With all this China-Tibet-Darfur business, boycotting Coke seems a little quaint:

The University Senate will vote Thursday on whether to repeal NYU’s ban on Coca-Cola products, potentially ending a 28-month ban on the soft drink and angering students who continue to accuse the company of labor and human rights violations.

In December 2005, the Senate passed a resolution banning the sale of Coca-Cola products on campus until the company agreed to an investigation of allegations that it sponsored the murder of union leaders at its Colombian bottling factory. But while supporters of the ban say little has changed, the Senate is nonetheless voting on whether to approve the resolution rescinding the ban later this week.

Late last month, a coalition of student groups from NYU’s School of Law submitted a report to the Public Affairs Committee objecting to the resolution.

The report — undersigned by groups including the Latino Law Students Association, Law Students for Economic Justice, Law Students for Human Rights, Law Students for Reproductive Justice, Coalition for Legal Recruiting, National Lawyers Guild and OUTLaw — pleaded to uphold the Coke ban.

“The bottom line is that Coke’s purported willingness to allow an investigation is a pretext to justify lifting the ban,” the law students’ report said. “Coke has not agreed to an independent investigation. More importantly, they have not changed their policies in Colombia. At the very least, NYU should await unequivocal evidence that Coke has met the terms of NYU’s 2005 resolution before considering lifting the ban.”

Finally, a politician concerned with the amount of hot air his campaign generates:

City Council member Eric Gioia of Queens is challenging New York’s political candidates to put their money where their mouths are on environmental issues and run “carbon-neutral” campaigns. Mr. Gioia, a likely candidate for public advocate, said yesterday that his campaign would purchase carbon offsets, use hybrid vehicles, send fewer mailers and more e-mail, and take other steps to make up for the greenhouse emissions produced by his run for office.

“You have to be the change you want to see,” Mr. Gioia said yesterday. “I certainly hope others will follow my example.”

Every so often it’s good to be reminded how self-obsessed people in Manhattan are. For example, Borough President Scott Stringer drawing a comparison between NYU’s occupation of Greenwich Village and Israel’s occupation of the West Bank:

Eager to cool its often rancorous relations with its neighbors in Greenwich Village — and to pave the way for its next 25 years of expansion — New York University has agreed to try to push some of its expansion farther from its central core, to consult the community when it designs new space and to develop policies to relocate tenants when they must be moved because of university construction.

The agreements are part of an unusual accord that the university has hammered out over the past year with many of its fiercest critics, including public officials and community leaders. The planning principles, which are aimed at making the university’s growth smoother and less disruptive, are to be unveiled on Wednesday by university officials and other members of a task force that drew them up.

“The county and N.Y.U. have been in turmoil for well over 20 years,” said Scott M. Stringer, the Manhattan borough president who led the task force that shaped the accord. “This is the first joint announcement ever. Like the Israeli peace plan, I can’t guarantee that there will be peace. But this is definitely N.Y.U. changing direction.”

New York City-State secessionist talk percolates again:

Emboldened by Mayor Bloomberg’s testimony in Albany this week that the city’s taxpayers pay the state $11 billion a year more than they get back, a City Council member is offering legislation that would begin the process of having New York City secede from New York State.

Peter Vallone Jr., a Democrat who represents Queens, is pushing the idea, and the Council plans to hold a hearing on the possibility of making New York City the 51st state.

“I think secession’s time has definitely come again,” Mr. Vallone, who spearheaded a similar push in 2003, told The New York Sun yesterday. “If not secession, somebody please tell me what other options we have if the state is going to continue to take billions from us and give us back pennies. Should we raise taxes some more? Should we cut services some more? Or should we consider seriously going out on our own?”

. . .

The director of government watchdog New York Civic, Henry Stern, said that leaving the state would be politically and logistically difficult.

“You can’t secede from a state. We wouldn’t even let Staten Island secede from New York City, so nobody’s going to let this happen.” Mr. Stern, who previously served in City Council and as Parks Commissioner, said.

He added that Albany and the rest of New York north of the Bronx border does have some redeeming qualities. “The city needs upstate — it’s where the city gets its water. It dumps its prisoners upstate,” Mr. Stern said.

