Nice to see John Liu settling into his old ways of vacuous grandstanding after the fact:

Signs of an altered landscape quickly emerged as Mr. Bloomberg, never known for his humility, made an elaborate show of deference. His staff hastily arranged a highly visible meeting, at a Manhattan restaurant, with the city’s public advocate-elect, Bill de Blasio, a Democrat. Just a few weeks ago, the mayor said the citywide office was “a waste of everyone’s money,” and called for its abolition.

But tellingly, when the mayor tried to meet with John C. Liu, the Democratic comptroller-elect, Mr. Liu said he could not find time on his schedule, a highly unusual slight.

Later, Mr. Liu told a reporter: “A long time ago, the people of New York decided there would be no king nor a monarch in New York City.”

It wasn’t just the media who were fundamentally incurious about the polls but also the Democratic Party itself:

As the cheering dies down over at William C. Thompson Jr.’s headquarters, where close almost passed for victory on Tuesday evening, New York’s Democrats are left to consider a colder reality:

This was a race most Democrats now believe they could have won. Numbering among the co-conspirators in the Democrats’ defeat, in the view of some party leaders and activists, are Democratic grandees, from President Obama — who did not campaign for Mr. Thompson — to the City Council speaker, whose support could not have been softer, to two powerful labor unions that remained studiously neutral.

. . .

Barbara Fife, a deputy mayor under David N. Dinkins, acknowledged many ills, from an honorable but lackluster candidate to a too-quick willingness of many prominent Democrats to write off Mr. Thompson’s campaign as stillborn.

But she wondered at a Democratic president who could barely bring himself to utter the mayoral candidate’s name, much less to make a swing through New York. “He made people feel this was not winnable; Bill got lumped in with Paterson in many minds,” Ms. Fife said. “Obama had lists he could have given, and support. But he never said boo.”

And back in that first article there’s an important lesson to take away — specifically, feel free not to fall for campaign bullshit, because they’re probably just making it all up:

Behind the scenes, the close margin had set off second-guessing and soul-searching among some of the aides, who privately questioned the heavily negative advertising efforts.

As the city’s political establishment tried to understand the huge gulf between the cocksure rhetoric of the mayor’s campaign and his showing at the polls, Bloomberg aides said that they had relentlessly promoted the mayor as invulnerable in the race when they knew differently, saying it was the only way they for them to keep the Democratic establishment from rallying behind Mr. Thompson.

Said one top Bloomberg campaign adviser, who spoke on condition of anonymity to protect internal discussions: “If a poll had come out showing that the race was within five points, Barack Obama would have swung into town, the United Federation of Teachers would break for Thompson and Mike Bloomberg would not be mayor today.”

On Election Day, this adviser said, “everybody woke up and saw what we saw. We are lucky to have seen it first.”

And here’s where it leaves you:

Mark Radichio, 42, who owns a landscaping company, said that he has been a lifelong Democrat, but that he voted for Mr. Bloomberg in 2001 and 2005.

“I liked his style, his independence, and I’ve always liked the fact that he doesn’t take campaign money from anyone,” Mr. Radichio said.

Then two things happened that made him change his mind about the mayor. “First, it was term limits. The guy just wants to be mayor for life, and I don’t like that,” said Mr. Radichio, who lives in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn. “Then, it was all this money he spent on his campaign. People are unemployed, they’re losing their homes, and you’re spending tens of millions of dollars on a political campaign? There’s something wrong with this picture.”

Mr. Radichio thought it over and decided he would vote for Mr. Thompson, whom he confessed knowing little about, but who he thought would be a better choice, given Mr. Bloomberg’s “baggage,” as he put it.

“I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t vote,” Mr. Radichio said. “I just assumed Bloomberg was going to crush the other guy. I’ll tell you, I’m never going to sit out an election again.”

