Remember al Qaeda?

Just as it had on the day before 9/11, Al Qaeda now has a band of terror camps from which to plan and train for attacks against Western targets, including the United States. Officials say the new camps are smaller than the ones the group used prior to 2001. However, despite dozens of American missile strikes in Pakistan since 2002, one retired CIA officer estimated that the makeshift training compounds now have as many as 2,000 Arab and Pakistani militants, up from several hundred three years ago.

Bush is nothing but epic fail from day one to day 2,922.

But while Bush vowed early on that Bin Laden would be captured “dead or alive,” the moment in late 2001 when Bin Laden and his followers escaped at Tora Bora was almost certainly the last time the Qaeda leader was in American sights, current and former intelligence officials say. Leading terrorism experts have warned that it is only a matter of time before a major terrorist attack planned in the mountains of Pakistan is carried out on American soil.

Remember that next time you take your shoes off at the airport. To quote Robert DeNiro’s Al Capone in the Untouchables, Bush and is nothing “but a lot of talk and a badge.”

Friedman in the Times yesterday:

My fellow Americans: We are a country in debt and in decline — not terminal, not irreversible, but in decline. Our political system seems incapable of producing long-range answers to big problems or big opportunities. We are the ones who need a better-functioning democracy — more than the Iraqis and Afghans. We are the ones in need of nation-building. It is our political system that is not working.

I continue to be appalled at the gap between what is clearly going to be the next great global industry — renewable energy and clean power — and the inability of Congress and the administration to put in place the bold policies we need to ensure that America leads that industry.

“America and its political leaders, after two decades of failing to come together to solve big problems, seem to have lost faith in their ability to do so,” Wall Street Journal columnist Gerald Seib noted last week. “A political system that expects failure doesn’t try very hard to produce anything else.”

We used to try harder and do better. After Sputnik, we came together as a nation and responded with a technology, infrastructure and education surge, notes Robert Hormats, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs International. After the 1973 oil crisis, we came together and made dramatic improvements in energy efficiency. After Social Security became imperiled in the early 1980s, we came together and fixed it for that moment. “But today,” added Hormats, “the political system seems incapable of producing a critical mass to support any kind of serious long-term reform.”

If the old saying — that “as General Motors goes, so goes America” — is true, then folks, we’re in a lot of trouble. General Motors’s stock-market value now stands at just $6.47 billion, compared with Toyota’s $162.6 billion. On top of it, G.M. shares sank to a 34-year low last week.

That’s us. We’re at a 34-year low. And digging out of this hole is what the next election has to be about and is going to be about — even if it is interrupted by a terrorist attack or an outbreak of war or peace in Iraq. We need nation-building at home, and we cannot wait another year to get started. Vote for the candidate who you think will do that best. Nothing else matters.

There are so many reasons and causes for this inevitable chicken roost homecoming that I can’t even begin to hurl epithets at them. But I’m willing to overlook them for now just to have some people in congress take some bold steps that will help us in the future. Fewer international misadventures and more time and money being spent on transitioning our economy would be a swell idea.

Literally.

From a map in Aer Lingus’ in-flight magazine:

Instead of the hydroelectric from Niagara, according to this map we’re very close to the James Bay Project.

Republicans really can’t figure out whether Obama is an elitist country clubber or a Jihadist-in-waiting who American, just barely. But this, I think, is the winningest strategy out of all of them and I urge Republicans to adopt this:

Norquist dropped by The Times’ Washington bureau today and, as part of his negative critique of Obama’s liberal stances on economic issues and other matters, he termed the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee “John Kerry with a tan.”

The subject of Mary Kunz Goldman’s upcoming book, Buffalo-born concert pianist Leonard Pennario, died last night in La Jolla. Mary has the info here.

The ultimate child prodigy, Pennario learned the Grieg Concerto in one week so he could perform it, from memory, with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra at the Texas Exposition, before 2000 people. This mind-boggling feat has been well documented by journalists.

