Ugh, time to file tax returns. Because of the move, I have to file NJ, NY, and IRS. Oh, bother.

Oddly enough, I received tax forms from Pennsylvania (I worked there in 2005, but not in 2006)... but not from New York (hello?!) and not from New Jersey (wtf?). Go figure.

So I've been printing tax forms for the last hour or so. It's almost as exciting as watching paint dry. Somebody kill me.

I could deduct some moving expenses but that would (I believe) mean itemizing my deductions, which I have never done before (no kids, no home ownership, no investments, etc.) and do not particularly feel like doing for the first time this weekend or next.

It is ironic that I hound my students about not procrastinating when it comes to papers and studying for exams, and here I am filing my taxes during the last 10 days before the deadline. I made my bed, now I gotta sleep in it.

FFFFFFFFFFfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

Well, like it or not, Bass Pro is going to be the anchor for the redevelopment of the Buffalo waterfront:


It took $25 million in public funds to lure (har-de-har-har) Bass Pro to sign on the dotted line (ouch!) but I guess you have to give to get. I'm sure it will be all over the news on TV tonight and in the papers tomorrow.

My question: what sorts of tax breaks and other behind-the-scenes incentives were dangled in front of Bass Pro to get them to commit?

I know tv is so uncool (except maybe the A-team, right, (e:brit) ?) but NBC is launching the new Andy Richter show (God help us) by nestling it within a marathon of classic "The Office" reruns. I know it's the American spinoff of the original Ricky Gervais britcom but hell it's still funny. Runs until 9:30 pm and then picks up again 10-11 pm.

Bonus:

I'm not well-schooled in Buffalo eateries outside the well-traveled neighborhoods: Elmwood, Hertel, Allentown, downtown, University Heights/UB Main St. But a colleague took me down Connecticut to the Armory Restaurant, near the corner of Plymouth and Connecticut right near D'Youville. For the uninitiated, it's an unassuming, old-school Italian-American joint with an old, low-slung wooden bar with two taps, odd collages of old black-&-white photos on the walls, and a few four-tops with red-&-white checked cotton tabelcloths. It was not exactly hip, but it was clean, there was very friendly and attentive service (we were there around 1 on a Monday) and the food was delicious.

I was alll set to order lentils and macaroni but then the waitress started describing the specials and I knew the lentils would have to wait. Beans-n'-greens just sounded way too good. My friend got the sausage giambotta (jyum-BOTT), which looked really good. The waitress warned me that the beans-n'greens typically came with some shells -- no problem there. She served it up steaming hot, in a huge bowl (even I couldn't finish it) along with fresh Italian bread. She mentioned that the hamhocks had stewed in the broth for a day (days?) and the smoky goodness in the bowl said she was no liar. The mix of pasta, beans (black-eyed peas and one or two white bean types), greens (escarole?) and slightly garlicky, smoky broth was sooooooo good.

The two entrees plus a Bud bottle for each of us came to $17. If you're in the mood for old-school Itai-American, try the Armory Restaurant for lunch (it's lunch-only I think) and tell me what you think.


For that matter, tell me your favorite low-rent traditional Itai-American joint. I really like Caffe Garangelo on Hertel, but the Armory's beans-n'-greens is giving me a second thought. What do you think??

OK, actually this is yesterday's news but I thought the pics were interesting. (e:chicoschica) had to evacuate yesterday morning because of a truck fire that threatened to catch the enclosed walkway between RPCI and BuffGen. Nobody was hurt and no significant damage to the walkway or the buildings, but OMG look what happened to that truck.

Smoke from truck fire; with a little imagination, the scene almost resembles a small-scale terror attack (car bomb or something)


The remains of the truck (Kelley Blue Book value = $0.00)


Photos courtesy of a coworker of (e:chicoschica), please do not reproduce

For interested (e:strip)pers -- this event/series is open to the public.

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5th Annual Human Rights Student Conference

March 20th through March 22nd
Canisius College, in the Richard E. Winter Student Center

This conference is an opportunity for students, professors and community members of Western New York to gather and exchange information about international human rights issues. This year's conference includes presentations on conflict diamonds, child soldiers, torture, the rights of women and the veil, human rights abuses in Kashmir, poverty and race, and the situation in Darfur. We also have a keynote speaker this year from Mauritania.

Tuesday March 20
The Human Rights Dinner with guests from the WNY refugee community. Catered by Kabab & Curry. The dinner is free, but we will be accepting donations for Journey's End Refugee Services.
Grupp Fireside Lounge, Student Center, 6:00 pm

Wednesday March 21
Student Presentations on international human rights issues, 5:30 pm.
The presentations will be followed by a screening of "Sometimes in April," a film about the Rwandan genocide at 7:00 pm.
Regis South, Student Center. Snacks and beverages will be served.

