More gloating, this time on the part of the Daily News:

You might want to think twice before you take any sweet-tooth recommendations from the New York Post.

Just Wednesday, the fact-challenged paper crowned a Staten Island bakery named Cake Chef as the best in the city for classic black-and-white cookies.

Too bad the Health Department shut the place down last week for a string of sanitary violations.

The Post crowed that the bakery on Jewett Ave. is “fabulous” and “one of the best in the city,” but inspectors ordered the place shut last Thursday after it racked up 62 violation points.

The place was deemed “conducive to vermin,” there was evidence of mice and workers’ personal cleanliness was rated “inadequate,” according to the report.

More on those discretionary funds:

City Council members running for citywide office are allocating “member item” money to organizations miles away from their council districts, a New York Sun analysis has found.

The disclosure is reinforcing concerns that the taxpayer funds are being used to buy political support. It is also undercutting one of the most commonly made defenses of member items in the city’s budget, which is that no one knows a district’s needs better than the local representative.

The disclosure that council members are attaching their names to money sent to organizations miles from their constituents’ homes, in boroughs they don’t represent, is the latest angle in the “slush fund” scandal that began with the news that the City Council was budgeting money for made-up, nonexistent organizations as a way of stashing funds away to be allocated at the discretion of individual council members. After federal indictments of council aides, all four metropolitan daily newspapers in the city have come out with editorials calling for abolishing the grants of taxpayer funds at the sole discretion of individual council members.

The out-of-district grants are raising concern from council members and advocacy groups, who say it’s another sign that the member item system needs to be overhauled or ended completely.

“Why would you give your small discretionary funds to groups outside your district unless you are trying to curry favor for future elections or political purposes?” a council member of Queens who is running for mayor, Tony Avella, said. “It’s not like we get enough money as it is.”

See also: “Longtime Practice of City Council Financing Lands on Speaker’s Shoulders” (NYT, May 11, 2008).

Allow 16- and 17-year-old representatives to vote:

State law does not allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote on community boards. State and city bills introduced last month would allow 16- and 17-year olds to vote on the boards, which have advisory responsibilities.

Francine Baras, executive director of Future Voters of America, a nonprofit group, described the effort as a compromise stemming from an earlier effort to lower the voting age in city elections that met considerable opposition.

“It’s funny,” said Councilwoman Gale Brewer, who introduced the bill calling for a lowered age limit in the City Council. “People are nervous about 16- and 17-year-olds.”

Ms. Brewer’s resolution lists some things 16- and 17-year-old state residents can already do: obtain a learner’s permit to drive, be tried and charged as adults in criminal matters, obtain a marriage license with parental consent, hold a job and pay taxes. In the language of her bill, imposing these responsibilities yet denying members of this age group the right to take part in their city government leaves them “disenfranchised” and “second-class citizens.”

Supporters say that 16- and 17-year-olds would bring a unique perspective to local government, especially with regard to issues involving schools and youth services, and suggest that youthful enthusiasm that has been evident in national politics in recent months can fuel involvement at the local level.

Think about the irony of allowing underage members to approve liquor licenses . . . in an advisory capacity only, of course. Brilliant!

In case you thought it would be a good thing for the City to control transportation projects, there’s this — Hizzoner paying a little too much attention to the wrong parts of the Power Broker:

Bloomberg said Friday that a week or two ago, developer Jerry Speyer expressed concerns about whether the city would complete the 7 subway line extension critical to the $1 billion project.

“If I were you,” the mayor said he told Speyer, “I would make absolutely, positively sure that we are going to build that subway before I put one dime of my own money in.”

The MTA’s announcement Thursday night that it had canned the Tishman-Speyer deal came without warning to the mayor, City Hall insiders said.

. . .

Neither Bloomberg staffers nor Tishman-Speyer representatives would discuss the outcome of the hour-long talk at Bloomberg’s London apartment Friday.

“The plan isn’t dead by any means,” Bloomberg said before the sitdown. “All these things go though many cycles.

“The No. 7 line is going to get done,” the mayor added, “and it will be so far along before I leave office that nobody’s going to be able to stop it.”

