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Thursday, June 27, 2013

San Francisco Examiner sues San Francisco Chronicle for advertising practices

6/26/13, "San Francisco Examiner sues San Francisco Chronicle," poynter.org, Andrew Beaujon

"The San Francisco Newspaper Company, which owns the San Francisco Examiner, says the Hearst-owned San Francisco Chronicle “offered ad space to advertisers for a fraction of its cost on the condition that the advertisers not buy ads in the Examiner.”

“The suit also requests financial damages ‘in an amount to be proven at trial,’” Joe Eskenazi reports. “Per the law, that dollar figure could then be tripled.”
Greg Gilchrist, another Examiner attorney, claims the paper can produce material evidence proving the Chronicle not only targeted Examiner advertisers with deep discounts — as low as $1,000 “or even less” for full-page ads listed at between $59,000 and $92,000 on the Chronicle’s advertising rate card — but, on occasion, demanded exclusivity in return for secret and preferential rates.

Section 17043 of California’s Unfair Practices Act says it’s unlawful “to sell any article or product at less than the cost thereof to such vendor, or to give away any article or product, for the purpose of injuring competitors or destroying competition.”

The San Francisco Bay Guardian successfully used this law to win a lawsuit against the SF Weekly, a matter that was finally settled in 2011.

As Eskenazi notes, the Examiner, the Bay Guardian and SF Weekly all now share an owner."

SF Weekly | Associated Press

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Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Ichiro and Yu Darvish in the first












6/25/13, Ichiro Suzuki is seen at first base behind Texas pitcher Yu Darvish in the first inning, final 4-3 Yankees, getty

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Orioles fans try to help catch Indians fifth inning home run













6/25/13, Mostly Orioles fans try to help catch Indians fifth inning homer, final 6-3 Orioles, ap

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Monday, June 24, 2013

Bloomberg uses Mayor's office "to lobby the federal government," per his spokesman

6/22/13, "NYC Taxpayers Help Sponsor Bloomberg’s Gun Control Group," Jim Swift, Weekly Standard
.
"Maggie Haberman and Steve Friess of Politico add, “At minimum, the use of a city web server and city employees underscore what critics have long derided as a blurring of the lines between government resources and Bloomberg’s own multi-billion-dollar fortune, his company, and his pet interests in his three terms as mayor."
It is unclear why Bloomberg, who has a net worth of $27 billion and has given millions of dollars in donations to Mayors Against Illegal Guns Action Fund, would involve the City of New York in purchasing and hosting the webpage for Mayors Against Illegal Guns...
.
"The Mayors Against Illegal Guns website, according to La Vorgna, like other Bloomberg efforts to lobby the federal government, was done as part of “his capacity as mayor.”...

As Haberman and Friess note in Politico, "The overlap between Bloomberg’s groups and the city are evident throughout the registration information for several of the websites associated with them."" Image above, 2/4/12, "NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg with his armed bodyguards. Reuters."
.
----------------------------------------------------
.
Bloomberg spent $300 million of his own money to buy the NYC Mayor's office for 3 terms for the purpose of silencing the annoying American middle class:
.
March 2011, "The Bloomberg Bubble Bursts" Commentary, Siegel and Stern
.
"But it exposes what, aside from the policy failures, is the most discomfiting aspect of the Bloomberg mayoralty: the mayor’s use of his own personal resources to buy himself not only political power but also political peace. In a manner unparalleled in American history, Bloomberg in total spent in excess of $300 million to secure office three times from an electorate that numbers fewer than 4 million people (and of which only a third actually participate).

That is one issue. The other has to do with the way Bloomberg spent tens of millions of dollars annually between elections to make sure that not too many influential New Yorkers would risk criticizing him."...(see subhead, 'The Money Problem,' parag. 2, 3)
.
--------------------------------------------
.
2011, "An Open Letter to NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg," from Rabbi Dovid Bendory, Rabbinic Director, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership."
 

"Mr. Mayor, your citizen disarmament is an act of hypocrisy. Unlike nearly all the rest of us, everywhere you go you are surrounded by official armed guards, police escorts, and your highly trained personal private bodyguards. (See photo below). Mr. Mayor, is your life worth more than the lives of your fellow citizens? 
.
Or are we mere “subjects” in your eyes?...

Tyrants like Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, and Mao “pioneered” the bloody trail of “gun control” in the 20th Century. Why do you so thoughtlessly, in effect, mimic the insidious actions of these monsters?...
.
Mr. Mayor, do you need a rabbi to tell you that your actions are wrong and immoral?

This nation’s Bill of Rights is a sacrosanct public trust. You are a public servant. You swore an oath to uphold the Constitution. As you blatantly disregard the Second Amendment, the actual “Guardian” of all the rest of the Bill of Rights, I must ask you: 

.
Did you knowingly lie when you took your oath of office?"...


 
.  
 