At 19, wearing his private’s uniform, Pennario made his debut at Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic, playing Liszt’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Arthur Rubinstein was in the audience, and so were critics Virgil Thomson and Olin Downes.

The great violinist Jascha Heifetz chose Pennario from all the pianists in the world to perform and record with himself and the great cellist Gregor Piatigorsky. By performing in that famous trio, Pennario filled the seat vacated by Rubinstein. Pennario won a Grammy Award for his work in the 1960s with Heifetz and Piatigorsky, and next to Rubinstein, he is the pianist most closely associated with those two great musicians.

The greatest conductors in the world admired Pennario and sought him out as soloist — including Fritz Reiner, Dimitri Mitropoulos and Leopold Stokowski. Mitropolous said of Pennario: “Playing with this musician has been one of the joys of my life. He has technique, but he has what is more important, a soul.”

The foremost critics in the world praised Pennario and acknowledged his greatness. In 1952, writing in a London paper, Andrew Porter, who later became the longtime music critic for The New Yorker, wrote, “No one plays the piano better than Pennario.”

The Grammy-winning film composer Miklos Rozsa, who composed concertos for Jascha Heifetz and Gregor Piatigorsky, wrote a piano concerto for Pennario, who premiered it. Rozsa also wrote a piano sonata for Pennario. Both these pieces are highly esteemed by pianists today.

Pennario was one of only two pianists named permanent members of the jury of the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition. (The other was the Hungarian-born Lili Kraus.)

In 1959, both the New York Times and Musical America acknowledged Pennario to be the best-selling American-born classical pianist. Between 1950 and 1960, as the sole classical pianist for the Capitol label, he made over 40 recordings. He went on to make over 20 more.

Sometimes referred to by journalists as “the wizard of the keyboard,” Pennario became the first pianist after Rachmaninoff himself to record all four of the Rachmaninoff concertos plus the Variations on a Theme of Paganini.

In 1989, Pennario toured Communist China, one of the few American pianists to have done so. He was the first pianist to perform in all 50 of the United States.

George W. Bush in May:

As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

(Note that the senator in question was a Republican Senator from Idaho

George W. Bush in June:

In more than two years of negotiations, the man who once declared North Korea part of an “axis of evil” with Iran and Iraq, angrily vowing to confront, not negotiate with, its despotic leader, in fact demonstrated a flexibility that his critics at home and abroad once considered impossible.

That is why Mr. Bush is likely to receive only grudging credit, if any, for the accomplishment, which could turn out to be the last significant diplomatic breakthrough of his presidency.

North Korea’s declaration — and the administration’s quid pro quo lifting of some sanctions — faced criticism from conservatives who attacked it as too little and from liberals who said it came too late.

“The regime’s nuclear declaration is the latest reminder that, despite Mr. Bush’s once bellicose rhetoric, engaging our enemies can pay dividends,” Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, whom Mr. Bush defeated in the 2004 presidential election, said in a statement after the declaration on Thursday.

“Historians will long wonder,” he continued, “why this administration did not directly engage North Korea before Pyongyang gathered enough material for several nuclear weapons, tested a nuclear device and the missiles to deliver them.”

For the record, I fully support the Bush administration’s efforts diplomatically to engage North Korea and Iran. It’s important to talk to our enemies in an effort to make the world a safer place. We cannot refuse to speak to certain countries out of some respect for morality or human rights - American history is replete with evidence that we are quite happy to speak with despotic regimes of all shapes and sizes, if not engage in full diplomatic relations with them.

I only wish that Bush wouldn’t trot out “appeasement” and Chamberlain and Munich and 1938 and Hitler as an adjective for talks with other enemies that aren’t North Korea. It is counterproductive, ignorant, and stupid. Also, KCNA doesn’t have anything up about it yet.

Oftentimes, diplomacy and moderation can trump aggression and extremism.

Jack Davis won one.

