Month: December 2011

First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo and Lloyd to Feed #Occupy Buffalo

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On Thursday, December 22, 2011 at 5:00 PM, the Lloyd Taco Truck will pull into Niagara Square to give 75 burritos and beverages to the Occupy Buffalo protesters on behalf of First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo. This goodwill activity is being funded as a mission project by the church.

“The Occupy movement is a peaceful movement. This holiday season we aim to share the peace of Christ with all,” said Rev. Dr. Philip S. Gittings, the Interim Pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Buffalo.

Formed in 1812, First Presbyterian Church is the city’s oldest congregation, and will celebrate its bicentennial during the next year. First Presbyterian Church is part of the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Presbytery of Western New York. The congregation consists of approximately 300 active and inactive members. The church’s architecturally significant building on Symphony Circle features Tiffany-designed stained glass windows, two impressive pipe organs, and a 168-foot tall tower which stands as a beacon of hope on the west side of the city.

Lloyd Taco Trucks, Inc. hit the city streets in 2010 as the region’s first taco truck. Their mission is to bring legitimate street food to Buffalo by offering affordable yet incredibly tasty takes on tacos and burritos.


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Ron Paul: Reductio ad Bigotum

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If I published an “Alan Bedenko Liberty Newsletter” that contained anti-Semitic, conspiratorial, and racist rantings written in the first person, I’d expect people to question that.

For some reason, Iowa frontrunner Ron Paul believes that he doesn’t deserve similar scrutiny. The copyright was held by “Ron Paul & Associates, Inc.” He’s busy having hissy fits when reporters ask him legitimate questions about the writings done by him, or in his name. He can say he “never read them”, but that can’t be true. He can say he “disavows them” but he didn’t do so then, when it mattered and when he was trying to make money off them.  The press keeps asking him about it (because it’s important), and he’s getting testy about it.

http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/.element/apps/cvp/3.0/swf/cnn_416x234_embed.swf?context=embed&videoId=bestoftv/2011/12/21/tsr-bts-borger-ron-paul-newsletters.cnnAs you might expect, the Paulists’ reaction to reporters asking questions has been perfectly reasonable:

I mean, she’s a woman – so, she’s a whore, AMIRITE?!

Part of believing in a free market is accepting the consequences of using one’s Constitutional liberty to think and write hateful nonsense.

The National Review has a smattering of Paul’s newsletters here, and their content speaks for itself. But every time Paul is asked about them and “disavows” them and denies having written or read them at the time, despite them bearing his name, remember that when these came up in a 1996 campaign, he disavowed no such thing, and did not deny writing or reading them. Indeed, he defended the newsletters and took ownership of them.

This whole fascination with Ron Paul (whose prognostications on the one issue he purports to be expert – monetary policy – have been all wrong) is analogous to if Lyndon LaRouche actually, finally, managed to get the Democratic nomination, or be competitive in Iowa. But LaRouche stays on the fringe of politics where he belongs, a joke and an afterthought. Ron Paul is outpolling the inconsistent Romney, the unhinged Bachmann, the gay-baiting Perry, and the corrupt Gingrich.

The only non-lunatic Republican candidate, Huntsman, may do well in New Hampshire, where he’s been focusing his efforts.

That’s some bench.


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Proposed Buffalo Food Truck Law Unveiled

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Councilman Joseph Golombek has circulated the proposed food truck law for the city of Buffalo reproduced below for review by his colleagues on the council and the food truck stakeholders and their opponents.

It is a compromise measure that incorporates the only two complaints that really came up as legitimate concerns on the part of the restaurants; firstly, it requires the trucks to have two 65 gallon trash cans set up at all times that they’re serving food. Secondly, the brick & mortar opponents win a victory in that the trucks must stay 100′ away from the property line of any existing restaurant. (The trucks wanted it to be 100′ from the front door of any such facility.) In the case of a special event, the radius is 500′.

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The trucks must physically measure the distance through the use of a measuring wheel, which can be purchased at any hardware store.

Trucks must be licensed annually by the city for a $1,000 fee, and a fine schedule for noncompliance with the regulations is set forth. The license is per truck, not per business, and the owner must undergo a background check, because I suppose one doesn’t want one’s pulled pork sandwich served by an ex-felon or something.

The one glaring omission I see here is that there may be times where the food trucks have permission from brick & mortar restaurants to set up nearby. For instance, this regulation may forbid Lloyd’s taco truck from setting up at Main & Mohawk now that there is a deli at that corner. Some restaurants may understand that competition and more people are good things. There should be a provision in the law that allows for exceptions if the truck has a brick & mortar’s consent.

In addition, the definition of “property line” is, to me, ambiguous. Is it the property line of the building in which the restaurant and its kitchen are housed, or is it the “property line” of the leased premises. For instance, are we talking about the entire Main Place Mall, or just the portions of it leased to food vendors? Are we talking about just Zetti’s on Elmwood, or the entire building in which it’s housed? This needs clarification.

Other than that, it’s a solid compromise law that ought to have been passed months ago, before food truck patrons were forced to stand in line in 20 degree weather to grab tacos and burgers. The common council must pass this law before the winter is over.