Speaking of people not showing up when it counts, an e-mailer passes along this conversation that took place this morning in a Midtown office building:

Girl in Yankees shirt in coffee room at [Midtown office]: Yeah!

Guy in business casual: Awesome, I know!

Girl: Did you watch the game?

Guy: Nah, I knew they were going to win. I went out with my boys instead, and they’re Mets fans, so . . .

Girl: Yeah, I only watched the one game. So awesome!

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

If this doesn’t make you finally want to leave the city, I don’t know what will:

According to a 2005 NYC Housing and Vacancy survey, 40 percent of Big Apple citizens live in one-bedrooms or studios. While there’s no breakdown of how many of those dwellings house kids, anecdotal evidence indicates that a lot of families are making do — and making whoopee — in uncomfortably close quarters.

But if we don’t pay attention to them, they don’t exist.

After threatening to close the cookie factory where an extended strike took place, Stella d’Oro announces it is moving operations to Ohio:

The owners of Stella D’oro, the longtime Bronx Italian cookie and breadstick baker, said Wednesday they have sold the company — and its operations will be moving to Ohio by the end of the month.

Some 150 union and other plant workers will be out on the street.

Item:

Newcomers to the city’s food-cart wars say that when they stake a claim to a busy corner, they frequently get threatened by a loose-knit band of gyro-cooking thugs they call the “Halal Mafia.”

Item:

A city firefighter was fighting for his life last night after being repeatedly hit in the head by two men and a woman early yesterday in the Staten Island Ferry’s Whitehall Terminal, authorities said.

. . .

“They said, ‘Shut the f- – - up before we beat you up!’ ”

The three then jumped Dugan, pummeling him about the face and head before running away.

Item:

Three peed-off perps brutally beat a man for taking too long in the bathroom at a Greenwich Village bagel shop, police said yesterday.

Item:

As The Post reported yesterday, the luxury suites at Citi Field are leaky and moldy, tiles have been falling apart, electrical systems are shorting out throughout the building, and concrete panels have fallen off the walls, according to sources who’ve seen the damage.

Item:

Grant told cops that he was walking home from Amersfort Park at East 39th Street and Avenue J in East Flatbush around 1:30 a.m., when the gun began to fall into his pants, sources said.

When Grant grabbed for it, he accidentally pulled the trigger, firing a bullet right through his penis.

Location Scout: Whitehall Ferry Terminal, Citi Field.

The lesson being, if you ever start a sentence by sneering “the last time I checked,” you probably should have actually checked:

Mayor Bloomberg Friday interrupted a radio health care discussion to blurt out that drug companies — and their execs — don’t make big bucks.

“Last time I checked, pharmaceutical companies don’t make a lot of money,” he said on his WOR-AM radio show. “Their executives don’t make a lot of money.”

Someone must have quickly rechecked, because he backpedaled after a commercial break.

“I looked up the top pay of some of these executives in big pharma,” Bloomberg said.

“Some of them are making a lot of money. Some of them are making a decent amount of — more than a decent amount of money.”

Corollary: Voters probably don’t care about what you think about R&D costs . . .

City lifeguards have been on the “hot seat” for a while now, and today Denis Hamill uses a drowning to go after them again, but not before the Post catches another somehow continuing his tax work at the beach, which is strange, considering it’s August and all:

An Aug. 13 letter from the City Conflicts of Interest Board warned Williams, a lifeguard since 1984, that he’d violated board rules by using a Parks Department phone to call clients and meeting a client at work.

Maybe Bloomberg wants to rethink the exciting new test score results? They’re impressive:

Despite Mayor Bloomberg’s plan to end “social promotion,” sixth-graders can score high enough on state English exams to move to the next grade – just by guessing.

The number of correct answers needed to score a Level 2 to get promoted has sunk so low that a student can guess on the multiple choice section and leave the rest of the test blank.

In seventh grade, students who guess need just one extra right answer to make the cut.

