Normally, I bypass the My View column in the Buffalo News. At best, I skim it. But I read today’s from start to finish and urge everyone to stick with it.

The shorter “My View”? Thanksgiving is a fraud because the Pilgrims and their ancestors; nay Columbus and his progeny, were very bad indeed to the aboriginal peoples of North America. OK, that’s nothing I haven’t already heard. It even made it into a Sopranos episode.

But then the column went off on a tangent so wild I could scarcely believe it.

The best line I read today?

If that was not enough, I am against Thanksgiving because it ushers in the painful death of 45 million turkeys.

Do you eat boiled turkey on Thanksgiving? Didn’t think so.

Not only should you feel instaguilt for the genocide of the American Indian and instaguilt over the maltreatment of some turkeys by some turkey farmers, but also,

Thanksgiving, more than any holiday, is also a testimony to the gluttony, hedonism and sloth that has become part of the American fabric while people in Third World nations like Darfur starve.

More than Halloween? So, I should shun Thanksgiving because of a genocide in which my ancestors didn’t participate, because some turkeys are poorly treated, and because people are starving in Darfur so I shouldn’t have a turkey dinner. Got it.

Welcome to conditioning.

Surprise, Lindsay Lohan is barely literate.

I am lucky enough to of been able to work with Robert Altman amongst the other greats on a film that I can genuinely say created a turning point in my career.

Be ADEQUITE!

Jim O responds.

Pundit–you’ve been sniping and griping at me and Free Buffalo for almost two years now.

What’s it all about?

What really matters is that we were right about BP from the start while your group was wrong.

We opposed it; you supported it.

First off, have the decency to throw some links in there. My group wasn’t wrong about anything, Jim. There isn’t a factual error in there. There was an expression of support - you can agree or disagree with it, but it’s neither “wrong” nor “right”. Go and read the report (pdf). We prepared it based on the contents of the MOU and our discussions with Bass Pro and representatives who dealt with Bass Pro out in Auburn, New York. We supported the deal as set forth in that MOU.

But the MOU is null and void now. The deal - if any - probably won’t resemble the MOU in any meaningful way. Indeed, it’s no longer the City of Buffalo, but the Erie Harbor Redevelopment Corp. that’s dealing with Bass Pro. I can’t criticize or support something about which I know nothing. You, Jim, apparently have no problem with that,

We pointed out that BP was only spending $22 million and you disagreed.

We said the project would take too long because of bureaucracy.

We said there was no deal and it turns out there wasn’t and isn’t.

The record speaks for itself.

So, what’s the point of the rally? Tell me - what was the point of it except to get you some TV time? Are you disappointed that Bass Pro isn’t here? Are you happy that Bass Pro isn’t here? Are you disappointed that our politicheskaya klassa is so dysfunctional that they can’t throw money at a retail project and get it done in 2 years, or are you happy about it?

It was a publicity stunt - the only goal was the airtime. Nothing positive for Buffalo or the community or poor people or the downtrodden. Just Jim O & friends getting on TV. Typical Buffalo “we suck and we’ll always suck” cynicism.

Of course, you’re happy that Bass Pro isn’t here, and you’re happy about the dysfunction. So just say so. That political dysfunction got you your desired result.

As for last night, we had 11 people there and 12 at the Grill where our celebration continued.

Really? Channel 2 says:

five friends from the taxpayer group “Free Buffalo” toasted the two year anniversary on the announcement that Bass Pro was coming to Buffalo.

These go to 11?

Yup. The record does speak for itself.

We’re essentially a volunteer organization with little money. Because I had spent some time on the county budget–where, no surprise, you stand with the status quo and big budgets–this BP thing came up on me fast.

I stand with the status quo only because you say I do, Jim. No, I don’t advocate eliminating all spending and taxation. I also am not really big into having the county go into receivership or similar because we refuse to follow an Albany mandate. I’d prefer to change Albany - where the real problem lies - rather than the county, which can’t really do a whole heck of a lot of the stuff that really counts.