Proposed Food Truck Lawhttp://www.scribd.com/embeds/76216760/content?start_page=1&view_mode=list&access_key=key-apy5eod0zl44jfqrnoi//

Stalinist Propaganda in 2011

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Since the downfall of the Soviet Union and its satellite colonies, the volume and quality of good, old-fashioned communist propaganda has diminished exponentially. I think this may have something to do with how easily and cavalierly people accuse, e.g., centrist Democrats of being “socialists” or similar.

http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=buffalopundit-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=015665489X&ref=qf_sp_asin_til&fc1=000000&IS2=1&lt1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr There are only a small handful of remaining hardcore Stalinist communist dictatorships remaining in the world, and North Korea is the hardcore-iest, Stalinist-iest of them all. Only Hoxha’s Albania and Pol Pot’s Cambodia came close to the psychotic dysfunction of the Kim’s Korea.

So, after the jump, I will reproduce for you the propaganda item that the Korean Central News Agency (the news agency of the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea”) put out in the wake of Kim Jong-il’s death. It’s fascinating to me not only because of the religious terminology it uses to deify the Dear Leader, but the completely false “Juche” self-reliance communism that the Kim dynasty pretends to adhere to (while taking in hundreds of millions in foreign aid) and the attempts to connect an amoral tyrannical communism to an ancient Confucianism. “Songun” is the term the Kim regime uses for its “military first” ideology, as it maintains its revolutionary fervor (as all Communist dictatorships must) through eternal war with the US and South Korea.

This is what passes for public relations and propaganda under Stalinism. Even the title reveals the modern-day caste system that develops under Stalinism; what Yugoslav dissident Milovan Djilas called “The New Class” after his mid-50s split with Tito. This new class has complete control over the means of production while paying lip service to Marxist workers’ control. Through that control, it amasses wealth and influence which becomes “property” in a propertyless society.

Notice to All Party Members, Servicepersons and People

Pyongyang, December 19 (KCNA) — The Central Committee and the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the National Defence Commission of the DPRK, the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly and the Cabinet of the DPRK on Saturday announced the following notice to all party members, servicepersons and people:

The Central Committee and the Central Military Commission of the Workers’ Party of Korea, the National Defence Commission of the DPRK, the Presidium of the Supreme People’s Assembly and the Cabinet of the DPRK notify with bitterest grief to all the party members, servicepersons and people of the DPRK that Kim Jong Il, general secretary of the Workers’ Party of Korea, chairman of the National Defence Commission of the DPRK and supreme commander of the Korean People’s Army, passed away of a sudden illness at 08: 30 on December 17, Juche 100 (2011) on his way to field guidance. Read more

Valenti's Coda (UPDATED x2)

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Late Monday, the Buffalo News clumsily excised any mention of Iron Chef from Okun’s review of Valenti’s.  The bit about the parsnips is still there, alone and unexplained.

The reason given?

I can only imagine the “two sources” were Mr. and Mrs. Valenti. It’s just a red sauce joint. Hell, the food might even be good. Why be a clown and make up crazy stuff that can be easily disproven?

UPDATE: Via comment to the original post, Jeff Levine, the spokesman for the Culinary Institute of America writes:

You can add to the above list the fact that The Culinary Institute of America has no record of this person graduating from, or even attending, the college.
Jeff Levine
Spokesperson
The Culinary Institute of America
Hyde Park, NY

UPDATE 2: The Buffalo News has scrubbed any mention of parsnips, as if nothing ever happened. That’s great editing! BTW, I did call and speak with Mr. Levine on the phone to verify that he was, in fact, who he says he is, and that he was authorized to provide the above-quoted information on the CIA’s behalf.

Valenti’s Coda (UPDATED x2)

11 comments

Late Monday, the Buffalo News clumsily excised any mention of Iron Chef from Okun’s review of Valenti’s.  The bit about the parsnips is still there, alone and unexplained.

The reason given?

I can only imagine the “two sources” were Mr. and Mrs. Valenti. It’s just a red sauce joint. Hell, the food might even be good. Why be a clown and make up crazy stuff that can be easily disproven?

UPDATE: Via comment to the original post, Jeff Levine, the spokesman for the Culinary Institute of America writes:

You can add to the above list the fact that The Culinary Institute of America has no record of this person graduating from, or even attending, the college.
Jeff Levine
Spokesperson
The Culinary Institute of America
Hyde Park, NY

UPDATE 2: The Buffalo News has scrubbed any mention of parsnips, as if nothing ever happened. That’s great editing! BTW, I did call and speak with Mr. Levine on the phone to verify that he was, in fact, who he says he is, and that he was authorized to provide the above-quoted information on the CIA’s behalf.

Norquist Clarified

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It’s not every day the teabagging wing of the Republican Party decides to overrule an 89-10 bipartisan Senate compromise over the payroll tax holiday.

It would appear, therefore, that the Grover Norquist pledge never to raise taxes to which GOPers have beholden themselves is voidable in the event (a) that the tax hike disproportionately affects middle-class wage-earners; and/or (b) the President isn’t a Caucasian.  I’m glad that the 112th Congress was able to clear that up for us.

You see, under the Republican supply-side sect of trickle-down theory, only tax cuts on the wealthy are acceptable. The middle class, working class, and poor looters must be made to pay more.

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