Plans for the site include thousands of units of housing, commercial skyscrapers, a school and parkland.

Oh, well as long as there’s a park — and a school! — Robert Moses would smile, since he popularized the “get as far along as possible and make ‘em take it back down” philosophy of urban planning (recently embraced by Bruce Ratner, among others).

The current style of pants is too tight anyway:

A pervert with a Metro-Card and a camera likes to zoom in on the groins of male subway riders and then post his videos on the Internet, The Post has learned.

“The bulge on him just brings so much to the imagination . . . and the fact that he was oblivious to my filming is so great,” the 27- year-old filmmaker — who calls himself househead7d5 — gleefully recounts.

On another of his dozen clips, titled “sexy guy on 5 train,” as the subway pulls into 86th Street, househead7d5 tilts up from the man’s crotch, briefly, to his face.

“See this guy, and he sees me back,” says the description.

Because nothing shown on these videos isn’t already on public display and houshead7d5 is not earning money from his voyeurism, there is technically nothing criminal or actionable about his work, say attorney Rosemarie Arnold and other legal experts.

Mayor Bloomberg is a man who loves all kinds of gadgets. So disturbing hobby time is a risky proposition, done at your own peril:

A defeat of congestion pricing in the Assembly may irrevocably rupture the relationship between Speaker Sheldon Silver and Mayor Bloomberg and provoke an open conflict between the two city leaders.

Mr. Bloomberg, who has said repeatedly that he supports politicians who back his policies, might be tempted to do the opposite if his plan to charge motorists a fee to drive into the busy parts of Manhattan collapses in the Assembly, on which Mr. Silver wields tremendous influence.

“The danger could be that it does get personalized,” a former top aide to Mr. Bloomberg, William Cunningham, said. “Could there be a time when the mayor gets fed up with the games? Yes, I suppose so. He’s human.”

The mayor may use his political influence and fortune against Mr. Silver, political insiders say. This year, Mr. Silver, 64, is expected to face at least two Democratic primary opponents in September. Mr. Bloomberg could go as far as to endorse and provide financial support for one of the challengers.

. . . maybe it’s time to rethink your strategy — “Tenants freak out at meeting on Wash. Sq. Village ideas”:

Residents of Washington Square Village erupted in anger and panic at a March 13 meeting on New York University’s possible future redevelopment of the superblocks south of Washington Square Park.

More than 150 residents of the four-building complex between W. Third and Bleecker Sts. from LaGuardia Pl. to Mercer St. reacted to the presentation of the long-range N.Y.U. 2031 scenario as if it were an eviction notice.

Alicia Hurley, associate vice president for government and community affairs, began the meeting by noting that 2031 will be the university’s 200th anniversary. The presentation, she said, was intended to involve the community in exploring “ideas about possibilities five to 10 years away or even 35 to 50 years away.”

But before Will Haas, N.Y.U. planning director, completed the presentation, tenants interrupted by calling the plans “ruthless” and demanding, “Where do the tenants go?”

. . .

Residents refused to accept the validity of any scenario that does not specify exactly how any new buildings would be used.

“We’re not sure what we’ll need 25 years from now,” Hurley replied. Residents also seemed to ignore Hurley’s assertion that the demolition of Washington Square Village was not the only possibility and, in any case, would be years in the future.

Residents paid no attention to distributed copies of the planning principles that N.Y.U. agreed to this year, one of which promises a tenant relocation policy for legal residential tenants if required by construction.

“If I have to relocate I might just relocate myself out of here and take my grant money with me,” another resident said.

“Why is your need for space greater than our need for space?” asked another.

“Nazi tactics,” charged one resident, adding, “I’m not calling you a Nazi, I’m saying the tactics your are using are Nazi.” Hurley was indignant but restrained at that comment, but when another resident said the meeting was “a waste of time” and intended only to “razzle tenants,” Hurley suggested that anyone who agreed should leave the meeting. No one made a move to go.

Connecting with the people is about making promises and sticking to them:

No nationally known political figures graced the ninth annual St. Patrick’s Parade in Sunnyside and Woodside, and even Mayor Michael Bloomberg gave notice he wouldn’t be around this year, though once he had said he’d attend each parade faithfully, even after he had left office.

