The Bethie Bee

It’s the end of an era in WNY–the Breckenridge and Ogden Street Toll Barriers on the 190 (yes, in WNY we put a “the” before certain highway names) are no longer collecting their tolls. The Buffalo News Reports,

Erie County Clerk David J. Swartz shaded his eyes as he looked up at the sign with big lettering - NO TOLL - that hung above the Breckenridge toll barrier on the Niagara Thruway.
“The sun is shining in Buffalo today, literally and figuratively,” Swartz said Monday as the first wave of drivers passed by after the State Thruway Authority ended the 75-cent toll for entering the city on the Niagara Thruway.

Of course, the NYS Thruway authority gave up the tolls under pressure from a lawsuit which relied on the discovery of a law on the books which said that the tolls were supposed to end back in 1996, once the road was paid for.

The toll removal effort gained unstoppable momentum when developer Carl P. Paladino, a fervent opponent of the tolls, hired attorney Michael B. Powers of Phillips Lytle.

Powers found a law that indicated the tolls should have been removed in 1996, and a lawsuit was filed in February. After a judge refused in August to dismiss the suit, Powers said he believed eliminating the tolls would be only a matter of time.

“When we won the major victory in court, everyone got involved,” said Powers, who estimated that the Niagara Thruway toll booths had unfairly collected $110 million since 1996.

Considering the venom and soaring rhetoric that fueled the toll issue for years, the actual move to end the tolls was rather anti-climactic.

Monday morning in Albany, the Thruway Authority board quickly and unanimously accepted $14.1 million from a State Senate pork barrel account to end the 75-cent tolls at the two barriers.

This is really great news for the city–the first steps in the right direction in Buffalo in a while.

Unfortunately, despite this being motivated by the actions of private-sector individuals, politicians are, of course, trying to take credit for the toll removal…

The tolls’ removal made for a political love-fest, as Republican and Democratic officials jostled for camera time to help take credit for saving commuters $14 million a year.

That the tolls came down just eight days before Election Day was no accident.

In Albany, aides made sure a local television camera crew was on hand in the office of Michael Fleischer, Thruway Authority executive director, shortly after the vote to capture him calling State Sen. Dale M. Volker, R-Depew, with the news.

A long line of politicians, from members of Congress to state lawmakers and local officials, took credit, but the tolls’ days were numbered anyway. Both gubernatorial candidates - John J. Faso, the Republican nominee, and Eliot L. Spitzer, his Democratic opponent - already had vowed to remove them if elected.

Rep. Brian Higgins, D-Buffalo, who had threatened to try to hold up federal transportation money if the tolls were not eliminated, said motorists only were getting what they deserved.

“Buffalo stood up for itself again - and I just think it’s very clear we were right in this argument and they were wrong,” he said of Thruway officials and others who helped block the issue for years.

Paladino said many local politicians had joined the cause only when the outcome became inevitable.

Paladino, Powers and Erie County Executive Joel A. Giambra, who threw the county’s support behind Paladino’s lawsuit, were among the first through the booths after the tolls were eliminated.

They sipped champagne from the back of a pickup truck to celebrate the moment.

“Western New York was being treated differently than the rest of the state when it comes to going from the suburbs to the city and having to pay a tax,” Giambra said. “It was just not just.”

Now the question on everyone’s mind is–how do we get back that $110 million the state wrongly took in since 1996? I certainly haven’t paid the tolls as often as some people in WNY, but there was a period of about 10 months when I paid the toll at least once and usually twice a day. Like many others, I want my money back…I know there’s been some buzz about a possible class action lawsuit. If anyone’s heard anything, let me know…

Alan Hevesi is famously told Erie County elected leaders that they were in need of some “”adult supervision” a couple of years ago. He may have been right on that one, but the truth is–Alan Hevesi might be in need of a little adult supervision himself.

State Controller Alan Hevesi broke the law by using a government worker to chauffeur his wife around for more than three years - then lied and cheated about the arrangement, an ethics panel ruled yesterday.
The stunning 29-page report by the state Ethics Commission unanimously concluded that Hevesi knew he likely owed the state money, yet did nothing until he was forced to.

And when he finally made good on his debt, Hevesi still shortchanged the state.

The report was sent to leaders of the Legislature, which has the power to fine, suspend or remove Hevesi from office - although nothing is likely to happen before Election Day.