If advocating for the abolition of county government and for a comprehensive reform of Albany including but not limited to a constitutional convention = me standing with the status quo, then long live the status quo.

After I attended a meeting to try to keep my local and great Catholic school open, I came home at about 9pm and sent out the notices. So, in 20 hours, we set up an event that got us live on 4, covered by 2, 7, 930 970, and lots of internet coverage. And we had 12 people there on very short notice.

You went to a meeting to keep a school open? You mean to maintain the status quo?

You had 5 people there, and bully for you as the go-to guy for all things anti-taxation for getting press coverage. Hooray for you.

One of the big problems around here and it’s been true for as long I can remember, is that whenever anyone comes forward to change anything, they get their heads handed to them and everybody knows it.

Pundit, the political class LOVES you!

I have no control over who loves me and who doesn’t, but the insinuation is that I’m a shill for someone, and that’s absolutely not the case.

In 2 years, Free Buffalo has represented sound and fury, signifying nothing. The political class must love you, too as the spokesman who rails against them.

I said it before and I’ll say it again - it’s a lot easier to be against something than to be in favor of it.

Friday December 1st, the WNY Coalition for Progress will hold a “Cocktails with the Coalition” informal get-together at Pearl Street Grill at 6pm. You can RSVP and find out more at Meetup.com.

On Monday December 4th, we will hold a final meeting of volunteers for Santaland, which will take place on December 9-10 and 16-17. If you can give a few hours of your time on any one of those days, we’ll need all the help we can get, so please join us at the United Way of Buffalo & Erie County (742 Delaware Ave) at 6pm next Monday.

HT to Rus Thompson, here they are in pdf format:

Book A - Operating Funds (61 MB)

Book B - Special Funds (51 MB)

Message and Summary (43 MB)

(UPDATE: Links fixed)

Ralph Phillips shot and killed Trooper Longobardo. Ralph Phillips is a murderer and deserves to spend the remainder of his life in prison. His apologists are all over the TV saying that he pled guilty just to protect his alleged accessory-after-the-fact girlfriend and daughter, but that’s bullshit. He pled guilty knowingly because he is guilty. To hell with him and the smirk on his murderous face as he walked into Chautauqua County Supreme Court. He’s no hero. The people who jokingly served Buckyburgers last summer know precisely where they can stuff them.

He’ll be in Buffalo this morning on the escape charge.

It’s been two years since the announcement, and as usual, the cynics have again been proven right and reasonable. I used to be a proponent of the Bass Pro project because it’s not just $66 million in corporate welfare, and anyone who says so is merely engaging in rhetoric.

For the record, I’m no longer in favor of the Bass Pro project - nor am I opposed to it - due to the fact that the deal has changed significantly since the original MOU was signed back in the stone age. The delay in getting a final deal has been unreasonable. I can’t give an opinion on it because I don’t know what the hell is being discussed, I don’t know what the hold-up is, and I don’t know what the deal looks like anymore. The intramodal station seems to be gone. I have heard nothing more about the Great Lakes heritage museum. Will there still be a dock out back? Will the Aud stay or be torn down? We have no details as to what’s being discussed now, and as usual for New York State, it’s being held behind closed doors with not a ray of sunlight being shone on the process.

Yesterday, Free Buffalo held a facetious “celebration” of the Bass Pro store, right down to the hors d’oeuvres and non-alcoholic champagne. Free Buffalo doing its best Nelson Muntz impression.

I know that Free Buffalo opposed the public money being spent to fix up the Aud, tear down the Donovan building, and build a parking lot, but I’m somewhat at a loss as to the point of this particular stunt. If you’re opposed to it, you should be pleased that it hasn’t been built. Right? Why wasn’t there a similar “celebration” of the e-zone, or the Uniland megaproject on the Outer Harbor?

