Let It Snow, But Clean It Up

The Fog of News
At this point most of us have become familiar with “the fog of war”. It’s been interesting today to watch the fog of news reporting about the Assassination attempt in Arizona. This post isn’t about what happened, or why. It’s about how it was reported. There was a while in there, the first couple of hours, where all we knew was that something really bad had happened. Then NPR started running news updates with more solid information. When everyone else was just repor...

Mayor Bloomberg's NYC Civil Service Overhaul Plan: Hot Or Not? (Not, Says AFL-CIO Boss)
Mayor Bloomberg's NYC Civil Service Overhaul Plan: Hot Or Not? (Not, Says AFL-CIO Boss) The Bloomberg Administration is out with a wide-ranging plan on how to revamp the city's civil service system, and (hold on to your seat), the president of the AFL-CIO doesn't like it. "We have the best Workforce in the world, but the civil service is so antiquated that it prevents them from performing up to their abilities, costs Taxpayers millions of dollars in unnecessary expenditures, a...

Video: Giuliani Criticizes Bloomberg On Snow Removal
When he wasn't not denying his morbid fascination with making a second presidential bid, Rudy Giuliani spent much of his time on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning criticizing Mayor Bloomberg for the city's poor response to the Blizzageddon, calling it a "big mistake." (You can see the video below) Though he says at the offset that the overwhelming criticism of Bloomberg (which has destroyed his Approval Ratings) was "overdone," he spends over four minutes listing various problems with Bloomberg...

Labor Leaders Angry Over Proposed Civil Service Changes
NEW YORK (1010 WINS) — City union leaders are up in arms over Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s campaign to change the state’s century-old civil service system. A task force appointed by Bloomberg concluded that civil service examinations should not be required in the hiring of senior managers and IT specialists, saying the tests precluded the flexibility to hire the best people for the job. In addition, the task force recommended changes to seniority rules, which some Labor Leaders ch...

Hurricane Katrina sanctuary 'Canadaville' closing its doors
Sheldon Alberts, Washington Correspondent, Postmedia News · Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011 WASHINGTON — Growing up in the suburbs of New Orleans, Tonya Nelson never imagined she’d one day be living in woods of rural Louisiana — putting her kids on a School Bus to town each morning and trying her hand at organic farming in the afternoon. But the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina, and the Philanthropy of Canadian businessman Frank Stronach, changed everything in Ms. Nelson’s life. ...

A decade full of surprises
This year, 2011, marks the beginning of a brand new decade. If you think only predictable events lie ahead, take a deep breath and look back at what the just-ended decennium held in store. Then think back, remembering yourself, all of us, as we celebrated the start of a new decade 10 years ago. Weren't we all quaintly naïve? If anyone had predicted that men blinded by religious zealotry would crash passenger planes into tall buildings, even smash into the Pentagon, presumably one of the be...

Cuomo faulted over ag post
CAPE VINCENT — Some opponents of commercial Wind Farms believe Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo spurned his ethical-government campaign promises in appointing Darrel J. Aubertine to the state's top agriculture post. Mr. Aubertine's nomination as commissioner of the Department of Agriculture and Markets was announced Thursday. Then-Assemblyman Aubertine raised a stir among wind-power opponents in June 2006, when he wrote to the Cape Vincent Town Council urging Council Members who had agreemen...

Council Critics Praise Today's Snow Preparations
Mayor Bloomberg is earning better reviews for today's Snow Removal after a sluggish effort last week prompted widespread and often fierce criticism. A lighter Snowfall ensured a much easier cleanup—the Weather Channel estimates that New Yorkers ended up slogging through a little over two inches of snow—but the city, eager to appear vigilant, had prepared a robust response for any amount of snow. Queens Councilman Dan Halloran, who last week told the New York Post that sanitation wo...

Council Critics Praise Todays Snow Preparations
Mayor Bloomberg is earning better reviews for today's Snow Removal after a sluggish effort last week prompted widespread and often fierce criticism. A lighter Snowfall ensured a much easier cleanup--the (Read more...) ...

Team Big
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. Big Labor and Big Business are teaming up to protect Big Government. As Greg Sargent put it yesterday, in describing the budding alliance between the AFL-CIO and the Chamber of Commerce: "The two groups rarely agree on anything, and frequently target each other in the harshest of terms, but one thing they agree on is that they don't want the House GOP to make good on its threat to subject highway and mass-transit programs to Budget ...

CRONY CAPITALISM: Big Labor and Big Business are teaming up to protect Big Government. This is
CRONY Capitalism: “Big Labor and Big Business are teaming up to protect Big Government.” “This is a golden opportunity for Republican lawmakers and the 2012 contenders. Independent voters mistrust both government and Wall Street, and the sight of those entities in cahoots with Organized Labor should alarm them as well as Tea Partyers.” ...

Montgomery teacher pensions unrivaled in state
Montgomery County school employees are banking Pensions that dwarf those awarded to teachers across Maryland, an arrangement crafted to recruit top talent that is now wreaking havoc on the suburb's Balance Sheet. Relieved county leaders welcomed Gov. Martin O'Malley's announcement that he would not pass pension costs onto counties this year, but Montgomery Taxpayers still foot more of the bill for teacher Retirement than anywhere else in the state. Montgomery will devote more than $62 million t...

Who's to blame here? (The old accountability problem.)
Let me get this straight.  The State Department, our government -- over a period of years, maybe decades -- has been careless with classified information.  Some of that information was allowed to another government (Military) employee who found it interesting enough to turn it over to the media.   Our definition of "media" these days  includes anything from the august grey lady in New York to websites like "Wikileaks" to inane upstarts like Twi...

