Oh, I Understand Free Speech Much Better Now . . .

This should help mitigate that bad PR:

A Columbia University dean said yesterday the Ivy League school would gladly welcome mass murderer Adolf Hitler to speak on campus.

“If he were willing to engage in a debate and a discussion, to be challenged by Columbia students and faculty, we would certainly invite him,” John Coatsworth, dean of the School of International and Public Affairs, told Fox News yesterday.

Coatsworth spoke two days before Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is slated to give a lecture on campus.

And those Minutemen wack-jobs are somehow worse than Hitler?

New York’s Delinquentest

You won’t find this in the Public Employee Press:

More than 400 city employees have been arrested this year, including a cop charged with murder, a garbage man who allegedly hired a hit man, and two female teachers accused of seducing their underage students.

The roster of rogues also includes a Department of Transportation worker who allegedly ripped off $142,000 by claiming he and his family all underwent brain surgery and a cop charged with being part of an Albanian gang that dealt coke and burglarized Long Island homes.

I Have One Word For You, Adrian: Plastics

But short of that, you know that’s what BIDs are for:

City officials estimate fixing Coney Island’s dilapidated boardwalk will cost $200 million, and they’re turning to the feds, the state — and even private landowners in the amusement district — to help pick up the hefty tab.

“We’re looking at all levels of funding for what is a very costly, but important, project,” said city Parks Department spokeswoman Abigail Lootens, regarding plans to replace nearly three miles of Brooklyn boardwalk from Sea Gate through Coney Island east to Brighton Beach.

Coney Island’s amusement district — with its decaying, wobbling wooden planks and exposed nails — is in especially bad shape as the city looks to rezone the area to spur future development.

. . .

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, who helplessly witnessed a man injure himself after falling through the boardwalk a few months ago, is working with the Bloomberg administration to devise a plan to secure federal funding for a project that would get matched locally, said his district manager, Robert Gottheim.

The congressman also believes landowners along the amusement district — such as developer Joseph Sitt, who is proposing a controversial $1.5 billion entertainment complex — should be asked to help pick up the tab since they stand to benefit most.

The department currently has a $1.5 million annual budget to fix all of the city’s boardwalks.

Creating a local business-improvement district could set up a mechanism to help property owners maintain the boardwalk and the rest of the neighborhood, said Gottheim.

New York Is Not Salvageable As A Unitary State

109 years after Brooklyn was ignominiously and unnaturally bound to greater New York, a de facto partition seems to be setting in:

One byte-sized rumor about an Apple store coming to Brooklyn sparked a borough-wide fit of drooling as iMac lovers fantasized about caressing Steve Jobs’s latest products without having to leave the borough.

. . .

The stir began on Sept. 13, when Racked.com, a retail Web site, posted an “exclusive,” claiming with certainty that Apple was going to open its fourth New York City location in Brooklyn.

“Brace yourself,” read the hyperventilating post. “Apple is scouring Brooklyn, seeking a home in the 718 area code.”

Gothamist followed with an ensuing post from a woman calling herself “Dana Hemphill” and claiming to be an “Aplle Northeastern Representative for Retail Sales.” (The misspelling was hers, not ours, so take her post with a grain of silicon.)

“We are currently in negotiation to open our 1st retail location in Brooklyn, NY on Atlantic Avenue, not far from Court Street,” wrote the poster. “I am not located in NYC, but hopefully our store should up and running by the second quarter of 2008.”

Alas, a call to Apple headquarters turned up no Hemphills (and no Aplle representatives of any kind). A spokeswoman for Apple scoffed at the notion that anyone should take a posting on a blog seriously.

“People do interesting things all the time, but if I were you, I wouldn’t be taking that as confirmation,” said Amy Barney, an Apple (not Aplle) spokeswoman.

Even so, in a city where Manhattan already has an Apple store in SoHo and another on Fifth Avenue — for God’s sake, even Staten Island has one! — the rumors have credibility.

Indeed, one former Apple store employee, who would only speak on the condition of anonymity, told The Brooklyn Paper that there’s been talk of a Brooklyn shop for at least a year.

“A lot of the higher-ups were asking us ‘cool kids’ what area of Brooklyn we thought would be best [a year ago],” she said. “I thought either a small store on Bedford Avenue or a store in Park Slope.”

Oh No, The Sting Of Your Public Rebuke Is Much Too Much, And Causes This Beautiful Wreath To Wither!

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

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

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

. . .

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

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

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

Some immediately started selling their tickets on Craigslist.org.

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