How come tuition is almost $40,000 a year if NYU Law is clearing Harvard levels of loot? Good question:

The NYU School of Law received more than $43 million in donations in the 2006-2007 fiscal year, finishing second only to Harvard Law School and raking in almost double the amount Columbia Law School collected.

The law school has raised $285,657,449 through Jan. 31, 2008 since 2002. With additional verbal commitments and gifts, the total comes to about $330 million.

The school expects to increase that amount to $400 million by December 2009.

The only way to let go of the endless media speculation about whether he’ll run is flood the zone with stories saying he won’t. Then maybe we can get our lives back:

His bosom pals endorsed someone else. Some of those trying to draft him for a run are suddenly less interested. And even the mayor himself, as he continues to insist he will not be a contender for the White House, is for the first time sounding like someone who means it.

Has Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s presidential bubble finally burst?

If not, it is losing air as quickly as Senator John McCain’s is gaining momentum, say some of his most ardent supporters.

“I think as soon as McCain started pulling ahead, it became really clear to me that that was probably the swan song,” said Karin Gallet, founder of the New York chapter of Unite for Mike, a movement to draft the mayor for a third-party run. “I hope I’m wrong. But that’s really Bloomberg’s base of support.”

Ms. Gallet’s hopes of a Bloomberg candidacy were finally shattered when Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut and then Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, both Bloomberg friends and supporters, endorsed Mr. McCain, a Republican.

She is abandoning the effort, she said, and getting back to her life.

The question is when all this fruitless presidential posturing will tarnish his legacy as mayor. Maybe that’s the only way he’ll pull Sheekey back.

*Don’t get caught playing solitaire.

I’m guessing the “empirical” doesn’t include the fact that Bloomberg’s final remaining positive attribute — a meaningless nod to “nonpartisanship”* — has been overtaken by events, specifically McCain’s meaningless nod to “nonpartisanship” and Obama’s meaningless nod to “nonpartisanship”:

A venture capitalist who founded a company expressly to support a presidential run by Mayor Bloomberg, and who is conducting nationwide voter analysis for the mayor, says his data show that Mr. Bloomberg can win the White House.

James Robinson IV, the founder of the technology and data analysis company Symposia Group, told The New York Sun he believes that “empirically, he can win,” even with the emergence of Senator McCain as the Republican front-runner.

After starting the company in December 2006, Mr. Robinson’s team, which he says includes people at the “top of the game” in search intelligence and database analysis, spent more than nine months building a technology system that attempts to gauge the thinking of Americans on a neighborhood-by-neighborhood, and even house-by-house, basis.

. . .

Mr. Bloomberg says repeatedly that he is “not a candidate,” but his high-profile appearances and speeches indicate he is trying to keep his options open. He did, however, deviate from his standard denial yesterday, when speaking to employees of Google at the company’s offices in the city.

After saying that he’s not a candidate for president, he went further than usual, adding that he’ll “stay that way.”

His subtle change in tone may be linked to Mr. McCain’s surge, which some political observers say makes it less likely Mr. Bloomberg will run.

Scott Rasmussen, the president of Rasmussen Reports, which conducts presidential polls, said he is fairly confident Mr. McCain will be the Republican nominee and that if Mr. Bloomberg is taking a serious look at the field right now, “he is seeing the door closing.”

. . .

Mr. Bloomberg’s possible presidential aspirations appeared to take a hit yesterday when Governor Schwarzenegger endorsed Mr. McCain for president. The California governor had said previously that he would not back a candidate in the race, leading some political observers to speculate that he was holding out to see if Mr. Bloomberg jumped into the fray.

Both advocate a nonpartisan, pragmatic approach to government, and Mr. Schwarzenegger has called Mr. Bloomberg his “soulmate.”

*And if you want to start talking about the Mayor’s nonpartisan legacy, examine the record.