Pension crisis introduces unions to new realities
By Robert Holland and Don Soifer Brother, can you spare $3.6 Trillion? Currently in the United States, state and Local Government employees' Pension and Retiree health-benefit plans are under water to the tune of some $3.6 trillion, according to researchers at Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. With government workers now comprising more than half of labor union membership in the United States, the priorities of current union leadership may be more at odds with those of aver...

Jerry Brown tries to sell optimism to a battered state
With a muted flourish in tune with the troubled times, Jerry Brown became Governor again last week and proved that everything old really can be new again. In a Speech delivered in Sacramento's Memorial Auditorium, he was thoughtful and optimistic, even elegant — traits not always in evidence in his decades in public life. He spoke movingly about his family's long history in the state and closed with a well-received line from the old Al Jolson song: "California here I come, right back whe...

Austin gay divorce upheld
Gay Divorce seekers are one for two in the state of Texas. Over the objections of state Attorney General Greg Abbott, an Austin Appellate Court has upheld the Divorce of a Lesbian Couple married in Massachusetts. When a lower court granted their Divorce in February of last year, Abbott’s office filed a petition to intervene in the case. The 3rd Court of Appeals has now declined that request on procedural grounds, leaving the Divorce intact. The court found that Abbott lacked standing to...

Dog-loving millionaire left fortune to Scottish charity
Fifty-four days ago, a lonely old man put a gun to his head and set off a mystery. He fell to the floor in his closet, where his only two friends would find him later. No obituary ran for William Roberts Lindsay. There were no services. His body was cremated and arrangements he had planned well in advance were begun. His barber, Elton Marvin, who owns a shop on East Sahara Avenue, would get his beloved dog, a pug named Midget. His other friend, a former neighbor, UNLV chemistry Professor Vernon ...

Bloomberg Really Making It Seem Like He Was Doing Something Embarrassing Over Blizzard Weekend
Mayor Bloomberg is still refusing to account for his whereabouts during crucial hours after the tsnownami hit New York City on Christmas weekend and got quite a bit testy about it at yesterday's news conference, WNYC reports: Reporter: “Why don’t you say when you’re out of town?” Bloomberg: “There’s no reason to.” The mayor also said he has a right to a private life. The mind races! Bloomberg not disclosing his whereabouts [WNYC] ...

Light snow dusts blizzard-weary N.Y. City
NEW YORK (AP) — Snow began dusting the city Friday, less than two weeks after a post-Christmas blizzard paralyzed the city and its airports for days. Reeling from criticism over a slow cleanup, officials put GPS devices on sanitation trucks and quality-of-life teams on the streets and promised to do a better job. By midday, the National Weather Service reported about 1 inch of snow had fallen in The Bronx — a far cry from the 20-inch holiday storm. "We have our plows positioned in all...

Egypt Threatens NYC/Bloomberg Removal of Cleopatra's Needle
Since 1881, the obelisk known as Cleopatra's Needle has stood in New York's Central Park, but a letter from the Secretary General of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities indicates that this may change if the monument is not taken better care of. Recently, Zahi Hawass, the aforementioned Secretary General and archaeologist, wrote to the Central Park Conservancy and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to inform them that if steps are not taken to prot...

Contrite Bloomberg Out To Change Public Perception
NEW YORK (CBS 2) — Friday’s storm was nothing like the blizzard that paralyzed the city, but Mayor Michael Bloomberg was determined to show people he can learn from his mistakes and that he can’t be “snowed” twice in two weeks. CBS 2’s Marcia Kramer reports on the tale of two snow storms. It was barely snowing in Bensonhurst on 18th Avenue on Friday when a salt spreader passed by the Moose Lodge senior center just minutes before Bloomberg was due to show up. O...

Where's Mayor Bloomberg When You Need Him? Major Waterway Clogged With... Fat
I'm guessing Mayor Bloomberg is too distracted regulating salt and soft drinks to worry about this disaster in Houston. Texas authorities were forced to close part of the Houston Ship Channel Tuesday after 250,000 gallons of beef fat spewed out of a shore-based storage tank. That's right — what you see isn't ice — it's gelatinized beef fat. Approximately 15,000 pounds (or 250,000 gallons) of the animal fat spilled into the Houston Ship Channel this week out of a tank owned by agricul...

NYC Mayor Bloombergs approval ratings plummets over snow response
Guess what, it’s snowing again in New York. Mayor Michael Bloomberg is aware of the fact, and this time he is ready. Unfortunately for the mayor, his efforts may be too little, too late. The National Weather Service is calling for 6 inches or less to blanket the metropolitan area, which means Bloomberg won’t have a chance to demonstrate his preparedness, which includes GPS devices on 50 sanitation trucks in Brooklyn—one of the hardest hit boroughs in the blizzard of two weeks a...

SNL: Mayor Bloomberg Guides You Through The Blizzard
Mayor Mike Bloomberg (or Fred Armisen - one can never be too sure) made an appearance on Saturday Night Live to guide New Yorkers (and further alienate the rest of the country) through the blizzard by advising those worried by such questions as “Where does snow come from?” and “How do I get snow off my car?” to stay home, order in, and resist the temptation to smoke or commit acts of Domestic Violence. He then described the process by which the snow will be plowed,...

Holiday storm just gone, more snow falling in NY
NEW YORK (AP) - Snow began dusting the city Friday, less than two weeks after a post-Christmas blizzard paralyzed the city and its airports for days. Reeling from criticism over a slow cleanup, officials put GPS devices on sanitation trucks and quality-of-life teams on the streets and promised to do a better job. By midday, the National Weather Service reported about 1 inch of snow had fallen in The Bronx—a far cry from the 20-inch holiday storm. "We have our plows positioned in all five ...