Because when you go down that debate-club road, you start wondering why we should bother with hate crime laws at all:

Police said that they are investigating the strange Nazi-runic graffiti in the hopes of tracking down who’s leaving the coded messages — most recently on the pedestrian foot bridge on East 14th Street and Shore Parkway back on May 13.

While many residents ignored the iron crosses, the number 88 — a code number among neo−Nazis for “Heil Hitler” — and the phrase “Triumph of Will” on the pedestrian bridge, a few concerned citizens in Sheepshead Bay called authorities — especially since the graffiti was found a short distance from Holocaust Memorial Park on Emmons and West End avenues, the only city park dedicated to victims of the Holocaust.

Members of the NYPD Hate Crimes Task Force are on the case, although sources said that the graffiti could not be considered “bias” because it wasn’t solely directed to any ethnic group.

The graffiti was more pro-Nazi than anti-Jew, officials said.

And they have cans of spray paint:

Even ardent neo-Nazis would have a hard time figuring out the bizarre graffiti cops are investigating in Greenpoint, Brooklyn (above). It seems to be written in an obscure alphabet by someone interested in obscure occult ideas that inspired some of Adolf Hitler’s followers.

The characters in the peculiar graffiti tags look like runes, the ancient alphabets of pre-Roman tribes in central and northern Europe. Some people associate runes with magical powers.

One tag says: “Das Geheinns der Runen,” German for “The Secret of the Runes,” a book by Guido von List, an Austrian occultist of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Twelve-county payroll taxes, fare increases, toll increases — fine: everyone pays a little, whatever. But in a time when elected officials use taxes as both a way to change behavior and raise massive amounts of money (through either congestion pricing or tolls — and then actually via plastic bags), what exactly is the point of a 50-cent surcharge on taxi rides? To punish people who don’t own cars? To force women to take subways late at night? To mess with the TLC?

And are taxi riders really paying for “upstate” highways? How far upstate exactly?

Plastic bags!

Questions:

• Excluding uniformed personnel, there are 185,908 City employees, 10,000 of which you expect to leave through attrition, either to retire or work for Goldman Sachs or whatever. Will 5.4 percent of the workforce really do this in a down economy? And if so, when — by June 30, 2009? And then will there be wider layoffs?
• Comment on this point, please: “Aren’t taxes worth it, because of the valuable and equitably distributed services they pay for? No, it is clear to all. Those taxes aren’t going to services, they are going to privileges, and for burdens from the past shifted to the present and future by Generation Greed. In the end we will pay more and more and get next to nothing. Want proof? New York City’s personal service budget is proposed to rise from $34.7 billion to $36 billion, and in exchange services will be cut and the infrastructure will degrade.”
• Please square the concept of eliminating the clothing tax exemption within the city with the state’s reluctance to eliminate the same tax exemption in its executive budget
• How exactly will you save $200 million in FY 2010 with a “Tier V” pension when you’re presumably not hiring new employees?

More later . . .

For a while there at least we became inured to high prices and conspicuous consumption. $150 million apartment, six-figure parking spaces, $1600 helicopter rides to the Hamptons, gigantic bags of bonus money and dopey gimmicks like “Martini on the Rock” — yawn. And then there was the $2600 seat for a baseball game. Most probably thought, “Wow, that’s expensive” or “I wonder who would pay that” but until the season started and seats started showing up empty on television I’m guessing most also thought that there was probably someone who would pay $2600 to watch the Royals on a Tuesday evening.

But now that the Yankees are forced to lower ticket prices in half (”That new lower amount is in line with prices for the same tickets being sold on StubHub for next week’s home stand against the arch rival Boston Red Sox, but twice as much as they’re going for against most opponents at the new Stadium”) you start wondering whether Yankees tickets are the most expensive tickets ever.

A recent piece in the Times hinted at this but skirted the issue — yes, I understand I could nearly get a degree at LaGuardia Community College for the cost of taking my family of four to the park. But what hasn’t been reported — at least not that I know of — is just how out of line $2600 is compared to other sporting events. It seems that 2009 Centre Court tickets for the last day of Wimbeldon are 100 pounds. Face value tickets for the 2008 Super Bowl — thought to be one of the most expensive so far — were only $700-$900, and scalped tickets on the low end were still only around $2,500 — less than the cost of watching that 22-4 drubbing at the hands of the Indians, the one in which Chien Ming-Wang only lasted an inning and a third.