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New UK pool owners may have class action case against global warming prophets who said get ready, its getting warmer. So people put in pools but it's been the reverse. Worse, now they predict 10 cool years ahead-Boris Johnson

6/23/13, "The weather prophets should be chucked in the deep end," UK Telegraph, Boris Johnson

"Homeowners lumbered with useless swimming pools know precisely who they should blame."

"The great thing about flying into London is that you get bags of time to see the countryside below. The congestion at Heathrow is so bad that many passengers circle above the Home Counties for half an hour, allowing themselves to be penetrated by the splendours of Surrey while their planes spew thousands of tons of CO2 into the upper air....  

Look down on southern England, and you see the little winking ultramarine oblongs of the swimming pools – perhaps the greatest triumph of hope over experience in the history of English domestic architecture. ...

In the past 10 years there have been plenty of middle-class punters who have decided that they want a touch of Beverly Hills about their homes....

But then there was an extra spur – the new and unanswerable imperative to find a way of keeping wet and cool. For more than 20 years now, we have been told that this country was going to get hotter and hotter and hotter, and that global warming was going to change our climate in a fundamental way. Do you remember that? We were told that Britain was going to have short, wet winters and long, roasting summers. ...

They said we were never going to have snow again, and that we should prepare for southern England to turn gradually into a Mediterranean world. There were going to be olive groves in the Weald of Kent, and the whole place was going to be so generally broiling in summer that no one would be able to move between noon and 4pm....

That’s what they said: the BBC, and all the respectable meteorologists – and I reckon there were tens of thousands of people who took these prophecies entirely seriously.

Omigod, they said to themselves, we are all going to fry. The only answer was to build a source of permanent refreshment – and so they did. They saved up, and they remortgaged, and they got in the diggers....They filled these holes with thousands of gallons of water that circulated endlessly by an unintelligible process known only to the people who had installed it but who seemed unfortunately to have gone bust. ...

They imagined the poolside parties they would have when the warming really kicked in: the barbecues; the bikinis; the pina coladas. They saw themselves on their lilos talking to their brokers on their mobile phones or getting up early on a glorious summer day and diving in unclothed when no one else was around. They thought they were doing the sensible thing and getting ready for a Californian lifestyle – and they were fools! Fools who believed that the global warming soothsayers really meant what they said or that they had a clue what the weather would be in the next 10 years. 

I hope I don’t need to tell you that we have not experienced a Mediterranean climate – not since they started to tell us to expect it. On the contrary, we have had some pretty long and miserable winters – including the last one, in which I saw snow settle in London on four separate occasions – and our summer is at risk of becoming a bit of a farce....They now think that we won’t have 10 years of blistering summer heat; on the contrary, it is apparently going to be 10 years of cold and wet

It is outrageous. Think of all those honest hard-working folk who have sunk their resources into a pool, only to find they use it only a couple of times a summer, and even then the wind-chill is so bad that the swimmers get goosebumps as soon as they emerge. I am generally against the compensation culture, but in my mind’s eye I see a class action: aggrieved English pool-owners against the global warming prophets and the erroneous meteorologists who have, frankly, been taking the piscine." via Lucianne

===============================

3/20/2000, "Snowfalls are now just a thing of the past," Independent UK, Charles Onians

"According to Dr David Viner, a senior research scientist at the climatic research unit (CRU) of the University of East Anglia, within a few years winter snowfall will become "a very rare and exciting event".

"Children just aren't going to know what snow is," he said."...


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Yankee Old Timers line up before game
















6/23/13, Old Timers line up before game, nydn

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Yogi and Whitey at 2013 Yankee Old Timers Day, Evan Longoria chats with Yogi






6/23/13, Hall of Famers Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford at Yankee Old Timers Day, ap










6/23/13, Tampa Bay Rays Evan Longoria chats with Yogi Berra at Yankee Old Timers Day, ap










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Sunday, June 23, 2013

Rich people with fancy enough lawyers have no problem getting pig Bloomberg to move his bikes. Normal people who go through normal channels have no chance to get pig billionaire Bloomberg to move his bikes

Term limits were invented to protect normal human beings from pigs like Bloomberg. Bloomberg did his deals to get the law changed so he could get 4 extra years. His very personal aggression against ordinary people is sick.
 
6/23/13, "City moves Citi Bike stations from richest areas while letting other contested racks stay," 
NY Post, by Kate Briquelet

"It takes a lot of green to get rid of the blue bikes. The city has quietly removed at least 10 Citi Bike stations since May, The Post has learned — including racks at Barry Diller’s IAC Building in Chelsea, a Midtown East condo that’s home to millionaires and a West Soho co-op where a “Mad Men” star lives.

Some stations were moved after legal threats and neighborhood petitions arose, but others were relocated with a simple phone call from a power broker to the right bureaucrat. 