Ostrowski told Stefan Mychajliw:

“We are further away from a deal today, than we were two years ago. And Buffalo, not only cannot build a sporting goods store in two years, they can’t sign a contract to build a sporting goods store in two years. We have no problem with Bass Pro coming to Buffalo. We do have a problem with throwing 66-million dollars at them, when there are private companies in this area that are not getting that treatment,” added Ostrowski.

Good point. Maybe Dick’s and Gander Mountain should get $66 million, too. (Hey, this sarcasm thing is fun!)

How does he know where the deal stands? As the leader of a group that exists to promote Buffalo, I don’t understand why he would put on a stunt like this to mock the deal and ridicule the city of Buffalo. Buffalo already suffers from a bad self-image, and is already the butt of jokes nationwide. Why add to that? I think it’s sad, not something to mock.

Instead, if you disagree with the public money being spent on Bass Pro, go sign Buffaloi’s online petition. That is a far more positive way to express one’s disagreement with a controversial deal like Bass Pro, and doesn’t hold the City of Buffalo up to ridicule.

The utility of a wagon, the convenience of high road clearance and seating position, the safety of AWD or 4WD, and gas mileage in the reasonable double-digits. This is going to be a growing segment in the next several years, at least until the spectre of $3.00/gallon gas is lifted, if ever.

First came the redesigned Toyota RAV4. The new version is more of an evolutionary design and the only way I can tell a new on from the previous generation on the road is by the LED rear taillights.

The new Honda CRV/Acura RDX came out just recently, and both are quite good-looking cute utes. My first view of the new CRV literally turned my head.

Domestically, Ford released pictures of the all-new Ford Escape at the LA Auto Show. It looks like ass inside and out. Whereas the CRV and RAV4 don’t pretend to be trucks, the Escape does - it pretends to be an Explorer.

There is only one way to describe the interior - plasticky.

On the other hand, GM is showing that it gets it. The current Saturn Vue is just weird-looking. The new one is quite the looker:

Taking a cue from the RAV and the CRV, the new Vue makes no bones about its unibody car underpinnings and doesn’t try to look like a shrunken Tahoe.

Even the interior is a great leap forward:

The V6s will get a new 6-speed automatic transmission. The 4-pots will come with a 5-speed manual transmission. Saturn is slowly becoming into what it probably should have been all along - the American branch of GM Europe’s Opel division (the Vue will sell in Europe as the Opel Antara). Coming down the pike is a proper Vue hybrid.

Also coming soon, the Volvo X60 cute ute:

and the Volkswagen Tiguan (still in concept form here)

Compare the GM/Saturn interior above to the VW concept interior. They’re pretty darn similar, which means the General is doing an excellent job.

HT Autoblog

Yo. Respeck.

Try yours here.

HT Jen

This has been making the email rounds, and Jennifer posted it today.

Campbell’s Soup is running a promotion for cities with an NFL franchise. Go to this link and vote for the Buffalo Bills - for each vote, Campbell’s will donate a can of soup to the Food Bank of WNY or similar.

Right now, Packers, Steelers, and Bengals have over 500,000 votes. The Bills? Less than 35,000.

Not bad, considering the Jets are dead last with only 5,200.

It’s on NBC right now.

There is nothing less Christmas-y than Enya and her rhythmic, sleepy cacophony.

Daimler Chrysler developed a diesel technology called Bluetec that will enable diesel engines to be clean enough to be 50-state legal. It involves the injection of urea into the exhaust stream between the engine and the catalytic converter to create ammonia. Or something. Anyhow, 50-state legal diesel passenger cars come as very welcome news:

BMW diesels offered in the US market will be fifty-state legal, conforming to all the new Bin5 requirements. The new diesels will continue to maintain BMW’s performance reputation, while reducing carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption.