But since Yankees management has turned a ballgame into a “Dance, Monkey, Dance” sort of performance it also seems useful to compare Yankees ticket prices to performances in general. Like any performance. Led Zeppelin reunion (some auction prices were actually lower than Yankees tickets)! Celine Dion (in general the Las Vegas Shows don’t even come close — even the VIPest seats at Hard Rock are $1000 max)! Barbra Streisand (VIP packages for her 2006 concerts were $1800)! And keep in mind that at least with Streisand you have some reasonable expectation that she will kick ass.

You can go down the road of non-spectator events and tickets are similarly out of wack: Skiing ($600 seems to the the max), a hot air balloon ride (doesn’t even come close) or sky diving (ditto) — all significantly cheaper.

In short, how expensive are tickets for this (to use a cliche) Taj Mahal of baseball stadia? Consider this: Go to Expedia and book a short trip to Agra, where you can see the actual Taj Mahal. It’s basically around $1000 . . .

Location Scout: New Yankee Stadium.

Mayor Bloomberg wants $45 million to retrain employees who are probably the least likely to trust government job training programs:

Just as Michigan is scrambling to retrain laid-off auto workers, New York City officials have come up with a plan to find new work for the unemployed from one of its core industries: financial services.

Under a program unveiled on Wednesday by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the city wants to invest $45 million in government money to retrain investment bankers, traders and others who have lost jobs on Wall Street, as well as provide seed capital and office space for new businesses those laid-off bankers might create.

The plan is intended to stem a potential exodus of banking professionals from the city during the restructuring of the financial services industry, which has been the city’s economic engine for decades, and to speed the industry’s recovery, which will take at least several years, officials said.

. . .

The mayor announced the 11-part program at a building at 160 Varick Street that will house an incubator for start-up companies that might employ laid-off professionals. Trinity Real Estate donated the space for three years and the Polytechnic Institute of New York University will select the entrepreneurs who will occupy the space, beginning in April. A second business incubator is scheduled to open in Lower Manhattan later in the year, said Seth W. Pinsky, the president of the city’s Economic Development Corporation.

The agency plans to put $3 million into funds to make small investments in start-up companies, Mr. Pinsky said. He said that he hoped to attract twice as much money from private investors and that $9 million would be enough to help start hundreds of new businesses.

All told, city officials plan to spend about $15 million on the program, in addition to the $30 million of federal money. They estimate that over 10 years, it could stimulate the creation of at least 25,000 jobs and contribute $750 million to the local economy, but Mr. Bloomberg referred to those projections as a “guess.”

*And think of how many housing project roofs or elevators that could be fixed with $45 million . . .

The delivery van driver who left his vehicle in gear while double parked on East Broadway has not been charged in an accident that killed two small children:

Chao Fu, 52, was driving the van for the China Chalet restaurant and catering service and double-parked the vehicle on the east side of E. Broadway near Catherine St., police said.

Fu thought the van was in park when he stepped out to make a delivery, he told cops, but it was actually in reverse and began to creep backwards on the busy street lined with shops and restaurants, police said.

The children, gathered on the sidewalk with two chaperones outside the Chatham Square branch of the New York Public Library, were about to walk back to the nearby Red Apple Day Care on Market St.

They were lined up against the wall, their arms linked, when the 9,400-pound van hit them, surveillance video shows.

Fu, who had a clean driving record and valid license, was not charged, police said.

Maybe it’s a sign of his commitment to the endeavor:

A Web site that was created to promote Coney Island’s rebirth has become the home page for “the best porn on the Net.” The site, created by developer Joe Sitt two years ago to publicize his $1.5 billion plan to build a Vegas-style amusement complex in Coney Island, has been taken over by a Belgian porn producer.

. . .

Sitt spokesman Stefan Friedman said the developer opted not to renew the domain name.

Location Scout: Coney Island Amusement Core.

Aren’t we already being environmentally conscious by riding mass transit in the first place? I’d argue yes:

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is planning a hefty fare increase, but it thinks that some environmentally conscious riders might want to voluntarily pay even more for the privilege of riding on a crowded train or bus.

The authority said on Thursday that it was considering a “green MetroCard” program that would let riders make donations to help pay for making its operations more environmentally sustainable. The program would also apply to commuter rail tickets and E-ZPasses.

The idea was among dozens of proposals in a $1 million report by a commission appointed by the authority to recommend ways to lessen the adverse environmental impact of its operations.

Under the program, whose details are still being developed, riders buying MetroCards or commuter rail tickets at station vending machines could tack on an extra charge in the form of a tax-deductible contribution for green projects, said Ernest Tollerson, the authority’s policy director.