“I’ve been disappointed to see Citi Bike stations moved in wealthier neighborhoods,” said attorney Jim Walden. “You would think [the city] would want to avoid even the appearance that struggling artists would be treated differently than highfalutin financiers.”

Walden filed an injunction last week on behalf of community groups that for months have been fighting the city’s most controversial bike-share station at Soho’s Petrosino Square.

Soho residents collected 600 petition signatures and 132 letters to the city Department of Transportation. Elected officials, the community board and the city Parks Department also asked the city to relocate the rack — but the city hasn’t budged the bikes. 

Activists also couldn’t sway the DOT to relocate a 40-bike station at Liberty Street and Broadway, where five food carts used to park and serve an office at 140 Broadway.

Vendors held a protest and received a letter of support from Councilwoman Margaret Chin, but the DOT shot them down.

“They ignored us, basically,” said Sean Basinski, director of the Street Vendor Project at the Urban Justice Center. “It seems like a lot of the fancy rich people in condos got them moved, but the immigrant street vendors had no luck.”

On the Lower East Side, more than 1,000 people signed a petition to remove a station outside Frank’s Bike Shop, to no avail. Residents said the rack threatens the Grand Street business, which rents bikes to tourists.

Yet The Post counted 10 racks that were moved before or just after the program launched on Memorial Day.

Manhattan attorney Steven Sladkus said he helped to block three Citi Bike stations alone.

He said that in each case, he was on his way to file court papers when the DOT called him and relented at the last minute.

“I can guarantee you won’t see a Citi Bike rack in front of Mayor Bloomberg’s town house” when the program expands north of 59th Street, Sladkus said. “Maybe the same [courtesy] should have been given to all other property owners in the city.”

Sladkus sued the city on behalf of the Milan Condominium at East 55th Street and Second Avenue, pushing the DOT to move the 29-bike station elsewhere.

The 31-story luxury tower — where a three-bedroom, three-bath pad goes for $3.7 million — is home to real-estate moguls Rotem Rosen and Zina Sapir-Rosen. Their penthouse was reportedly used as a set for the upcoming Martin Scorsese film “The Wolf of Wall Street.”

Sladkus also successfully represented a Midtown West office building and a residential building near Carnegie Hall but wouldn’t reveal his clients.

Twitter users reported on June 1 that one 55-bike station in front of a 23-story office building on Eighth Avenue moved from West 35th Street to the James Farley Post Office two blocks away.

In fact, for some, moving bike stations seemed quite easy.

A rack was moved from the Frank Gehry-designed IAC Building at West 18th Street and 11th Avenue after managers reached out to the DOT, an IAC spokeswoman said.

The property is the corporate headquarters for media mogul Diller, who throws star-studded parties inside the swanky lobby.

The IAC rep said the station was pushed across the street days before the program’s launch because of safety concerns with the M14 bus, which enters the block from West Street. But a building worker said it also got in the way of celebrity receptions.

In West Soho, residents of a Spring Street co-op that’s home to “Mad Men” actor John Slattery told the DOT a rack was too big for narrow, one-way Renwick Street. The agency obliged.

The DOT didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Well-heeled addresses where Citi Bike stations were moved or partially removed:
 
* IAC Building, 550 W. 18th St. — Moved from Barry Diller’s company headquarters to parking lot across the street
* Condos, 83 Barrow St. — Moved from southeast corner of Barrow and Hudson to the northwest corner
* Office building, 494 Eighth Ave. — Moved from south side of West 35th to West 33rd Street and Eighth Avenue
* Condos, 99 Bank St. — Partially removed from the building’s entrance
* Condos, 300 E. 55th St. — Removed altogether
* Condos, 60 Remsen St., Brooklyn — Moved to Hicks Street, just north of Remsen, in front of Dellarocco’s restaurant
* Condos, 304 Spring St. — Removed altogether
* Condos, 175 W. 13th St. — removed
* Town houses at 493 W. 22nd St. — Moved from north side of street to south side in front of Clement Clark Moore Park
* Condos near West 57th St. and Seventh Avenue — Rack near Carnegie Hall cut from map before installation."






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Saturday, June 22, 2013

'Soup Nazi' rolling out fleet of food trucks

6/22/13, "'Soup Nazi' whose broth inspired 'Seinfeld' humor is rolling out a fleet of food trucks," NY Post, Beasley, Cacares

"The “Soup Nazi” is hitting the road! The company whose broth inspired the “Seinfeld” totalitarian soup-slinger is expanding with a fleet of food trucks.
Original SoupMan is shilling franchise rights to roll out its famous recipes in a fleet of trucks nationwide — and hopes to have 80 to 100 new ones across the country by next year.

Rights to roll a truck cost $15,000 — and leasing the vehicle, which is plastered with the face of founder, and original soup nut, Al Yeganeh, will run you another $85,000.

Yeganeh inspired the legendary 1995 “Seinfeld” episode, which lampooned the owner’s strict rules about ordering. He would famously decree: “No soup for you!” to anyone who did not order in a manner to his liking.