Not even Eliot Spitzer is supporting Hevesi.

Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, the front-runner in the governor’s race and a Democratic ally of Hevesi’s, said his office would now launch its own probe to pinpoint how much Hevesi owes the state - and sue him, if necessary.

There already is a separate investigation being conducted by the Albany district attorney - and the Daily News has learned that Hevesi has quietly retained Joel Cohen, a prominent Manhattan white-collar crime defense lawyer.

There also were more calls for his immediate resignation, which Hevesi dismissed.

He said he disagreed with some of the findings, but noted: “I made a mistake. I am deeply sorry. I offer no excuses.”

In the report, the commission found the following:

Hevesi had no substantiation for his security concerns for his wife as “there were no threats of any kind to Mrs. Hevesi.”

When the state police told Hevesi that his wife didn’t merit a private driver for security reasons, he ignored the finding and kept her driver.

When Hevesi agreed to reimburse the state, he came up with a sum of $82,688.82 - an amount “based in its entirety on the recollection and rough estimates” of the driver. The commission suggested that Hevesi lowballed the state, and noted that his office’s “failure to keep any record that would allow for proper reimbursement suggests that Mr. Hevesi did not intend to reimburse the state.”

The panel found that Hevesi also used a government-provided driver for his wife when he was city controller - and didn’t pay the city back until the matter came to light

More hypocricy from the left–Al Gore arrived at a rally to support California’s Prop 87 (which would tax oil companies to raise funds for “green energy projects” in a Toyota Prius. How fitting, right? Wrong. Gore may have arrived in the Prius, but he brought with him a motorcade of 7 vehicles, including the Prius, three motorcycles, two limousines and a Dodge Ram 1500 light duty truck.

Former Vice President Al Gore appeared in Berkeley on Monday to lend his celebrity and reputation as a crusader against global warming to a measure on California’s Nov. 7 ballot that would tax oil companies to raise $4 billion for green energy projects.

“I’m here to change peoples’ minds on the climate crisis and to support Prop 87,'’ Gore called to a group of reporters after he emerged from the “100 miles per gallon'’ Toyota Prius that brought him to a noontime rally in a sun-drenched park behind Berkeley’s City Hall.

His motorcade also included three motorcycles, two limousines and a Dodge Ram 1500 light duty truck.

Hat Tip: Pirate’s Cove

Recent quote from Nanci Pelosi-

“The gavel of the speaker of the House is in the hands of special interests, and now it will be in the hands of America’s children.”

I don’t even know if I need to comment on that one–perhaps she was referring to the Childish actions of those on the left? You can read the whole article here.

Hat Tip: Blogs for Bush

2006: The Chautauqua Rising by Jack Cashill. I’ve noticed the book in the local bookstore I frequent before, but for some reason had never picked it up. I ended up buying the book not only because much of it takes place in my home town, but also because it appealed to my interest in limited government. The book was written in 2000 and looks ahead to the author’s vision of what an America led by Al Gore would look like. Fed up with government infringment on individual rights, a hodge-podge group from Chautauqua County, New York begin an uprising on the idyllic Chautauqua Institution.

Having lived most of my life in Chautauqua county, I found the local references interesting, and think it could be fun for a book club to travel around the county for the day visiting many of the spots mentioned while discussing the book. A few somewhat inaccurate local references bugged me a bit, but they weren’t major, and wouldn’t be noticed by someone not from the area. A few aspects of the book were predictable, and the ending felt a bit too convenient. But, overall, the book was entertaining and engaging. A good read for anyone who likes a good dystopian novel and cares about our freedoms.

I wish I would have read the book back when it first came out–unlike many other dystopian novels, this uses real people like Al Gore as some of its characters. This makes the book a bit less timeless than other similar novels, but it also sets it apart from other dystopian novels. I know I’ve mentioned a few complaints here, but overall I really did enjoy the book and highly recommend it to anyone who’s looking for a fast-paced piece of fiction with a decidedly anti-government bent.

As a former student of Paul Kengor, I know the important role that Ronald Reagan played in the fall of communism, but many Americans remain unaware of the magnitude of Reagan’s role in the Soviet Union’s collapse. In his book, The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism, Kengor details Reagan’s strategic role in the end of the Cold War and communism as we once knew it. The book also suggests that Ted Kennedy reached out to the USSR in order to undermine Reagan.