Smoke and mirrors, just without bothering with the smoke and mirror part:

Facing unexpected resistance in the City Council over his midyear budget changes, Mayor Bloomberg warned yesterday that he’ll order more drastic agency cuts in two weeks if a deal isn’t reached quickly.

“If we decide to — or have to — send out the [$400 property-tax] rebate or the City Council doesn’t act, the $1.4 billion cut is not adequate, and we will send out another letter next week,” the mayor said.

That letter would be directed at agency heads, who were told on Wednesday to come up with another $1.4 billion in savings starting July 1.

Sources said the chief sticking point in the negotiations is the 7 percent property tax increase that the mayor has asked the council to approve as of Jan. 1 to generate an extra $600 million.

The sources said Bloomberg is willing to accede to the council’s demand that he send out the $400 property-tax rebate to small-home owners this year — but only after it approves the property-tax hike.

. . . instead, just where the fuck is all this money coming from? I thought there was a huge fiscal crisis:

The Bloomberg administration is in serious negotiations to buy 10.5 acres of real estate in Coney Island that once appeared unobtainable — a move that would save both Astroland Park and the mayor’s plans to revive the slumping seaside amusement district, The Post has learned.

Developer Joe Sitt is ready to give up his controversial plan to build a $1.5 billion Vegas-style entertainment complex, which the mayor wants no part of, and instead sell all of the beachfront land he’s purchased to the city.

“God willing, we will get this done soon,” said Councilman Domenic Recchia Jr., who convinced both Sitt’s company, Thor Equities, and the city to go to the bargaining table and is helping broker the deal.

While a price is still being negotiated, it is expected that the city would have to shell out $200 million to $250 million for the land, sources close to the negotiations said.

Recchia said the mayor wants the deal done quickly so the city can finally get going on Bloomberg’s 47-acre rezoning plan for Coney Island, which includes building a nine-acre amusement park.

By purchasing Sitt’s land, the city would become owner of 3.1-acre Astroland Park, which is the process of closing because Sitt failed to renew its lease.

Recchia said the mayor “is committed to bringing back Astroland,” at least for next summer.

. . . this is the most important use of city money, and far, far outweighs incurring potential multi-gazillion-dollar deficits or the mayor is totally full of shit and there is not and will not be a crippling financial crisis (in which case, take a third term off the table!). Because it can’t be both:

The city has gobbled up another chunk of Willets Point in Queens as Mayor Bloomberg pushes his plan to transform the gritty industrial zone near Shea Stadium.

In the biggest land deal to date in the neighborhood, the city persuaded Indian food distributor House of Spices — the second-largest landowner at Willets Point — to sell its 4 acres, city officials told the Daily News.

The deal is expected to be announced Monday along with an agreement for a third of an acre owned by another company.

Combined with previously inked deals, the city now controls more than 40% of the 62-acre tangle of auto body shops and other businesses — and could soon have half the land.

Bloomberg wants to spend $3 billion to turn the area into a glitzy enclave of 5,500 residences, stores, a hotel and a convention center.

Location Scout: Iron Triangle.

Given that the mayor seems to want to stay in office, perhaps we should rename certain long-term planning departments? Because now it should for sure take longer to get to one million more people:

Expecting a national recession to compound the effects of the Wall Street crisis, the New York City comptroller’s office is now forecasting that the city will lose 165,000 private-sector jobs over the next two years.

That would be almost twice as many as the comptroller’s office had projected three months ago, when it said that about 85,000 jobs would be lost. The difference, according to the comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr., is that the nation has slipped into a general recession with effects that will spread far beyond the financial services sector and across the whole city economy.

About one-fifth of those lost jobs, about 35,000, will come in investment banking and other financial services, according to the revised forecast. The previous projection was for a loss of 25,000 jobs in financial services, or almost one-third of the expected total.

Ronald Lauder, who bankrolled the 1993 and 1996 term limit referendum, tells us we should kill it, kill it:

My fellow New Yorkers agreed with this and voted overwhelmingly for term limits in both elections. And over 15 years, the concept has proved itself correct. Term limits gave us a more dynamic City Council. It also gave us Michael Bloomberg — a smart, competent and popular mayor. So having said all that, why do I suddenly have a change of heart on something about which I feel so strongly? Why do I believe term limits should be lifted temporarily to allow Mr. Bloomberg to run for a third term? The answer is simple.

