Buried Lede: Pedophiles Prefer Early Bill Murray And Earlier Tom Cruise

I guess someone has to perform the unenviable chore of screening sex offenders’ Netflix queues:

As part of the state Division of Parole “Operation Halloween: Zero Tolerance,” 1,983 paroled sex offenders across New York also will have their DVDs and CDs searched for pornographic or other banned materials as part of conditions of their release. Using portable players, investigators will make unannounced visits to view parolees’ collections to ensure they are in compliance.

“This is a new tool we’ve provided parole officers with,” said Scott Steinhardt, a NYS Division of Parole spokesman. “They may see DVD cases that say ‘Caddyshack’ or ‘Top Gun,’ but they’ll be checked to make sure there’s not really pornography or other contraband on them. This is part of our proactive measure and has been successful already.”

Big Brother And The Unintended Consequences

Do you load the homeless with transfats or nothing? It’s a sticky issue:

The Health Department’s war on trans fats may have an unintended victim — the city’s food pantries and soup kitchens that feed hungry New Yorkers every day.

Canned meats and beans, jars of peanut butter and other pantry staples donated from around the country include the artery-clogging trans fats.

“We support the ban, but people need to understand this will mean less food in the food pantry,” said Joel Berg, executive director of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

During yesterday’s lengthy public hearing, Berg told the Board of Health that any plan to ban food with trans fats should provide extra money for pantries and soup kitchens to buy trans fat-free foods.

“It’s a painful dilemma,” Berg said. “Our folks get less quality or they get less food?”

The debate then turned philosophical:

Health Commissioner Thomas Frieden has asked the board to change the Health Code so that trans fats can no longer be used in city eateries. Another proposal would force some restaurants to post caloric contents of its food on menus.

“Trans fats increase the level of bad cholesterol and reduce the level of good cholesterol and by doing so they increase your risk of heart attack and stroke and early death,” Frieden told reporters during a break in the hearing. “Keeping toxic items out of our food — this is a core role of government.”

Hm. At least one constituency disagreed with that definition of the proper role of government:

Outside the hearing, Luis Nunez, president of the Latino Restaurant Association, with 4,000 member restaurants in the city, said that health officials had not prepared them for the proposed ban on trans fat cooking, and were now threatening them with fines or other penalties.

“This big brother policy does not work,” Mr. Nunez said.

And Soon We’ll Start Calling Them “Freeways”

Bad news for those who worry that New York is becoming more and more like LA everyday:

City and state transportation officials are planning to give highway drivers real-time travel information, calculated in part with E-ZPass technology and displayed on a network of roadside message boards in the five boroughs.

Motorists on major thoroughfares like the Belt Parkway and the FDR Drive will get forecasts of how long it will take to go between various points in the city based on the average times of other drivers.

Currently, such level of detail is being displayed only to drivers on the New Jersey approaches to the George Washington Bridge and at two Metropolitan Transportation Authority bridges. The plan is to have real-time travel information displayed along highways in all five boroughs within about three years, a spokeswoman for the city Transportation Department said.

It will begin with a pilot program along the Staten Island Expressway by the end of the year.

We’re desperate, get used to it.

Psycho Hose Beast

I still don’t understand what the “R” stands for but at least the Post is generous enough to share their picture of the victim with us:

Samir Sara, 23, allegedly had a one-night stand with 21-year-old Kristina Caban two years ago. When she called him afterward, he supposedly never phoned her back — becoming only one in a long line of men who had wooed and then mistreated the hot-blooded art student, a friend told The Post yesterday.

Caban is now charged with hatching the sick plan that led to Sara’s being branded on his torso last week with a four-inch “R” as revenge for the slight.

“She flocked to a- – – – – – guys,” said the classmate of Caban at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. “She’s a talented person. She’s also a genuine person. For her to do this, she must have been deeply hurt.”

Caban’s lawyer yesterday tried to minimize his client’s role in the searing Oct. 22 attack, which also resulted in the arrest of the suspect’s current boyfriend, Robert Testagrossa, 25. Testagrossa has been suspended from his $60,000-a-year civilian investigator job in the MTA’s Inspector General’s Office in the wake of the assault.

“Let’s get off the branding thing,” said Caban’s lawyer, James Friedman, shortly after his client was indicted by a Manhattan Supreme Court grand jury. “There’s a tremendous amount of speculation, innuendo and rumor. . . .”

Friedman called Caban “a good kid from a good home” and urged the public to “sit back and wait for the facts.”

Then again, you’ve got to like how the boyfriend somehow finds a way to misuse his position with the MTA to help his girlfriend (allegedly!) assault the man:

Sources have told The Post that Caban reconnected with Sara and made a date to have drinks with him in a Chelsea bar Oct. 22.

She then allegedly lured him to a room at the Chelsea Inn, where Testagrossa and the unnamed man were waiting with a gun and Taser.

There, sources allege, the men stole Sara’s cellphone and cash. Testagrossa shouted that he was “a Long Island police officer” while displaying a badge and ordering Sara to get on the floor. The men then allegedly bound Sara and branded him.

Although Testagrossa is no cop, the former high-school varsity wrestler carries a badge as part of his work for the inspector general of the Metropolitan Transportation Agency.

Bring On The Gigantic Tattooed Elephants!

I can’t believe they found a way to make Coney Island classier than it already is but somehow they have:

Architectural renderings obtained by The Post show a grand vision of the famed summer amusement area’s rundown streets being transformed into a glitzy year-round playground and public attraction.

In one image, Stillwell Avenue becomes a fantasy-filled boulevard marked by larger-than-life street furniture, such as a mermaid swimming in a martini glass and a gigantic tattooed elephant.