I haven’t gotten a chance to read the book yet, but I will give a more detailed review once I do. In the meantime, here’s what other bloggers are saying about the book and especially its allegations about Ted Kennedy:

Blogs for Bush

Free Frank Warner

Hub Politics

The Discerning Texan

I can’t be the only person in New York who is rather fed up with the Faso campaign…Faso has some good ideas and all but what the hell happened to his campaign? And I’m not taking lack of funds as an excuse–I actually signed up on the Faso website to help with grassroots efforts, and I was sent a bumper sticker and an invitation to meet up with Faso and supporters after one of the debates.

Look, I’ll still vote for Faso in November–I’ll do whatever I can to vote against Spitzer. But, I’m very disappointed in this Governor’s race and am feeling, once again, compelled to think about joining the Free State Project. That being said, I encourage everyone to take a look at Faso’s website to get a good idea of what he stands for and how he differs from Spitzer. I’m not ready to give this one up yet.

I recently finished reading A Long Way Down–I’d never read a Nick Hornby book before and, despite my love for the movie versions of his stories About a Boy and High Fidelity (and the musical version of High Fidelity that I saw just a couple of weeks ago), I was a bit skeptical of this one, because of its focus on suicide. But, at someone’s urging, I read the book.

I was pleasantly surprised. The book doesn’t look at the issue of suicide through rose-colored glasses, but it does present a story that is surprisingly upbeat. The Editorial Review from Publisher’s Weekly reads:

If Camus had written a grown-up version of The Breakfast Club, the result might have had more than a little in common with Hornby’s grimly comic, oddly moving fourth novel. The story opens in London on New Year’s Eve, when four desperate people—Martin, a publicly disgraced TV personality; Maureen, a middle-aged woman with no life beyond caring for her severely disabled adult son; Jess, the unstable, punked-out daughter of a junior government minister; and JJ, an American rocker whose music career has just ended with a whimper—meet on the roof of a building known as Toppers’ House, where they have all come to commit suicide. Bonded by their shared misery, the unlikely quartet spends the night together, telling their stories, getting on each others’ nerves even as they save each others’ lives. They part the following morning, aware of having formed a peculiar sort of gang. As Jess reflects: “When you’re sad—like, really sad, Toppers’ House sad—you only want to be with other people who are sad.”It’s a bold setup, perilously high-concept, but Hornby pulls it off with understated ease. What follows is predictable in the broadest sense—as the motley crew of misfits coalesces into a kind of surrogate family, each individual takes a halting first step toward creating a tolerable future—but rarely in its particulars. Allowing the four main characters to narrate in round-robin fashion, Hornby alternates deftly executed comic episodes—an absurd brush with tabloid fame, an ill-conceived group vacation in the Canary Islands, a book group focused on writers who have committed suicide, a disastrous attempt to save Martin’s marriage—with interludes of quiet reflection, some of which are startlingly insightful. Here, for example, is JJ, talking about the burden of understanding that he no longer wants to kill himself: “In a way, it makes things worse, not better…. Telling yourself life is shit is like an anesthetic, and when you stop taking the Advil, then you really can tell how much it hurts, and where, and it’s not like that kind of pain does anyone a whole lot of good.”While the reader comes to know all four characters well by the end of the novel, it’s Maureen who stands out. A prim, old-fashioned Catholic woman who objects to foul language, Maureen is, on the surface, the least Hornbyesque of characters. Unacquainted with pop culture, she has done nothing throughout her entire adult life except care for a child who doesn’t even know she’s there and attend mass. As she says, “You know that things aren’t going well for you when you can’t even tell people the simplest fact about your life, just because they’ll presume you’re asking them to feel sorry for you.” Hornby takes a Dickensian risk in creating a character as saintly and pathetic as Maureen, but it pays off. In her own quiet way, she’s an unforgettable figure, the moral and emotional center of the novel. This is a brave and absorbing book. It’s a thrill to watch a writer as talented as Hornby take on the grimmest of subjects without flinching, and somehow make it funny and surprising at the same time. And if the characters occasionally seem a little more eloquent or self-aware than they have a right to be, or if the novel turns just the tiniest bit sentimental at the end, all you can really fault Hornby for is an act of excessive generosity, an authorial embrace bestowed upon some characters who are sorely in need of a hug.

I’m looking forward to reading some more Hornby in the future, but don’t know where to start…any suggestions?