In Supreme Court, he valiantly defended the first amendment rights of millionaires everywhere (.pdf). In Davis v. FEC, a 5-4 court (opinion by Justice Alito) held, among other things, that it was a first amendment violation for the FEC to reward the opponents of self-funded candidates who spend over $350,000 of their own money. Under the stricken rule, Davis’ opponents would be able to raise triple the normal amount from individual donors, and receive unlimited coordinated party funds if Davis spent over $350,000 of his own funds towards his election. Notably, in 2006 Reynolds declined to do so and the FEC argued that this fact rendered Davis’ case moot. (The Supreme Court disagreed.)

The Court also found that the heightened disclosure requirements that the Millionaire’s Amendment triggered were unconstitutionally burdensome.

Justice Alito expressly made the point that if the law was evenhanded, and also allowed the millionaire’s donors to donate more than the usual amount, etc., then the law would be constitutional. The basis for the Court’s ruling is based on the holding of Buckley v. Valeo, which struck down limitations on personal expenditures on federal political campaigns. The only valid public interest to be protected by any campaign finance limitations is the prevention of corruption, not to even the playing field.

While this makes it significantly more difficult for middle class folks to run for office against the wealthy, no amount of money can buy motivated volunteers and activists. Hopefully, congress will revisit this statute and pass a replacement that complies with the Court’s holding. It seems ridiculous to limit donations to $2,300 from individuals for candidates competing against someone who is injecting $3,000,000 of a lump sum into a campaign. If the result is that the millionaire can, in turn, raise up to $6,900 from individuals, so be it.

Is Buffalo still a blue collar town in America’s Rust Belt?

The stereotype of Buffalo is that it is a town filled with blue collar lunch bucket factory workers with a love of chicken wings and Canadian Beer. Well, the wings and beer thing is true, but Buffalo is home to a growing and thriving community of new economy.

Purpose: To showcase 20 of the region’s most progressive new economy companies to demonstrate that we are rapidly building a burgeoning entrepreneurial sector in Western New York.

This will be a networking event at which larger companies can show the way to success, mid-level companies can reach out to new customers, find talent, locate real estate, and smaller companies that are just starting out can find some investors or just share their plans.

The event will be interactive with questions from the online community via text and Twitter, live attendees, and the whole event will be streamed online via BuffaloHomecoming.com, wnymedia.net, and ustream.tv.

It’s about building a community of entrepreneurs and young professionals who are looking to generate local wealth which can be used to put people to work, and build the foundation of our community. Instead of looking to traditional power structures and politicians, these are driven companies which seek to build upon Buffalo’s legacy of entrepreneurialism. Let’s look forward, work together and build the city in our own vision.

When we’re done, we’ll upload each presentation to dozens of viral video sites to spread the word about Buffalo’s business future.

Presenters: WNY’s 20 most innovative technology, design, social network, creative and media companies. Click here for more details on our presenters.

Audience: Local, regional, and national venture capitalists and angel investors, members of Buffalo Niagara Enterprise and the Buffalo Niagara Partnership, InfoTech Niagara, local entrepreneurs, general public, online participation. Attendance is 100% free and registration is NOT required. We just ask you to join us in person or virtually!

When: June 27th, 2008 9AM-2PM

Where: Statler Golden Ballroom, Statler Hotel, Buffalo, NY

THE EVENT IS FREE AND REGISTRATION IS NOT REQUIRED

A message from the County Comptroller:

As you may know, for some time now the Erie County Fiscal Stability Authority (”Authority”) has prevented my office from issuing bonds on behalf of Erie County so that we may complete important public safety and infrastructure projects for the County. When the Authority was created by the state it was never contemplated that the Authority would prevent the County from borrowing during good financial times, but it has done so and these actions have hurt this community.

As a result, earlier this week the New York State Senate and Assembly almost unanimously and with bipartisan support approved legislation to amend the Authority’s enabling act in order to close the loophole that prevented the County from completing its own borrowing even when the County is financially healthy.