The City Council is back to caring about the big issues — education, overdevelopment and . . . President Clinton’s failed Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy:

The resolution urges President Bush to allow openly gay men and women to serve in the armed forces.

“There are plenty of people who are LGBT in the military right now, so I don’t even understand why it’s such a fuss,” one of the resolution’s co-sponsors, Council Member Gale Brewer, said yesterday. “They are extremely good officers like anyone else.”

The “don’t ask don’t tell” policy, enacted under President Clinton in 1993, allows gay men and women to serve in the military, as long as they do not disclose their orientation. Since the policy was put into place, thousands of gays and lesbians have been expelled from the military for violating it. In May, 79% of Americans surveyed in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll supported allowing openly gay people to serve in the military, while 18% opposed it.

High-profile actors turn out in support of rent-controlled 34-foot ceilings at a rally down at City Hall:

A group of actors including Robert De Niro, John Turturro, and Susan Sarandon is asking Mayor Bloomberg to help save the Carnegie Hall studios that are home to artists who taught generations of greats.

“There’s enough room in the building for them to do what they want to do and still keep the people who live there and work there,” the Emmy award-winning Mr. Turturro told the Associated Press as he prepared to lead a rally in front of City Hall on Friday. “They’re going to help finish off these people.”

The 33 remaining residential and commercial tenants of two towers that rise above the midtown Manhattan hall — including half a dozen elderly, rent-control artists and musicians — are fighting eviction. Hall administrators say the space is needed for a renovation to create room for education programs.

There’s something ironically mirror-like about City Council hearings about this stuff:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s “rider report cards” are the subject of a City Council oversight hearing tomorrow, after the agency’s pet project failed to produce any constructive criticism. Of the 700,000 cards distributed, less than 7% had been returned as of last month. The complaints were nothing new to riders used to crowded commutes and long delays. The chairman of the Transportation Committee, John Liu, who is holding the hearings, called the report cards a “wasteful gimmick.”

Earlier: A Gentleman’s C.

War veteran undercuts Big Hot Dog. In other news, Tony Avella threatens to unseat John Liu and Eric Gioia as biggest grandstander on the City Council*:

Out in front of the crowded entrance to the Metropolitan Museum of Art is one of the more lucrative spots in Manhattan to sell hot dogs. It is so good, in fact, that one of the largest pushcart vending companies in New York City pays $574,000 a year to the city for the right to place two hot dog carts there.

And since mid-July, Dan Rossi has also had a hot dog cart there, on Fifth Avenue near 82nd Street, and has been paying absolutely nothing for the spot. The carts belonging to the big company, New York One, formerly named M & T Pretzel, are off to each side of the museum steps, but Mr. Rossi’s cart is smack in front, and because he charges less for some items, he often has a line of customers when the other carts do not.

“I’m not really doing it for the money, I’m doing it for the veterans,” Mr. Rossi said while selling hot dogs briskly one recent Sunday afternoon. Mr. Rossi said he is a Vietnam veteran and claims that the city, about a decade ago, wrongly began limiting the number of pushcart permits given to war veterans.

“I’ve been summonsed, fined, threatened with arrest and shut down by the police, but I keep coming back,” said Mr. Rossi, 58, of the Bronx.

City Councilman Tony Avella of Queens, who also criticizes the city over permits for veterans, held a news conference on Tuesday morning at City Hall to call attention to what he said was a “disgrace by the city, to forget its veterans.”

“The right of veterans to get permits has a long history in this city, and for the past few years, when veterans try to apply for one, they can’t get one,” he said. New York State has allowed veterans free vending permits since the Civil War, he said.

*Avella vs. John Liu vs. Queens Councilmember Eric Gioia.

Location Scout: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Tony, there are kids to teach — screw the stupid monkeys:

Under section 809 of New York’s Education Law, passed in 1947, state schools are required to educate children in “the humane treatment and protection of animals and of the importance of the part they play in the economy of nature.”

Council Member Tony Avella says the requirement has largely been ignored or forgotten.

“It’s hardly followed — there’s just a couple of schools in the city doing it, and on a voluntary basis it seems,” Mr. Avella said yesterday. “But state law requires it.”

The council will debate a resolution by Mr. Avella today calling on the Department of Education to inform all New York City public schools of the humane education requirements and require principals to make sure their teachers comply with section 809.

