To be honest, I’m not certain, and I feel it would be hypocritical to feign interest retroactively by checking now.  Still, it’s great that our region’s sportier residents got to talk smack when matched against foes from clearly inferior sections of New York situated in different relative compass directions.

What’s not as inspiring is the uncompetitive nature of a portion of the festival’s endowment.  Specifically, taxpayers backed it whether or not they attended it.  Nobody is that pro-volleyball.

Citizens don’t get good value for their mandatory athletic investment.  For one, Games-affiliated recipients of New York’s confiscated largesse should be able to put together a better website.  Their Angelfire-style front page is only missing a Bill Clinton’s first term-era “under construction” icon.  An animated one would be awesome.

The lone useful bit of information provided notes that “The Empire State Games is a program of: Office of New York State Parks, Recreation & Historic Preservation.”  To clarify, they are one of countless bureaucratic clusters that get to spend what you earn.  Sadly, the state perpetually medals at the event.

Thankfully, many of the subsidies were voluntarily.  In particular, First Niagara generously kicked in a large portion to compensate for state funding being at its lowest level ever this year.

But New York’s contribution should be at an even lower level next time, namely zero.  Financing a statewide intramural contest is exactly the sort of expenditure that ultimately encourages our athletes to dash out of New York when they can’t find work after the final whistle. 

The amount of the state’s contribution is irrelevant.  Everyone shouldn’t have to pay so some may play or watch ball-chasing games.  Such active promotion is well outside government’s domain, even if that’s tricky for the particular government in question to recall.

And the timing couldn’t be better for a game change.  Of course, this state perpetually faces financial calamity.  But lawmakers have remarkably gotten even worse than awful at frittering away capital in the capital.

Still, at least some good may come of it on the slim chance that they collectively gain wisdom.  Namely, their dire profligacy makes this an ideal moment to spin off extraneous spending into the hands of interested private parties.

Taking money from earners so that Hudson Valley residents can prove how proficient they are at fencing relative to their state’s mates epitomizes frivolity.  Alternately, New York can set an example by showing that its athletes can excel without state aid.

People who enjoy the Games needn’t fret: they can just buy tickets.  Those who already do can cough up a bit more.  At the recently-concluded Games, an adult could see everything for 30 bucks, which is too good a deal.  Attendees can spend their tax savings on reasonably pricier seats.

It’s nothing personal: I swear I don’t resent the event just because I was scandalously left off both the track and rugby teams for no good reason except my utter mediocrity in each respective sport during my hazy school days.  To prove my lack of bitterness, I’d support any athletes who rang my bell and asked me to buy chocolate bars in order to fund their clashes.

They can enhance lessons about self-reliance and dedication provided via sweaty contests by obtaining funding for their events themselves.  If they sell enough, they could even reduce or eliminate their own surcharges.

Meanwhile, I can live vicariously though the competitors as I watch us make the other state sectors our bitches while inhaling my chocolate.   I can say “us” as long as I contribute financially; the candy would merely be a bonus.

But at least I’m aware now.  An article in Sunday’s Buffalo News about the incarcerated Hassan gave him a chance to argue why his murdered wife is the one who should actually be behind bars.

Someone who started a network designed to improve Islam’s perception may have caused slightly more damage to the cause than good by brutally slaying his life partner.  At the same time, he did provide a horrifyingly useful example of the word “irony.”

His talent as a wordsmith is undeniable, as seen in how the man facing murder charges twisted the English language in ways previously thought impossible during the story about him.  Having apparently moved past slicing off heads, inmate Hassan is now focused upon digging a hole for himself:

Contrary to the pile of evidence and witness corroboration that he mentally tormented and physically beat his wife over a period of years, he said, the truth is that he was the one “emotionally tortured” by his outwardly kind and sweet-natured wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan.

I’m certain that the “emotional torture” was not only real but severe enough to justify the physical torture he inflicted upon the woman who joined him in matrimony as he coldly ended her life in the most horrifying manner possible.

It’s easy to see in that regard why he sees himself as being totally like history’s most renowned practitioner of nonviolent resistance.  That’s of course aside for that one time he supposedly separated his wife’s head from her body:

“I could have gone to Toronto, taken a direct flight to Pakistan, and I speak the language fluently,” he said.

Instead, he said he chose to turn himself in and adhere to Gandhi’s principle of “satyagraha” — to seek the truth without selfish interests.

Hopefully, he will move away from selfish acts, such as, oh, extinguishing a human life.

There’s much learn in the Buffalo News piece, which did a nice job of capturing his unbearable stupidity.  For one, it added outside perspective to his chilling nonsense, as with but not limited to a quote from a UB law school professor shredding his defense in the fifth paragraph.

To the staff’s further credit, they didn’t agree to a longer conversation with him because of how he wanted to basically write and edit it himself.  Specifically, he “said he would agree to an extended interview on two main conditions: That he determines when and where the story would run and that he would be the only person interviewed for it.”  Keep dictating terms from the Holding Center, you cunning mastermind.

