I saw this in the D&C and though, “mainstay?  What the hell are they talking about?”:

Portobello is now Portofino | democratandchronicle.com | Democrat and Chronicle

Portobello Ristorante, a mainstay in the Italian restaurant lineup since 1993, closed in March. After a makeover, an updated menu and a new name, the restaurant reopened earlier this month as Portofino Bistro.

Portofino, Portobello, Porto-potty.  Call it what you will, but this is the site of one of the worst service and food related experiences that my wife and I share over the four years we’ve known each other. Rude, hasty service, over-cooked and disgusting food, preposterous prices, this place had it all.  To whom is Portobello a “mainstay” of Italian eating in Rochester?  Give me their names and I wil show them ten other places with better prices and better food.  Crimeny, you can fall out of a car drunk and you’ll just roll right into an Italian restaurant, in this town.  Off the top of my head:

• Michellina’s, right down the street
• The Northside Inn
• Perlo’s
• Domenico’s
• Brio (technically Mediteranean, but lots of Italian influence)
• Bennucci’s

OK, so there’s six, right there.  Anyone care to help complete the list?  No fair looking at RocWiki.org!

Here’s a ripple you might not have considered: the high cost of gas hurts everybody who drives to make their living, especially those on slim margins, but its really hitting the music industry locally.  I imagine the same holds true elsewhere.  The irony is that what I’ve always viewed as a strength of Rochester’s geography is now it’s weakness: you’re a relatively short drive from a huge number of highly-active music scenes, from New York to Toronto, from Philly to Cleavland.  But the problem is, you have to drive to those places in order to make a decent showing of yourself.

I know it’s all over Rochester right now, but I just have to pop in for the benefit of my readers and blogging buddies and give you a helpful career tip: if you’re going to lie on your resume (I mean really lie, not just fudge like we all do), try to make sure that the lie in question doesn’t involve being a cop.  They take it personal.

And oh, yeah: you’re less likely to get arrested if you’re not trying to get a job in a government building.

If you’re looking for something to read, watch or listen to, why not check out the DFE bookstore and support a local blog?  As I find new stuff I think might be of interest to my readers, I will update the store accordingly.  I’ve just started this store literally a few minutes ago, so it’s a bit sparse at the moment, but it’s always available on the top navigation bar for your perusal!

Thanks for looking!

If Barack Obama’s trip to the Mid East - and the sudden injection of Iraq’s Prime Minister Maliki’s plans into the U.S. political mix - have done anything, they’ve definitely flipped the entire conversation in unexpected ways.  But while many are viewing this as a positive for Barack Obama, there is one highly important question on which the media has jumped the shark entirely, even those dying to be supportive of the presumptive Democratic nominee: we’re now operating under the assumption that The Surge Is Working.

How did we arrive at that?  Is that even true?

What’s even more frustrating is the fact that media icons of the Left are struggling to find ways to continue arguing against a McCain presidency, insisting for example that the “Sunni Awakening” happened before The Surge, tacitly admitting that not only do they believe The Surge is working, but that they refuse to admit this “fact.”  It’s even getting “Digged” as I type.

And I can’t help but notice a critical element missing in all this. . . the facts.  The Surge isn’t failing, exactly, but it’s not working either.  Maliki is playing for his constituency, which is fine and I applaud him doing so, but that doesn’t mean anything else has changed.  What’s happened is that Barack Obama said he would stick to the 16-month timeline, then Maliki agreed to the timeline, then McCain said “but, but, but, . . he couldn’t agree to that if The Surge wasn’t working!”

… And then the media bought it, hook like and sinker without so much as a moment’s cricital inspection.  Now we’re off to the races with another line of BS that ultimately helps John McCain.

This is rich on any number of levels:

The White House is signaling today that it’s going to back off and let the latest housing bill through, even though it objects to the part where American taxpayers actually see benefits from their taxes instead of just the shareholders:

White House drops opposition to housing bill - Mortgage Mess- msnbc.com

Under the bill, the government would help struggling homeowners get new, cheaper loans and would be allowed to offer troubled mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac a cash infusion…

{{snip}}

…Bush had objected to the $3.9 billion provision in the measure, saying that it was aimed at helping bankers and lenders, not homeowners who are in trouble.

Ah, so the one part of the bill aimed at getting cheaper loans for people struggling with unaffordable ARM mortgage payments is the part that’s aimed at helping bankers, eh?  Then what about this passage - which goes entirely without comment or illumination in the MSNBC article:

Mortgage bill, cont’d - msnbc.com

It hands the Treasury Department the power to extend the government-sponsored mortgage companies an unlimited line of credit and buy an unspecified amount of their stock, if necessary, to prop up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two companies chartered by Congress.

As Dean Baker points out, shoring up Fannie and Freddie’s bonds might be a good idea to stave off further economic disaster - bonds typically constitute the bedrock of a lending company’s financial insurance - but there’s no macro-economic reason that the government should have to buy up stock in the company.  Except, that is, to minimize the loss of the investor class.  So, who is helping whom, here?  What is the direct benefit of this stock purchase plan for the average consumer?