Like the Six Million Dollar Man only times thirty:

As the economy falters, Bloomberg could position himself as the perfect combination of private-sector entrepreneur and experienced, responsible public-service fiscal steward. “Mike could be one of the most important philanthropists we’ve ever seen,” a Bloomberg friend says. “But one example Kevin reminds him about is the smoking ban. Bloomberg ran for office in 2001 and spent $75 million. If he had taken $75 million and paid for smoking-cessation programs in the city, he wouldn’t have made one-thousandth the difference he made by getting elected and pushing through the smoking ban. Maybe not one-millionth the difference. So the $10 billion or $20 billion he’ll give away over the next twenty years, he could still make a greater difference by becoming president.”

Hizzoner swings for the fences — that elusive 19 percent of the popular vote :

The campaign strategist who masterminded Texas billionaire Ross Perot’s third-party presidential bid in 1992, Clay Mulford, discussed Mayor Bloomberg’s national viability with him at a recent meeting, Mr. Mulford told Time magazine this week.

“He wondered what I thought about whether or not he could do it and I think he can,” Mr. Mulford said of their discussions.

Clyde Haberman reports from the mayor’s state of the city speech:

On one level, it was a bread-and-butter recitation of what Mr. Bloomberg saw as his accomplishments and what he hoped to do in the two years he has left at City Hall: with policing and fire protection, education, health, housing, economic development and so on.

But there was another level, and it practically screamed, “Hey, don’t rule me out in 2008.” His constant travels — the schedule this weekend puts him in California and Texas, two states dripping with electoral votes — can only feed assumptions that he is toying with a third-party candidacy.

He wasted little time on Thursday to slip in the buzzword of the year: change. All the presidential candidates say they want to be change agents so badly that the eventual losers might think about looking for work in a movie theater box office.

For himself, Mr. Bloomberg suggested he would be better at innovation than the others. “We can improve and be the beneficiary of change, not its victim,” he said.

Old narrative — dude, you should totally run for president. New narrative — Sheekey, make up your goddamn mind already:

And a recent poll conducted by Quinnipiac University found that 61 percent of New Yorkers thought Mr. Bloomberg had a “moral obligation” to serve out his full term. The survey, of 1,162 New York City voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus three percentage points, also found that while 16 percent wanted to see him run for president rather than for governor, 32 percent did not want him to run for either office.

“People might be saying, ‘C’mon, do your job,’” said Maurice Carroll, director of the polling institute at Quinnipiac. “Maybe people are thinking, ‘Look, it’s such a long shot; why don’t you think about what to do about traffic congestion in Bay Ridge?’”

Others offered a blunter assessment.

“It’s a very long prelude, and I think it is becoming a very old story very fast,” said Robert Zimmerman, a communications specialist who is one of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s fund-raisers. “Mike Bloomberg has failed to make a case that he represents an independent movement, as opposed to a former Democratic liberal, former Republican, former Bush-backer running a campaign of opportunism.”

To be sure, there is little indication that ordinary voters around the country have given much thought to a Bloomberg candidacy, especially given the dramatic primary races in the two major parties. But his enormous wealth and willingness to spend it make him someone who cannot be ignored within the political world.

At this point, the fatigue with Mr. Bloomberg’s national ambitions seems highest within the political chattering class, but it could spread if the mayor continues to dance around his intentions without saying clearly what they are, analysts said. The speculation began in earnest last June, when he switched his registration from Republican to independent.

“With the way that he’s playing this right now, it features all the things that we like least about Michael Bloomberg,” said David S. Birdsell, dean of the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College. “It features him as the testy, hard-to-satisfy critic of candidates who are already in the race, and it buttresses, the longer this goes on, the aloof critic role we might associate with a billionaire above the political fray rather than the dedicated politician and competent manager.”

The city’s RatStat campaign has begun:

City health officials have kicked off a new offensive in the rat war.

Health inspectors, armed with handheld computers, have begun combing blocks in The Bronx to catalog signs of rat life and conditions that make them thrive.

After the “rodent indexing” of a particular neighborhood, officials would bombard the area with repeated exterminations.

“Every few years, war is declared on rats. I don’t think it’s an area we’ve been particularly successful,” said Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden.