. . .

“The way we treat animals, our fellow neighbors, this is all part of being a member of today’s modern society,” Mr. Avella added. “It’s a benefit to the community and to the city to understand each other’s needs and, in this case, those of animals.”

. . .

When asked about his recent focus on nonhuman issues, Mr. Avella said his agenda reflected constituents’ strong interest in the city’s animals.

“There’s a lot of people in the city who consider them to be very important,” Mr. Avella said. “If the issue’s important to them and I think it’s the right thing to do, I’m going to help.”

Not to downplay the role of the New York City comptroller, but, you know, what does he really know about scheduling airplanes? No matter:

Flight delays at the region’s three major airports outpaced those in the rest of the nation, hurting the city’s economic competitiveness, said a report released yesterday by Comptroller William Thompson.

If the trend is not reversed, Thompson warned, the airports might be forced to impose flight caps or implement a congestion-pricing charge, with landing fees based on the time of day.

“The situation is urgent,” he said. “The much larger declines in on-time performance could discourage employers from locating new jobs and facilities in New York and lead some firms to relocate jobs elsewhere.”

In 2003, area airports had on-time arrival rates 5 percentage points below the national average. But in the first three quarters of 2007, those rates were 13 points off. Now just 60 percent of scheduled flights arrive here on time, the report said.

At 36 minutes, Kennedy is leading the nation this year in “taxi outs,” the period between gate departure and when a plane’s wheels leave the ground. The average taxi-out was 16 minutes nationally, but 29 minutes at Newark and 28 minutes at LaGuardia. The three airports were in the top six for cancellations.

The main reason is an “enormous” increase in flights, Thompson said. The number of planes at Kennedy climbed 14 percent from 2000 to ‘06, and then soared another 23.5 percent in 2007.

That’s Columbia the university, not the country:

President Lee Bollinger of Columbia, in a dramatic speech broadcast around the globe yesterday from Morningside Heights, delivered an oratorical haymaker to President Ahmadinejad, attacking his record on human rights, Israel, and terrorism in remarks that will likely overshadow anything the Iranian might say during his diplomatic rounds in America.

In systematic fashion, Mr. Bollinger, who was being closely watched in New York and beyond because of criticism that he had blundered by inviting Mr. Ahmadinejad in the first place, rebuked the Iranian president for calling for the destruction of Israel, for funding terrorism, for fighting a proxy war against America within the borders of Iraq, for persecuting women and homosexuals, and for flaunting the international community in the pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Mr. Bollinger called Mr. Ahmadinejad’s stated denial of the Holocaust “brazenly provocative or astonishingly uneducated.” His remarks were made all the more dramatic by the fact that the Iranian leader was seated only yards away, in a corner of the stage where he listened as an interpreter translated Mr. Bollinger’s words.

“Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator,” Mr. Bollinger said, after challenging the Iranian to admit a delegation from Columbia to speak at an Iranian University.

Mr. Bollinger’s remarks were met with a rant from Mr. Ahmadinejad, who called his remarks “an insult to the knowledge of the audience here” and a “vaccination” of the event.

And is this really a surprise?

Many audience members expressed some disappointment, if not surprise, that Mr. Ahmadinejad evaded answering almost every question posed to him by the dean of Columbia’s School of Public and International Affairs, John Coatsworth, who read questions from index cards that were filled out by students and faculty members in the audience.

Politicians snag cheap and easy low-hanging fruit by rebuking (publicly, no less!) Columbia’s decision to invite Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to campus:

The speaker of the City Council, Christine Quinn, today urged Columbia’s president, Lee Bollinger, to withdraw the university’s invitation.

“The idea of Ahmadinejad as an honored guest anywhere in our city is offensive to all New Yorkers,” Ms. Quinn said in a statement. “He can say whatever he wants on any street corner, but should not be given center stage at one of New York’s most prestigious centers of higher education.”

. . .

“A man who is directing the maiming and killing of American troops should not be given an invitation to speak at an American university,” [Senator John] McCain said in a statement. “Rather than rolling out the red carpet for the leader of a terrorist-sponsoring regime, Columbia should be welcoming the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps back on campus to honor the men and women who put their lives on the line every day defending our freedom.”

