Fusion will be a hit, too. GM is a step behind all the time (See Chevy HHR):

Maybe with the Saturn Sky:

and Aura,

it’ll be a step ahead again. Or at least will have caught up.

On today’s show : Jack Davis, founder of the Save American Jobs Party to discuss free trade and the economic future of our country. Davis is most certainly on the front lines of the free trade debate and it should prove to be an excellent show so check out the show today at 4 PM on WHLD 1270 AM and be sure to call at 855-6848 to join in on the conversation.

And actually, I disagree with Davis on many of his points (not all). It should be interesting indeed.

Work, work, work on a lovely 100 degree humid day.

To those who pine for warmer climes and freer times in places like Orlando, Atlanta and Charlotte:

Just take a step outside.

And everyone thank God for Syracuse’s own Willis Haviland Carrier.

Craig posted about this last week: Mass. Governor Mitt Romney proposed a novel way to ensure universal health care: mandatory health insurance. The Boston Herald updates us:

Romney’s plan doesn’t go that far, relying instead on pressuring individuals to buy state-subsidized insurance from private insurers - or risk the consequence of having tax refunds and wages garnished to pay for health services.

Liberals, such as Sen. Ted Kennedy, have lightly applauded Romney’s proposal.

But the plan is dividing conservatives about how far government should go toward mandating and paying for people’s health care. The split comes down to a free-market purity vs. a sort-of-free-market pragmatism.

An aghast Cato Institute, a free-market and libertarian national think tank, is now butting heads with another conservative think tank, the Heritage Foundation, which helped craft Romney’s proposal.

At least it’s being discussed.

Rove’s statement is just part of the new talking points strategy in advance of the mid-term elections:

criticism of iraq=criticism of afghanistan=support for taliban=support for al qaeda = cheering on crashing twin towers.

Here’s what Cheney said about Republican Senator Chuck Hagel:

Since 9/11, we’ve had people like Chuck Hagel and other politicians and we’ve had people in the press corps and commentators who’ve said we can’t do Afghanistan.

Here’s what Hagel said at the time:

I think the objectives that the President laid out a few days ago are being completed and fulfilled. You noted the briefing that the House and Senate had today. Part of those briefings consisted of the results and the status of where we are.

So based on what I know, I think at least this initial phase of our military action has been successful, 100 per cent. I don’t know if anything is ever 100 per cent in this business, but certainly they’ve done very well.

But Hagel has recently been complaining about the lack of leadership & direction in Iraq, not Afghanistan.

Rove said it last week. This week, it’ll be Rush’s mantra. Then it’ll be Fox News’ subtext for all of its reporting.

A picture:

Comments:

Here.
and here.
and here.

Wow.

State lawmakers approved a plan that will make shopping in one area of the Sourthern Tier a little easier on your wallet. Chautauqua County is reducing the sales tax to four percent.

The tax break begins in January, and will apply to clothing and footware purchases.

This makes Chatauqua County the first County in the state to eliminate the local portion of the sales tax.

That means that Chautauqua County’s sales tax will be 2% lower than Pennsylvania’s.

I wouldn’t at all be surprised if this brings about positive economic development to that area of epic proportions, and teaches Albany a thing or two.

I mean, a county voluntarily foregoing its ability to add to the sales tax? Why, that’s almost like what it’d be like if we elminated county government altogether.

This is definitely something to watch very carefully. Could this be the change NYS was waiting for?

(NB: What’s not clear in the article is whether this repeal of the county sales tax applies only to clothes & shoes, or everything. )

UPDATE: Mark posts in comments that it only applies to clothes & shoes, which are tax-free in Pennsylvania. Everything else in Chautauqua County will be sold with 8.25% sales tax. So, color me unimpressed.

Donn Esmonde has a piece today about Riverside Men’s Shop closing its shop in Riverside. It’s new location is at Northtown Plaza on Sheridan near NF Blvd.

I won’t re-hash his commentary here, except to ask: doesn’t this whole thing beg the question - why Sheridan? Why not downtown - on Main Street? Lawyers, Judges, Doctors, Businesspeople, Bankers & Insurance people all call that area home from 9-5, M-F. With the exception of the Ultimate Men’s Shop up Delaware, there’s nowhere we can so much as buy a tie downtown during business hours - not to mention a suit.

Figmo posts about Assemblyman Sam Hoyt’s effort to locate UB’s School of Architecture downtown.

In the AM&A building, to be exact.

That’s a great location and a superb building for a school of architecture. It would also be somewhat of a band-aid for the gaping wound the Amherst campus inflicted on the City of Buffalo. But band-aids are a start.

What they ought to do is preserve the facade and demolish the dilapidated interior of that building. UB could hold a competition among architecture & design students as to what should be done with the new interior. Then we’d have hopefully thousands of new people - all members of the creative class - coming downtown each day to study, eat, drink & be merry.