While the legislation has passed the state legislature, before it can can take effect Governor David Paterson must sign this legislation into law. Today I wrote to the Governor asking him to sign the legislation into law, and now I ask that you do the same.

Notwithstanding the Authority’s claims to the contrary, the County is well on the road to fiscal stability, having achieved three consecutive years of balanced budgets with surpluses, even when the Authority consistently claimed the County was operating in a deficit. I am proud to say that at least two of those three years’ results happened on my watch, and this year is trending towards another positive year.

Since talking office I have never asked you to take any action but your help is needed now. If Governor Paterson hears from the taxpayers of our community I know he will sign this legislation into law and let our elected leaders, not appointed members of a state authority, borrow on your behalf to complete these very important but delayed projects

Therefore, I ask each of you to write to Governor David Paterson and ask him to sign into law the legislation, which will return representative democracy to Erie County and ensure that needed but delayed capital projects are completed this year.

To do so just click on this link, fill out the required information and cut and paste the below message (after the jump) to the Governor asking him to sign this important piece of legislation into law. If you do so you will have my sincere appreciation, but more importantly, you will help move our community forward.

Thank you and best wishes to one and all,

Mark Poloncarz
Erie County Comptroller Read the rest of this entry »

Try this on for size.

Some total dick who graduated from Saratoga Springs High School last year disrupted this year’s graduation dressed as a …

To round out the costume, he sprayed silly string at the audience.

His motive? “He thought it would be funny,” Briscoe said.

Morett was ticketed for disorderly conduct, a violation, and will face the charges in City Court on Tuesday, Briscoe said.

Morett graduated from Saratoga Springs High School last year. He tried to streak away from law enforcement, but could not.

“Once I stopped laughing, he was pretty easy to catch because he was tripping on the lower portion of the costume,” said Briscoe, who made the arrest.

In other news, Jayvonna Kincannon graduated yesterday without incident, and the McKinley High alumni association gave her a leadership award.

I’m thinking of switching the blog up a little. I’m thinking of a new template and of making it a quasi-group blog, permitting certain invited people to post on a periodic basis. Mostly people who like to blog but don’t have the time or desire to maintain a blog full-time anymore.

What, if any, requests do you have with respect to a new template? I don’t want to do anything too dramatic, but I’d like to switch up the design a bit, modernize it to incorporate some new functionality in Wordpress 2.5.

One of the things we had on the old shit.0 white-on-black template was truncated posts that you had to click-through to read the rest of. I didn’t necessarily have a problem with click-through, per se - it was the overall lack of functionality I had with that template that frustrated me. And don’t worry - I won’t be reverting to that.

I write the blog for my own benefit, but am mindful of the fact that you read it and that you don’t want to wade through a bunch of crap. Thoughts you have go in comments and I thank you for them.

The Broadway Market is a city treasure, filled with history and loaded with potential. Unfortunately, it’s under-utilized, losing money, keeps bad hours, and is really, truly ugly.

We know it has potential because of the Eastertime rush. We know it has potential because of its history, and people’s nostalgia for it. That potential is tempered by the decline of its surroundings over the past decades.

If I had all the money in the world, I’d rip it down and build a brand-new structure as a destination for the area. After all, if Canal Side can all of a sudden draw people to a once-blighted and benighted parking lot under the Skyway, then a gleaming, modern Broadway Market could help draw people to Broadway-Fillmore.

Of course, I hardly have enough money to fill up a tank of gas now, and I doubt that there’s political will or financial sense to be made of constructing a gleaming, modern marketplace on that site.

I think what’s happening is that the market’s potential is being stunted by a whole host of issues. Let’s simplify.

What if we abandoned the building completely? What if, instead, we set up something like what’s shown below on the site of the former K-Mart across the street?

Make the cost of entry for vendors de minimis, and soon you’ll have a thriving, grassroots market. Tell farmers from other areas to market their wares there. Abolish restrictions on the use of the market.