Forget swanky European marques for a second - every single manufacturer selling new autos in the United States sells diesels abroad. Honda’s are some of the best. Toyota? Check. GM’s Opel/Vauxhall sells diesels, ditto Ford with the TDCi. Mercedes already sells its CDI engine in the US, and Volkswagen still hawks its excellent TDI. All are clean-burning turbo diesels that accelerate reasonably quickly and get fuel mileage equal to or better than the real world numbers of hybrids.

“…ask, and ye shall receive” John 16:24

The Niagara Falls Reporter updates its site at the beginning of every week, and you really should add it to your bookmarks. Editor Mike Hudson asked for a plug, and voila.

1. The editorial this week is entitled, “Time Warner Treats Customers Like Dogs“, and longs for the days of Rigas’ Adelphia.

2. I remember the Boston Herald - that town’s plucky tabloid - would periodically hunt down patronage hires who were out in their state or city owned cars performing personal business like going home or playing golf while clocked in at their jobs. No one does that sort of reporting in Buffalo - we don’t have a plucky tabloid. So, kudos to Niagara Falls’ plucky tabloid for doing pieces like this one. Inadvertently making Buffalo and Amherst look completely competent and jam-packed full of best practices by comparison, Mike Hudson takes Niagara Falls’ City Administrator Daniel Bristol out for a scrape. Back when everyone was all up in arms about patronage and no-show jobs during the budget crisis, I practically pleaded with local media to do some of the nuts-and-bolts investigative reporting into the actual work habits of public employees.

3. Hudson also makes this Bush-opponent’s heart warm with a piece about Cheney that begins thusly:

A few years ago, President George W. Bush made a surprise Thanksgiving Day trip to Baghdad to have his picture taken helping to serve the troops their turkey dinner. The sight of a chicken carrying a turkey into a roomful of heroes was memorable enough, but the irony became even more delicious a day or two later when it was reported that the turkey had been as fake as Bush’s play Army suit.

It goes on to track the media’s breathless Thanksgiving prognostications as to whether Dick “5-deferments” Cheney was going to go to Baghdad that day. He didn’t. It’s just as well, I suppose.

Thanksgiving had turned into a very bad day indeed. U.S. soldiers mistakenly opened fire on a van carrying Iraqi laborers to their jobs in Sadr City, Baghdad’s Shiite slum, killing four and wounding eight. In a separate incident, three Marines were killed, bringing to 52 the number of American soldiers to die there in November.

And as Thanksgiving morning progressed, the violence escalated. Mortars and car bombs shook the city, and the rattle of small-arms fire echoed in the streets. The death toll was horrendous, with 216 Iraqis dying in one coordinated series of car bombings alone. The Baghdad airport and the Highway of Death that leads to it were ordered closed as Iraq’s feeble military and police forces struggled in vain to stop the savagery their fellow countrymen were inflicting on each other.

4. David Staba’s Citycide column focuses on the Falls’ City Attorney, and on Buffalo’s City Attorney. The Falls’ version doesn’t seem keen on living in that city or following rules regarding private work. Buffalo’s version, as you know, is busy filing frivolous complaints with the 4th Department lawyer ethics committee against publishers of satirical newspapers.

5. Bill Gallagher on Iraq. John Hanchette eulogizes a fellow newspaperman.

And their website is done up in an eye-soothing New York Observeresque pink.

The leaks were accurate.

St. Joseph Hospital in Cheektowaga and Millard Fillmore Gates Circle Hospital in Buffalo will cease to exist if the commission’s recommendations become law.

Two other hospitals will merge or consolidate. DeGraff Memorial Hospital in Tonawanda will lose its acute care beds and become a long-term skilled nursing facility while Erie County Medical Center will undergo a major transformation. ECMC will merge with Kaleida Health. The two providers will form a new entity.

From the New York Times:

the panel is calling for cutting about 4,100 of New York State’s roughly 60,000 hospital beds

As for the proposed closing of St. Joseph’s,

Assemblyman Paul A. Tokasz from Buffalo said that he planned to hold a news conference Tuesday to oppose the proposal to close St. Joseph Hospital. “I’m not happy,” he said, warning that the closing would cost jobs in a region with a struggling economy. “I am prepared to argue that we need to reject this plan.”

