And Now Everyone Thinks You’re Racist

Supposedly tried-and-true tactics for avoiding jury duty — claiming you’re racist and that you never trust the cops, for example — can sometimes backfire, leading to even more jury duty, as well as public scorn in the Post:

An incensed federal judge sentenced a racist Brooklyn woman to indefinite jury duty on Tuesday after she trashed the NYPD and minorities.

“This is an outrage, and so are you!” Federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis told the woman, holding up her bile-filled juror questionnaire.

. . .

It is not unheard of for people to try to get out of jury service by making ridiculous statements concerning their views.

It was unclear Tuesday whether that was this woman’s motive.

And if it was, it didn’t work.

Indeed, the woman was going to be seeing a lot of Brooklyn Federal Court.

“She’s coming back [today], Thursday and Friday — and until the future, when I am ready to dismiss her,” Garaufis said.

Public Fatigue At All-Time High When It Comes To Thinking About Bike Lanes

Which means The Brooklyn Paper will do what it can to generate clicks and manufacture controversy:

A bike lane currently exists on Greenpoint Avenue, but ends just short of the bridge to Queens, a northern suburb of Brooklyn.

We’ll Keep Those Fond Memories Of Miss Brooklyn In A Special Place Close To Our Hearts . . . Right Alongside The Scars From The Eminent Domain Abuse And The Heartburn That Followed Once You Finally Realized That Your Children Actually Might Grow Up Rooting For The Nets

In an SEC filing, Atlantic Yards developers admit that the big project that will reshape downtown Brooklyn may never pan out, meaning that all the project would amount to would be one lousy arena — no low-income housing, no Miss Brooklyn tower and little economic benefit, because sports arenas don’t easily recoup a $300 million public investment:

Documents filed last week with the Securities and Exchange Commission by developer Bruce Ratner and his Forest City Enterprises warn that the non-arena portions of the plan could experience “further delays” leading to most or all of the rest of the 22-acre, $4.9 million project being scrapped.

Location Scout: Atlantic Yards.

Remind Me Again Why We Need Borough Presidents?

Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz has three full-time drivers:

In an unusual arrangement, the ebullient beep has placed his three drivers on staggered, 16-hour shifts so someone will always be available to wheel him around town between 8 a.m. and midnight, seven days a week.

. . .

Taxpayers pick up the tab of $177,372 a year, not including overtime.

It’s all within the city’s lax rules, since the Conflicts of Interest Board has decided that elected officials with government vehicles can do just about anything they want with them.

One late-night stint last month took Markowitz and driver Robert Macko to the Blue Water Grill in Union Square during Restaurant Week.

Proving Yet Again That If You Lie Down With Bicyclists, You’ll Wake Up With Anemic Census Figures

See, you can’t be surprised — or shocked! — to learn that “the hottest borough in which to live, work and play grew only a small percentage in the past decade” when the image in popular culture is that Brooklyn is a place where childless 30- and 40-somethings while away Thursday afternoons playing kickball at McCarren Park:

The film, which won the award for Best New York Narrative at the Tribeca Film Festival 2010, portrays New York City’s largest borough as a land where aimless thirtysomethings move to avoid adulthood.

“The idea was to make a narrative film that felt like a documentary about the demise of a Brooklyn couple,” says the 37-year-old [director Dana Adam] Shapiro, who was nominated for an Academy Award for the documentary “Murderball.” “The male character rides his bike everywhere — which is a very Brooklyn thing to do — and finds being stationary scary. He doesn’t want to settle down, and I think a lot of people will relate to that.”