Thursday, March 22
Student Presentations will begin at 5:30 pm followed by our keynote speaker at 7:00 pm, Abdarahmane Wone, the North American Communications Director for the African Liberation Forces of Mauritania (FLAM) and a speaker for the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG), speaking on "Repression & Modern-Day Slavery in Africa: A Perspective from Mauritania." Regis South, Student Center. Snacks and beverages will be served.

Please RSVP (or direct your specific inquiries) to ias@canisius.edu.

From Robot Chicken

Got a kick out of this article in the Washington Post about Glenn Beck, a TV commentator on Headline News who seems to always be on at the gym when chica and I go there in the evenings. God this guy is really annoying. For reasons I can't quite articulate, I find Nancy Grace super-annoying too. Maybe it's because these two seem as dumb as fenceposts, I dunno. Anyway, just before Christmas one was interviewing the other and I thought my head was going to explode.

Anyway the article is interesting (in a manner similar to a car wreck on the side of the highway) and I recommend it. On page two there's even a reference to the Beast:

[box]"The Beast, an alternative newsweekly in Buffalo, was even tougher, putting Beck on a list of 2006's most loathsome people, along with this description: "Even the leather-winged shouting heads at Fox News look like intellectual giants next to this bleating, benighted Cassandra. It's like someone found a manic, doom-prophesying hobo in a sandwich board, shaved him, shot him full of Zoloft and gave him a show."[/box]

If you look at the article be sure to read all the way to the end.


Love, Peace, and Chicken Grease,
Chico

Oh well, I wrote probably a 10-paragraph post in response to (e:Libertad) 's Hail Mary post but then I managed to lose it all like a stupid fucking idiot.

Dammit dammit dammit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sigh. OK, here's the short version of what I painstakingly wrote and then accidentally 86'd. Arrgh.

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When the SecDef remarks that he's no military expert we could choose to be horrified. After all he's the Secretary of Defense! Shouldn't he be an expert on military matters?

Well, maybe not necessarily. The SecDef is the civilian head of the Pentagon, and he's responsible for running that entire bureaucracy. Part of his job is to provide civilian oversight of the military so it doesn't get out of control -- both in terms of developing its own agenda (and thus posing a potentional challenge or even threat to our elected officials) and in terms of ensuring that the military is not wasting taxpayers' money on unnecessary projects.

One of the things that Donald Rumsfeld was trying to do at the Pentagon was to force the US military to undergo a "defense transformation" -- namely, to make the US military faster, lighter, and more technologically sophisticated. Not a bad idea.

The bad idea was to try to make the invasion of Iraq a laboratory for a newly transformed military, for two reasons. First, because this defense transformation was still ongoing, and therefore not necessarily ready for a test; and second, because the SecDef is not necessarily the person you want to plan a military operation. We have generals who have studied for decades and who have trained for just this purpose.

In this case, Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, went against the generals' normal assumptions that an invasion of this kind requires more troops than seem necessary because of contingencies and post-conflict stablization operations.

So the SecDef's office was fighting two wars with the old, established military brass: one war to transfom the military as an institution, and one to shape the war strategy for Iraq.

That first war (transformation) was probably justified -- incorporating new technologies, reducing personnel demands, keeping an eye on unnecessary spending on outdated weapons platforms, all good. But fighting a war within the Pentagon to impose civilians' views on warfighting on the generals who were planning the invasion of Iraq (notably Gen Tommy Franks) -- maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

Sure, the initial invasion was pretty impressive -- the US military was able to successfully invade and enter Baghdad on the cheap. But as we've seen, it was a shortsighted strategy that failed to account for how to stabilize Baghdad and much of the rest of Iraq. After all, smart bombs are smart enough to strike the correct targets (most of the time) but they are not smart enough to talk with civilians, to negotiate truces, to do police work, and to build trust in new governing officials.

We could try to blame the flawed strategy on the generals -- but a lot of generals were uncomfortable with the 'lean' approach that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz favored. Unfortunately, those who spoke out were marginalized.

Anyway, there's a good case to be made that the civilians in the SecDef's office should not have tried to shape and micromanage the military strategy for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. By doing so they exhibited great hubris.

Seems to me that the new SecDef doesn't want to fall into this trap, and that he is trying to send a strong signal that he will leave the military planning to those who are experienced in it and who have trained for it. Let the Chiefs of Staff and let General Petraeus (who just spent months working with a team to write a new counterinsurgency manual for the US military) do what they need to do to implement the directives from our political leaders.

After all, the new SecDef is not a military expert -- Gates is an expert on intelligence and on running big bureaucracies. So he should focus on that, and let the generals do their jobs.

So should we be horrified that the SecDef publicly admits that he's not an expert in military matters? In a world where former SecDef Rumsfeld and his staff ran amok, I say I'm more relieved than horrified.

But that's just my take on it...

Thanks very much (e:paul) the new XHTML version works great, even in IE. ;-)

The home page looks almost exactly the same (that's the point, for anyone not paying attention) but it works much better. *poof* No more compatibility problem! Like magic.

Much obliged! You rock, (e:paul) .