What makes New Yorkers so supportive of Mayor Bloomberg’s presidential aspirations? His strong adherence to the tenets of personal responsibility:

They may be too unhealthy for regular New Yorkers to eat, but not so for Mayor Michael Bloomberg, apparently.

After gaining national media attention for spearheading an almost total ban on trans fats in city restaurants, Bloomberg was photographed in this month’s issue of Wired magazine munching on those very same dangerous fats.

The photo, which accompanies a short Q&A about technology and politics, features Bloomberg at his City Hall desk, looking thoughtful and serious. Meanwhile, his right hand seems almost absent-mindedly pulling a Cheez-It out of a single-serving bag of the crackers.

The reader can only assume that the baked snack cracker is headed for the mayor’s mouth, and along with it some of the half-gram of trans fat found in every serving of Cheez-Its.

. . .

“The mayor is in favor of labeling and making informed choices,” said Bloomberg spokesman Jason Post, who also pointed out that a reduced-fat version of Cheez-Its contains less trans fat. It’s unclear which kind sits on the mayor’s desk in the photograph.

Word to Obama:

He arrived here for what seemed like it could be a big moment. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, eyeing a third-party presidential bid, joined Republican and Democratic elders at a forum to denounce the extreme partisanship of Washington and plot how to influence the campaign.

But even as the mayor gathered on Monday with the seasoned Washington hands on the campus of the University of Oklahoma, the surging presidential campaign of Senator Barack Obama seemed to steal energy from the event and set off worry elsewhere among Mr. Bloomberg’s supporters.

Mr. Obama has stressed that he wants to move beyond gridlocked politics and usher in an era of national unity. A key organizer of the effort to draft Mr. Bloomberg for a presidential run acknowledged in an interview on Monday that that Mr. Obama’s rise could be problematic.

“Obama is trying to reach out to independent voters, and that clearly would be the constituency that Mike Bloomberg would go after,” said Andrew MacRae, who heads the Washington chapter of Draft Mike Bloomberg for President 2008. “An Obama victory does not make it impossible, but it certainly makes it more difficult.”

Then again, how scary have you considered whether Bloomberg could avoid being a spoiler to Hillary by joining her? This passage in this week’s John Heilemann column jumped out:

But Clinton’s bid, as her campaign manager, Patti Solis Doyle, said after the caucuses, “was built for a marathon.” (Or, as one rival operative put it to me, “They’ll start a fucking third party before they’ll give up on putting her in the White House.”)

Every executive knows that the cheapest way to keep employees happy is to give them exciting new job titles:

Five years into the tenure of Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, a major administrative restructuring of the city schools has brought the wacky culture of corporate job titles to the Tweed Courthouse.

There, among the ranks of top school officials working for Klein is a chief accountability officer making $196,000, a chief knowledge officer making $177,000, a chief talent officer making $172,000 and a chief portfolio officer making $162,000.

There’s also a chief equality officer, but he’s working for free this year.

Then there are all the corporate titles, in spades. Several divisions each have a chief executive officer, there’s a product manager for knowledge management, a demand research manager, a director of virtual enterprise and dozens of senior achievement facilitators.

There was someone called the director of restructuring and human capital, but he’s now the senior director of sustainability, at $123,000.

Parents say it’s enough to make them dizzy.

“It’s a whole mess,” said Anastatia Davis-John, the parent association president at Brooklyn’s Public School 135.

“It’s totally confusing. They switched from districts to regions and now they’ve switched back, and half the titles you don’t know what they mean. . . . It’s especially difficult for parents who can’t speak English. They don’t know who is representing what and who is doing what.”

Teachers are still called teachers, of course. And principals are still principals — though under a new system that gives principals more autonomy and Klein often calls them “school CEOs.”

I don’t know which is worse — that the Met is incorporating blogging into its exhibits or that the Post actually used the word “fugly” in a headline:

The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Costume Institute is inviting the public to unleash its inner fashion critic, and blog about all 65 items found in a new exhibit.

The museum, which just kicked off its “blog.mode: addressing fashion” exhibit, will periodically post its objects on a special online site — and anyone can comment on them from the comfort of home or a computer station at the exhibit.