I lived and worked here in New York during the fiscal crisis in the early 1970s. I remember how close this city came to going under. I also remember how that financial crisis trickled down and depressed life not just on Wall Street, but on every street in every borough. Housing prices plummeted, storefronts remained empty for years, business stagnated and opportunity dried up. A corresponding rise in crime led to nightmare murders that became the stuff of horror movies. Visitors stayed away, further eroding the city’s economy. Times Square in 1975 was not a place you wanted to bring your children.

I never want to see that happen again. During the last few weeks, we have seen an unprecedented rupture in our national economic system that rivals not 1975, but 1929. Ground zero for this financial meltdown is not Washington or California or small-town America, but New York. The sudden and shocking demise of major institutions like Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns only reinforces the comparison to the earlier and even darker time.

Certainly, there are able candidates for mayor in both parties; I know and admire many of them. But I believe that for a city poised on the brink of economic disaster (and experience tells us that economic disasters eventually become social disasters), a prosperous future depends in large measure on a mayor with a deep understanding of finance, governance and politics.

There’s a strong vote of confidence about what the city’s economy will look like on January 1, 2010. I wonder what he knows . . . but as much as Lauder feels good about his own efforts to tame the sclerotic system of entrenched lawmakers, shouldn’t an idea be a good or bad idea regardless of who supports it financially?

So let’s tease this out — given that Bloomberg is especially suited to saving New York City from catastrophic economic woes 15 months from now, what exactly has the mayor done that is so impressive on this front? What will he do, create a computer terminal? What about his tenure in office — doing mayoral things that every mayor does, and acccomplishing mayoral goals that every mayor has — what about his work in office would bring someone to this conclusion? For starters, consult his astounding 96 percent success rate in fulfilling his 2005 campaign promises (as of 2007) (.pdf here). Obviously no one else in the whole world would have been able, for example, to “expand the Out-of-School Time (OST) system to increase the number of young people served” (page 4). That’s great and all — but that doesn’t exactly show how he would single-handedly stave off a worldwide recession.

I say look on the bright side, if Bloomberg is unable to lead and the city starts to look like Scorsese’s Taxi Driver, then we won’t have to worry about where to put those million new residents, will we?

What should I wish for, Mother?

A gentleman caller:

Administrators at St. Peter’s Girls High School have mandated that juniors wanting to attend the May 22 prom must be escorted by male companions.

Even students unaffected by the sudden policy change at the New Brighton school said they don’t understand the couples-only rule.

“I just heard about it now; they can’t go unless they have a date,” said senior Deanna Stropoli, 17, of Dongan Hills, who is attending tonight’s senior prom with a boyfriend. “I think it’s kind of messed-up. Some people aren’t going to be able to go.”

There is no such restriction on the senior prom.

School interim principal Florence Bricker wouldn’t comment this week on the policy, which is a change from previous years, and St. Peter’s R.C. Church Monsignor James Dorney said it was strictly a school matter.

Other Staten Island all-girls high schools polled by the Advance said yesterday they have no such policy for their junior proms.

The city Department of Education doesn’t have a formal policy governing proms at public schools, but a spokeswoman said yesterday that a dates-only dance would be “highly unlikely.”

“It wouldn’t happen in public schools — everyone’s invited,” said DOE spokeswoman Margie Feinberg, although she said prom arrangements are up to each school.

St. Peter’s always has declined to divulge its student numbers, but the total is thought to be less than 300. The couples-only policy might have been enacted with an eye to boosting attendance at the prom.

But seriously, who has a prom on a Thursday? When did that happen?

Why you would want to discourage someone from using technology that gets like 80 miles to the gallon, I don’t know:

The city’s scooter owners aren’t pleased with Mayor Bloomberg’s congestion-pricing plan. London’s system, on which New York’s is based, excludes scooters and motorcycles from fees, but here they’ll be charged half-fare, $4 (assuming they use a special E-Z Pass). “They’re addressing the problem backwards,” says Jonathan Perkel, a founder of the New York Scooter Club. “We’re part of the solution. In London, they exempted scooters, and people started riding them, and that took a lot of cars off the road.” He’s mad at Transportation Alternatives, the bicycle-advocacy group, which helped develop the proposal. “They’re not interested in any change that wouldn’t favor bicycles or mass transit,” Perkel says.

Because the sooner they get out, the more quickly they can become unemployed and start having children:

The policy would prevent eighth-graders from moving to high school if they score poorly on standardized English and math tests or fail to pass certain core classes. The teachers union, principals union, and parent groups have opposed it. Proposed by the mayor in his State of the City address, to be official the policy requires the approval of the Panel for Education Policy at its meeting tonight. Since Albany transferred control of the city schools to the mayor in 2002, the panel has never vetoed a mayoral policy.