Why is this being done?

The state has won the promise of $1.5 billion in federal money to help hospitals cover the significant short-term costs of closing, which can be used as an incentive.

New York’s hospitals have been in crisis for years because of declining demand, pressures from health insurers and their high debt. State officials hope that by closing some hospitals and cutting costs at others, they will allow the healthier hospitals to survive and thrive while reducing the costs of the state’s Medicaid program, the government health care plan for the poor, which costs about $45 billion a year.

As Hodgepodge indicated on Hardwick’s show on Sunday, something’s got to give. There is too much capacity in this town.

You can’t close any hospital and not have there be some sort of outcry. Based on what I’ve read, Pataki has until December 5th to either accept or reject the commission’s recommendations as a whole - no line-item. If he accepts it, then the legislature can override, and that’s when it gets ugly.

UPDATE: Here is the portion of the report dealing with WNY. (.pdf)

Also, DeGraff would lose its acute care beds, and Sheehan would close all inpatient beds and transform into an outpatient behavioral care facility and primary care facility with renovated facilities. In Niagara County, Mt. St. Mary’s in Lewiston would merge with Niagara Falls Memorial.

So have yourself a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hannukah, a Kwaazy Kwaanza, a Tip Top Tet, and very solemn Ramadan.” –Krusty the Clown

Every year, like clockwork, Sandy Beach and Tom Bauerle devote entire shows to the anti-Christian forces that have conspired to eliminate “Merry Christmas” from public discourse.

While Bauerle complains that Muslims are babies because they don’t like the Pope quoting (without approval) a medieval text calling their religion “evil and inhuman”, he sees no irony in his babyish complaint that stores and people say “Happy Holidays” in December. While Sandy Beach decries the pettiness of people who are offended by the words “Merry Christmas”, he sees no irony in his pettiness, taking offense at the words “Happy Holidays”.

Beach devoted his entire show yesterday to this letter in the Buffalo News.

Here’s the thing. If someone wishes me a “Merry Christmas”, that’s great.

If someone wishes me a “Happy Holiday”, that’s great, too.

It has nothing to do with political correctness, but with common politeness and courtesy - something that this society is sorely lacking, and something on which we should perhaps concentrate on during the - ahem - Holiday season.

Simply put, if you’re not sure if the person with whom you’re dealing is Christian, there is no harm in uttering, “Happy Holidays” to include Hannukah, Eid, Ramadan, Kwanzaa, etc. Just in case. Just to be polite.

If you’re offended by “Happy Holidays”, you should lighten the hell up.

By the same token, if someone says, “Happy Hannukah” to you, and you’re not Jewish, or “Merry Christmas”, and you’re not Christian, you go ahead and lighten the hell up, too.

Only a cretin would be offended by someone’s genuine expression of good wishes during a season filled with more than one holiday. Only a demagogue would insist that “Merry Christmas” is the only acceptable greeting this month because the “majority” is Christian.

Is holy day any worse than Christ’s mass?

When Beach would trail off about how the people offended by “Merry Christmas” need psychiatric help for their problem, or that they should lock themselves in a closet during the month of December, I thought the same for him and his childish pique at the term “Happy Holidays”.

Jim Ostrowski posted his comments from last night’s forum. It’s always interesting to me to read the area’s Libertarian-in-chief’s take on budget proceedings.

If you haven’t already noticed, I’m a big opponent of cheesy rhetoric to make a valid political point. When people don’t like something related to health care, they bring up “socialized medicine”. When people think someone is being heavy-handed in some way, there is invariably a comparison to fascism or Hitler or Nazis or something else that is wholly out of proportion to the actual thing being complained-of. When Ostrowski doesn’t like public funding for libraries or cultural attractions like theater or museums, he calls them

special interests with their hands out and their hands in the taxpayers’ pockets.