Instead, reporter Sandra Tan let Hassan hang himself.  A rope around his neck is better than he deserves considering what he did to his wife’s same body part.  But at least he was allowed to make himself look beyond foolish.

At the same time, it’s important to remember the function that a repulsive perversion of faith played in his unconscionable act.  Hassan’s sick interpretation of Islam can’t be discounted, as the crime for which he has been charged featured the hallmarks of an honor killing.

This case is a typical domestic abuse murder in the same way that the Fort Hood massacre was just another shooting, the Underpants Bomber was merely another unremarkable disruptive jerk on a flight, and the Times Square Bomber was either a random psychopath or Obamacare foe.  As with America’s ongoing war against cowards using terror as their chief tactic, there’s almost a perceptible connection among the various heinous acts.

There just maybe seems to be linkage between each attempted or actual murderer and what he believed, or at least what he thought he believed.  Wait: I spot a pattern.  Indeed, recognizing on whose behalf the cited examples all claim to operate is seemingly incontrovertible proof of their common agenda.  Unfortunately, the most ardent dissenters to the threat’s reality either work in or answer directly to the White House.

Area Muslims can’t afford to think like the Obama administration.  Hassan manufactured the second prominent local incident attempting to corrupt their faith in recent memory.  Thankfully, the first also gave the religion’s members a chance to show themselves at their noblest, as upstanding community members turned in the Lackawanna Six before they could make any further diabolical progress.

Now, the prudent move would be for local congregations to condemn Hassan’s ranting, and not just because his line of defense is more despicable than that of former fellow Western New York resident/accused wife murderer O.J. Simpson.

It might not seem fair that they have to respond to the barbarian’s lunacy.  But the fact remains that Hassan is one of a disturbing number who brutally take lives in their religion’s name.  Our innocent Muslim neighbors sadly but urgently must take back their faith by denouncing the acts and perceptions of every dastard who uses either a demented sense of world dominance or family standards as a motive.

By ostracizing the evildoers who assuredly do not represent them, Muslims have a chance to simultaneously confront and disprove a serious threat to their beliefs.  As for Hassan, I am almost impressed: who thought it would be possible to like him less?  It turns out you just have to let him talk about himself.

Specifically, Brian Meyer of The Buffalo News notes that the municipality’s aldermen want to prevent you from buying what you like or learning your options when it comes to smoking.  Too busy and important to address the area’s quasi-depression status, this most uncommon of councils is spending their oh so valuable time attempting to check your vices:

One of the nation’s toughest sets of laws regulating the sale and advertisement of tobacco products will go to the Buffalo Common Council for review this week, and a majority of lawmakers look favorably on new rules that would crack down on vendors irresponsibly marketing tobacco products.

These are the people who are deciding what’s irresponsible?  The guys running Buffalo’s government?  The Buffalo in New York?  Super.  Don’t be rude and ask councilmen where the city’s jobs or residents are, please, as they have more important tasks than fixing the economy or anything like that.

As for how they’ll specifically make winded smokers cruelly jump through hoops, you can forget puffing if there are kids possibly within about one-fifth of a mile:

Banning some new businesses from selling tobacco products, including pharmacies, restaurants, bars, businesses that primarily serve minors, or businesses that are within 1,000 feet of schools.

Of bigger concern than where you could smoke would be where you could buy smokes:

Beginning in 2014, no tobacco products could be sold at any drugstores, bars, restaurants, game rooms, or on school or college properties.

The city wants to not only prevent you from obtaining Big Tobacco’s delicious products but also from learning about them:

Advertising for tobacco products would be strictly regulated. For example, no large outdoor tobacco product ads could be displayed at retail outlets near schools. In-store ads would have to displayed in black and white, and no images or cartoons could be used in large display ads. Warning signs would have to be posted where tobacco products are sold. And the amount of space that tobacco ads occupy could not exceed the square footage of ads for all other products.

“We want to clean up some of the outrageous advertising,” said K. Michael Cummings, chairman of the department of health behavior at Roswell Park Cancer Institute.

Well, at least the placards in question aren’t so “outrageous” that they violate the First Amendment like certain suggested bands would.  If so, the tobacco advertisers be elbowing in on shady territory currently held by astoundingly overbearing Institute do-gooders enabled by pushy city councils.  Cigarette conglomerates can have their say, but only if they whisper in the corner.

As for Cummings, he could get a second job as a condescending nanny if he needs extra cash:

“Right now, some stores are just littered with tobacco advertising,” he continued, adding that some of the most pervasive ads are in Buffalo’s most impoverished neighborhoods.

Maybe poor people like to smoke to cope with being poor.  But who cares?  Tobacco companies have ample nerve trying to attract customers who get enjoyment from, regardless of one’s take on addiction, voluntarily purchases, especially since DNC researchers have conclusively proven that the impoverished aren’t responsible for their decisions or actions.  Why else would we be redistributing income in their honor?

There’s precedent for the notion that it’s impossible to resist the lure of influence.  After all, the bullying local government in question can claim that it is swayed by the wallet-stomping actions of higher-level thugs down the Thruway.