Panel members — including the five appointed by the borough presidents and eight appointed by Mr. Bloomberg — have usually lined up behind proposals, ever since four years ago, when Mr. Bloomberg averted a veto by firing two appointees who were set to oppose a policy the night before the vote. That policy, cracking down on so-called social promotion by making it more difficult to move out of third grade, is a model for this one.

Manhattan’s representative, Patrick Sullivan, is set to vote against the eighth-grade policy today. In a statement, the president of Manhattan, Scott Stringer, said he asked Mr. Sullivan to vote no because retaining students “rarely works.”

I understand why parents would want to avoid challenging their children to become educated — and I even get why a borough president would prefer a dysfunctional school system — but what’s the deal with the unions? More kids staying in school more years means more jobs — win-win.

Or you could dangle a ridiculously generous incentive like free parking for hybrids:

New Yorkers who purchase hybrid cars would receive a novel perk under legislation proposed by Council Member Hiram Monserrate: free parking for a year.

“Obviously in the backdrop of global warming and $4-a-gallon fuel, the question is what we should do as a municipality to consume less,” Mr. Monserrate, who represents parts of Queens, said in an interview.

If the legislation passes, drivers with receipts for hybrid cars could apply for permits granting them the right to free use of parking meters for a year after their initial purchase.

According to Mr. Monserrate, the advantages of such a move would not be limited to the environment.

“It might help in a small way to activate new car sales, which I think is good for the economy. And no one can deny that it would be good for car dealers and the workers at the plants,” he said.

While the cost of the proposal was not immediately clear, Mr. Monserrate said tax revenue from increased car purchases could help pay for it.

“Whatever the city loses on a few quarters, we will gain in the city tax portion of purchasing a new vehicle,” he said.

Members of the City Council encourage the mayor to encourage the Port Authority to pay more to New York to offset the perverse benefit New Jersey drivers will get if congestion pricing is implemented. No, really:

City lawmakers want New Jersey drivers to pay up under the mayor’s plan to charge motorists to enter Manhattan south of 60th Street.

Currently, Garden State commuters are exempt under the congestion-pricing plan because they already pay a bridge or tunnel toll to get into the city.

But about 20 City Council members signed a letter asking Mayor Bloomberg to push for a Jersey fee — or get the Port Authority to contribute more to the city’s mass-transit network.

“We are concerned that the burden of paying for congestion pricing will fall too heavily on New York City residents,” the letter reads.

The problem with instituting congestion pricing is that to make it fair, you have to start charging everyone $8 to go anywhere:

The New York State Department of Transportation brought its second round of PlaNYC neighborhood parking workshops to Long Island City on Tuesday, where community members had a chance to weigh in on several parking options.

The DOT conducted its first round of meetings in November to assess the needs of several communities in the city and continue discussion about possible parking options to offset the potential effects of congestion pricing.

The second round of meetings explored four options in depth. Consultants from Howard/Stein-Hudson Associates, Inc. — the firm representing the DOT — also provided data from a recent parking study conducted in Long Island City.

Many western Queens residents said parking is already severely limited in their communities. Others fear congestion pricing would cause an influx of even more commuters who park their cars in the neighborhood and take the subway or the bus into Manhattan.

The recent study surveyed 343 residential parking spaces in Long Island City at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on the same day and at 5:30 a.m. the following morning.

According to the data, 60 percent of the vehicles seen at 6 p.m. were still in the same spots at 5:30 a.m. Out of the vehicles parked overnight, 47 percent were registered in the neighborhood, 55 percent were registered within Queens, 66 percent were registered within New York City and 82 percent were registered within New York State. Eighteen percent of the cars observed were registered out of state.

All four of the plans proposed on Tuesday focused discussion on the possible issuance of residential parking permits. The first would require a permit during designated hours (between 8 and 24). The second would require a permit only during a one- to two-hour period, which would mean non-permit holders would be forced to move their vehicles during that time.

The third option, a variation on the first, would have the same stipulations, but also allow commuters to purchase a permit for $8 a day. The fourth option, similarly a variation on the second, would also allow commuters to purchase a daily permit for $8.

“None of this has been decided,” noted consultant Scott Gierig, who emphasized that the purpose of the workshop was to gauge community response to each of the proposals.

Some City Council members are suspicious of a plan to allow more vegetable pushcart permits because of the competition it may create with bodegas that don’t even sell vegetables to begin with:

Under a bill introduced in December at the mayor’s request — with the backing of Council Speaker Christine Quinn — the city would issue 1,500 new permits for street pushcarts to sell just fruits and vegetables in “underserved communities.”