“Cheap and easy” because who exactly would they offend? People at Columbia? Nah — they only care about one thing anyway:

All 600 tickets to see Mr. Ahmadinejad speak were distributed online in less than an hour to students and faculty yesterday on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Some immediately started selling their tickets on Craigslist.org.

“It’s the president’s only speaking engagement in America (outside the UN General Assembly)!” said one posting on the Web site. Bidding would start at $100, and the winner would be notified Sunday morning, the post said.

The Governor fully intends to give the weather the full Sandy Weill treatment:

After a heavy rainstorm crippled the subway system in September 2004, an investigation laid the blame on New York City Transit, saying that the agency had neglected basic maintenance of its drainage system, and that once the tunnels started to fill with water, the response was haphazard and ineffective.

The agency promised major changes.

But yesterday, the subway was paralyzed again, when a strikingly similar storm dropped 1.7 inches of rain on Central Park between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m., just before the morning rush.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer, with the transportation authority facing an angry public and accusations of incompetence, said yesterday that the measures it had put in place were not enough.

Governor Spitzer gave the Metropolitan Transportation Authority 30 days to come up with a plan to address the chronic flooding problems.

But more importantly, can a steamroller fix the National Weather Service? And can it actually stop global warming?

Elliot G. Sander, the chief executive of the transportation authority, who appeared at a Midtown press conference with the governor, said the torrential rainfall had overwhelmed pumps that routinely move water out of the subway system and had also backed up city sewers, meaning that water pumped out of the subway had nowhere to go.

“The timing and intensity of the storm took us by surprise because it was not predicted by the National Weather Service,” Mr. Sander said.

What happened yesterday was remarkably similar to the events of Sept. 8, 2004, when 1.76 inches of rain fell in Central Park between 6:51 a.m. and 7:51 a.m., according to a report issued by the transportation authority’s inspector general’s office.

The report, issued 18 months after the storm, found that, as in yesterday’s flooding, weather forecasters had not predicted such a heavy rainfall, and that the transit agency had been caught off guard. Authority officials at the time provided the same types of explanations they were offering yesterday, blaming overwhelmed pumps and a city sewer system that could not handle such a large quantity of water.

. . .

In 2004, transit officials referred to the unusually heavy rain that brought the subway system to a halt as “an act of God.” Yesterday, Mr. Sander seemed to hint at a more contemporary, although perhaps no less celestial explanation: climate change.

“We may be dealing with meteorological conditions that are unprecedented,” Mr. Sander said.

And one more thing — oranges aren’t even in season:

The food stamp diet left City Councilman Eric Gioia so hungry he wolfed down his week’s rations in only five days — and was forced to go to a Queens food pantry.

The Queens Democrat lined up at the Queensbridge center for emergency supplies yesterday after being left with only a few English muffins.

“The food stamps have run out, the cupboards are bare, but the hunger pangs don’t go away,” he said outside the Center of Hope International.

“People on food stamps in that position have no other option but to go to the food pantry.”

Yesterday’s visit — at which he paid a $100 donation — topped up the sparse diet Gioia has been living on since Thursday. In an effort to bring attention to the plight of thousands of New Yorkers trying to survive on food stamps, he pledged to try it for a week. Shopping with $28 — the average food-stamp allotment for a single recipient — he bought cheap staples.

Celebrating Mother’s Day was particularly hard, Gioia said. “I went and celebrated it,” he said. “But I didn’t have dinner. I went for dessert, and brought an orange with me.”

Previously: FreshDirect Doesn’t Take Food Stamps?, Eric, You’re Not Helping!

Eric Gioia’s blood sugar spikes, and he feels hungry:

Less than one full day into his new diet, Queens Councilman Eric Gioia was riding the No. 4 train on his way home from City Hall when he stared across the aisle and spotted something tempting.

A fellow straphanger was eating Cheetos.

“I wanted her snack in the worst way,” said Gioia, who has pledged to live for one week on $28 in groceries — the average food stamp allotment for an individual.

The hungry Democratic councilman had only eaten an orange and some buttered toast for breakfast, and then two bananas as a snack.

Citing figures that one in eight New Yorkers live on food stamps, Gioia suspected he wasn’t the only person going hungry on the train.

“You look around a subway car with 30 or 40 people in it, and do that math,” he said yesterday.

