Albany protesters demand taxes on rich-- and pizza (Capitol Confidential)... 3/30

Little Valley resident Derek "Jordy" Emerson allegedly causes car crash on Route 417 in Allegany, is Mercy-Flighted to ECMC in Buffalo... charges pending (WESB)... 3/30

Has Hades frozen over??? State legislature has a budget deal-- on time-- that actually cuts the budget? Well, the weather is unusually cold for this time of year, but still... consider me skeptical that this budget is actually balanced. 3/27

...but things are going just great here: Cattaraugus County population drops 4.3%-- largest in all of Western New York... village of Little Valley, Napoli up... Cattaraugus way down, town of Little Valley down less...  by the way, the entire WNY bloc lost population, the only whole region of the state to do so so uniformly (U.S. Census Bureau)... 3/24

CARNAGE: CLV School board vice president  resigns, budget proposes up to 22 layoffs (Salamanca Press)... 3/23

Apologies for the past three weeks or so of lacking updates... there's been a change in the Internet configuration and it's left me without a connection.

LV mayoral results: 37 people cast votes in the mayoral election... 35 voted for incumbent mayor Norm Marsh, and 36 voted for each of the two trustees, Ann Paschen-Poole and Ed Wilbur; all three positions were unopposed. 3/23

Leon man caught embezzling from local fire department (WIVB)... 3/4

So, which school in Western New York gets the best average Regents test scores? Was it some school in the suburbs? Nope-- it's rural Alfred-Almond... so don't tell me how rural schools can't teach (Business First)... 3/3

...yes, there are apparently worse assemblymen than Felix Ortiz: Meet Michael Dendekker, an assemblyman from Queens. He wants to make license plates, inspections and registration mandatory for all bicycles-- and wants to require casualty insurance for "commercial" ones! All for a 1.8-million-dollar money grab (AP)... 2/28
UPDATE: The idea's been axed (NY Daily News)... 3/3

CONFIRMED: Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger was in Little Valley Friday afternoon on a snowmobile trip with former Buffalo Bills QB Jim Kelly. He first stopped at the DMV to register his snowmobile, followed by a stop at Hughes Hotel and a trip to Randolph. 2/25

NO JAIL, NO PROBATION... JUST A PAYOFF: "SMOKIN' JOE" PAYS $50K FOR FELONY CONVICTION (Buffalo News)... 2/24

Health inspectors attack chili festival in the North Country (Watertown Daily Times)... 2/21

For the first time since 2008, there will be no contested elections in the village of Little Valley this year-- and this is an election year! Incumbent mayor Norman Marsh and trustee Ann Paschen-Poole (whose seat was up for special elections the past two years due to her appointment the first year and because the second because the first one ended up in a tie) will be up-for re-election, while Ed Wilbur will be running to replace the outgoing Dawn Nyznyk. All three candidates are unopposed on the Republican line; Democrats did not nominate a candidate. Elections are March 15, 2011. 2/20

Senate Democrats want to eliminate your representation in their ranks (Liz Benjamin)... 2/18

The Stockbridge-Munsee Mohicans won't be getting any land in upstate New York-- at least until Congress approves it (James Odato)... 2/18

I don't know how many of you have seen those ads in the Help Wanted sections of local newspapers from a call center called "The Connection" offering jobs. I was suspicious, and for good reason. Apparently all those jobs are now gone and the scramble to avoid layoffs is on (Business First)... 2/18

SHE SAID WHAT?!?! "The time has come for a tax-friendly attitude among our representatives in Albany." Was that some downstate liberal? A union rep? Nope-- that's our own state senator, Catharine Young (WLEA)... 2/16

The unions are coming-- with scare tactics! (And no disclosure of their involvement, conveniently) (Jimmy Vielkind)... 2/15

View this week's weather forecast and ski report... 2/12

A tree apparently fell in the forest and no one was around to hear it... WGGO/Salamanca, New York has been off the air since at least this morning and as of 1:30 p.m. is still off the air. I don't know how many days it's been since WGGO signed off or if anyone else has noticed. The station has been in severe decline since the late 1990s, when it dropped its full-service local format in favor of satellite standards music. Then, in 2006, it was sold to Pembrook Pines, who dumped ESPN on the channel and, despite some early efforts to invest in some sports programming, has pretty much neglected the station since 2007. The launch of WGWE, the Seneca nation's FM station in 2010, changed the radio landscape of Cattaraugus County and it appears that old "Gold" 1590 may be a casualty. Its FM sister station, previously classic rock WQRT, has already changed formats to satellite country as WQRS. Is this the end for AM 1590? (FV Exclusive) 2/11

This isn't directly related to Little Valley, but the congressional district to our northeast has just seen its Congressman, Republican Chris Lee, suddenly resign after finding shirtless pictures of himself on the gossip Web site Gawker. Apparently the man was leading on a woman he found on Craigslist, posing as a 39-year-old divorced lobbyist, through e-mail correspondence. This is probably not enough to immediately force a resignation, so I have a feeling there's something more. 2/10
...but now things are getting REALLY interesting: Chris Lee has now gone missing... never came back to WNY, believed (but not confirmed) to be hiding in Florida.. yeah. Something else is going on here. 2/11

Make new bridges and keep the old, spend some silver and a lot of gold (WESB)... 2/9
...oh, and by the way: they're going to close the bridge next year anyway-- for "repairs" (Springville Journal)... 2/12

Renegade Senate Democrats propose making it illegal to register your car in Pennsylvania if you live in New York (Albany Times-Union)... 2/8

Considering I decided against doing a Super Bowl page this year, I don't have a usual place to place my review of the game and the miscellany, so... here it is:

• Game score: 31-25, Green Bay. My Reckless Prediction was 24-20 Packers, a margin big enough for them to beat the 2.5-point spread (GB was favored). I now move to 5-2 against the spread the past 7 Super Bowls and 5-0 in games not involving the Indianapolis Colts.
• All in all, the game was very inconsistent. Both quarterbacks had erroneous moments, but Rodgers seemed to recover faster while Roethlisberger only seemed to recover after the injury to Charles Woodson and was unable to finish the comeback in the closing minutes of the game.
  
• That national anthem was very close to the worst rendition I have ever heard-- and I've heard Steven Tyler at the Indy 500. Not only did she mangle the lyrics, but she couldn't hold a note if her life depended on it!
• The halftime show was out there, but pretty much what I had expected from the Black Eyed Peas. They're not exactly a band whose work translates very well to the stage, so keeping that in mind, it wasn't that bad.