The carts would be confined to specific areas — identified by police precincts — and would be monitored by health inspectors and the police. Violations could lead to the seizure of carts and fines.

If approved by the Council, the measure will call for phasing in 750 permits per year for two years, with 500 earmarked for the Bronx, 500 for Brooklyn, 250 for Queens, 200 for Manhattan and 50 for Staten Island.

While commending the health goal, participants in a hearing by the Consumer Affairs Committee questioned whether the green carts would hurt neighborhood supermarkets, bodegas and greengrocers.

The skeptics suggested other alternatives, such as allowing stores to set up their own fresh fruit and vegetable stands outside their premises, or providing tax incentives.

“It is going to cause harm,” said Councilman Miguel Martinez (D-Manhattan).

Councilman John Liu (D-Queens) questioned whether “this green cart proposal actually makes sense.”

“Maybe we should be licensing vendors to sell suits outside, and lingerie,” scoffed Councilman Simcha Felder (D-Brooklyn).

And Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn) cited the warring interests of merchants and street peddlers.

“Welcome to the politics of food,” he said.

How stupid are New Yorkers? Not only can a cupcake store clear more than enough to pay its $30,000-plus rent but it can open a second Manhattan location, too:

There are few small businesses that can comfortably afford a $400,000-per-year lease in Manhattan.

There are even fewer ones that can do so selling cupcakes.

Magnolia Bakery, the West Village destination well-known for its butter cream-frosted baked goods, celeb appeal and its cameo in SNL’s “Lazy Sunday” digital short, has recently opened a second domain on 200 Columbus Ave. at West 69th Street. Owner Steve Abrams, who is a 20-year Upper West Side veteran, always believed the neighborhood could embrace the business, but didn’t quite anticipate the orders when it opened its doors on Jan. 19.

“It’s been beyond expectations. Opening day, we ran out of product,” Abrams said. “I think the volumes are going to be very similar [to downtown]. Just the way they manifest will be different. Downtown is touristy. . . . . They’re not buying a dozen cupcakes. Here it’s all families. People buy in bulk.”

A) Who steals a nativity scene? B) Would they really then hold it for ransom? Many questions, few answers:

The Bayside Business Association’s Bell Boulevard Nativity display was stolen Dec. 28, marking the first theft of the organization’s creche in the five years it has been available for public viewing.

BBA President Judy Limpert said she noticed it had disappeared Saturday after seeing it at 41-16 Bell Blvd. just the day before. The small building sits across from a small Northfork Bank office and alongside the Bayside Long Island Railroad station

. . .

Limpert said the all-white resin figures were not particularly heavy, but had cost about $250.

Although she said the association would buy another display if necessary, the BBA head said she still held out hope the perpetrators would simply return the item.

“If the reason for taking it was some kind of political statement, then we’re willing to talk,” she said.

Councilman Tony Avella (D-Bayside) renewed efforts last month to convince the DOE to permit nativity displays alongside the menorah and star and crescent in schools for holiday displays; current DOE policy bars the appearance of deities in schools.

Limpert also said that if the theft was a matter of need, accommodation could be reached. “If they took it for their own use, we will donate one to them.”

The point of charging people who ride in a taxi an extra dollar is what exactly? To make it less desireable to ride in a cab? No, the point is to lower asthma rates:

Hailing a cab in the city’s proposed congestion zone could add a dollar to the fare if a state commission’s recommendation is sent to Albany and the City Council for approval.

The Congestion Mitigation Commission is set to recommend today four scenarios for the implementation of the mayor’s congestion pricing plan, which would charge drivers about $8 to enter and drive in most of Manhattan during peak hours.

One scenario would charge taxi passengers $1 for trips that originate below 60th Street.

Now that an ambitious expansion of the Javits Center is all but dead, maybe we should reconsider that subway stop:

Two years after the Far West Side was rezoned for large-scale development, a growing number of elected officials, environmentalists and community groups are questioning the city’s and state’s plans for the area.

The city has set aside $2.1 billion for the extension of the No. 7 line from Times Square to the Javits Convention Center and the West Side railyards, the rights to which the Metropolitan Transportation Authority plans to auction off for high-rise residential and commercial development. But in an effort to stay within the budget, the city recently eliminated one of two stops along the 1.1-mile extension from the current tunneling contract.

