It’s less than nine months ’til election day, and hopeful candidates for statewide office are bravely making the rounds “Upstate” (which, for politicians from NYC and Long Island, is an area somewhere north of Westchester consisting basically of a few barns, trees, and lots of cows, goats, and chickens, that they’re required to pander to briefly every few years in an effort to get elected). Harold Ford Jr. was in town a couple weeks back, chiding incumbent Kirsten Gillibrand for not “spending enough time” in our area. Yes, that’s right, the person who’s lived her entire life in New York, and is from the Hudson Valley doesn’t spend enough time here. That’s in contrast to Tennessee transplant Harold, who lives in Manhattan (except for the purposes of voting and paying taxes), but has been to both Rochester and Syracuse once or twice, and has seen exotic places like Staten Island via helicopter. I really don’t think anybody’s buying what Harold’s selling, to be honest.

Speaking of Downstate politicians, former Long Island congresscritter (and failed Senate candidate himself) Rick Lazio was in town yesterday as part of his campaign for Governor. I think his message to those of us who aren’t livestock up here was that the way to solve our unemployment problem is to give more tax breaks to rich people, so that we might be able to scurry around collecting some of the crumbs that fall from their ample jowls. This, of course, is the theory that former NY Governor George Pataki (and every other idiot Republican in recent memory) espoused, which is why we have such huge deficits that have Governor Blinky (hey, where’s our scandal, anyway?) cutting health care and education. How Ricky intends to cut taxes and balance the budget is unclear.

Speaking of Blinky, his latest brilliant budget balancing brainstorm is to withhold NY State income tax refunds until after the start of the next fiscal year. In other words, if you filed a return now, you wouldn’t get your refund until after April 1st. Apparently NYS law allows them to hold your refund for up to 45 days after April 15. I gotta tell ya, Guv, this really aint gonna fly. I don’t know how much money this interest-free loan from us to you would net the State, but I can’t imagine it’s a lot, “we the people” aren’t gonna like it, and State Republicans and Democrats are gonna run away from this like it’s a Snickers bar floating in a swimming pool.

Please don’t run again, Dave.

Not to be left out, Kirsten Gillibrand also came to town yesterday. In contrast to Lazio and Ford, she held an open meeting and took questions from the local livestock folks in the audience. I’m not sure who the Republicans are planning to run against her, but I don’t think she’ll have much trouble winning a full term (assuming she doesn’t appear in a sex tape with the Governor or something).

Though they do make a cute couple, I think.

There was a big scare in Buffalo yesterday at UB’s Lockwood library. Apparently, there were reports of somebody with a gun. UB is one of my alma maters (assuming going there for two years qualifies as an alma mater), and I’m vaguely familiar with that library, having visited it on several occasions in my time there. As I recall, they had chalkboards on the toilet stall walls – great idea, too; has to pay for itself in not having to clean/paint over the graffiti every semester – and the couple times I went there to “study,” I wound up mostly reading various newspapers and scouring through the vintage Sports Illustrated magazines, trying to relive SU’s past sports glory. That was all during my first year. Once I moved off campus in my second year, I rarely bothered to make the trip to campus – let alone the library.

Going to the library really got in the way of my beer drinking.

Speaking of beer, thanks to Vernon for passing along this link to the new “Sink the Bismarck” beer from the Scottish Brewery BrewDog. It’s a quadruple IPA that comes in at 41% ABV (that’s alcohol by volume). I believe that makes it somewhere in the neighborhood of 72 proof. 72 proof beer? What’re you supposed to do, invite a few friends over and do shots? It sure would alter a game of quarters (or Buzz). Something tells me I’d better stay the hell away from that – it could be fatal.