To wit, the city is out to restrict both commerce and free speech while the state is raising cigarette taxes by a buck freaking 60 per pack (h/t SooperMexican).  In New York, Crystal meth is officially a cheaper extravagance than tobacco.  This reeks of another Albany victory by the powerful meth lobby.  It smells like iodine.

But maybe the capital’s overlords are restricting your choices and taking your money because they’re genuinely concerned for your well-being.  They merely want you to kick a habit that causes instant death.  Why else do we elect representatives if not to make our decisions, you inferno-scented ingrates?

At the same time, don’t really quit.  Of course, the state despots want you to keep smoking in order to fund a monstrous state government through a 7.2 million percent levy on every Marlboro carton.  The meddling bureaucracy can’t decide in which direction to yank you.

But the resolution is easy: if you really care about New York, you’ll buy cigarettes and dispose of them.  Think of it as a way to stimulate the state without stimulating yourself.  The problem will be finding tobacco for sale in Buffalo first.

I’m trying to blame life’s problems on tools.  But thinking in such a manner is challenging.  Exuding as much smarminess as a lefty journalist is nearly impossible without buying a Honda.  There’s no need to buy a Coexist bumper sticker, as they come standard.

Instead, I’ll let the professional smug piety dispensers employed by The Buffalo News explain.  They never disappoint.  Take the recent story about the dangers of being shot if you venture into one of the city’s sides helpfully titled “Danger on streets as guns proliferate.”

Notably, the harangue takes care not to place the scourge’s blame on trigger-pullers.  In case that wholly objective headline missed the mark, the measured subhead emphasized that “Ease of buying weapons puts young lives at risk.”

These armed angels are seemingly oblivious to the effects of pointing, then pulling.  Our city’s paper certainly isn’t going to teach them about consequences.  To wit, present News staffer and future Brady Campaign board member Abram Brown breaks the news that there are people, some of whom may be involved in bad stuff, buying black market guns:

All it would take is about $100 and finding the right person, and a teenager can end up with a gun, those who work with young people say.

Buffalo’s East Side would be the easiest place to get one, and $100 would buy a teenager a small-caliber semiautomatic handgun—small but deadly.

“Small but deadly” really gets the point across about these devices, no?  They could kill if used in a certain manner, yet they could fit in the microwave.  Yes: small but deadly.  Unfortunately, we have bigger worries, as alien cyborgs are bent on destroying Earth:

“We believe that this gun problem is a bigger conspiracy from those who are bent on the destruction of mankind,” said Arlee Daniels Jr., interim chairman of the Stop the Violence Coalition.

Well, that’s a downer: I’m a member of mankind.  We have relatively trifling matters with which to deal while anticipating the apocalypse.  For one, the article’s other noteworthy revelation is that messing with felons may endanger your life:

“We’ve seen people in the City of Buffalo get killed because they stole another criminal’s gun,” Daniels said.

Buffalo police have seen guns stolen in burglaries end up in the hands of the wrong people, concurred Michael J. De- George, a Police Department spokesman.

“The hands of the wrong people?”  Um, you mean burglars?  Thankfully, there’s cause to believe there may be a respite to the despair.  Namely, there’s a movie starring Morgan Freeman waiting to be made:

Fear motivates most of the young people searching for weapons, said Bob Keubler, who runs the Youth With a Purpose program at Holy Cross Church on Buffalo’s Lower West Side.

At Keubler’s program, youth come in and talk about what they face at home. They tell of teenagers standing on their front porch and watching another teenager ride by on a bicycle and threaten them.

Even if there isn’t an immediate threat, a young person might search for a gun out of a fear of retaliation for other reasons, such as wearing the wrong colors or talking to the wrong person. It’s almost like a “kill or be killed” atmosphere, Keubler said.

Is not playing an option?  Mentoring seems fruitless if we can’t first acknowledge that the adolescent perpetrators in question are actually capable of self-control.  They could always behave and not pop caps in derrieres, could they not?  Circumstances offer flimsy excuses: it doesn’t help to pretend that the youths making a hobby out of shooting each other are skipping CYO meetings only because they can easily acquire a sidearm.

The idea that people impulsively turn to crime simply because there are firearms about is as tired and demonstrably inaccurate as proclaiming humans are dooming the Earth with their prosperity.  The liberal memes never fail to provoke amusement or headshaking.

Besides, there’s no way that the malicious can obtain guns: New York’s gun restrictions are perhaps the nation’s harshest.  Don’t the shooters know it’s impossible for them to get their hands on handguns within the Empire State?  Lamentably, murderers are audaciously ignoring gun laws.

As with the stimulus’s woeful failure to stimulate, the standard leftist reply to crime spiking despite harsh anti-gun provisions is that we merely haven’t gone far enough.  If we’re serious about fighting crime, we clearly need to ban transportation, as feeble humans are just going to find a seller and Glock up if they’re permitted to move around.