Representative Jerrold Nadler; the city comptroller, William C. Thompson Jr.; and other officials said in a Dec. 19 letter to Deputy Mayor Daniel L. Doctoroff that it was “imperative” that the city build that subway station, at 10th Avenue and 41st Street, as part of the extension, work on which began last month. Not doing so, they said, would “represent a failure to the area’s growing residential population” and “puts at risk several million square feet of potential commercial and residential development.”

Those officials suggested financing the station by diverting money from projects that could be put on hold temporarily, like building a tree-lined boulevard between 10 and 11th Avenues, from 34th to 39th Streets. Those projects are part of the city’s larger vision for rebuilding the Far West Side.

A tree-lined boulevard? Where did that come from?

How could a subway extension project with only one stop be cut back any further? It’s possible:

The MTA and the city are moving ahead with a planned extension of the No. 7 subway line to the Javits Convention Center, but much of the original project may be scrapped to stay on budget, officials said yesterday.

The agency is expected next week to approve a $1.1 billion contract to dig the extension from Times Square west to 11th Avenue, then downtown to a terminal at 34th Street.

Not only will plans for a stop at 41st Street and 11th Avenue be eliminated, but the MTA may not even build a planned shell for a future station.

. . .

Normally, the MTA wouldn’t spend $2.1 billion to add a single station, but the city is footing the bill as part of its development of the West Side rail yards.

There is an option to build the station shell for $500 million more, but the MTA would be responsible for overruns and doesn’t have the money. Transit advocates called the decision to possibly eliminate the station a grave error.

“The real irony is that there are many more homes and businesses near the 10th Avenue station than near the Javits station,” said MTA board member Andrew Albert. “The bottom line is this is going to cost us a lot more later.”

Broadway producers look for that lucrative tween market, which obviously has more cash than it knows what to do with:

For Broadway producers, 10-year-old Jamie Carroll looks like an ideal theatergoer: she downloads scores off of iTunes, is a fervent proselytizer when she likes something and has lots of friends, two of whom she brought along to a recent Saturday matinee of “Legally Blonde.” “A lot of my friends say it’s the best musical they’ve ever seen,” she said.

Maybe. But Jamie’s father and her 14-year-old brother would not join them, considering the show too girly. Even her mother, Tacey Carroll, was only present as a chaperon: “This is a little more for them,” she said, echoing several other mothers at the theater, one of whom even dropped off her young charges and went shopping.

And that’s the rub for Broadway producers, for whom teenage and tween girls have become the demographic of the moment, wooed by marketing campaigns and featured as central characters in a flurry of shows in development, including “13,” about a teenager from New York who is transplanted to Indiana; “Princesses,” which is basically “High School Musical” meets “Gossip Girl”; and a musical adaptation of the movie “Clueless.”

Increasingly, though, some worry that the sugar-and-spice enthusiasm may be misplaced, because while teenagers and tweens may be helpful in creating a hit, they are far from enough to ensure one. For that, you still need grown-ups — lots of paying grown-ups — to want to come to a show.

*Just kidding, Mr. Mamet! We can’t wait for that Duran Duran thing to end to see your next play staged!

This is fancified lawyerspeak for what exactly? A cab driver’s right to unencumbered privacy? Who knows:

Officials with a taxi-driver advocacy group and the Taxi & Limousine Commission are slated to meet today with a federal judge after the drivers’ group filed a class action lawsuit Wednesday to keep global positioning technology out of the city’s 13,000 yellow cabs.

The New York Taxi Workers Alliance, which orchestrated a two-day strike earlier this month, and eight individual drivers filed the suit against the commission, saying the GPS technology is unconstitutional. A lawyer for the plaintiffs said the opposing parties were to meet in court Thursday at noon.

If no resolution is reached, cabbies may strike again, the alliance said.

. . .

Of the eight individual plaintiffs, six allege that they refused to sign a contract with one of four vendors of the GPS technology. They now face costly penalties and suspension of their medallions, according to the suit. The other two argue they would have to pay for the equipment even though one leases the cab, and the other owns his cab but not the medallion.

“We will fight any attempt by the TLC to encumber our client’s property without due process or which violates our client’s right to privacy under the guise of improving taxi service,” Richard Koehler, the alliance’s attorney, said in a statement.

Tom Robbins outlined some legitimate sounding reasons to oppose the GPS requirement — so how come we get platitudes about privacy rights? They should stick with the facts, assuming that what Robbins reported is correct:

After cab owners began installing the devices in their taxis this year, drivers noted other problems as well: The gadgets often didn’t work. Apparently, there were blackout areas in the city where the credit-card machinery failed to kick in. This resulted in the taxi meters instantly shutting down as well. In the taxi business, a nonworking meter is the equivalent of a “closed” sign hanging in a restaurant window.

