Everyone Always Says That They’d Never Get On That Rickety Old Thing . . .

. . . and then they see the sign saying that there’s never been a death on the Cyclone. And yet, you still “assume risk”:

A California musician who died days after riding the Cyclone should have known that riding the rickety 80-year-old Coney Island coaster is dangerous, the city says in new court papers.

Keith Shirasawa, 53, died in August 2007, five days after he snapped his neck and fractured several bones in his neck during a downhill plunge on the wooden roller coaster.

His family sued the city and the Cyclone’s operators last month.

In court papers filed yesterday in Manhattan Federal Court, city attorney Cynthia Goldman said Shirasawa should have known the risks involved.

“Any and all risks, hazards, defects and dangers to the extent alleged are of an open, obvious, apparent and inherent nature known and should have been known to [Shirasawa],” Goldman wrote.

This basically ensures that your mother will never get on there with you. Thanks.

Location Scout: The Cyclone.

Reality Bites

So much for the idea that extending term limits for everyone gives cover to make the tough decisions — that’s just out of touch with reality:

Confidence certainly does not flow at City Hall, where the City Council’s Finance Committee convened on Monday to hash over Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposals to plug multibillion-dollar holes that the economic crisis has poked in his budget plans. Not that the Council needed to be reminded that times are tough. But Mark Page, the mayor’s budget director, reinforced the point anyway.

“We are not in particularly good financial straits,” Mr. Page told committee members. It was a masterly display of understatement, worthy of Emperor Hirohito’s appeal to the Japanese people to accept their crushing defeat in World War II. “The war situation,” the emperor said in August 1945, “has developed not necessarily to Japan’s advantage.”

Comparable understatement brought Mr. Page no reward. Council members had no desire to make life comfortable for him.

They were particularly angry at the mayor’s plan to save the municipal treasury $256 million by canceling $400 tax rebate checks that were supposed to have been mailed to homeowners weeks ago. It turns out that the cancellation needs the Council’s consent; that approval is as likely as your winning the Mega Millions lottery. Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Page will have to figure out another way to scrape together the money.

“This is just one of those ‘out of touch with reality’ moments that you guys have from time to time,” Councilman Lewis A. Fidler of Brooklyn said to the budget director, his voice laced with scorn.

Christine C. Quinn, the council speaker, who on most matters is almost surgically attached at the hip to Mr. Bloomberg, also opposes him on the rebate. She has spoken harshly as well about another of the mayor’s money-saving ideas, this one affecting city services for the elderly. It belongs, she said, “in the garbage can.”

It also turns out that the mayor got it wrong in calling for a 6-cent charge on plastic bags in stores. He had called it a fee, which he and the Council could impose on their own. On Monday, Mr. Page acknowledged this amounts to a tax, requiring Albany’s approval.

Just think: Only days ago, Council members were offering Mr. Bloomberg (and themselves) as New York’s salvation from fiscal doom. Ms. Quinn and Mr. Fidler were among the 29 council members who voted to amend the term limits law and thereby allow Mr. Bloomberg (and themselves) to run for an extra four years in office.

Do You Ever Get The Sense That The Mayor Is Slightly Out Of Touch?

Many do:

Many also pointed out that the plastic bag is hardly a throwaway — indispensable, they said, for cleaning up after pets, camouflaging the smell of a dirty diaper, hiding an open can of beer or simply holding other trash.

On The One Hand, You Don’t Really Need Direct Service From Astoria, Queens To Wall Street If The Financial System Has Tanked

On the other hand, waiting a half-hour in the middle of the night sucks rat tail:

The MTA’s doomsday budget will wipe out the W line, zap the Z line and ax more than 1,500 NYC Transit jobs, the Daily News has learned.

The list of bus and subway cuts the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will unveil at its monthly board meeting Thursday is extensive and potentially bruising, sources said.

. . .

According to sources, the cuts include:

– Elimination of at least a handful of bus and subway routes, including the W and Z subway train lines.

– Fewer transit workers in the subways because 600 or so station agent positions will be axed and about 350 administrative posts.

– Longer gaps between scheduled trains at midday and between 2 a.m. and 5 a.m.

– Expanded subway loading guidelines to allow for more crowding of trains.

– Eliminating bus service during late nights and weekends on dozens of routes that have low ridership.

I’m still pissed about that asinine public relations stunt back in ’05 . . . give me my ten minutes back!

New Yankees Slogan?

“Assume the risk”:

A Red Sox fan who got pummeled for cheering on his team at Yankee Stadium should have known to keep his mouth shut, the Bombers said in court papers.

Charles Hillios, who is suing the Yanks for the beat-down, “assumed the risk of foreseeable injury based on his own conduct,” according to a federal court filing.

The team also contends that it’s “not liable for the alleged intentional conduct” of the two goons who battered the Bosox booster inside The House that Ruth Built in August.