So not only did DC37 get a generous raise in the midst of a recession — then ungratefully backed Bloomberg’s main competition, making the bribe — er, quid pro quo — effectively moot (and then “forcing” both the Mayor’s office and City Council to give their staffs similar raises) but now the transit workers want the same type of raise. This when the MTA is squawking about bad finances. Everyone — everyone — is to blame here:

Transit workers appear poised to win a generous contract with healthy 4% annual raises and lower health care contributions that could blow a huge hole in the MTA’s finances, sources tell the Daily News.

Despite recent fare hikes and the punishing recession, transit union officials argued that they deserve a 12% hike over three years, partly because city employees have received similar increases.

A three-man arbitration panel is expected to announce the terms of the new contract for bus and subway workers as early as Monday or Tuesday. The expected annual raises of about 4%, 4% and 3.5% would increase Metropolitan Transportation Authority costs by more than $400 million.

Again, think about all this when you see the next fifty or sixty Bloomberg commercials about how he is “independent” and makes the “tough choices” or whatever, because basically any one of the candidates currently running for mayor can suck up to the unions — we didn’t need to get rid of term limits for that.

If you’re curious how much time, energy and resources are wasted — er, utilized — preparing for a Bloomberg press announcement, see Azi Paybarah’s slideshow here. Clearly the City is not wanting for money.

Guys like this. And then you get to learn more about their ideas for homeland security:

He obsessively references his reading, spouting off his take on philosophers such as Nietzsche and religion and motivational authors like Anthony Robbins and Robert Greene.

“You can talk to me about any topic in the world, especially philosophy and theology. I can break down Buddhism, Taoism and Shintoism, any religion there is, and explain how it literally all means one thing,” he said.

Since deciding to run for mayor of New York City, Burck started watching Fox News for hours on end and reading such books as Bill O’Reilly’s “Culture Warrior” and “A Documentary History of the United States” by Richard Heffner.

. . .

After his daily reading, Burke, who lives in his girlfriend’s town house in a pleasant gated community with her three children, straightens up the house, dusts, vacuums, takes out the garbage and, time permitting, touches up the white paint on the walls with a tiny brush.

“If you have an environment that looks chaotic and s- – -, it changes who you are,” he said.

He is so into cleanliness that he will pick up other messes he comes across.

“If I go to the gas-station bathroom, I clean the toilet if it’s a mess,” Burck said.

. . .

He routinely runs 10 miles a day. When he is on the elliptical exercise machine, he reads his six-page list of 30 affirmations, a rambling, cosmic wish list.

No. 5: “I have the No. 1 reality show in the world!!!”

No. 21: “I go the distance for the populations of the world.”

No. 27: “My NYC penthouse has glass ceilings and walls!”

Despite his Spartan lifestyle, his goals center on making billions and becoming a revered world figure. He says he wants to be bigger than the pope or Michael Jackson in the 1980s.

Spend $20 million to tell people you’re going to create jobs, then $1.5 million to actually create jobs.

One way to cope with a labor ruling:

Last week, a federal judge ordered Stella D’oro to reinstate 134 workers after a protracted 10-month strike. This week, the company invited the workers back. It also announced that it would close the factory in October.

Wait . . . what if . . . ? No, can’t be . . . but then there it is, looking remarkably like something he might actually want:

The scripted scene under the chandeliers of the Tweed Courthouse, the headquarters of the city’s Department of Education, was not the chaos Mr. Bloomberg had predicted if mayoral control of the schools lapsed. The meeting was marked by “ayes” and raised hands, free of any of the verbal fireworks and political grandstanding that marred the old board, which ruled for three decades.

The board was reborn after a political stalemate prevented the State Senate from voting on a bill that would have extended the mayor’s control of the school system past June 30, 2009. The expiration date was set seven years ago, so when July 1 arrived at midnight, the schools reverted to the control of a Board of Education that did not exist.