. . .

One of the approved vendors, a startup New Jersey firm, has had no experience in taxis or anything else. Another is a Queens company that already services taxi meters and whose wireless credit-card units were panned when originally introduced. Another firm is co-owned by Ronald Sherman, the head of the Metropolitan Taxicab Board of Trade, the group that represents the powerful taxi-fleet owners. When the commission originally said it was going to make the equipment mandatory in all cabs, Sherman complained at a public hearing that it would be too expensive. Then he realized that wouldn’t be a problem if he started his own company to provide the units. This he promptly did. Amazingly, his was one of those the commission approved.

The commission’s experts never even examined the product of a British company, Cabvision, whose credit-card and wireless-communication units are already working in 1,000 London taxis. The British proposal was especially intriguing because it offered to provide and install the units for free, just as it does in London.

Unfortunately, the Cabvision proposal was rejected after it was deemed to have missed the deadline. Company owners protested that they’d been assured by taxi-commission officials that a one-day delay in transoceanic mail wouldn’t be a problem. Then it turned out that the agency’s chief contracting officer had opened and read the proposal, even though it is against all the rules to do so once a submission has been rejected for tardiness. Commission officials apologized for the slipup and promised to send the proposal back. When last heard from, the British firm was still waiting for the package.

This somehow qualifies as news at the Post? Someone did something horrifically horrible but we won’t say where because it’s just too horrible:

A crude and tasteless Web site that claims 9/11 was “funny” and the victims “deserved what they got” has provoked a storm of criticism.

The site features a series of heartless jokes, cartoons, and vile photos that make light of the disaster.

Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association President Patrick J. Lynch blasted the site as “crude, vulgar, hurtful and unpatriotic.”

“The police officers who sacrificed their lives that day, and every day, do so to ensure the freedom of speech that this Web site insults,” he said.

“America’s greatness lies in the tolerance of crap like this – where those responsible would be summarily executed for this kind of offense in a terrorist country.”

The Webmaster, who identifies himself only as “Henry” and “Hank Tom,” invites people to send him hate mail via e-mail or a message board — and many have obliged.

“You better hope we never meet in real life,” wrote one distressed Web surfer. “What happened to people on 9/11 isn’t anything compared to what I will do to you.”

There was no information on the identity of the ghoul who set up the site.

(The Daily News fills in the details.)

Better get all your spending in now because things might not look so good down the road:

City budget officials say they are seeing signs that the soaring revenues of the last several years are coming to an end, and they have begun preparing for belt-tightening in the months ahead.

The anticipated falloff is due in large part to lower expected profits on Wall Street and a projected decline in large real estate transactions.

“The economies of our world and our city are cyclical, and it looks like, sadly, we’re going from one of growth to one of hopefully not decline, but certainly nowhere near as much growth, if any,” Mr. Bloomberg said yesterday at a news conference on the Brooklyn waterfront.

Officials in Mr. Bloomberg’s administration have often warned of shortfalls that never materialized. But this time around, said Mark Page, the city’s budget director, continued fallout in the financial services industry from the national mortgage crisis and recent losses at hedge funds are likely to significantly cut into profits on Wall Street this year.

In turn, that means less tax revenue for the city, and lower real estate transaction fees — an unusually rich source of revenue in recent years — as fewer fat bonuses fuel high-end apartment shopping sprees.

In addition, Mr. Page said, city officials had already been projecting lower revenue from real estate transactions in the current fiscal year than in the year that ended in June because they predicted fewer large deals like the $5.4 billion purchase of Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village.

. . .

Although city officials are not yet predicting an economic downturn, the city is already looking to rein in costs. About 10 days ago, Mr. Bloomberg sent a letter to all agencies seeking to limit new hiring and warning that budget cuts may be necessary in the coming months.

“As a practical matter, if you start trying to squeeze down marginal spending sooner, you don’t have to jam them down as much to save the money you need,” Mr. Page said in explaining the move.

In the letter, the mayor said he had asked Mr. Page to “closely scrutinize all agency hiring.”

“It is easier and more prudent to tightly manage headcount now, rather than face staff reductions in the future,” Mr. Bloomberg wrote.

(Diane Cardwell is relentless . . . who’s feeding her this? Is her husband still advising President Clinton? The Hillary juggernaut rolls over all the opposition!)

(OK, OK, so that’s paranoid — but if you want to investigate the mayor’s record she really is a good place to start.)