“While painting and sculpture can sometimes seem to be an intimidating conceptual remove, fashion is so familiar, so ubiquitous to our experience, that it is inherently and immediately accessible,” Harold Koda, curator in charge of the Costume Institute, said.

“Individuals who might shy away from commenting on the merits of a Juan Gris or Henry Moore will readily disclose their thoughts on a gown by John Galliano or a mule by Manolo Blahnik.”

That said, it actually may contribute a new thin slicing technique: intuitively avoiding pretentious exhibits that use periods and lower case in the title.

The War on Traffic may soon replace The War on Drugs as the most fruitless battle ever waged:

“Everything that is being looked at is being looked at seriously,” said Marc V. Shaw, chairman of the Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, at a meeting of the panel yesterday. “There are a lot of committed people on this issue that feel very strongly about it, and we’re taking all these things seriously.”

Yesterday’s meeting included presentations on a series of possible alternatives or additions to Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s congestion pricing proposal, which calls for charging drivers $8 a day to bring their cars into Manhattan below 86th Street. The mayor has championed the plan as a way to reduce traffic and raise money for public transportation.

The commission was created by the State Legislature to come up with a plan by the end of next month on how best to achieve both those goals. Under the timetable set by lawmakers, the Legislature would take up the plan by the end of March.

One proposal could be nearly as controversial as the mayor’s congestion pricing plan: the establishment of a No Hail Zone in the area below 86th Street.

Under such a plan, yellow cabs could pick up people only at designated taxi stands. The stands, up to 1,200 of them, would be set up on each block in busy areas and every few blocks in other parts of the zone.

Taxis account for close to a third of the traffic — or vehicle miles traveled each day — in the area, according to a research report prepared for the commission. It is hard, however, to predict what impact the change would have on traffic. While taxi drivers would spend less time cruising in search of fares, some might drive greater distances to get to the busiest taxi stands, said Bruce Schaller, deputy commissioner for planning and sustainability at the city’s Department of Transportation.

And the attitudes of riders have to be taken into account, Mr. Schaller said. The image of an intrepid or even aggressive New Yorker, hand upraised and hollering for a cab to stop, is an iconic one for many people. Some riders might resist lining up in orderly queues, waiting their turns.

“It wouldn’t be New York without it,” said Ricardo Barajas, 22, a law student. He saw the proposal as an encroachment on New Yorkers’ freedom to stand on street corners of their choosing with their hands in the air. “I don’t want to be restricted,” he said.

. . . against billboards that speak:

Last week, at the corner of Prince and Mulberry Streets in NoLIta, a scene was playing out that would have gladdened the heart of any advertising buyer. Pedestrians were turning and gawking at a six-story tenement emblazoned with a giant billboard for “Paranormal State,” a new television series about ghosts on A & E.

But passers-by were not reacting to the billboard. Each of them was hearing an urgent, disembodied female voice whispering suggestive messages. “What’s that?” the voice hissed. “Who’s there? It’s not your imagination.”

The voices, which belong to A & E employees, were emanating from two large black speakers above the billboard, which contained a technology called directional audio. The speakers use ultrasound to produce a highly focused beam of sound, making people within their reach feel as if they are wearing headphones, listening to sounds intended for them and them alone.
. . .

This appears to be the first commercial use of such technology on a billboard.

Peter Swimm, a 27-year-old technical support worker at Pando, an Internet startup with offices nearby, was among those transfixed one morning last week. Clasping his shaggy, bearded head, Mr. Swimm peered up at the billboard through the falling snow. “It’s neat,” he said. “With terrifying implications, like all things that are neat.”

. . .

According to Guy Slattery, A & E’s senior vice president for marketing, no special approval from the city had been required for the sonic billboard. And Kate Lindquist, a spokeswoman for the Department of Buildings, confirmed that the city does not regulate sounds emitting from billboards. She added, however, that this particular billboard lacked the permit required for all city billboards.

New York has more lawyers than it knows what to do with:

Even with 91,000 practicing attorneys in the five boroughs last year, a new wave of lawyers is hitting the city, as a record number of law school students are taking and passing the state bar, according to data provided by the New York State Board of Law Examiners.