Under the old system, two of the seven board members were mayoral appointees, and the borough presidents chose the rest, so Mr. Bloomberg invited the borough leaders to Gracie Mansion on Wednesday to create the new board over breakfast. Four of the leaders agreed to appoint members who would not alter the current leadership or overturn any of its policies. The Bronx president said he wanted his appointee to express some independence.

Packed with three deputy mayors and other allies of Mr. Bloomberg, the board of seven met shortly before 1 p.m., whisking through the agenda in eight minutes. They voted unanimously to retain Joel I. Klein as the city’s schools chancellor and delegate all decision-making power to him, including the right to approve contracts.

The board also elected a president, Deputy Mayor Dennis M. Walcott, the Queens appointee, and passed a resolution calling on Albany to renew mayoral control. Then it adjourned until Sept. 10.

He’s not that . . . wait . . . no! Must not believe . . . must not believe . . .

Scary thought of the day: What if instead of mayoral control, the big New York City test score gains are due to George Bush’s No Child Left Behind, as studies seem to indicate?

Democratic candidate William Thompson can opt to pursue this line of argument as need be but maybe it’s safer at this point to rehabilitate Bush than it is to prop up Bloomberg’s juggernautical campaign . . .

[Eduwonk and Education Week links via.]

Since Anthony Weiner sports stories have lost their relevance, I guess we now have to ponder the mayor’s golf game:

As the mayor’s game improves, ever so incrementally, golf is finding its way into his conversations, public and private, as he invokes the sport as a metaphor for government and life.

. . .

Still, his unbridled fervor for a game associated with the country club set has occasionally landed him in hot water. During his weekly radio address in 2006, Mr. Bloomberg was asked to name a typical job performed by illegal immigrants. He immediately thought of golf.

“You and I are beneficiaries of these jobs,” the mayor told his co-host, John Gambling, adding, “Who takes care of the greens and the fairways in your golf course?” The remarks drew howls of protests.

And at a civic meeting in Canarsie, a working-class section of Brooklyn, earlier this year, homeowners interrogated the mayor about rising taxes and living costs. At one point, Mr. Bloomberg asked how many golfers were in the audience — and the answer appeared to be zero.

It’s funny — I was wondering what you could get for the $172 million that was spent to build the High Line. Now I know — the demolition of the Deutsche Bank building:

On Thursday, the agency handling the job, the Lower Manhattan Development Corporation, is planning for its board to authorize another $20 million to be paid to contractor Bovis Lend Lease for deconstruction, bringing the total price tag to $173 million, according to documents provided to LMDC board members. The request is not for any additional public money, according to an LMDC spokesman.

As for the High Line, anything that makes Nicolai Ouroussoff smile is fine by me — he’s been agitated this week.

“”Since when is walking through an open door breaking the law?” said one 22-year-old fare-beater, who prudently refused to give his name.

On the other hand it’s like, alright, alright, we get it already:

Six months before the election, Michael R. Bloomberg has already outspent his leading rival in the mayor’s race by a seven-to-one ratio, despite a commanding lead in the polls.

With a fresh wave of television and radio commercials, the mayor has poured $7.5 million into the campaign so far, according to new records obtained by The New York Times.

. . .

Mr. Bloomberg, a billionaire, has now spent more than the city’s campaign finance laws allow Mr. Thompson — or any other challenger accepting public financing — to use in the race from now until the September primaries.

Mr. Bloomberg is not accepting public financing, and therefore faces no spending limit.

After all that nationwide publicity, he’d be a fool to change the name:

The man who caused a stir by calling his fast-food restaurant Obama Fried Chicken no longer plans to change the name, despite a growing outcry from protesters who say the name conjures up disturbing racial stereotypes.

On Monday, about 20 people, including the Rev. Al Sharpton, protested outside the restaurant, at Rutland Road and Rockaway Parkway in Brownsville, Brooklyn.