If it can be proven that people will use the market outside of Eastertime, then a push can be made to build a new enclosed market across the street.

Just a thought, anyway. Being open on Sunday, when the refugees from the old neighborhood go to church, would help, too.

UPDATE: Check out the article in ArtVoice about the market, and these excerpts:

The problem, Byrd says, is lack of vision. He took a position on the board because he imagined that it could be a part of the larger effor to revitalize Buffalo’s old Polonia dsitrict, which revolves around fixtures like the Central Terminal, St. Stanislaus, Corpus Christi, and the Adam Mickiewicz Library. This year Byrd was voted in as president of the board by a bloc of similarly minded progressives, offering a glimmer of hope for those who hoped to change the way business is done at the market.

But the current board leadership managed to retain power by invalidating the vote that won Byrd the presidency, through a series of shenanigans that included ousting one board member on a technicality and fetching a compliant former board member from a nursing home to take his place, in order to make a quorum. In the aftermath, Byrd resigned; the old leadership returned and booted reform-minded board members Marty Biniasz and Father Anzelm Chalupka of Corpus Christi Church for missing too many meetings, which are held at 8:30 in the mornings on weekdays—tough to make for working professionals.

For all the complaints about lack of public money, the current management practically threw away $1.2 million from Congresswoman Louise Slaughter in 2006. Slaughter, who was instrumental in the successful rejuvenation of Rochester’s public marketplace, earmarked the money for a public kitchen and a variety of much-needed infrastructure improvements. But Fronczak and the board conspired to use $1 million of Slaughter’s earmark to lure in a new tenant who proposed to open a factory outlet selling discount clothing—not at all in line with Slaughter’s vision of the market as a hub for community development and a source of healthy food in a multicultural neighborhood. Slaughter took her money off the table and walked away, disgusted, vowing never to help the market while Fronczak was still there.

“They wanted to give this guy $1 million, Slaughter’s money, to open a factory outlet,” Franczyk says. “Is that right for the market? He subsequently went out of business. If you had given this guy $1 million, he probably would have skipped town.”

We all know that KeyBank left the market. What better way to attract people to a fading market in a fading neighborhood, then to add the lowest common lending denominator - the usurial check cashing place:

More recently, when the departure of KeyBank left the market with nagging vacancy and a loss of $6,000 per month in rent, Fronczak and the board courted a check-cashing operation based in New York City. Maybe check-cashing is a sevice the neighborhood needs, says Dobosiewicz, but it hardly burnishes the market’s already downtrodden image. “This is the plan there: Get whoever you can who will pay rent, don’t worry about who they are and how they fit in with the market,” he says.

Luckily, there are people with vision and energy who can hopefully jettison the mediocrity and stasis of the market’s current board:

The current board has been less than receptive to new marketing ideas; they only halfheartedly went along with a Christmas market event last year, for example, which turned out to be hugely successful. Tenants who suggested a Fourth of July promotion were told it was bad idea. Why? Because it had never been done before. And management seems unwilling to accept the conclusions of customer surveys that indicate the market would attract more business if it stayed open past five o.clock on weekdays and instituted Sunday hours.

Sandy Starks is a founding member of Western New York’s convivium of the Slow Food movement and a career professional in the food and wine industry. She was one of the organizers of the Christmas market, an effort in which she received so little cooperation from the market’s management that it wound up costing her money. She’s one of a number of Broadway Market enthusiasts who are waiting in the sidelines to contribute their ideas and expertise to the rebirth of the market. Starks imagines organic vegetable stands, high-quality coffee, good cheeses, and microbrews to draw in customer with expensive tatses; she imagines reaching out to potential new vendors in the Fillmore District’s burgeoning Vietnamese and Muslim communities, as well as a consistent effort to include the district’s majority African-American population in the market’s cultural history and governance, which have been an island of Eastern European whiteness in a neighborhood that is predominantly African American. Starks imagines events every weekend, promoted not only by individual participants but by the market’s management. Starks, Byrd, and Dobosiewicz point to the Clinton-Bailey market—in an equally distressed neighborhood, even further removed from downtown—as an indication of that the Broadway can succeed.