In July, 10,907 students sat for the bar — an increase of more than 20% since 2000 — and a record 70.6% of them passed the bar.

While many associates who graduated law school in 2006 are earning bonuses at the city’s most prestigious law firms, boosting salaries to an average of $205,000 a year, recruiters said the competition for the top talent belies that the vast majority of lawyers in New York are not guaranteed lucrative employment after law school.

“There is a glut of attorneys in New York, and there always will be,” the president of Hanover Legal Personnel Services, Jack Zaremski, said in an interview. The total number of lawyers in America is now about 1.14 million, according to the American Bar Association, and more than one in 10 live and work in New York State.

This way he will be better equipped to answer the tough questions at controversial ribbon cuttings or perhaps even in response to contentious City Council resolutions. Hizzoner’s presidential aspirations surge ahead:

A report that a foreign policy adviser in the Clinton administration who is a critic of the war in Iraq, Nancy Soderberg, is briefing Mayor Bloomberg about the war offers some indication of the foreign policy approach Mr. Bloomberg might take if he were to run for president.

Ms. Soderberg is considered a centrist who supports using international institutions to further American interests abroad. In television appearances, she has spoken out about the war in Iraq, saying it has been botched from the beginning.

This sort of undercuts the Law & Order storyline:

In a stunning end to a sensational whodunit, Linda Stein’s assistant confessed she bashed in the Realtor’s head with a yoga stick after she blew pot smoke in her face and made a racial crack, police said Friday.

Natavia Lowery calmly cleaned up the Fifth Ave. penthouse after killing the “Realtor to the Stars” in a rage — then filched the dead woman’s cell phone and used her ATM card to steal $800, cops said.

Lowery, 26, was charged with second-degree murder in the baffling Oct. 30 slaying of Stein, a punk-rock pioneer who became wealthy by selling Manhattan’s best real estate to Madonna, Sting, Steven Spielberg and other celebs.

. . .

Hours earlier, with a videocamera rolling, Lowery confessed to cops, describing how her four months of employment as Stein’s go-fer came to a bloody end.

She said on the morning of Oct. 30 she got into an argument with the brash Stein, who co-managed the Ramones before she began selling penthouses to the rich and famous.

Stein, 62, who was battling cancer, started blowing pot smoke in her face and berating her as she worked on the computer, Lowery told cops.

“Get the f—ing e-mails! How can you be so f—ing slow!” Stein supposedly bellowed, a police source said.

Stein, who had private yoga sessions in her $2.5 million pad, was waving a 4-pound strength-building yoga stick at Lowery as she yelled, the assistant told cops.

After Lowery retrieved the e-mails, Stein offered to buy her lunch as a peace offering.

“I’ve got my own money. I don’t need you to buy me lunch,” the assistant said indignantly.

“Black people don’t have any money,” Stein retorted, according to Lowery. “Save your money and I’ll buy you lunch.”

An enraged Lowery grabbed the yoga stick from Stein and hit her with it a half-dozen times until she was face-down in a pool of blood, police said.

Because you know the (not $1 billion but $500 million) World Trade Center Sept. 11 memorial costs way to much money when the foundation funding it becomes one of the nation’s top nonprofits:

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation has joined the annual honor roll of American nonprofits that received the most private support last year.

The organization, which raised $115 million in 2006, ranked no. 158 on a list of 400 entities compiled by the Chronicle of Philanthropy. The list is published in the Chronicle’s November 1 issue.

At the top of the list was United Way of America in Alexandria, Va., with $4.1 billion raised. No. 400 was the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., in the midst of a $200 million capital campaign, with $42 million raised.

The World Trade Center Memorial Foundation, which began operations in May 2005, in 2006 reported donations totaling $115 million. By June 1 of this year, it had raised $300 million of its $350 million goal for the building of a memorial and museum at the World Trade Center site. The fund-raising feat is impressive, as the foundation’s president quit in May 2006 after criticism for rising costs and delays. Mayor Bloomberg then stepped in as chairman of the foundation.