Yeganeh, who banned Jerry Seinfeld from his West 55th Street shop for imitating him, is still in charge of the recipes and gets royalties from every cup of soup, said Lloyd Sugarman, the company’s CEO.

“He makes all the soups. He’s a soup genius,” Sugarman said.

“There’s nothing that comes in without his approval. He’s still very protective of his recipes. He gets the royalties on all soups . . . and makes money on every box of soup sold in stores.”

Four percent of each truck’s weekly gross sales goes to the SoupMan company. The franchisee buys its soup products from the company and buys other products from distributors of their choice.

“You don’t have to do anything except get out there and go to work,” said Sugarman.

Each truck will serve six varieties of soup. The company also is looking to expand overseas and is working on a deal to expand with Franchise Development Services.

In a case of life imitating art, there’s an ongoing bankruptcy fight between the current owners of “The Original SoupMan” chain and the creditors of the bankrupt Soup Kitchen International, the operation that first owned the Yeganeh trademark." image NY Post, Javits center display



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Fan who tried to sell Washington National tickets at face value arrested and put in jail in DC

6/21/13, "Welcome, baseball fan. Go directly to jail." Washington Post, Joe Carr

"As we drove off in a squad car, me in handcuffs and without my shoelaces and belt, the officer explained how I could have avoided my fate (if I hadn’t put a price on the tickets or if I had stood 15 feet further off the street). He told me that scalping at a Taylor Swift concert at Verizon Center in May was so bad that the powers that be had mandated a zero tolerance on ticket resale. He (my buddy now) said that he felt bad but explained that he had “no discretion” regarding whether to arrest me.
I begged to differ, and he (no longer my buddy) said that I could go along without a fuss or I could wait until Monday to see a judge. Of course, that would necessitate my being sent “downtown.” He informed me that I would not like it downtown.

So I shut up and went to jail. I sat in a cell for 2½ hours, stood for a mug shot, got fingerprinted, paid 50 bucks and was released. In the grand scheme of things, my travails were minor to all but me. But when that cell door slams shut, the world becomes a different place.

I broke a law. Guilty. But what purpose was served by my arrest? It didn’t make any financial sense. I am certain that the costs of my arrest, transport and processing had to be many multiples of the $50 I paid. Does the District have a massive budget surplus it needs to spend down?"...via Drudge

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Fan at the Stadium catches Vernon Wells 3 run grounds rule double











6/22/13, Vernon Wells' pinch hit three-run grounds rule double bounces into the hands of a fan in the 7th inning as Rays Sam Fuld watches, final 7-5 Yankees, star ledger, munson

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Mayor Bloomberg's personal, tax-exempt group, 'Mayors Against Illegal Guns' operates from a NY City government IP address

6/21/13, "Is Michael Bloomberg Using City Resources For His "Mayors Against Illegal Guns" Group?" Ace of Spades, John E.

"I really hate doing the question headline, but this definitely needs answering. I started poking around last night.

At first I pinged mayorsagainstillegalguns.org and found that it was resolving at a New York City government IP address.

Pinging NYC.gov returns the same information.

It turns out I didn't even have to look that closely, because the mayorsagainstillegalguns.org domain is registered to the city of New York.

As you can see there, the registrant name is "NYC DoITT", which is the New York City Department of Information Technology & Telecommunications.

According to this, Mayors Against Illegal Guns appears to be a 501(c)(4).

Bloomberg's group, a social welfare organization set up under section 501(c)4 of the tax code, is the first to comply with a U.S. District Court ruling requiring such organizations, which normally keep their donors secret, to disclose them if they run issue ads that mention federal candidates. The case, Van Hollen v. Federal Election Commission, was settled March 30, 2012.
The action fund arm of MAIG is a 501(c)(3).

Even if MAIG is reimbursing the city for these services, questions would still remain. Like, would New York City offer these same services to NYCTeaParty4Eva.org? Section 1072(p) of the city's charter on information technology appears to give the Mayor a little leeway, but I can't imagine it would cover his personal nonprofit groups.

"p. to perform such other responsibilities with respect to information technology and telecommunications matters, including responsibilities delegated elsewhere by the charter, as the mayor shall direct."

Another Bloomberg group, Renew Our Economy, has their domain registered to Mayors Against Illegal Guns. This is all a bit of a mess, which shouldn't surprise anyone at this point.
At best, this is really sloppy. At worst, this could be pretty serious. We'll see what develops." via Hot Air

=========================

6/21/13, "Why is the website of Bloomberg’s anti-gun group housed on New York City servers?" Hot Air, Allahpundit

"Is MAIG getting some sort of break on the cost by parking itself at NYC instead of elsewhere? If so, has the City Council authorized that or did Bloomberg decide unilaterally that it’d be okay because he said so?