Simultaneously?

It’s the rhetorical use of “special interests” that gets me. Free Buffalo itself is a special interest for anti-taxation, anti-government Libertarians. So there.

I’m Jim Ostrowski, President of Free Buffalo, but I will give only my own personal opinions today. There are lots of lobbying laws out there that, ironically, make it more difficult for groups like ours to exercise their first amendment rights.

If a group is to maintain non-profit status and have donations to it be tax-deductible, it has limits on its lobbying capabilities. Free Buffalo could be a political action committee and lobby all it wants. It could even run or endorse candidates. Hell, it could be its own political party if it wanted to.

Erie County is suffering through 45 straight years of decline; decline in our population, our economy, our culture and our way of life. At the same time, however, government on all levels got bigger, spent more of our money and barked ever more orders at us. One thing followed the other: bigger government shrank the economy and population.

Then, the best sentence ever:

Anyone who denies this is in a state of denial.

Zing!

Except county government has gotten smaller, at least since the 2004-05 budget crisis. City government has shrunk, as well. It’s also become much more efficient based on anecdotal evidence and CitiStat metrics. Can more be done? Yes. But slash & burn is what Ostrowski proposes, and I don’t think slash & burn is in anyone’s best interests.

According to the Tax Foundation, Erie County has the 7th highest property taxes in the nation as a percentage of assessed value. While these taxes include county, municipal and school taxes, as Free Buffalo member Dave Bailey told the Orchard Park Town board this year, “everyone in the lifeboat must put an oar in the water.” You must do your fair share in cutting the cost of government in this county. And please, we don’t want to hear about Monroe County, which has higher taxes. We’d rather hear about Erie County, Pennsylvania, whose taxes are $800 lower.

Erie’s doing very well by the way. Lower taxes give their citizens more money to invest in business and maintain their properties. Ten percent of the workforce in Erie County, PA works for the government. Here, it’s 17 percent. If we’re getting something for that extra seven percent of the workforce, please tell me what that is. Alleghany County where Pittsburgh is located, also has a figure of 10 percent, so please don’t tell me it’s because we have a larger, more urban population.

No, but I’d wager that it has to do with something altogether different.

The only way to turn this area around is to reduce the government’s consumption of our capital. You people have to spend a lot less of our money, in other words.

The consumption of our capital has a lot to do with our Capital.

Albany isn’t Harrisburg and vice-versa.

Caution. Metaphors ahead:

Corporate welfare and pork barrel projects will not do the trick. They’re bread and circuses. They’re zero sums games. They take from some and give to politically-connected others. They rob from the poor and give to the rich as with Bass Pro. They are moving the decks chairs around on the Titanic.

I’ll resist the temptation of asking what happened to that $14 million this body appropriated for Bass Pro. Down the old memory hole, I suppose.

And please don’t tell me about mandates. You know and have probably supported the very same people who have imposed them. Talk to your friends and your fellow party members in the State Legislature, the Governor’s office and in Congress and demand that the mandates be lifted. Stop supporting their campaigns. Stop taking their campaign money.

The county legislature can only do so much unless Albany gets the hell out of the way. You cannot change years’ worth of Albany politics with a simple “talk” with state legislators, demanding that mandates be lifted. That’s really not the county legislature’s job.

It’s your job and my job. It’s all of our jobs. While it’s easy and makes for good TV/radio to hector the legislature for its support given & received from state legislators, the real question comes down to the individual voter. Why did you re-elect Dale Volker? Mary Lou Rath? Why did you send Sam Hoyt and Mike Cole back to Albany? Money buys influence, but it doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Laura Monte had a great campaign going, for the most part but she still only mustered 30% of the vote. That’s thanks in part to gerrymandering. How the county leg gets a wag of the finger for that vis-a-vis the Assembly is anyone’s guess.

The simple fact of the matter is that the county is saddled with loads of unfunded mandates. The vast majority of the county budget is made up of money for things over which the county has little or no discretion. The “special interests” that were asking for funding to maintain our quality of life are fighting for scraps.