I apologize for not writing about this sooner. This is a very important story, and one that was mentioned in the national news, but not really given the coverage it deserved–then again, maybe its ok that Buffalo’s inaccurate reputation for snow and cold isn’t being perpetuated.

Western New Yorkers have recently experienced a different kind of “October surprise” than we’re used to talking about–a mid-October snowstorm. And for those not from the area, yes…this snow storm was early, even for Buffalo. It wasn’t so much the amount of snow, but the heavy, wet nature of the snow, coupled with the weight of the leaves still on the trees that made this Friday the 13th storm so devastating. As tree limbs broke, they fell on power lines, leaving well over 300,000 people without power. 13 people have died as a result of the storm–whether from traffic accidents, falling limbs, or carbon monoxide poisoning as a result of use of generators as power has been out in some areas for several days and will probably be out for several more.

I’m lucky enough to live in an area not affected by the storm–in fact, I only saw a few flakes around my house. But many people I know are still without power and the amount of damage around the area I work is quite astonishing. An article in today’s Buffalo News begins:

The National Guard arrived in Erie County Monday to help clear 30 million tons of debris from local streets as hundreds of thousands of people endured a fifth cold night without heat and electricity.
A total of 150 Guard members with dump trucks and high-lifts will assist in a cleanup that is rising in cost each day and will be financed, in part, by federal emergency disaster officials, who also arrived on the scene Monday.

The overall price tag, by most accounts, is expected to climb into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Town of Tonawanda officials estimated the public-private cost to their town alone at $200 million.

Local officials also acknowledged for the first time that the cleanup could take months to complete.

“It’s massive, absolutely massive,” County Executive Joel A. Giambra said of debris piling up across the county. “The idea is to get it off the streets as soon as possible. That’s our priority right now.”

To help with the effort, Giambra asked Gov. George E. Pataki to call in the Air and Army National Guards to help with the removal of tree debris. About 80 Guard members arrived Monday and began removing debris from Buffalo’s northern suburbs. The rest are expected to begin work today.

Their arrival came just a day after Mayor Byron W. Brown said he saw no need for the Guard to help Buffalo at this point. On Monday, he backtracked and said he welcomed the Guard’s help.

“We understand now there are other communities in the northern suburbs that have more intense cleanup needs than we do,” Brown said. “So while we certainly will use National Guard assistance, we want to be mindful and cognizant of the needs of other communities.”

A reporter then asked Brown why he, as mayor, wasn’t fighting to get every available resource to help clear the city of debris?

“We’re fighting for everything. But we’re also working cooperatively,” he said. “This is a natural disaster that doesn’t only affect Buffalo. It affects our entire region.”

The region’s two major electric utilities - National Grid and New York State Electric & Gas - also made progress in restoring power to homes and businesses.

Nevertheless, more than 215,000 customers in Erie and Niagara counties spent another night without heat and electricity Monday.

I thought Hippie environmental types were all about love and understanding…

A U.S. based environmental magazine that both former Vice President Al Gore (LINK ) and PBS newsman Bill Moyers, for his October 11th global warming edition of “Moyers on America” titled “Is God Green?” (LINK ) have deemed respectable enough to grant one-on-one interviews to promote their projects, is now advocating Nuremberg-style war crimes trials for skeptics of human caused catastrophic global warming.

Grist Magazine’s staff writer David Roberts called for the Nuremberg-style trials for the “bastards” who were members of what he termed the global warming “denial industry.”

Roberts wrote in the online publication on September 19, 2006, “When we’ve finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we’re in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards — some sort of climate Nuremberg.” (LINK )

Gore and Moyers have not yet commented on Grist’s advocacy of prosecuting skeptics of global warming with a Nuremberg-style war crimes trial. Gore has used the phrase “global warming deniers” to describe scientists and others who don’t share his view of the Earth’s climate. It remains to be seen what Gore and Moyers will have to say about proposals to make skepticism a crime comparable to Holocaust atrocities.

The use of Holocaust terminology has drawn the ire of Roger Pielke, Jr. of the University of Colorado’s Center for Science and Technology Policy Research. “The phrase ‘climate change denier’ is meant to be evocative of the phrase ‘holocaust denier,’” Pielke, Jr. wrote on October 9, 2006 (LINK).

H/T: Sister Toldjah