I love Upstate NY.

@Thumperchick While I agree with your statement, I whole heartedly agree with NYs decision to ban fracking statewide, let the other states mess up their watersheds and induce seismic activity.

@tentalces1349 yup!

@Thumperchick if upstate wants to be dissociated from NYC then the state legislature will have to learn how to stop funneling money out of the city to fund things

also side note I'm originally from Rockland and everybody calls that "upstate" and I just don't...

(also edit note - I haven't heard of a single resident in favor of fracking, so yay!)

@Lotsofgoats I am a new York state resident and an engineer in favor of hydraulic fracturing.

@Occasionally so is there a environmental safer way to do it in regards to ground water and geological stability?

@Lotsofgoats Hey, I'm from Rockland also, now living in Orange.

@bluedog uh oh, we might be former high school rivals who now have to prove loyalty by fighting in the McDonald's parking lot :/

seems like a lot of trouble tbh

@Occasionally I am a North Carolina resident and an engineer in favor of hydraulic fracturing as well.

@tentalces1349 me too!!!

@kdessinger well by albany, I mean saratoga, but close enough right?

@tentalces1349 Exactly! Proud resident of zip code 12345

@tentalces1349 @kdessinger - Glens Falls, here.

@kdessinger 12345? That's the same combination on my luggage!!!!

@BillLehecka and a previous one. Hey - are we the first state with multiple scapegoats?

@Lotsofgoats The economy in that area is rough. They were hit with major flooding a few years back, and before that they were essentially abandoned by IBM and a few other major employers - leaving a lot less jobs. They want money - and those 2 things will bring it. Unfortunately, they'll also bring major problems... but they aren't thinking that far ahead.

@Thumperchick bah, I feel like the only way we ever know how to create jobs and revenue quickly also always involve horrible long term consequences (e.g. fossil fuels, casinos, lotteries...). sucks.

@Lotsofgoats I hear ya, but what in your opinion are the horrible long term consequences of casinos and lotteries? (Other than, say, creating a huge environmentally unsustainable metropolis in the middle of the desert? But then you would have to include many other cities.)

@Lotsofgoats Well, I'm sitting here in Pennsylvania in between last century's environmental disaster of the eastern coal region, and one mountain over from the Marcellus shale. We have creeks with orange water and huge gaping strip mines, the Centralia coal mine fire, and fracking all within 20 miles. The worst part? Unlike every other state that has oil and gas drilling, PA's republican controlled legislature decided to charge the big gas companies nothing for the gas extraction. That's right, zero. nothing. No extraction tax, so basically they are coming in with their own out of state crews, pumping toxic chemicals into our groundwater, taking the almost free gas, and leaving without paying the state much of anything in the way of taxes or fees to offset it. Then, they are building a huge pipeline from here to a new LNG terminal in baltimore, to send the gas to Europe instead of making it available to PA residents to heat their homes or power their cars. gas service is not available at all in any of the towns near where I live. I guess campaign contributions count for a lot more than I realized.

@mehjohnson more of a moral argument than an environmental one in this case. NY lottery generates TONS of money and it goes to good stuff like schools, but it's also primarily taking that money from lower income folks and that's extremely shitty in my mind. same thing with casinos in that regard, along with those greatly changing the the locale as you've mentioned.

@Steve7654 that all sucks. like even though it clearly wouldn't offset the impact, you're not even getting paid for it. 👎

@defibrillator upstate hunting communities seem to do just fine with the existing laws, and "home defense" (which is usually just code for gun collecting) seems totally adequate as well.

the problem NYC has in particular is that guns funnel in from southern states that have crap for restrictions, and there's currently no system that exists for easily tracking and prosecuting irresponsible sellers.

@Lotsofgoats this is the state that passed mandatory background checks for ammunition purchases even though two years later they can't figure out how to enforce that or even set up a system for it. The SAFE act is terribly unpopular with many/most NY gun owners, and SAFE 2 threatens to come into the scene soon. I know several NY gun owners who have moved to or are planning to move to PA because of SAFE. And didn't NY lose one or two of the historical gun manufacturers because of SAFE? Believe me, in the firearm community, NY is categorized with the other gun unfriendly states of MD, CT, NJ, IL, and CA. As someone who grew up near the NY border, I can attest that the views of upstate NYers are closer to those of PA than the south east part of the state.

@Lotsofgoats Actually the problems are their homegrown thugs and thug culture. Blaming inanimate objects instead of the humans with free will sounds like a tenet of some wacky religion.

@HELLOALICE I lived in VA Beach for 15 months. The beach is pretty, the rest is ...not.

@Superjimtendo @HELLOALICE I lived in Rochester, NY and Newport News, VA. I liked the sailing in VA although the military presence in some of the apartment complexes had a lot in common with Frat row on a Saturday night on a college campus, Rochester was nice, and we did a lot of quick road trips to Toronto, but way the heck too much snow on occasion. Also loved going to all the music concerts at Eastman School of Music in Rochester.

@HELLOALICE I will send you a casserole when you get here. It's what we do.

@Superjimtendo I am jealous of your Wegmans! I'm in Chicago and don't have one anywhere around. But my brother lives in the Rochester area, so I hit up Wegmans every time I visit him.

@cranky1950 You forgot snow, maple syrup, apples, and taxes.

@Thumperchick We have nice beer and wine too.

@Thumperchick and apples too!

@ekw I had the apples in there!

@Thumperchick but what about apples?

@ekw I might br wrong, but seems to me I remember there being apples?

@cranky1950 definitely apples. not sure why no one mentions them. and Genessee, of course.

@ekw Oh of course, do they still sell Iroquois?

@BillLehecka what's a summer and why does that ice look so strange

@Lotsofgoats that ice looks...wet or something.

@BillLehecka Usta work Sat nites in the early 70's and there were a pair of radio evanglists that broadcast from Screw Lake. Their show was always a hoot.

@BillLehecka Summer here is beautiful... if and when it shows up.

@BillLehecka Not to mention quirky little bistros where one can wile away the time with the object of their affliction