But Dana Perino, who is already getting beaten up about Barack’s Excellent Adventure in the Mid-East, has chose to go the “we could have if we wanted to,” route in defending the Administration’s capitulation on this “wasteful” spending provision.  That, and the “Hard-working martyr” route:

Mortgage bill, cont’d - msnbc.com

White House press secretary Dana Perino announced Bush’s switch in an earlier telephone conference call with reporters. “We believe this is not the time for a prolonged veto fight but we are confident the president would prevail in one,” she said…

{{snippage}}

…She said she expected that the $3.9 billion provision would be included in the final legislation. “With Congress scheduled soon for yet another recess,” she said, “the risk of not having a bill until at best the middle of September — if they even were act then — is not a risk worth taking in the current environment.”

Darn that stupid, slow Congress!  Things would be better if they worked quicker.  As a wise man once stated, “If this were a dictatorship, it’d be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I’m the dictator.”

The CBO is announcing today that bailing out the two super-giants of the mortgage industry, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, will cost $25bn dollars.  Given the pencant for under-bidding such things, we can probably expect this number to double before the year’s out.  So, more like $50 billion dollars to bail out these companies.

In the grand scheme of things, $50 billion isn’t really a lot of money, when compared to the impact that a failing mortgage industry would have.  It’s especially not very big in comparison to the spiralling cost of the Iraq War.  And to the extent that these two organizations are only semi-private enterprises, having been formed by - and from time to time, buttressed - by the federal government, it’s not the biggest handout we’ve seen or are likely to see in the coming years.

But what could that $50 billion dollars have done for American home owners struggling with this crunch?  How many people’s homes could have been saved with that money?  Had the government acted sooner, instead of chiding the “speculators,” handing this money over to Fannie and Freddie wouldn’t have even been necessary.

But of course, it’s not about the mortgages, it’s about the mortgage industry.

Something saggy this way comes.  The television show about teenage high school students starring thirty-something actors that made me cringe throughout my high school career even as I watched it (in the vain hope that I would have something to talk to Jeannie Peirce about) is making a come back. . .  with the original stars:

The Associated Press: Shannen Doherty back in `90210′ ‘hood this fall

Brenda Walsh is all grown-up and returning to Beverly Hills, 90210, this fall.

But cast members of the new CW spin-off, “90210,” are speculating whether Shannen Doherty will be equally mature when she reprises her role as Walsh.

No more fresh fruit at the Peach Pit.  Gone are the episodes about Brendon getting his drink dosed with MDMA (Extasy for you kids out there) and wild, drug-laden nights in TJ.  In their place: episodes about prune juice spiked with Viagra and wild, Metamucil-fueled early evenings at The Pottery Barn.

Get those DVRs set!

After a back and forth akin to a poorly-constructed Keystone Cops routine, the Nuri al-Maliki government has made it as clear as possible: call it what you want, but we want the U.S. troops out by 2010.  That happens to be Barack Obama’s timeline, but any way you slice it, they want the U.S. out.  As RT points out, you could hear a pin drop on the subject, here or nationally.

I think Josh Marshall has it about right: they may not want to make it look like they’re affecting politics in the United States, but the Maliki government has made the decision to support the Obama withdrawal timeline most likely in the hopes of exercising at least some control over the occupation and it’s eventual conclusion.  Its a classic example of swinging the political discussion over to your own side of things, and they’re playing it beautifully.  This is a full-scale defection from the Bush Camp in favour of the withdrawal supported not just by Barack Obama but by the Iraqi and American people, both.

So here’s a question which has proved historically entertaining for the last hundred and fifty years or so of American interventionism: what happens if the democracy we supposedly want to setup in Country X actually starts operating in the interest of it’s people - like a democracy should - against our interests?  What if “The Surge” actually works?  What will happen to the Bush agenda in Iraq?  The McCain hopes of a Hundred Year Occupation?

Of course, this whole line of questioning is a bit tongue-in-cheek, anyway: even if by supporting withdrawal, Maliki is pleasing a majority of Iraqis, that doesn’t mean he can pull that coalition together around a stable democracy.  My guess is that, regardless of when we pull out, some additional assistance will be required, hopefully from a more international or even largely-Arab force.

And, oh yeah: even if the press is trying its damnedest to ignore this turn of events at the moment, the long-term effect of this is going to be one more major plus for the Obama camp.  Just wait till it’s time to start the debates.

Late Update: Oh, lame.  Not only is the press trying to ignore the Obama/Maliki connection, but they’re even stooping to split hairs to make distinctions without difference.

Via my buddy BTP’s RochesterTurning post this afternoon, it turns out that Rochester has made a top-ten list that doesn’t include death or STD’s.  Apparently, dispite Wegman’s best efforts to curb the practice with it’s Shopper’s Club Cards, we’re second most coupon-clippin’, thrifty city in the nation.  We’re number 2!  We’re number 2!  We’re number 2!!!