But some may just happen to disagree.  Is there anyone quotable who blames crime on criminals?  Of course, Brown is entitled to applaud and weep during Obama’s Oval Office speeches on his own time.  But packing every left-wing cliché about firearms, crime, poverty, and human nature into an allegedly impartial dispatch is just the billionth example of a News drone clownishly tipping his or her voting patterns via submissions.

In this case, the article compiler couldn’t manage to find someone who didn’t find the actual guns guilty.  Googling the words (NRA) and (contact) would have been a hassle.  The same goes for contacting someone from the Shooters’ Committee On Political Education as the writer could have done if he was looking for a local pro-gun perspective, which he was not.

But maybe the reporter just wants to make friends in nearby offices and cubicles.  After all, the rag persists in allowing commie race hustler Rod Watson to call himself a city desk editor, so what kind of climate do they expect?  The hacks have run amuck.

They’ll undoubtedly keep themselves busy: the next story in the local section cycle will either be a fawning look at a government-funded jobs training program or some blather about how hard it is for the working poor to make ends meet.  Place bets.

I am a big bowl of sunshine who obviously loves working with people.  So, ushering visitors through North Tonawanda’s Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum may be an ideal way for me to get on the dole.  It’d basically be a government job, after all: the federal government just threw a six-figure fortune at a local repository dedicated to the most boring amusement park ride ever (h/t The American Spectator):

A stroll through the Herschell Carrousel Factory Museum is a walk through the early history of American amusement parks.

But nothing solidifies the historic significance of the sprawling, long-defunct North Tonawanda factory that once produced the most carousels in the world more than a recent award: a Save America’s Treasures Grant, the National Park Service’s most competitive and prestigious preservation grant.

“It’s validation,” museum director Rae Proefrock said. “We’ve been saying for 30 years that this site needs to be preserved and interpreted. This grant validates everything we’ve been saying. It’s very exciting for us.”

If it was crucial enough to be “preserved and interpreted,” perhaps a little more hustling for private funds would have been appropriate; they had 30 years to do so by the director’s own admission.

Then again, maybe it’s wise from their perspective that they never tried hard: as with countless other businesses, organizations, and individuals in 2010, the museum’s staff has learned that the government will pay you if you wait long enough.

For Western New Yorkers, the ridiculous infusion isn’t justified by the location.  Imagine how aggravated you’d be if an inconsequential museum in Topeka, Colorado Springs, or Jacksonville landed a $265,000 federal grant.  Now, you know how residents of those municipalities, along with every other one in America, would view an arcane Western New York exhibit hall being handed same amount.  The feeling welling up inside you is not local pride:

The museum was one of 40 grant recipients out of 400 applicants nationwide. It received a $265,000 matching grant to go toward a $590,000 project to stabilize the wood trusses of the Carving Shop, which was built in 1905, and upgrade its aging sprinkler system. The work, which will include building a steel frame to hold up the building, is slated to begin in November.

Proefrock said the museum also garnered additional grants — $215,000 from the state Environmental Protection Fund; $65,000 from the Margaret L. Wendt Foundation; and $50,000 from New York State Dormitory Authority.

After pondering such obvious waste, any journalist should have been inspired to pursue a story about why this state is constantly in debt up to its appetite.  But Buffalo News copy-producer Emma D. Sapong cannot be bothered with your trifling concerns about confiscated or borrowed money literally being spun away in North Tonawanda.  No, Ms. D. Sapong is too busy doing public relations work for the museum so they can get even more money from us without our permission:

The state and federal grants are both matching grants, and the federal money cannot be used to match the state grant, leaving the museum in a financial bind and the duty of raising an additional $80,000.

If the museum can come up with the matching funds for the state grant, the state grant can then be used to match the federal grant, Proefrock said. To donate,

I’d like to apologize, as I mysteriously copied and pasted the block quote without including information on how to make contributions.  You’ll have to invest the effort to find it; will you forgive me?  Anyway, attracting more paid visitors is obviously a ludicrous strategy.  That’s apparently why neither the director nor reporter thought to suggest that more people should consider spending their own capital at the museum.

Maybe they’re just realistic about the facility’s capacity for self-sufficiency.  Consider the former factory itself, which set an example for today’s manufacturers by being vacated decades before the stimulus:

But nothing solidifies the historic significance of the sprawling, long-defunct North Tonawanda factory…

There’s a reason it’s “long-defunct.”  Namely, carousels are even more uselessly outdated as an entertainment form than actual horse racing.  Of course, the government props up that silent film-era activity, too, so at least they’re consistent about dragging us back early into the previous century.  At least not many people want to follow:

About 15,000 people visit the museum each year, taking in exhibits and displays in its six areas.

According to the museum’s website, which made me nostalgic for 1995, they are open something like 210 days per year.  That’s works out to about 71 measly people per day.  It’s almost as if folks just aren’t interested in carousels and carousel history anymore.  No- it can’t be.  Please stuff that cynical notion in your moustache wax tin.