Even if the city’s being reimbursed at full cost, MAIG’s getting an opportunity for city-provided hosting that other advocacy groups (particularly pro-gun groups) would surely never have. Which is not to suggest that this is some inescapable problem for Bloomy: The Council will, I’m sure, happily appropriate whatever money’s needed as a grant in order to cover the group’s server costs and maybe pay for the next valediction for Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a victim of gun violence. But I’m curious to know if Bloomberg even tried to do this through proper channels or if he just told his group to go ahead and set up shop there and not worry about it. We’ll see."

=========================

When I typed 'Renew our Economy' (referenced in top post) in google, "RenewOurEconomy.org" came up which is an open borders, pro-amnesty group co-chaired by Michael Bloomberg and Rupert Murdoch.

========================

The Nation notes NY's weak Conflicts of Interest Board has always let Bloomberg do his thing:

2/10/11, "How Bloomberg Does Business," The Nation, Aram Roston

"Though Bloomberg doesn’t run the day-to-day affairs of Bloomberg LP, he still owns almost all the shares, handpicks the firm’s managers, talks with them as much as he feels he needs to, and therefore imposes his own will on the firm when he likes. (New York’s ineffectual Conflicts of Interest Board limited but never fully defined the mayor’s role at the company he founded: the board allows him to “maintain the type of involvement that he believes is consistent with his being the majority shareholder.”)...

Given Bloomberg’s push for a national platform, any intersections between his corporation’s interests and the government warrant scrutiny. And Bloomberg LP runs an effective and sophisticated lobbying shop to promote the firm’s interests with federal agencies and Congress.

It’s striking how, in a fully synergistic Bloomberg style,

a news organization,
a financial information company and
a team of lobbyists 


often seem to be working in smooth concert."...







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Friday, June 21, 2013

Zoilo Almonte gets first John Sterling home run call. Updated, 5/17/14

5/17/14, Zoilo Almonte gets second John Sterling home run call

----------------------------------------

6/21/13, Zoilo Almonte hits first Yankee and ML home run in bottom of 6th, Yankees v Tampa Bay Rays. This is John Sterling's tag (confirmed):

"You know what Tampa is saying...curses, "Zoiled" again....Zoilo Almonte hits his first major league home run..."








6/21/13, Almonte curtain call, final 6-2 Yankees, McIsaac/Getty
















6/21/13, Zoilo Almonte curtain call, getty






6/21/13, Almonte greeted in dugout by Cano and others after first home run. final 6-2 Yankees, ap





 








6/23/13, Almonte hits double v Tampa Bay Rays, final 3-1 Tampa Bay, getty

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NY Times Bats blog among those expected to be eliminated

6/18/13, "Which blogs stay and which go at 'The New York Times'?" CapitalNewYork.com, Joe Pompeo

"Over the past four months, the Times has announced the shuttering of its Green blog, Media Decoder and The Choice, which covered college admissions and financial aid. Additionally, Capital has learned that a decision has been made to pull the plug on most, if not all of the Times' sports blogs, which include Bats (baseball), Straight Sets (tennis), Slap Shot (hockey), The Rail (horse-racing) and Off the Dribble (basketball), although each of those appeared to still be publishing content at this writing."...via Legal Insurrection

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Fan in St. Louis catches Cubs home run ball Cardinals center fielder was trying for











6/20/13, "St. Louis Cardinals center fielder Jon Jay leaps at the wall as a fan catches a home run ball hit by Chicago Cubs' Welington Castillo in the third inning," final 6-1 Cardinals, ap

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Thursday, June 20, 2013

Bloomberg NY City bike scam depends on fossil fueled trucks to transport bikes to and from commercial areas and residential neighborhoods every day in prime heavy traffic, gas must be purchased to fuel trucks, drivers must be paid, 'significant ongoing expense'

6/19/13, "Citibike: A victim of its own success," Reuters blogs, Felix Salmon

"New York's CitiBike [fossil fueled] trucks are going to have to be much more active during the day, and

especially during the mornings, shuttling bikes back to residential neighborhoods from commercial areas like Rockefeller Center

where the bike racks fill up early on. That kind of thing is a significant ongoing expense, and it's unclear to what degree it's built into the CitiBike budget."...(3rd parag. fr. end) via Tom Nelson

=============================

March 2011, "The Bloomberg Bubble Bursts" Commentary, Siegel and Stern

"Due to the structure of the city charter, the mayor has almost complete control of the streets. ...In Manhattan and Brooklyn, Bloomberg decreed the installation of bicycle lanes on many of the city’s heavily traveled commercial avenues. Little-used and aesthetically unsightly, the Manhattan bike lanes are so important to the mayor’s vision for the city that they were shoveled clean even as the streets of the outer boroughs were buried in the Christmas storm. Throughout the city, the lanes have made it more difficult to park, made the streets more congested, and made life miserable for truck drivers and delivery services that had to double park 20 feet from the curb to complete their rounds.