As for Medicaid, every single member here is either a Democrat—whose party brags about starting Medicaid, or a Republican, whose party said about Medicaid, “Me too,” as it is wont to do.

1965 isn’t the problem - 2006 is. New York’s Medicaid program is not only rife with fraud, but is also more expensive than that of Texas and California combined, and more comprehensive a program than any other state’s. The state has capped county contributions towards Medicaid, but hasn’t cut them yet. It’s a federal program that the states are to co-administer, but New York is somewhat unique in that it tells the counties what to do, and then makes them pay for it, too. It’s high time we had a statewide discussion about whether the program we administer is too bloated.

Compare New York and California - both states are bright blue. California has 35 million residents; New York has 19 million. California spends less than $34 billion for its 10 million enrollees. New York spends almost $43.5 billion for its 4.5 million enrollees - the highest in the nation. New York spends $7,580 per enrollee - the highest in the nation. California spends $2,520 per enrollee. There is something dramatically wrong with that. It’s also something over which the county legislature has no discretion or say.

Getting down to cases, what should be cut? As Free Buffalo outlined in its analysis of the 2006 budget, these things can be cut:

1. Employee compensation; it’s too high, 28 percent too high; if the unions won’t budge, lay off enough workers to accomplish the same results and the unions will come back to the table faster than a speeding bullet to restore those jobs.

Or strike the shit out of us, so we can all have a little Taylor Law party.

2. Pork and corporate welfare; this stuff is an economic loser, it corrupts the political process and makes real change more difficult. As Free Buffalo proposed, corporate welfare should be banned in the County Charter in the strongest possible terms.

One person’s pork and corporate welfare is another person’s retention or attraction of significant high-paying jobs that would otherwise go to…oh, I don’t know…Erie, Pennsylvania. To call it pork and corporate welfare is a rhetorical device. Some of what we’re talking about certainly qualifies. Others - like Geico - don’t.

3. Funding for culturals. Mr. Giambra brags about increasing funding for ”cultural organizations.” There is, however, one cultural organization he overlooks, the Erie County family struggling to pay its bills in an overtaxed, depressed economy. What gives you the right to take scarce dollars out of our pockets to give to museums and concerts halls? Besides, cultural organizations should be independent of politics, not the lapdogs of politicians. Free Buffalo is currently trying to raise funds for two cultural organizations, a Grover Cleveland Library and Museum and a Hall of Fame for those who have contributed to individual liberty throughout history. We will not accept a penny of government money for those projects. That way, we can maintain our independence and speak freely on all controversial public issues. Culturals should be funded from the discretionary dollars of those who support the values promoted by those culturals. We don’t expect those who don’t agree with us that Grover Cleveland was a great president to subsidize our venture.

If you have an Albright-Knox or a Shea’s, you attract people to downtown. They buy tickets, pay to park, eat food, drink drinks, maybe even get a parking ticket or two. Sometimes, people come in from way out of town and eat more meals and pay to sleep here. Cut public funding for these attractions - funding that permits their very existence - and you’ve just pissed away a huge part of our quality of life. Is Buffalo the same place if that struggling family has an extra $10 in its pocket, but nowhere to spend it? We can stick a Target in the Albright-Knox and a Dollar General in Shea’s.

4. The NFTA. They’re a large, wealthy bureaucracy running an antiquated, nineteenth century public transit system. It’s time to get the NFTA off the dole. Deregulate public transit and get some competition in here. Without competition, innovation will not occur. If the NFTA was in charge of transportation in 1900, the horse and buggy industry would still be thriving.

A 19th century public transit system would involve streetcars pulled by horses. We’re running a borderline 21st century transit system with a mix of light rail and bus service - the buses featuring decidedly modern diesel hybrid technology. There already is competition. It’s called taxis. Good luck finding one of those on the street because insurance rates are sky-effing-high for taxi fleets. We need improvements to the NFTA, and yesterday’s post about furniture from Wall or JC Deceaux is a first start to taking some of the cost away from the taxpayers.