“The experiment that I am living this week is their life. It changes the way you think.”

Gioia returned home about 4 p.m. and enjoyed another orange (he’s down to three for the rest of the week) and a sandwich of Key Food white bread and American Accent processed sandwich slices.

“I ate the cheese sandwich like it was the best meal I had in my life, because I was so hungry,” he said.

Dinner wasn’t any more appealing.

Surrounded by family and several office staffers, Gioia heated tomato sauce from a jar and mixed it with pasta and a few cucumber slices.

“I’m actually concerned I used too much sauce, so I’m putting some back in the jar,” he said after feeding infant formula and two jars of baby food to his daughter, Amelia, who is not living on food stamps.

Councilman, not to be too much of a smart ass, but here’s some stuff we found — on FreshDirect, no less! — that may sate you a little better than processed cheese and Ragu (p.s. several items are even organic!):

• 1 Stonyfield Farm Nonfat French Vanilla Yogurt (32oz) ($3.49/ea) $3.49
• 1 Cascadian Farm Organic Sliced Peaches (10oz) ($3.69/ea) $3.69
• 1 Lundberg Organic Short-Grain Brown Rice (2lb) ($3.69/ea) $3.69
• 1 Nature’s Best Organic Dry Black Beans (1lb) ($2.49/ea) $2.49
• 2 Jumbo Broccoli (Farm Fresh) ($1.75/ea) $3.50
• 1 Organic Collard Greens (bunch) (Organic) ($2.59/ea) $2.59
• 2 Romaine Lettuce (Farm Fresh) ($1.99/ea) $3.98
• 1 Russet Potato, Bag (Farm Fresh, 5lb bag) ($2.99/ea) $2.99
• 1 Carrots, Bag (Farm Fresh, 1.0lb bag) ($0.99/ea) $0.99

That totals $27.41, by the way. Not that you need any advice on how to eat, of course.

Hey, you too can play “Feed Eric Gioia For Less Than $28 A Week”. Maybe FreshDirect should have a contest.

The Post notes that a full 14 and-a-half comfort stations* could have been built for what has already been spent on the as-yet-unbuilt Brooklyn Bridge Park:

Planners of the long-delayed Brooklyn Bridge Park project have spent more than $16 million in taxpayer money in the last five years — more than it cost to build the bridge in the 1880s.

Most of the cash went to the project’s architect and consultants, records obtained by The Post reveal.

Despite that, critics point out, the 85-acre park along the Brooklyn waterfront, which was supposed to break ground three years ago, has yet to be built.

“It cost $15 million to build the Brooklyn Bridge, so [the Brooklyn Bridge Park Development Corp.] has already spent more with little to show for it,” said Cobble Hill activist Roy Sloane.

*See for example.

On Being Denis Hamill: 1) pick the low-hanging fruit; 2) cause a big stir with that fruit; 3) bask in the smug self-righteousness said fruit bears:

The best part about the Corbin Place uproar is that there is uproar.

On the evening of Feb. 26, I sat in the last row of an assembly room in Kingsborough Community College where Community Board 15 held a public hearing about changing the street name of Corbin Place. About 100 people showed up from the snowy streets, more than most City Council meetings.

It was democracy at its best.

. . .

In the middle of the meeting Leonard Benardo — who with his wife, Jennifer Weiss, wrote “Brooklyn by Name,” which gives the history of most street names in Brooklyn — asked me, “What are we gonna do, rename the 70 streets in Brooklyn named after slaveholders?”

“Why not,” I asked.

I said that because of his book, which inspired my column, a whole neighborhood was discussing and debating local history. And how could that ever be a bad thing? If Nostrand Ave., Vanderbilt Ave., and Lott St. are named for slaveholders, shouldn’t the citizens who live on those streets or in their surrounding neighborhoods have a chance to debate whether that’s a proper name to honor on a street sign?

If history is revised, shouldn’t street signs also be revised? Even if people have to be mildly inconvenienced by having their addresses altered on house deeds, driver’s licenses, and stationery?

Why not turn all the soil in a new century and see what we find?

*Because you thought Austin Street was named for Stephen F.? Guess again!