Running against Jack Davis (D-In Name Only) is like running against Mr. Burns from the Simpsons; a curmudgeony, bitter, angry man who is supposedly spending $3 million of his own money to run for congress a third time, after losing twice already. Oh, and did you know Davis doesn’t like the Chinese or Mexicans? Yeah, it’s true. In fairness, Davis has better hair than C. Montgomery Burns.

One wonders why he’s bothering to run again, seeing as he expressed “relief” upon losing to Tom Reynolds in 2006.

But Davis’ resemblance to the fictional Mr. Burns isn’t just limited to temperament and wealth. You’ll recall that Mr. Burns own the Springfield nuclear power plant. Well, Mr. Davis owns $35 million in energy stocks.

From a Powers campaign press release today:

Jack Davis revealed in financial disclosure documents that he owns up to $35 million in Big Oil and energy stocks. A recent poll released by the Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg revealed that 76% of Americans blame Big Oil, George Bush, oil speculators, and OPEC for record high gas prices.

At a press conference held at a Mobil gas station in Amherst, NY, where the price for a gallon of gas was $4.19, Powers called for an end to corporate greed that is causing skyrocketing gas prices. The Powers plan for Securing Our Energy Independence calls for increased investment for renewable energy and curbing corporate greed by reigning in oil speculators.

“We now know Jack Davis has up to 35 million reasons to vote against lower gas prices. Exxon Jack is no different than George Bush and the politicians in Washington, DC who are already bought and paid for by the oil companies. Western New York needs a Congressman who will look out for their interests, not Exxon/Mobil’s bottom line” stated Powers Campaign Manager, John Gerken.

TOP 10 QUESTIONS JACK DAVIS MUST ANSWER ABOUT HIS OIL INVESTMENTS

· How can you say you are not beholden to special interests when you have up to $35 million dollars invested in Big Oil and energy while hardworking Americans struggle to fill their gas tanks?

· How can hard working Western New Yorkers trust you to lower gas prices when you profited by up to $280,000 off of Big Oil and energy last year?

· Why should Western New Yorkers believe that you will vote in our interests and not your own when it comes to Big Oil?

· Do you support drilling in ANWR?

· Would you vote against tax breaks for big oil?

· Is there really any difference between spending your own money that you received from Big Oil and taking special interest money?

· Isn’t it a little hypocritical that you made more than 5 times the median income of the district last year off of Big Oil and energy, but you say you understand the hard times Western New Yorkers are facing?

· What would you do in Congress to lower the price of gasoline and help the families in Western New York that you want to represent?

· Do you believe that renewable energy will help alleviate man-made global warming?

Davis won’t answer these questions because he never answers any questions. Not from voters, anyway. He doesn’t go out and meet them. He’ll show up and speak with reporters or party leaders and hurl invective at his opponents, but his stock answer to every problem, every issue is “foreigners”. Don’t believe me?

EDIT: VIDEO REMOVED FOR OBNOXIOUSNESS

That MacBook on Jack’s desk? Made in China. He also claims he won’t take special interest money.

His one big contributor is Jack Davis. He is his own special interest. It’s quite easy to make that pledge when you’re a millionaire.

On the other hand, Powers doesn’t make almost $300,000 per year off of energy stocks. His plan for energy:

An Energy Bill that Invests in Our Future – Provide tax credits to investors who empower scientists to develop renewable energy. Instead of giving away billions to Big Oil, we should provide funding to scientists and engineers to develop renewable energies. As of right now, Congress only provides an advancement of one year to investors who want to develop renewable energies while they provide billions to Big Oil. We need to extend these credits to 10 year allotments in order to provide scientists and engineers with the funds necessary to cure America’s oil addiction and make our Country safe.