“He wasn’t a man of his word,” one of the protest organizers, Kevin McCall, said Tuesday, referring to the restaurant’s owner. “He didn’t keep his commitment of having this sign down. This is very offensive to African-Americans.”

The restaurant, previously called Royal Fried Chicken, took the Obama name in late March in a gesture of fondness for the president, said Mohammad Jabbar, the manager and spokesman for the restaurant.

Under pressure last week, Mr. Jabbar, who said he is not the owner, said the name would be changed to Popular Fried Chicken over the weekend. But on Monday, the sign was still there — a fact noted by the free newspaper amNY, under the print headline “What the Cluck?”

Still, who among us would not have reacted the same way:

A klutzy groom-to-be dropped his diamond engagement ring while proposing to his girlfriend on the Brooklyn Bridge, then braved moving traffic to retrieve the bauble from the road below.

. . .

Halfway across the majestic span, Walling dropped to one knee and pulled out the ring.

“Could you give me the greatest birthday gift ever and let me love you for the rest of my life?” he asked.

“Would she or wouldn’t she” quickly turned to “whoops” as the ring slipped out of his hand.

It could have dropped into the East River, but instead landed on the roadway, traffic whizzing by.

Walling sprang into action, running about 60 feet, then hopping on a railing to clamber down to the road, where he caught a glimpse of the ring.

“I need to get this ring — that was my mission,” he explained. “I said, ‘I’m sorry, I love you, but I’m going to get this.’”

Location Scout: Brooklyn Bridge.

It’s hard to believe they couldn’t have seen this coming:

Mayor Bloomberg’s proposed budget for next year appeared balanced just two months ago, but the city’s Independent Budget Office says the latest economic indicators show it’s now $1.4 billion in the red. IBO director Ronnie Lowenstein says it’s due to a precipitous slide in tax revenues and a deteriorating economy.

From the assignment desk: Square with “City’s massive budget gap hits $23.8B, service cuts, tax hikes likely” (3/18/09).

Maybe all those cameras everywhere are good for something after all:

Surveillance cameras have captured the faces of criminal suspects in banks, in elevators and on street corners. But they have also surfaced in an unexpected law enforcement role: as evidence against police officers accused of misconduct or of lying on the witness stand.

The City’s War On Rats (CWOR, for short) somehow lacks data about how many rats have actually been killed (in The Wire, this was known as drugs on the table, or as Lieutenant Daniels said, “Dope on the damn table”):

The city’s war on rats is missing a key element — a body count.

So three weeks ago, officials introduced a new weapon in the fight against the rodents in subway stations — baited traps.

Before, packets of bait were placed around the tracks, but that didn’t tell the city how many rats were being killed, said Health Department rat expert Bobby Corrigan.

The boxes will trap the rats that go for the bait, allowing the city to track how many get poisoned.

In case you don’t trust the avenging power of a higher authority, you can simply take matters into your own hands:

A riot erupted at a Brooklyn restaurant last week when Orthodox Jewish patrons discovered the “kosher” hot dogs on the menu were chicken franks that didn’t answer to a higher authority.

What ensued was as unholy as the hot dogs. The eatery’s frightened manager was punched in the face and fended off the angry mob with an electric carving knife until cops finally broke up the frankfurter fracas.

“They were yelling at the guy behind the counter,” one witness told The Post. “They started spitting and throwing things at him. They were shaking the counter and trying to jump over to search the fridge.”

. . .

The Torah tussle began when a longtime patron noticed the unusually plump wiener he bought Monday night at Cheskel’s Shawarma King in Borough Park didn’t fit into a challah roll as usual.

Suspicious, he asked for proof of where the hot dogs were bought. The server brought him the package, which confirmed the Bar S brand jumbo chicken frank was not certified kosher.

And keep in mind when reading this that the city budget for the next four or five years* is supposed to hover between $60 and $70 billion:

The state Financial Control Board, which studies the city budget to prevent another 1970s-style brush with bankruptcy, said New York must plug a $23.8 billion hole.