These undeniable realities do not seem to matter to a mayor who seems to enjoy imposing change on the city whether it is warranted or not."...

============================

Comment: Who paid costs of cement, construction materials and union labor to block off miles of prime Manhattan avenues from car access and reserve them for bikes? Are these items on documents taxpayers can see now since Bloomberg will be gone in a few months? Costs are more than just bikes, racks, and software that were "free" to New Yorkers, per Bloomberg.






Bike Shock troops in Europe leave no room for evil cars and industrial civilization, which is the point.. More bikes in Amsterdam than people. NY Times photo, 6/20/13

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Wednesday, June 19, 2013

James Gandolfini dies in Italy at age 51







6/19/13, "James Gandolfini dead at 51: 'Sopranos' star suffers massive heart attack in Italy," NY Daily News

image, Gandolfini in "Get Shorty," 1995

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Meeting on the mound ahead of Dodgers-Yankees










6/19/13, "Yankees bench coach Tony Pena and Dodgers manager Don Mattingly meet with umpires before the game as the Los Angeles Dodgers visit the New York Yankees," final 6-4 Yankees, star-ledger, munson

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Colorado is an 'arsonist's dream come true,' though Al Qaeda recommends starting fires in Montana because many people live in wooded areas there

Al Qaeda magazine recommends starting fires in Montana because lots of people live in wooded areas there.

6/17/13, "Fire Wars – Forest Jihad in America," Algemeiner.com, Rachel Ehrenfeld

"American focus on the NSA “leaks” diverts attention from real existential threats and economic devastation that for now affects mostly the West....

As of Saturday afternoon, June 15, the apparent arson that set Colorado’s Black Forest on fire last Tuesday killed at least two people and destroyed and damaged more than 388 homes. The fire that burned 15,500 acres led to the evacuation of 38,000 people. The six-hour delay of federal air tankers to help extinguish the fast spreading fire didn’t help. All the while, local law enforcement and firefighters have been collecting whatever evidence they can find to identify the arsonist(s).

Bill Scott,  a senior fellow at ACD, warned about such a scenario last July, speaking at the ACD/EWI Economic Threats briefing on Capital Hill. An expert on aerial firefighting, he presented a sobering analysis of the devastating Waldo Canyon Fire, pointing out that  the striking rise Western U.S. wildfires may be caused by elements other than nature.

He noted that in spring 2012, al-Qaeda’s English-language online magazine, Inspire, published an article called “It Is of Your Freedom to Ignite a Firebomb,” which featured instructions on how to build an incendiary bomb to light forests on fire.

A few months later, Russia’s security (FSB) chief, Aleksandr Bortnikov warned”al-Qaeda was complicit in recent forest fires in Europeas part of the terrorists’ “strategy of a thousand cuts.”

Bortnikov spoke of “extremist sites [that] contained detailed instructions of waging the ‘forest jihad’ and stressed that such a method had proved itself effective as it inflicted both physical and moral damage, needed little training or investment and it was extremely hard for police to find and apprehend the arsonists.”

Since then, more fatwas advocating thatFire is cheap, easy and effective tool for economic warfare” have been issued. They’ve included detailed instructions for constructing remote-controlled “ember bombs, and how to set fires without leaving a trace.”

Fire wars are not limited to Europe and the U.SPalestinan jihadists have been setting fire to Israel’s modest forests for many years. However, political correctness seems to override Israeli and Russian warnings of that jihadist modus operandi. How many Tzarnaevs are hiding in Colorado’s woods?

While many of the fires that have scorched millions of acres and destroyed thousands of homes in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and other states have been identified as arson, none have been publicly attributed to criminal or terrorist groups, despite the presence of Mexican gangs and large number of other illegals in our Western states.

Bill Scott’s “Fire Wars” presentation on YouTube led several Colorado legislators to propose a bill to allow the formation of Colorado’s Firefighting Air Corps. “In military terms, Colorado is a target-rich environment – an arsonist’s dream-come-true, and the U.S. Forest Service’s worst nightmare,” Scott said while giving a riveting testimony before the state Senate a few months ago....

Indeed, a state firefighting airforce would make Colorado independent of the cash-strapped, dysfunctional federal land-management agency, reducing the response time from six hours to 20 minutes. Colorado’s Senate Bill 245 was reluctantly approved last April by the Democratic majority; however, it refused to allocate the funds necessary to buy the air tankers. It was signed into law last week by Colorado’s Governor John Hickenlooper....

There is little that can be done to prevent hurricane destruction. However, states, as well as the federal government, could and should more to do to minimize the effects of man-made forest fires.

NOTE: As this goes to print, we learned that the winds changed and that the Black Forest fire is now 45 percent contained. However, this may not be over. Change in the wind could spark the embers and ignite new fires." via Atlas Shrugs

==========================

Comment: Wildfire terrorism is openly advocated and reported around the world. It provides the most damage for the least cost. There's little chance of being caught because political correctness forbids mention of Muslim connections to such crimes.

