And When Did You Say The Next Homeland Security Grant Applications Are Due?

Of course it’s an issue for local law enforcement — they’re the ones best suited to tackle the threat:

Police officials said the report laid the groundwork for a public policy debate over the growing concern about homegrown terrorism and would serve as a tool for law enforcement to better understand threats in the United States compared with threats by Al Qaeda members overseas. Local law enforcement officers, corporate security officials and some politicians praised the Police Department for addressing the human factors at play in terrorist plots and for helping to synthesize trends in human behavior. But critics called the report a faulty stereotyping of entire communities of Arab people, a notion the Police Department rejected.

“The report is at odds with federal law enforcement findings, including those of the recently released National Intelligence Estimate, and uses unfortunate stereotyping of entire communities,” Kareem W. Shora, the national executive director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, said in a statement.

The “sweeping generalizations” of the report may serve to cast a pall of suspicion over the entire American Muslim population, the Council on American-Islamic Relations said yesterday.

“The report also claims that signs of radicalization include positive changes in personal behavior such as giving up smoking, drinking and gambling,” said Parvez Ahmed, chairman of the group’s board, adding that the report made similar claims about those who wore Islamic clothing. “Is Islamic attire or giving up bad habits, which is something recommended by leaders of all faiths, now to be regarded as suspicious behavior?”

Police officials from New York visited Washington this week to brief officials, including those from the White House and the F.B.I., said Lawrence Sanchez, an assistant police commissioner.

Mark J. Mershon, assistant director in charge of the F.B.I.’s New York office, did not attend yesterday’s briefing. Stephen Kodak, an F.B.I. spokesman in Washington, said, “We have no comment on the report.”

Note the Power Point slide in the picture — remember, it’s easy to shut down homegrown terrorists when you goad them into committing crimes. Ostentatiously pronouncing that homegrown terrorists are the most dangerous threat out there is the only obvious thing to do . . .

It Began In The Steakhouses And Ended In Congress

The move to stop our wasteful addiction to ethanol may begin in the steakhouses:

The country’s effort to move away from a dependence on foreign oil and embrace green initiatives appears to be behind a change in one of New York’s purest traditions, the menu of the classic steakhouse.

The production of ethanol, which is made from corn, is one major reason classic cuts of prime beef are becoming more and more expensive, an analyst at the cattle market analysis firm Cattle-Fax, Tod Kalous, said.

“It’s getting worse,” the owner of Ben Benson’s Steakhouse, Ben Benson, said. “The problems the ranchers are having are making it more difficult because feed is getting more expensive.”

Brooklyn’s Peter Luger Steakhouse now serves a rib eye. On some nights at Ben Benson’s in Midtown, diners can order buffalo steak. The Old Homestead of the meatpacking district serves one of the city’s best Kobe burgers.

The new menu items at some city steakhouses are a result of an increase in the price of top-notch beef and a decrease in its availability.

Corn is the primary feed for cattle that produce USDA-grade prime beef. Corn is also the main ingredient for what many believe is the fuel of the future, ethanol. The production of ethanol has not only increased the demand for corn, it has made harvests more profitable for farmers, who receive the fruits of government subsidies when it is sold to ethanol producers.

OK, Well Whatever Chancellor Helmut Un-Kohl . . .

The bicycle helmet industry wins by making fashion victims out of hyper-manly bicycle messengers:

A new bike safety law takes effect today requiring delivery workers to wear helmets on the job, and members of the city’s bike messenger community are in a spin.

“[Wearing a helmet is] something that’s not cool. You look kind of dumb,” said Carlos Ramirez, 32, a 12-year messenger veteran and a Team Puma racer. “I really don’t want to wear a helmet, but I will.”

Ramirez began wearing a helmet last month, motivated by the law and a friend who hit his head in a bike accident. The new law mandates employers provide head gear, but Ramirez didn’t want just any helmet.

“I got a really beautiful $200 helmet worn by [cyclists] in the Tour de France,” he said. “It’s really light, so you don’t really feel it.”

Some messengers don’t care about the $25 to $50 fines. Employers failing to provide helmets could pay up to $250.

“It should be your choice,” said messenger Scott “Ham” Hamilton, 36. “It’s not like you’re on a motorcycle. You’re not going that fast.”

