Maszman Speaks!

As this week’s Adven­tures of the Insider Box tells us, you can always call a lawyer, pro­vid­ing you have enough cash.

Pre­vi­ously: Some­thing Dis­gust­ing, Par­rinello con­firms stereo­type.

Com­puter retailer Com­pUSA is clos­ing about half of its US stores as part of a major restruc­tur­ing aimed at mak­ing the chain more prof­itable. Rochester looks like it will retain its Com­pUSA but some larger metro areas, like Atlanta, will be left with none. Com­puter retail is a tough busi­ness, with low mar­gins and tough com­pe­ti­tion from other stores like Cir­cuit City and even tougher com­pe­ti­tion from Inter­net ven­dors like Newegg. Is this the begin­ning of a trend?

The Rochester metro area is some­what unique in that the city and the county of Mon­roe share sales tax rev­enue as a result of the Morin-Ryan Agree­ment of 1985. Nego­ti­ated between Repub­li­can County Exec­u­tive Lucien Morin and Demo­c­ra­tic City Mayor Thomas Ryan, it gives the city far more money than it would oth­er­wise get. But the county is fac­ing a bud­get gap and Mag­gie Brooks is imply­ing the agree­ment is in jeop­ardy. Brooks and the GOP wanted to raise the sales tax rate from 8% to 8.75% but state Democ­rats (the state has to approve a sales tax increase) refused. So instead, they’re going after the agree­ment, which requires no state approval to change or eliminate.

Con­tinue reading

Gizmodo’s Anti-RIAA Manifesto

Keith Olber­mann takes the Sec­re­tary of State to task for com­par­ing Sad­dam Hus­sein to Hitler, among other stu­pidi­ties. When arguably the smartest per­son in the White House gets WWII his­tory wrong, you can imag­ine what the rest of them might be capa­ble of.

Photo_022707_002, orig­i­nally uploaded by tom­masz.

On Fri­day, this was the Mid­town M&T Bank. By Tues­day, no evi­dence it was there remains. That bit of white wall next to the doors used to hold their ATM. It, too, is gone.