Economic damage has always been their #1 goal. Extra economic damage is exacted when these fires are used by global warming profiteers from US presidents on down as "proof" of global warming which can be be cured if US taxpayers pay trillions more. ClimateGate scientist Phil Jones even suggested inventing scary fire news when trying to overcome global warming skepticism per his 9/6/2007 email. "Make more out of the Greek fires" even though "some may have been started deliberately."

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9/26/11, "Obama Suggests Global Warming Caused Texas Wildfires," sayanythingblog.com

"“You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire denying climate change,” the obvious implication being that “climate change” caused the wildfires."...

Arson and Texas fires:

9/7/11, "Wildfires Still Raging In Texas, Arson Suspected In One, Two More Deaths," NPR, Mark Memmott

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The other problem is the US has a depleted federal air tanker fleet and a bureaucracy that kills. The federal government and apparently even the state of Colorado exhibit a lack of urgency in fighting fires. 

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Al Qaeda magazine recommends starting fires in Montana because there are lots of people in its wooded areas: 

5/2/12, "Al Qaeda Magazine Calls for Firebomb Campaign in US," ABC News, R. Kreider

""Inspire" magazine...continues to promote jihadi attacks on Western targets, offering detailed advice on how to start huge forest fires in America with timed explosives and how to build remote-controlled bombs....

But issue nine carries equally lethal advice, with "It Is of Your Freedom to Ignite a Firebomb," which gives detailed instructions on how to ignite an "ember bomb" in a U.S. forest, recommending Montana because of the rapid population growth in wooded areas.

"In America, there are more houses built in the [countryside] than in the cities," says the writer, who uses the pseudonym The AQ Chef. "It is difficult to choose a better place [than] in the valleys of Montana." 

Issue eight has an eight-page article on how to construct remote-controlled explosives, with a laundry list of parts and ingredients and photos showing proper assembly."...

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July/August 2011, "Terrorists in the Woods," Wildfire Magazine, Dick Mangan

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Politicians and fires:

A June 4, 2012 Colorado fire wasn't reported to feds until June 9. Then congress had to be consulted:

6/16/12, "Wildfire destroys most homes in Colo. history," AP via CBS News 

The fire was started by lightning on June 4 but not reported to feds until June 9. Part of it is on federal forest land so the federal government had to be consulted. Then the Obama official decided congress had to be consulted. All this while fires continued. "Vilsack praised Congress for allowing the government to contract additional aircraft — particularly heavy tankers — to fight wildfires across the West." Our fire fighting air fleet had dwindled to almost nothing yet Obama canceled a fleet of 6 or 7 able tankers in 2011 knowing they were badly needed. The GOP apparently fine with it.

"Meanwhile in New Mexico, questions were being raised about whether bureaucratic red tape prevented firefighters from saving more homes affected by the Little Bear Fire after federal officials released transcripts of the firefighters' response."...

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9/7/11, "Contract Dispute Grounds Firefighting Planes," Human Events, Audrey Hudson

"Nearly half of the federal government’s firefighting air tankers are siting idle at a California airport, grounded by the Obama administration in a contract dispute just weeks before wildfires swept through Texas killing a mother and her child, and destroying 100,000 acres."...

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6/5/12, "Politician should check her research," Las Vegas Sun, Letter to the Editor, Sanford Cohen, Prescott, Ariz.

"On the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, where thinning is practiced, the tribal lands are in far better shape."

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Man who accidentally started forest fire couldn't report it for awhile because there was no cell phone reception in the area:

5/19/12, "Feds say Colorado wildfire started on camp stove," AP

"There is no cell phone service in the area where the fire started....Hundreds of firefighters are battling a blaze fueled by warm, dry weather in northern Colorado that federal officials say started with a camp stove."...

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8/24/11, "Feds charge 2 in devastating Wallow fire," AP, East Valley Tribune

"Federal charges have been filed against two cousins accused of accidentally causing the largest forest fire in Arizona's history by leaving a campfire unattended. The U.S. attorney's office on Wednesday announced the charges against Caleb Joshua Malboeuf, 26, of Benson and David Wayne Malboeuf, 24, of Tucson.

The U.S. Forest Service said its investigators determined the men were camping in the Apache Sitgreaves National Forest when the fire began there May 29. The agency said the two were out hiking when their campfire spread outside its fire ring in high winds....

The men each face five counts, including leaving a fire unattended and failing to maintain control of a fire that damaged a National Forest System....

Winds whipped the Wallow fire as it burned more than 538,000 acres in eastern Arizona and parts of western New Mexico, destroying 32 homes, four commercial structures and 36 outbuildings....

Monsoon rains eventually put out the flames."...