A Menu of Options – There is no silver bullet solution to the energy crisis. The United States must not limit Americans to any one particular form of renewable energy, but provide several options in order to protect against future monopolies such as the one oil currently holds.

Apollo Sized Ambitions – When we come together as a nation, we can accomplish anything. The United States had a vision to get to the moon; we made the commitment and accomplished the task. If we are truly going to be energy independent, Congress must set firm goals of when America will be powered by renewable energy and then commit ourselves to making sure this happens.

A Government that Leads by Example – Jon Powers will support legislation that requires all newly purchased nonmilitary federal vehicles (including Postal vehicles) to be American made and use hybrid technology or E85 fuel within five years. We must also provide state and local governments incentives to move all non law enforcement vehicles to do the same.

Helping the Consumer Lead by Example – The federal government allows for a tax credit of up to $3,400 on hybrid vehicles. This incentive is only given to the first 60,000 models of each car sold. Jon Powers will work to make sure that all hybrid vehicles receive this tax credit until hybrids and other clean cars make up a majority of all vehicles sold. Jon Powers also supports housing tax credits for homeowners who invest in making their home more energy efficient.

Stopping Corporate Greed by closing the Enron Loop-Hole – Special Interest groups and Big Oil have created a loophole in the law that allows speculators to manipulate the price of oil and inflate it by $30-$50 per barrel. While Americans pay over four dollars per gallon of gasoline, Big Oil is making record profits. Jon Powers supports closing the loophole and forcing speculators to provide realistic estimates so our gasoline prices will go down.

An America that Leads by Example – Jon Powers will fight for legislation to require the use of safe, renewable energy sources like wind, solar, and hydropower to generate 25% of the nation’s electricity by 2025. America must also invest in technologies to improve ethanol and convert to cellulosic ethanol so that America can grow its own fuel and it will not affect the food supply.

Forcing Oil Companies to Lead by Example – Jon Powers supports legislation that will require oil companies to install bio-fuel pumps at 25% of their stations.

Reducing Carbon Emissions – Jon Powers will support legislation to cap emissions of greenhouse gases and reduce them by 20% by 2020.

All I know is, Exxon Jack’s tank of ideas and solutions is running on empty.

Although I’m loath to hold up and worship Buffalo’s “good old days”, I stumbled upon a fascinating and beautiful set of photographs on Flickr.

Evidently, Flickr user Vielles Annonces purchased a set of old Kodachrome slides from somewhere, depicting the travels of a Southern California family she doesn’t know. There is a small description of factoids that she was able to decipher through looking at the photos, but other than that, they’re just random color snaps from the 1950s and 60s.

Included in the set are several pictures of a snowy Buffalo in 1963.

Posing in Niagara Square:

In front of the Statler Hilton on a snowy 1963 day:

In front of the Statler Hilton on a sunny 1959 day:

At City Hall in 1959:

The Hotel Statler and Niagara Square from the site of the current execrable City Court building:

The Falls 1963:

Harris Hill Men’s Club invites the entire community to a picnic for Jon Powers.

When: Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 6:00 - 8:00 PM

Where: Clarence Town Park. Large Pavilion

You are the Mayor of Buffalo or the County Executive of Erie County.

Name 5 things that you would implement right now that would have a significant positive impact on the city or region.

(Photo credit: Eye8Pudding via Flickr)

What are you waiting for?

It’s fun to watch the right try to figure out how best to define and pigeonhole Obama. They were so amped for Clinton, that they’ve been caught unawares.

They can’t decide whether Obama is the foreign outsider who rejects American values, or whether he’s the too-cool elitist at the country club.

They can’t decide if he’s too inner-city activist or too Park Avenue radical chic.

Thankfully, Karl Rove weighs in:

Even if you never met him, you know this guy. He’s the guy at the country club with the beautiful date, holding a martini and a cigarette that stands against the wall and makes snide comments about everyone who passes by.