The final vote was a slam dunk:

The city council has said n-o to the N-word, unanimously approving a resolution yesterday calling for a moratorium on the rap world’s favorite epithet.

. . .

The resolution is not a ban, and it has no enforcement teeth except the power of moral persuasion. So its chief sponsor, Councilman Leroy Comrie (D-Queens), who is black, said he was surprised at the widespread attention the resolution attracted.

“It has stirred what it was intended to — discussion,” Comrie said.

The 51-member Council, which has a 25-member Black, Latino and Asian Caucus — was united in its enthusiasm for the measure.

Councilman John Liu (D-Queens), the sole Asian on the Council, called the the N-word “the vilest word in the English language.”

Can there really be a vilest word?

It doesn’t matter if the differential pricing was really just the difference between a take-out and and eat-in, when you have the mayor publicly rebuking you, things have spun out of control:

“If nobody goes to that restaurant, then they won’t make any money and they’ll go out of business,” Bloomberg said when asked about the Daily News’ exclusive Sunday story on the Canal Seafood Restaurant.

“It’s unconscionable to use race on any of these things, in terms of what kind of service, or how you charge, or whatever,” Bloomberg said.

“Go patronize a different [restaurant.] Let capitalism work.”

. . .

The restaurant has denied the allegations, saying it has one menu for takeout and another for customers who eat in the restaurant.

Hizzoner highlights some elected officials’ lack of executive experience:

Mayor Bloomberg lashed out yesterday at politicians who criticized the city’s school bus route bungling, saying they had “no experience doing anything.”

A visibly angry Bloomberg blasted Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and City Council members when asked about the critics’ stance that the cost-saving overhaul is a flop.

“You know, you’re quoting people who have no experience in doing anything, so I don’t quite know how to answer it,” he said.

Bloomberg then questioned whether the politicians knew enough to criticize the work of high-priced consultants Alvarez & Marsal, who drew up the reorganization that cut 116 routes.

“And if those people who haven’t done anything in terms of management think that they know what to do, they should apply for jobs and we’ll be happy to do it,” he said.

Another City Councilmember makes her feelings known on yet another issue crucially linked to the vital day-to-day operations of the metropolis:

Joining an international campaign to keep dangerously thin models off the catwalk, a city councilwoman introduced a resolution yesterday that seeks to ban super-skinny models from Fashion Week runways.

“New York City is one of the leading capitals in the global fashion industry,” said Councilwoman Gale Brewer (D-Manhattan), who introduced the resolution. “It is now our responsibility to actively promote a healthier concept of beauty in our society.”

Brewer’s bill comes just a few days after Assemb. Jose Rivera (D-Bronx) introduced a bill in Albany to create statewide nutrition standards for actors and models under age 18.

Last month, the Council of Fashion Designers of America, a Manhattan-based trade group, issued guidelines about maintaining a healthy body weight and providing healthy food for models backstage. The guidelines also call on the industry to watch out for models who appear to have an eating disorder, and to refer them for counseling.

While those guidelines are voluntary, Brewer’s bill calls on the Council of Fashion Designers to make them binding for all fashion shows in the city. The biannual Fashion Week starts today and runs through Friday.

And then there’s the N-word . . .

They act like being a convicted sex offender is a bad thing:

Nearly a third of the city’s most dangerous sex offenders live within just two blocks of an elementary or middle school — and authorities have no power to make them move farther away, the Daily News has learned.

The sobering findings emerged from the most exhaustive examination ever conducted of the state sex offender registry.

The disturbing report, completed by Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn), shows that about 670 of the city’s 2,114 worst sex offenders live within two blocks of a school.

The clusters of sickos grow even larger a few more blocks away.

More than 85% of the city’s Level 2 and Level 3 sex offenders — the worst of the worst — live within a quarter-mile of a school, Weiner’s examination found. “Every day my kids when they leave the house I say a little prayer that they won’t cross one of these sex sickos,” Bronx mom Cynthia Hawkins, 35, said as she walked her kids home from Public School 33 in Highbridge.

Anthony Weiner: master of the low-hanging fruit.

How many Brooklyn Paper reporters does it take to write a cheap and easy gotcha piece? Three:

The future home for the Brooklyn Nets will be emblazoned with the corporate logo of a British bank that was founded on the slave trade, collaborated with the Nazis and did business with South Africa’s apartheid government.