Still, every one of those 15,000 undoubtedly clamors for the museum to open in January, February, and March, the months in which it’s presently closed; maybe the grants will help.  That said, I suspect that one woman in Getzville accounted for about 150 of those visits on her own.

But you, I, and most of the people you know will likely not be visiting the obscure museum soon even though bundles of taxpayer cash are being used as doorstops.  I don’t think I’ll get to use the service entrance, either:  I may have sunk my chances to get hired by the museum during this smart-alecky blog’s course.

I lost my shot before the interview all because I pointed out that they should do their own fundraising if it’s essential to preserve materials related to this subject.  I’m frankly doubtful a single job will be created or saved out of the outlandish endowment.  Besides, they probably wouldn’t even let me ride the wooden horsies on my lunch break.

I’ll simply have to look elsewhere: are there any positions open in the field of grant giver-outer?  I feel I’m qualified to dole hundreds of thousands of dollars to organizations with astoundingly parochial appeal; I also like the zero accountability part.  I better e-mail my résumé to Washington.  I’ll blind copy Albany, too.

Take Buffalo company Honeywell, which has been granted a fortune to manufacture de facto golf cart batteries.  Americans are propping up an industry against their will thanks to the deal.  But some merely care that the development means a handful of locals will prosper:

The good news involves Honeywell on Peabody St. near downtown. The specialty materials provider has received a 27-million dollar grant from the Energy Department to develop a critical component of lithium ion batteries. Honeywell will become the first U-S manufacturer to do so. 

Jay Kelly, Honeywell’s Buffalo Site Leader, says “we will be adding six new jobs to help us run our sample plant and there will also be approximately 15 engineering and construction jobs related to the building of the sample plant. Honeywell will build a sample plant to produce and test the new battery.

Of course, it’s only “good news” if we disregard both how expensive the project is and who’s paying for it.  By comparison, corporate goon tycoons acting privately are amateurs at concentrating wealth among the privileged few.  Wall Street jerks should take notes.

But who cares about costs when the deal brings jobs to Buffalo?  Specifically, there are a whole 21 of them coming.  Yes, the price works out to over one million dollars in taxpayer financing for each created position.  But, at current federal rates, they might actually be under budget.  And who cares?  It’s someone else’s money!

Further, why worry that the 15 engineering and construction jobs are temporary project positions?  We could probably find shovels for them to permanently man after construction is completed.  It’s the way of the stimulus.

Honeywell itself certainly doesn’t feel bad.  Why would they?  After all, the company’s Powerball numbers just got picked.  From the tone of their press release celebrating the score, they think the ability to speak geek justifies being spoiled:

Honeywell (NYSE: HON) announced today that it has signed a contract with the U.S. Department of Energy for a $27.3 million grant to produce a critical component of lithium-ion batteries used in hybrid and electric vehicles.

The grant is intended to help Honeywell become the first domestic supplier of high-purity lithium hexafluorophosphate (LiPF6), a conductive salt that is one of four critical components in rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries are becoming more popular for use in a variety of applications because they are lighter and smaller than other batteries, hold their charge well, and can handle the numerous charge and discharge cycles required by modern electronics and vehicles.

While I’m not anti-high-purity lithium hexafluorophosphate per se, I am anti-waste-your-money-without-your-consent; you see the difference.  If the power sources in question are such great investments, why aren’t private conglomerates lining up to make money by investing in these oh so conductive salts?

It’s telling nobody’s buying this product on its own.  Or at least it should be.  The technology doesn’t exist to run our devices on garbage-powered flux capacitors or the like.  That’s why the project isn’t self-funded by willing consumers who get a desirable good out of the transaction.  Instead, governmental misfits fund the hybrid moments.

Honeywell’s work is being subsidized by the equivalent of a wealthy aunt.  We can only bleed her purse dry for so long, as the lack of retail foot traffic will eventually bite our bankrupt keisters.

America is frustratingly aping the Spains of the world, namely by assuming that the only thing keeping us from living as Mother Gaia intended is a massive cash infusion that greedy capitalists are unwilling to provide.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t work to publicly subsidize something that, well, doesn’t work.  Doing so explains why the Spanish economy is muy malo.

But the only option when you can’t see land is to tread water.  Businesses are merely doing what they can to get in good with Washington partway through the Obamaera, whether such actions take the form of Goldman Sachs donating feverishly to the incumbent or Wal-Mart rolling back and supporting Democraticare. 

As with many other companies facing a Greecified economic environment, Honeywell is just trying to make a good deal for itself.  Of course, the fact they got a good deal is a bad sign for everyone else.

As a result, the public is left funding the unbearable folly of gas station coffee-weak batteries.  More and more will eventually be heavily soaked as financiers: after successful people have been punished to capacity, the present administration will alter the definition of “rich” to any fat cat who earns a weekly paycheck.

But at least unemployment is down ever since the present bout of federal skullduggery began, even though it’s not.  The president is failing to create jobs by treating Avatar as a documentary.  Next, the smart wager is that he’ll try a perpetual census.  Lowering the jobless rate by hiring people to constantly count all the other people is only slightly more inane than sponsoring green battery creation.