He’s no stranger to accidents in his 13 years on the job. He estimates having hit more than 100 jaywalkers.

“I’ve never seen a jaywalker get a ticket, but when they cross, they don’t look,” he said. “But I’ve got to wear a helmet?”

He wore a helmet once “to make my grandmother happy.” He doesn’t plan to start wearing one now.

Then again, shouldn’t they be a little more worried about the fact that these guys ride around without brakes?

In The Black(Out)

The bastards Enron-ed us last month:

Somebody made a quick buck off 500,000 New Yorkers’ misery during last month’s 48-minute blackout in The Bronx and Upper East Side.

In the minutes after lightning zapped Con Ed equipment in Queens at 3:42 p.m. on June 27, the real-time wholesale price for a megawatt hour of electricity in New York City spiked more than 900 percent, from $184.44 to $1,710.19.

That price was in effect for just five minutes, starting at 3:55 p.m. By 4 p.m., the price dropped by half, to $864.64. At 4:05 p.m., the price dropped again to $364.35, before hitting $272.02, more in line with real-time prices, five minutes later.

The windfall from the five-minute price spike probably ended up in the hands of power generators.

But the buyer, the New York Independent System Operator — which runs the state’s electricity-transmission system and sells power to utilities like Con Ed — won’t say how much power it bought at that price, or from whom it bought the power.

“It’s market-sensitive information,” said Garry Brown, an ISO spokesman. “We don’t want everybody else knowing who got paid what.”

. . .

KeySpan, which generates a quarter of the city’s electricity, reported June 6 that the Justice Department had requested documents and information relating to an “investigation of competitive issues in the New York City electric-energy capacity market.”

The five-minute price spike will be passed on to consumers, but Brown said it will be unnoticeable.

And It’s Not Even A Good-Looking Suspension Bridge . . .

It’s that time of year again when Queens residents start to question why they have to pay a toll for that dumpy old bridge:

Leisure-seekers who make getaways to Rockaway’s beaches and parks get burned by more than the sun with each trip they make south.

Motorists have to pay $2.25 each time they travel across the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge, the city’s only tolled intra-borough crossing.

“It’s ridiculous,” said Kevin Mellett of Briarwood, who comes to the beach almost every day before his evening bartending shift begins. “Why should we have to pay to come to our beach?”

The fee seems unnecessary to Mary Klein, Mellett’s friend and co-worker, as well. “Especially in the summer, when everyone comes to the beach, they shouldn’t be taking advantage of people.”

After E-ZPass discounts, which bring the toll down to $1.50 for each crossing, Mellett estimated that he pays about $100 a season to cross the Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge. On their way to and from the Rockaways, Mellett and Klein cross the Addabbo Memorial Bridge without having to pay a fee. Approximately 7.5 million vehicles crossed the bridges in 2006, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“It’s completely outrageous,” said Howard Beach’s Tom Veranda on Riis Park’s pitch and putt golf course on Friday. “To pay to go from Howard Beach to Broad Channel to Rockaway, it’s all Cross Bay (Boulevard). Nobody should have to be pay that (toll).”

Digna Roldon, a Sunnyside woman who sells Italian ices from a cart she pushes along the shore three or four days a week, said the tolls hurt business. Some Queens beach-goers say that when they anticipate heavy traffic on Cross Bay Boulevard, they simply get on the Grand Central Parkway and drive east toward Jones Beach on Long Island.

. . .

Addabbo said that eliminating tolls through the fall and winter would spur business in Rockaway. He added that some developers have, in the past, believed that Rockaway’s shopping base alone does not warrant an investment there and that many in South Queens will refuse to pay a toll to simply buy a pair of shoes or see a movie.

Businesses in Rockaway already have to pay surcharges on deliveries and both Addabbo and Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer (D-Ozone Park) have offices in Rockaway and on the mainland so that none of their constituents will have to pay a fee to visit them.

“It’s simply an unfair tax,” Pheffer said. “It’s like putting a toll in the middle of Queens Boulevard.” Pheffer knows of teachers who live in communities such as Ozone Park who refuse to take assignments in Rockaway, the same school district they are zoned for, because of what could become a tax of over $20 a week.

Congestion pricing should be easy to work out.