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Politicians allowed the federal firefighting force to go from bad to worse: 

6/20/12, "How Obama Bureaucrats Fueled Western Wildfires," Michelle Malkin, Townhall.com, Colorado Springs, Colorado

"The smell of singed air here is inescapable. Less than 50 miles west of my neighborhood, the latest wildfire has spread across 1,100 acres....

Ten years ago, the feds had a fleet of 44 firefighting planes. Today, the number is down to nine for the entire country. Last summer, Obama's National Forest Service canceled a key federal contract with Sacramento-based Aero Union just as last season's wildfires were raging. Aero Union had supplied eight vital air tankers to Washington's dwindling aerial firefighting fleet. Two weeks later, the company closed down, and 60 employees lost their jobs. Aero Union had been a leader in the business for a half-century.

Why were they grounded? National Forest Service bureaucrats and some media accounts cite "safety" concerns. But as California GOP Rep. Dan Lungren noted in a letter obtained by reporter Audrey Hudson of the conservative D.C. newspaper Human Events last year, a Federal Aviation Administration representative said it was a contractual/compliance matter, not safety, that doomed Aero Union's fleet....

Nine months after Lungren's warning, the deadly High Park fire in Larimer County, Colo., claimed a grandmother's life, destroyed 189 homes and scorched nearly 60,000 acres. Arizona, New Mexico, Washington and Wyoming also have battled infernos this summer.

After months of dire red flags from a diverse group of politicians ranging from Texas GOP Gov. Rick Perry and Arizona GOP Sen. Jon Kyl to Oregon Democratic Sen. Ron Wyden and New Mexico Democratic Sen. Jeff Bingaman, President Obama finally signed emergency legislation last week to expedite the contracting process. Obama will borrow planes from Canada and provide $24 million for new aerial tanker contracts.

But the money won't come until next year, and the dog-and-pony rescue moves will not result in any immediate relief. "It's nice, but this problem isn't fixed with a stroke of the pen," former Forest Service official and bomber pilot Tony Kern told the Denver Post this week. "You need to have the airplanes available now." Veteran wildland firefighter and blogger Bill Gabbert of WildfireToday.com adds: "The USFS should have awarded contracts for at least 20 additional air tankers, not 7.""...

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An arsonist from a 2003 California fire was caught and given the death penalty:

1/28/13, "Arsonist gets death for Calif. fire that killed 5," AP 

"An arsonist was given the death penalty Monday for killing five men who died of heart attacks during a wildfire nearly a decade ago that ripped through the hills east of Los Angeles. Rickie Lee Fowler, 31, was convicted in August of five counts of first-degree murder and two counts of arson. A jury later recommended the death sentence.

Prosecutors said Fowler lit the fire in October 2003 out of rage after he was thrown out of a house where his family was staying."...
 
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10/3/12, "Al-Qaeda blamed for Europe-wide forest fires," UK Telegraph

"Al-Qaeda has been blamed for a recent series of forest fires across Europe, as the head of Russia's Federal Security Service claimed they were set by arsonists as part of the group's low-cost attack strategy."  

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"The destruction of the U.S. economy as the surest way to bring down the United States"....

12/27/2001, "In latest tape, bin Laden targets U.S. economy," AP via Seattle PI, Tarek Issaw, Dubai, UAE

"The world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, appeared in a videotape yesterday, calling for the destruction of the U.S. economy as the surest way to bring down the United States....

"This economic hemorrhaging continues until today, but requires more blows. And the youth should try to find the joints of the American economy and hit the enemy in these joints, with God's permission."

In an apparent appeal to Muslim youths, bin Laden repeatedly referred to the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks Sept. 11 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as martyrs. He said they  
"struck deep in the heart of America's economy.""...

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"It is important to concentrate on the destruction of the American economy.

12/28/2001, "New video offers few clues for U.S. search," Chicago Tribune, by Jill Zuckman, Tribune staff reporter

"The 34-minute tape, broadcast by the Qatar-based Al Jazeera satellite television channel, was quickly condemned as "terrorist propaganda" by the White House and snubbed by television networks, which said they did not want to risk sending coded messages to bin Laden sympathizers....
  
"It is important to concentrate on the destruction of the American economy," bin Laden said in the video, taped in an undisclosed location....

"This economic hemorrhaging continues until today, but requires more blows. And the youth should try to find the joints of the American economy and hit the enemy in these joints, with God's permission.

In an attempt to appeal to Muslim youths, bin Laden repeatedly referred to the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attacks as martyrs who "struck deep in the heart of America's economy." He called them "just 19 high school students--may God accept them as martyrs--who shook America.""

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12/12/2010, "The Target of the Terrorists Has Always Been Our Economy," American Thinker, T.L. Davis


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Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Dodgers at Yankees postponed by rain, doubleheader tomorrow


















6/18/13, "NYPD officer Angel Maysonet stands on the field in the rain prior to the game between the New York Yankees and the Los Angeles Dodgers," to be made up by day-night doubleheader Wed., June 19, getty

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