As for the handful of eco-warriors who actually fall for buying a vehicle equipped with a feeble battery sporting a Made in Buffalo sticker, the rest of us ask that you please stay in the right lane as you putter along at 48 miles per hour on the Thruway.  Consider it a courtesy to those who helped pay for your hippiemobile, namely every taxpayer passing you.

But maybe there was something charmingly worthwhile about figuring out how to earn a decent paycheck without political assistance.  Not only is it a rewarding incentive for good work, but the alternative doesn’t work here in reality.

The progressive attempt to enact a hyper-minimum wage only spurs economic retreat.  Such guarantees are only guaranteed to be counterproductive for a municipality that isn’t in a position to make demands.

Take the Canal Side project, which Buffalo’s Common Council naturally wants to stall with a “Community Benefits Agreement.”  It includes inflated worker payments among its other boring lefty demands:

Backers of a CBA want it to ensure that, among other things, small local businesses get a significant share of the project’s retail space; that the development use “green” technology; that it include local and minority hiring goals; and that Canal Side jobs pay a “living wage” higher than the state’s minimum wage.

The Council’s efforts to sabotage a retail ray of hope in an area that’s been dominated by a black hole for decades is sadly typical.  It’s reminiscent of the recent deal between the city and the Buffalo Olmsted Parks Conservancy to maintain the greens, during which the issue made a cameo:

An understanding that the conservancy would not have to pay seasonal or temporary employees a higher “living wage,” which the city typically requires of contractors.

The fact that the exemption was an exception defines the problem.  Workers who are valuable enough will make enough to pay for their needs; they’re either already at that level or will get there.  That’s even truer for those employed in private industries.  Distorting the market prices the area out of business while sticking taxpayers with the tab.

Further, it may shock Council members and their confused supporters to learn that nobody is entitled to make enough to break even at month’s end.  Workers toiling for low earnings are free to take on another job, subsist meagerly, request help from a church or the Salvation Army, find a roommate, rely upon a working spouse, live with family, or be a minor who doesn’t have to worry about rent and utilities yet.

Or, they could seek better work.  Some trades simply don’t generate enough value to employers to justify high wages.  Particularly, entry-level retail positions like the ones that would be available at the theoretical Canal Side shopping esplanade aren’t conducive to making it on one’s own.

Of course, a raise or promotion into management might catapult the register jockey into self-sufficiency.  But the initial salesclerk positions for enterprising young people will never even exist if the city insists on mid-level pay upfront.

The misconception that employees won’t be properly remunerated also lurks behind standard minimum wage increases.  Those who see corporations as parasites hold that unskilled and inexperienced workers would be compensated about nine dollars per week without government edicts.

But attempts to rip off working stiff would be unsuccessful even if there were no state or federal limits: a similar company down the street will exploit the exploitation and attract personnel who aren’t being financially respected at Company A.  Members of the workforce are free to market themselves as long as there are free markets.

Unfortunately, government meddling of all types serves as the equivalent of lead life preservers to those treading water.  Consider how they pay their own: every day brings yet more stories of woefully overpaid state workers or woefully underfunded state pensions.  If governments set out to compensate their minions in a way to make private sector workers jealous, they succeeded.

With that in mind, we must let everyone begin on the lowest rung.  As with Buffalo itself, workers must prove themselves.  Thankfully, prospects for both the area and jobseekers would improve after a slight probationary period: the retail presence and wages have every chance to grow concurrently along the Canal as long as everyone involved is willing to engage in the equivalent of entry-level work.

On the other hand, the Council’s wage interdiction threatens to stop development in the empty plot phase.  It’s unfortunately not hard to understand why fat paychecks are so scarce considering the stifling economic circumstances that have enveloped the area for decades.  Neither the legendarily large tax burden nor the similarly huge rulebook are helping; insisting upon living wages is just one more maddening example of aid that should be refused.

The worst way to compensate for the damage inflicted by untold unreasonable regulations would be another regulation.  Making companies pay artificially high wages now will prevent genuinely good jobs from being created at any future point.

The level of base pay sought will either shrink profits or eliminate them altogether to the point of being prohibitive.  But at least the remaining positions will offer a “living wage,” assuming the highly dubious notion there are any.

A decent hourly rate is a foregone conclusion for proficient staff, unless one happens to subscribe to the rather East German notion that businesses are run by cigar-chomping, cognac-sniffing fat cats who hang out on Wall Street dressed like Rich Uncle Pennybags or Mr. Peanut.

Hard and smart work ensures meager wages are merely a temporary condition.  But some politicians are attempting to erect a payment floor that stands on stilts.  If they’re successful on the Canal Side, vacant spaces will continue to accompany the city’s vacant storefronts.

That said, I didn’t survey the crowd to see if there were clandestine bigots present who are also in Carl Paladino’s address book, although it would of course be silly to freak out about an entire movement because one of their preferred candidates negligently passed along crudely and/or disgustingly unfunny e-mails.  Foes can enjoy sifting through the gubernatorial hopeful’s sent mail, although they’ve apparently found no occasions where he wished for a political rival’s death.  That would be beyond over the line.