That’s more than twice the size of the budget gap Mayor Bloomberg projected less than two months ago.

*Check it (.pdf)

And Jane Jacobs was right about all those walkups:

A home health aide was horrified after her middle finger was cut off at the tip. A firefighter lost part of his finger, too. A woman bumped her head as she was knocked to the floor. A man was left with a swollen hand and broken eyeglasses, someone else a broken nose, someone else two missing toes.

Tenants who live in New York City public housing have long complained about daily inconveniences from malfunctioning elevators: canceling medical appointments, missing school buses, climbing flights of stairs. But the elevators have also taken a widespread physical toll on people who live in, work in or visit the city’s 340 public housing complexes.

Not only is he carrying water for the modeling industry by outsourcing jobs to foreigners (what, US citizens aren’t weirdly lanky enough for you?) but he’s taking money from them as well:

After he proposed to expand the visas available to foreign models so they can work in New York, Rep. Anthony Weiner’s mayoral campaign took contributions from some cat walkers from abroad.

Problem is, the models aren’t allowed to donate because they’re not US citizens or permanent resi dents.

The models involved have graced the pages of Sports Illustrated and posed for Victoria’s Se cret lingerie. One was deported for an air-rage incident in which she hit a flight attendant.

Two of the models — Brazilian-born Thalita De Oliveira and Canadian Jessica Stam — are here on work visas, and do not have green cards or US citizenship, their agents said. De Oliveira gave Weiner’s campaign $500, and Stam donated $600, according to Campaign Finance Board records.

And yet, despite all the unrelenting best efforts of the Wolfson dirt machine, I will still vote for Weiner.

That, and cabbies, one thing you need to understand before ever getting behind the wheel is that in general chicks don’t dig hacks, which means no flirting and definitely no forcing yourself upon them when they’re trying to get home after a night out:

A cabbie arrested last year in a bizarre child abandonment scheme is in trouble again, accused of molesting a passenger.

Klever Sailema is being hunted by cops after a 23-year-old woman reported he picked her up in Astoria on Sunday, drove her to another spot in Queens and attacked her.

The victim had been drinking at a bar and passed out in the livery cab.

“She kinda wakes up and finds him on top of her,” a police source said, adding that her pants were pulled down. “She fought him off and got away.”

She hailed a second cab, which took her home. She then called police and went to a hospital.

Sailema claims the contact was consensual, said Fernando Mateo of the NYS Federation of Taxi Drivers, who spoke to him.

“He’s afraid. He doesn’t understand why he’s being charged,” Mateo said. “According to him, she was drunk. He doesn’t feel like he did anything wrong.”

He said Sailema told him the woman was “leading him on” — then threw his keys out of the car and snatched his taxi papers when he went to retrieve them.

Last year the excuse was that there weren’t enough entrants. And residency requirements are an issue again this year:

Keelie Sheridan, an Irish step dancer who moved here in 2005, is the new Miss Brooklyn — but not without a schmear of controversy.

The 22-year-old student says she’s been in love with Brooklyn ever since she moved into a Sheepshead Bay apartment that’s only seven minutes from the beach.

Sheridan is certainly more familiar with borough life than Leigh-Taylor Smith, last year’s winner, who lived in Manhattan.

Still, some Brooklynites are griping Sheridan hasn’t been here long enough to represent the borough’s 2.5 million people from 150 nations — people who speak 136 different languages.

Seven of the pageant’s nine contestants were born and raised in the borough.

“One of them should have won,” said Makada Lemont, 18, a student at Pacific High School and a lifelong Crown Heights resident.

Lemont’s friend Tiffany Cook, 20, also of Crown Heights, agreed: “She doesn’t know what Brooklyn is all about, like what we go through or anything about our lifestyle, like the clothing we wear, the way we talk, our swag.”