If these and the other recommendations of Free Buffalo’s report were enacted, we could afford a large tax cut in property taxes, the sales tax or both.

Erie County has two choices, roughly similar to the choices facing the Soviet Union in 1945. We can change now or we can change later, after we’ve wasted another 45 years and after the utter devastation of our community which is sure to follow if we continue on the present road to nowhere.

There’s another rhetorical device - compare Erie County to the Soviet Union. In 1945, however, the Soviets didn’t have much of a choice, frankly. They took over the areas of Europe that they had occupied after defeating the Nazis, and completely absorbed the Baltic states. It wasn’t until Stalin died in 1953 that there could really be any sort of reassessment of Soviet life - that didn’t culminate until Gorbachev’s Glasnost and Perestroika post-1995.

Plus, we have a pluralistic form of patronage mills. Dems, Repubs, “Independents”, and Conservatives all play the same little game. The Soviets had only one player - the CPSU.

The legislature needs a balanced budget that doesn’t play games with projections and doesn’t spend down any reserves we have lying around. They have to help us to weather the current budget crisis storm so that when we come out the other side, we can look at ways to decrease sales and property taxes to ease people’s lives. We can’t cut and slash everything, but we should examine the efficiencies of everything and make sure government is putting our money to good use.

The real reform - the real tax relief that Ostrowski and other seek - has to come from Albany. It has to do with the unfair, manipulative use of county taxing authority to pay for Albany’s policies and programs. It has to do with the lack of discretion in our budget. It has to do with excess Albany spending with no accountability. It has to do with buck-passing, gladhanding, and turf protection. Someday it will change, but only when the ire is directed at the appropriate parties.

The state budget ultimately is hashed out by three men behind closed doors. Just opening those doors and letting some sunlight in might do wonders for this state, and the people’s perception of it.

Apparently, about 80 people spoke out to beg for money or a tax break. That’s a good turnout by any measure. Watchdog and BuffaloGeek went, and here is a story about the begging

… and a story & very funny video about Demone Smith’s trouble reading people’s crappy handwriting, and pronouncing vowel-deficient Polish names:

Now that the tolls have been taken away from the I-190 in Buffalo, (but the booths remain, ready for imminent reactivation) people are turning their attention to other booths in the area.

Hamburg Councilwoman Kathy Hochul wants the Thruway Authority to move the Lackawanna toll barrier back to Angola. The idea is to make the entire immediate commuting area toll-free.

Rus Thompson has started an online petition calling for removal of the tolls from the Grand Island bridges. Even Manhattan residents have a toll-free option to drive onto that island (Willis Ave). Grand Island residents don’t enjoy that same option. Pataki has said that there is no public outcry to remove those tolls (the subtext being that Grand Island wants to keep the riff-raff out). Thompson’s petition already has 2195 online signatures. Thompson also suggests widening the bridges. Anyone who’s ever witnessed the backup onto the I-190 and I-290 on a sunny Friday summer evening knows that this is not uncalled-for. You and I know that we can take the Boulevard out to the Falls and avoid the crowds, but most tourists stick to the Interstates. For all the talk about tourism in these parts, it sure would be smart to make their lives easier, no?

BTW - we still need a New York State or Buffalo/Niagara welcome area located within spitting distance of the Canadian bridge crossings. Ontario is smart enough to do that on the 420, and twice on the QEW.

In the alternative, if the Thruway Authority remains intent on maintaining tolls on roadways throughout the state to help maintain good-paying Thruway patronage jobs maintain the roads, then they need to install transponder and license plate readers like Ontario does on the 407 toll road. You do not slow down to pay the toll. If you don’t have a transponder, it takes a picture of your license plate while you travel at normal speed, and sends you a bill. It’s not the best solution, but it’s a solution.