“It is a big deal that it raised enough money to get on the list,” the editor of the Chronicle of Philanthropy, Stacy Palmer, said of the new entrant from New York. “They put a lot of effort into bringing in a lot of very big gifts and saying, ‘We need to go ahead and move forward on this.’”

By way of contrast, the Staten Island Postcards memorial, a very nice memorial, only cost $2 million.

The experiment in legalization known as “dog runs,” those canine red-light districts, have in the long run failed. Today, dog owners feel more entitled than ever to appropriate valuable public space for the sole purpose of letting their animals poop:

Seravalli Playground is a half-block of concrete just off Hudson Street between Gansevoort and Horatio Streets, planted with a dozen skinny trees. For the most part, the playground is a model of coexistence. Older children race around the fenced-in yard, toddlers clamber around a brightly painted play set, and homeless people occasionally slumber on the benches. In the mornings and evenings, people walk their dogs.

But now the playground is due for a $2 million redesign, a prospect that has exposed sharp divisions among its users. In particular, dog owners who want a dog run in the playground have sparred with toddlers’ parents who say the dog run will take up needed play space and possibly endanger children. The Parks Department will draft a plan this winter and plans to start work next summer; in the meantime, both camps have been feverishly recruiting supporters.

Both sides showed up in force at a community meeting Monday, where the tone was set by a neon-green hand-lettered poster that read, “Keep Our Park Dog-Free.”

. . .

. . . [A] cluster of people, most of whom appeared to be in their 20s, had formed toward the front. Some wore buttons from an organization called the New York City Council of Dog Owner Groups (motto: “At the Tail of Every Leash is a Voter”).

Dog owners who spoke during the meeting complained that no dog runs were located nearby, and said that many other city parks combined dog runs with play areas.

“The reason we want this is to get out of your space,” said Tod Wohlfarth, a board member of the dog owners’ group. And a woman who said she owned three dogs announced to the assembled parents, “These animals are as important to my life as your children are to your life.”

Parents, in turn, spoke of children who were scared of dogs, children who compulsively embraced dogs, and toddlers who ate whatever they found on the ground, a potential problem if dogs were nearby. A local parent named Kevin McKiernan was greeted by wild applause when he said, “My kids are a higher priority to me than pets and their exercise.”

Because Hillary is so far to the left and Rudy is so far to the right you need exactly the right kind of candidate to thread the needle and sway the roughly eight people in the country who might actually give a poop that Bloomberg would run. And yet the New York Press gives him the full OJ treatment in “If He Did It”:

To all outward appearances, the Bloomberg plan seems to be running exactly according to schedule. Here’s what happens next.

According to several experienced campaign observers, Bloomberg has a few months to continue laying low, periodically bursting into the news and then issuing his presidential denials. He cannot be coy, and he cannot let the anticipation morph into expectation. There is much he can learn — though he probably does not need to be taught — from the experience of Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and “Law & Order” district attorney, who toyed with the idea for so long that the story had already become stale by the time he declared.

Bloomberg and his advisers know something about marketing. If he does run and intends to win, he will need to sell himself as the fresh alternative. Products cannot be sold as new for 12 months. Bloomberg and those around him with their marketing expertise would understand this. Even if Bloomberg has definitively made up his mind to run — as many who have watched him closely believe he has — part of the way to win would be to keep things under wraps for now.

There’s something unnervingly unmanly about the idea that Alex Rodriguez gets pumped up by listening to Pat Benatar:

Alex Rodriguez’s choice of music in spring training was perfectly fitting for his personality. As he prepared for the season, he played the Pat Benatar song “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” over and over, at high volume, in his earphones. The message was purposeful, motivational . . . and just a little forced.

Knock me down, it’s all in vain, I’ll get right back on my feet again!

He warns people that we may see Hoovervilles return to Central Park:

Housing in Central Park?

It’s not out of the question if disaster strikes and the city finds itself desperate to find homes for thousands of displaced residents, Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday as he announced a design competition for long-term emergency shelter.

“Clearly, in an emergency, rather than let people sleep on the streets, you would do that,” the mayor said.