But ignoring the traditional media’s portrayal has become second nature for this group.  On that note, it’s amusing that the protest took place within sight of The Buffalo News building.  While I’m uncertain if any unassigned staffers walked over, failure to do so just means they missed the awesomeness that was hearing Victoria Jackson’s songs about her take on Obamacare and whether she thinks Obama is a communist. The answers are 1) she doesn’t care for it, and 2) yes.  Her rhetorical intemperance was overcome by her still-evident adorableness.

The other speakers served lots of delicious red meat.  It’s always fun to boo Harry Reid, Democraticare, and local shame Louise Slaughter.  But everyone did so without shrieking, resorting to cuss words, smashing property, maintaining the president is a Nazi, or any other unseemly behavior.  Nobody in the well-behaved gathering slurred ethnicities or planned an armed insurrection, either, as every single person forgot to exploit stereotypes for some baffling reason.

Instead, everyone seemed to just want options.  The number of attendees served as a reminder of how infuriating it is that there wasn’t at least a choice for Buffalo’s mayoral race, which is especially galling considering how City Hall fritters away cash like the type of lottery winner who’s also been on Cheaters.

Of course, Buffalo’s leaders are just aping the state’s profligate manner.  As that melodramatic kid in the all-time favorite Partnership for a Drug-Free America ad would explain, “You, all right?  I learned it by watching you!”

Thankfully, people such as speaker Leonard Roberto, who announced during brief remarks his intention to run against Brian Higgins, are out to provide voters with indispensable options.  We can all enjoy the prospect of being able to choose more than the same person as either a candidate of the Democratic or Working Families party.

On a related note, the reason for the protest was embodied by its location.  The area around the Commercial Slip has largely sat desolate for decades; there’s finally some progress after endless governmental spending and planning, although it’s almost seemingly come despite bureaucratic efforts.

Alternately, reducing the tax burden and opening the area to pioneering entrepreneurs would have brought commerce and a high volume of foot traffic to the site by now.  As it stands, the retail activity is largely limited to selling rattlesnake flags at protests which, compelling or not, will only take place intermittently.  I did what I could to contribute economically.

As for the rest of the city, the virtually limitless potential is sadly contrasted by the prevalent stagnancy.  By chance, decades of federal, state, county, and city scheming have provoked economic rot.  The left can sputter all they want over the stupid e-mails Paladino forwarded.  It’s actually helpful in exposing how they can’t differentiate between a dubious sense of humor and actual racism.

Paladino’s foes can pretend his carelessness or questionable take on comedy serves a genuine distraction.  In a way, it does: it’s an attempt by big-government fanatics to try to change the subject away from how their failed policies have created economic devastation. 

Those who came know where the real problems begin.  The press and the president’s dwindling band of supporters can pretend they’re dealing with scared, angry bigots.  But the scene adjacent to the Skyway demonstrated how demonstrators should behave.

Everyone was demanding, adamantly but respectfully, one thing: let us do it.  The people can’t be any worse at spending the money they earn than most politicians are at it.

I hate to even give attention to someone who most people hoped would enjoy even less post-scandal success than his loathsomely untalented call girl.  But public disgust wasn’t enough to stop him from climbing out of the sewer in order to discuss his potential aspirations.

To be specific, a recent New York Post story about an interview the classy trick conducted with Fortune reveals that he is itching to, sigh, again win election in the Empire State:

For the first time, Eliot Spitzer is acknowledging in an interview with Fortune what The Post first reported last year – that he is itching for a way back into politics and, even at this late date, hasn’t totally closed the door on a race this year.

I’ve never appreciated David Paterson so much before.  Of course, the incumbent can only seem appealing by comparison to a somehow more disagreeable leader, such as, oh, his predecessor.  While Paterson can be thankful for his atrocious opening act, the rest of the state can be fearful of possibly seeing Spitzer’s name on a ballot:

The excerpt adds, “Spitzer muses with friends and advisers about political targets. He views New York’s U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand as a lightweight.

Well, get in line, although I’d prefer Tracy Flick if forced to take sides.  Still, that’s like choosing between fighting on the pirate ship or jumping overboard and dealing with scuba ninjas.  Spitzer might attempt to remain instate if he doesn’t aim for the Senate, which is bad news for those at least hoping he would leave New York more frequently:

In the office of New York state comptroller, he sees a chance to become a national force, wielding the billions held in public pension funds to force corporate reform in a way that even lawsuits and regulation cannot. (‘It is the great underutilized position in government right now,’ says Spitzer.)”

Yep, the one thing we need at present is a politician who wants to order around businesses.  Maybe he can team with fellow prostitute enthusiast Barney Frank to once again bring ruin to the economy via governmental pushiness; of course, they’ll hold a joint press conference afterward where they blame the ensuing financial collapse on Wall Street.