Atlantic Yards developer Bruce Ratner announced his mega-deal with Barclays Bank on Thursday — but critics slammed the developer for plastering the controversial bank’s name atop the arena after having courted African-American support for his mega-development.

. . .

At a press conference at the Brooklyn Museum on Thursday, Mayor Bloomberg joined Ratner and Barclays CEO Bob Diamond to officially announce the deal.

When a Brooklyn Paper reporter asked Diamond about his company’s historic connection to the slave trade and apartheid, Bloomberg jumped in and, answering for Diamond, said: “Barclays is a great corporation. We could not have picked a better one. Barclays is as good as we could have found.”

He added that Barclays and Ratner would work together to rebuild basketball courts all over Brooklyn — and then abruptly closed the press conference without allowing follow-up questions, or even letting Diamond answer the original question.

When you get 51 people together, more than a few dumb ideas will slip through:

Democrat Leroy Comrie is so disgusted by the rampant use of the racial epithet that he has submitted a resolution to the Council calling for the “symbolic moratorium on the use of the N-word in New York City.”

“Stop using the N-word,” Comrie (D-Jamaica) demanded yesterday. “It’s racist, it’s negative, it’s demeaning. It boils my blood, the usage, even in a personal tone between people.”

Comrie said the resolution will be formally introduced to the Council Feb. 1, the first day of Black History Month.

“The timing is right,” he said. “Monday is Martin Luther King’s birthday. February is Black History Month.”

The widespread use of the N-word gained considerable attention last year during the hate-crime trial of Nicholas (Fat Nick) Minucci.

Minucci claimed he used the slur as a friendly greeting before beating a black man with a baseball bat in Howard Beach in 2005. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Beyond the issues of the scrupulously precise wording (if this were an actual law, wouldn’t you have to write out what “N-word” you were talking about?) and the murkiness of what a “symbolic” moratorium means (not an actual moratorium?), I have to say that I had absolutely no idea people took offense to this word. Guess you learn something new every day.

Earlier: What Up, My N-Word?

The question “How are you getting reception in here?” is answered:

Thanks to advancements in cell phone technology and an ever-growing number of cellular towers, New Yorkers are increasingly able to get a signal in the subways even though the system isn’t wired.

“I talk whenever I can,” said Lateik Howard, 23, of Bedford-Stuyvesant, who often uses his phone while in the Jay St. station in downtown Brooklyn. “Cell phones are a necessity now.”

“I never used it in the subway before because I didn’t think I could,” said Vincent Palange, 77, staring with surprise at his working T-Mobile phone on the 66th St. No. 1 platform. “It’s ringing!”

With stations and tunnels that get reception scattered around the city, technology experts believe several conditions are necessary to allow the previously impossible underground phone call.

“The proximity of an antenna and the depth of a station has a lot to do with it,” said Nicole Lee, an associate editor who specializes in cell phones for CNET.com. “Certainly, the closer you are to street level, the better chance you have of getting a signal, especially with a newer phone.”

A number of subway lines, particularly the 2/3 line along the upper West Side into Brooklyn and the 4/5 along the upper East Side, can support a signal from the platform, and for a short time — up to 30 seconds, the Daily News found — in train tunnels.

And if you thought Rep. Weiner couldn’t possibly find some way to grandstand in this piece, you underestimate his special ability to do so:

Many straphangers and pols have pushed for the enhanced service so riders can call 911.

“Without emergency cell service, you can’t say something if you see something,” said Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn, Queens).

Nice work!

The Queens Chronicle crunches the numbers and deems Councilmember John Liu grandstander of the month for December:

One of the modern personalities that accompanied the invention of e mail was the electronic chatterbox. Friends who forward every chain letter, relatives who send a new digital photo every time their child eats a new type of food, and dates of little consequence who keep sending text messages long after the initial spark is gone are all prime examples of this.

In the world of Queens politics, the leading electronic chatterbox is City Councilman John Liu (D Flushing). Over the past month, the Queens Chronicle has collected every e mail and fax sent by Queens representatives at all levels of government: city, state and federal. The paper tabulated the total number of communications and Liu came out ahead by a large margin.