Note, of course, that with that very statement Rove outs himself as being that guy at the country club holding a martini and cigarette making snide comments. “Beautiful date” is unconfirmed.

Country club?

Although the opposition MDC candidate Morgan Tsvangirai won the first round of Presidential elections outright in late March, (and more likely than not with 50% plus one, which would have obviated the need for a run-off), that run-off is scheduled to be held on June 27th.

The entire thing appears to have been an opportunity for Mugabe’s ZANU-PF to basically kill or threaten to kill anyone associated with, or planning to vote for, the opposition.

Tsvangirai has dropped out of this complete sham of a race and sought sanctuary in the Dutch embassy. Sokwanele has been keeping track of anti-opposition government violence here. The brutality is medieval, and to make matters worse, Mugabe basically blames the opposition for it all.

Other sub-Saharan African leaders have become more vocal about Mugabe’s brutality, and even the UN Security Council got involved.

“The Security Council condemns the campaign of violence against the political opposition ahead of the second round of the Presidential elections scheduled for 27 June, which has resulted in the killing of scores of opposition activists and other Zimbabweans and the beating and displacement of thousands of people, including many women and children.

“The Security Council further condemns the actions of the Government of Zimbabwe that have denied its political opponents the right to campaign freely, and calls upon the Government of Zimbabwe to stop the violence, to cease political intimidation, to end the restrictions on the right of assembly and to release the political leaders who have been detained. The Council urges the international monitors and observers to remain in Zimbabwe while the crisis continues.

“The Security Council regrets that the campaign of violence and the restrictions on the political opposition have made it impossible for a free and fair election to take place on 27 June. The Council further considers that, to be legitimate, any government of Zimbabwe must take account of the interests of all its citizens. The Council notes that the results of the 29 March 2008 elections must be respected.

“The Security Council expresses its concern over the impact of the situation in Zimbabwe on the wider region. The Council welcomes the recent international efforts, including those of SADC leaders and particularly President Mbeki. The Security Council calls on the Zimbabwean authorities to cooperate fully with all efforts, including through the UN, aimed at finding a peaceful way forward, through dialogue between the parties, that allows a legitimate government to be formed that reflects the will of the Zimbabwean people.

“The Security Council further expresses its concern at the grave humanitarian situation in Zimbabwe and condemns the suspension by the Government of Zimbabwe of the operations of humanitarian organizations, which has directly affected one and a half million people, including half a million children. The Council calls on the Government of Zimbabwe to immediately allow humanitarian organizations to resume their services.

“The Security Council will continue to monitor closely the situation and requests the Secretary-General to report on ongoing regional and international efforts to resolve the crisis.”

Unfortunately, there is probably nothing the Security Council can or will do about this, because it is a wholly internal affair and does not threaten the security of the region or other nations, although an argument could be made that any dramatic increase in refugees from the violence might count.

Oh, and the image above is Mugabe’s his piss-poor full-page campaign ad, which blames the British, and promises Zimbabwe “it’s now time” to enjoy the “gains of independence”. Zimbabwe has been independent for 28 years. It was Africa’s breadbasket. It could be a relatively stable example of democracy like Botswana, but has instead become a mismanaged basket-case with a brutal totalitarian dictator and hyperinflation.

And I second what this HuffPo writer says. The crisis in Zimbabwe is artificial, reversible, and deserves far more attention than it’s currently getting:

What I am asking is whether Barack Obama will use his rapidly growing international credibility and speak out against the terrible cruelties perpetrated by Mugabe and his henchman. Will he put in a discrete call to Mugabe’s chief enabler, South African president Thabo Mbeki and demand that he stop supporting the thug over the border and instruct his U.N. ambassador to stop blocking the subject being brought before the Security Council. I know the candidate is busy but this is a crisis that just won’t wait.

In the interest of bipartisanship I ask the same question of John McCain.

Finally, in the interest of the New World Order, where politicians have less power than they like us to think, I ask Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Bono if they would stop congratulating themselves for a few days and get o