By pretending that this most irritating of recessions was provoked by corporate greed, corporate fat cats, and the like instead of the feds actively hawking subprime mortgages, Spitzer demonstrates that he hasn’t learned a thing during his time between jobs.

As for his time in Albany, the constant, boring crusade against typical left-wing antagonists demonstrated why he was unpleasant far before his taste for pricey hookers came to the public’s attention.

Will that public even think of voting for him?  Given the present distaste for national-level politicians representing Spitzer’s party, Democrats can’t be excited about supporting a committed ultra-liberal weighed down with baggage. 

That astoundingly scummy personal behavior still peaks through.  Spitzer treats the woman who tried to melt his brains with heat ray vision as she stood beside him on Resignation Day in the same condescending manner as he does the public:

Sources have told The Post that Spitzer months ago discussed with his wife, Silda, the possibility of running this year, and she was not up for the idea so soon after the national scandal that proved very difficult on their family.

Spitzer himself seems to acknowledge that in the interview, regardless of how difficult it may be, telling [interviewer Peter] Elkind, “Right now, I can tell you I have a family that is in one piece … That’s a measure of success after what we went through.”

There’s one crucial word in his quote: what’s this “We” nonsense?  There was a single driving force behind what your household “went through,” Mister Ex-Governor: it was all you.  The bystanders he refers to as family were dragged through a sordid crisis through absolutely zero fault of their own, and it all took place in public thanks to his career choice.

But nothing is ever Spitzer’s fault.  His gratuitous self-righteousness was reflected by his overbearing political style while residing in the state capital: portraying corporations as villainously greedy hordes, planning to give illegal aliens driver’s licenses,  and trying to push gay marriage on the state were simply the most prominent reflections of his willingness to further his radical agenda by swinging political power like a club.

Meanwhile, he wants you to trust him despite his utter inability to control himself.  Forcing his activist views upon the public is his life’s pursuit.  That whole act-the-way-he-did-and-resign bit was apparently merely meant to serve as a bad example to the corporations he wants to again intimidate.

Spitzer’s desire to boss around other people while exempting himself from any ethical codes is the purest form of overcompensation, particularly as a representative of a political movement that spends its free time searching for examples of Republican hypocrisy.  He’s the worst kind of political creep, and he wants your vote.  I’m already irritated by the revival of Client Number Nine jokes.

Curiously, the public keeps the establishment open even if most of us don’t shop there aside from those rare occasions when one needs to acquire a butter lamb.  To be clear, the city owns the Market, which is how the lights have been kept on long after economic reality dictates it should have gone dark.

Running a shopping enterprise is just another position directly or indirectly on Buffalo’s payroll.  The municipality can’t figure out why the rot won’t stop despite all the money it spends.  Hmm.  Sadly, the city has been unwittingly provoking its own decline for years by making what’s private public.  In the end, propping up certain enterprises only hurts the same places’ fortunes, along with everyone else’s.

Essentially, Buffalo’s government is financially promoting tradition.  With the precedent of conserving sentimentality through public funding in mind, City Hall may as well pay to resurrect AM&A’s, Freddie’s Doughnuts, and The Sample.

Reviving memories and traditions of a bygone era is already literally keeping the city from moving into the future, so why not completely immerse ourselves in the past?  As seen on the East Side, the government doesn’t care whether such businesses could succeed on their own.

While they’re at it, they should also petition the King and Queen of Ontario to re-build Crystal Beach Amusement Park.  After all, so many of us have wonderful recollections of desperately scarfing down funnel cakes before reaching the end of the line for the Comet or Laff in the Dark; the fact that the park doesn’t presently exist shouldn’t prevent Western New Yorkers from being granted the right to again experience the unwise rite of passage.  Concerned Canadians shouldn’t worry: Buffalo will cover the price tag, naturally.

But propping up the past isn’t cheap.  Of course, no one in power will question why areas like the blocks surrounding the Market are so decrepit.  The multi-level mini-stimulus taking place in Buffalo, whereby various governments provide loans to retailers or bribe others to move in or not move away, does nothing but vacuum private capital out of an economy that desperately needs it.

It’s not the companies’ fault for taking what’s available: the area’s administrators are the ones who are handing out bags full of currency.  Reduce the tax burden by ending such payments, and companies might just move here or stay voluntarily.

Instead, there’s little income left under the present system to nourish both the commercial and residential sectors.  That leads to, oh, struggling vendor assemblages in rundown neighborhoods.

The reason the city has to subsidize places like the Broadway Market is precisely because the city subsidizes places like the Broadway Market.  It’s no different than what’s going on nationally, as taking our money to artificially nourish companies of all types isn’t helping for some baffling reason.

It might seem distressing, but the proper course is to let the Broadway Market expire naturally if the customers aren’t there most of the year.  That said, ending the practice of letting the city play real-life Monopoly might be the decision that actually invigorates and saves such businesses.

Let people spend where they want instead of impounding and redistributing income, and it will ultimately provoke a revival of the area’s prospects.  The Market might even be able to support itself.  Alternately, we’ve seen what it costs the city to keep the place open.