Between Nov. 21 and Dec. 21, he sent 37 separate e mails and three faxes about his work on the council. He sent out advisories about his intentions to take part in rallies after the police shooting of Sean Bell, releases about his opposition to Rosie O’Donnell’s impersonation of Asians and announcements about his appearances on television. He also chronicled his participation as the council’s Transportation Commitee chairman and outlined his opposition to the expansion of a gas station in Flushing. On one day in particular — Dec. 1 — Liu sent five individual e mails on topics ranging from the announcement of new free Chinese language courses to the dedication of a new mobile computer lab in a local school.

Reverend Sharpton and Mayor Bloomberg show us how it’s done:

It was an odd moment in the aftermath of the police shooting of Sean Bell: the Rev. Al Sharpton posing with Mayor Bloomberg before TV cameras at a City Hall press conference but then bolting before the first word was uttered.

Bloomberg explained Sharpton’s hasty departure Monday by saying the reverend had to rush to a meeting with the victim’s family.

In fact, Sharpton hadn’t wanted to attend the press conference at all — but was persuaded by the mayor to put in a brief appearance, sources said.

With Sharpton at his side, Bloomberg could demonstrate that he had reached out to the most fiery critic of the NYPD.

But by leaving early, Sharpton avoided putting himself in an awkward situation where he might have to publicly disagree with the mayor, whom some had expected to defend the police.

The Daily News is shocked to discover that between shutting down the Minutemen and figuring out how to get Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to visit, Columbia University students are engaged in their own sort of horny jerk-off situation:

Famed as a hotbed of debate over academic freedom, New York’s most elite school is also a playpen for sexual hijinks, sophomoric antics and the wacky indulgences of the children of the rich.

While their parents shell out $33,246 a year in tuition, Columbia University students doff their clothes at naked parties, flock to sex toys workshops, broadcast porn on campus TV, bake anatomically correct pies for the “Erotic Cake-Baking Contest” and heat up the steps of the Low Library in a mass makeout session called the “Big Kiss.”

Someone tell Anthony Weiner now that the balance of power has changed in Congress it’s no longer necessary to keep vapidly grandstanding*.

First, out to the Rockaways to rail against something over which he has no control:

Congressman Anthony Weiner yesterday railed against the state closing one of two hospitals in the Rockaways.

Reacting to word that either Peninsula or St. John’s Episcopal would be recommended for closure by a state panel, the Queens/Brooklyn Democrat argued that hospitals are being punished for an antiquated system that funnels more money into surgical care than preventive care.

“The Rockaways need two major health-care providers,” said Weiner, whose district includes both Queens hospitals. “Everybody agrees that there should be more outpatient care and fewer hospital beds, but the regulatory obstacles are enormous.”

Then it’s off to Jackson Heights to go fuck with some elderly Nazis:

Congressmember Anthony Weiner (DQueens, Brooklyn) grabbed a sign and joined a neighborhood protest in Jackson Heights November 9 outside the home of a former Nazi SS death camp guard who was stripped of his United States citizenship in 2003.

Jakiw Palij, 84, has not been deported because U.S. immigration officials can’t find a country to take him. He was stripped of his citizenship after officials discovered he lied when he applied for an immigrant visa in 1949.

Weiner joined hundreds of high school students at the protest who demanded that Palij open his door and face them.

“No one is going to hide among us,” Weiner said. “This monster is responsible for the deaths of thousands and thousands of people in the Nazi death camps. He is not paying for his crimes by living a peaceful life on 89th Street in Jackson Heights.”

*What is he thinking seriously about a run for Borough President or something? Oh, right — Mayor. Forgot.

It turns out that the vestigial office of the borough president will receive a raise, too:

Which of the five borough presidents doesn’t deserve a raise in Mayor Bloomberg’s opinion?

The actual answer never left the mayor’s lips yesterday — but he left little doubt that the answer is Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer.

Bloomberg touched off the question game yesterday on his weekly WABC-AM show while commenting on the raises approved by the City Council for all municipal elected officials. The borough presidents are getting a $25,000 hike, bringing their salary to $160,000.

Without mentioning names, Bloomberg said, “You know there’s one that just all he does is rush to the steps of City Hall to hold press conferences — doesn’t really do anything.”

Backstory: Twenty-Five Percent, Retroactive . . . Ballsy!