An Indian Summer Before The Freeze Sets In

What “all hiring [. . .] frozen for the foreseeable future” actually means:

The hiring freeze that Mayor Bloomberg imposed two months ago hasn’t prevented hundreds of new additions to the city’s enormous payroll.

Since the freeze was announced on Oct. 4 — when the city’s budget deficit for fiscal year 2013 was projected at an oppressive $4.6 billion — mayoral agencies have hired 494 new full timers. The City Council added 19.

Subterranean Third Term Blues

Here’s how we know nothing Michael Bloomberg does is serious anymore. Not only does he not tell anyone at the Board of Education — who would be expected to carry water for his appointees — what’s going on but he does not tell anyone at any agency what is going on, period:

The Bloomberg administration stunned the city’s transportation establishment on Tuesday evening as reports trickled out about an ambitious plan to extend the No. 7 subway train under the Hudson River and into New Jersey.

Among the surprised: the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the city’s subways and found out about the proposal only hours before it was reported in the press.

The authority’s chairman, Jay H. Walder, said on Wednesday that his agency had not discussed the plan with the mayor’s office “prior to sometime yesterday afternoon.” And the authority’s top construction manager, who is overseeing the current expansion of the No. 7 to West 34th Street, said he read about the proposal in his morning newspaper.

In just a week, Bloomberg has gone from fearlessly independent to isolated and paranoid. Hey, Jared Kushner, please explain, because I don’t think anyone understands him anymore . . .

Shouldn’t The School Board Or The City Pay For This Anyway?

Setting aside for a moment that the MTA is probably using this issue as a political wedge, and that it apparently succeeded, why should the MTA pay for New York City students to ride subways and buses for free? Shouldn’t the school system (since they save money on transportation) or the City itself (since so much of school funding comes from the City) be paying for the students?

Even though it has a similar system, Portland, OR doesn’t pay for students:

High school students in the Portland Public School District can ride TriMet for free during the school year, by showing their student ID.

Unlike other school districts, Portland Public Schools does not provide regular yellow school bus service. The Student Pass program is a partnership between the school district and the City of Portland, and is funded through a State of Oregon Business Energy Tax Credit and Portland Public Schools. It is not subsidized by TriMet.

I don’t think SEPTA (Philadelphia) pays for students, and it doesn’t seem like LA or Chicago does, either.

Take Me Out To The Bra Game

But I don’t get why Lady Gaga would want to watch a stinky old Mets-Padres day game when there’s a fantastic Yankees-Astros interleague series starting tonight:

The beer-swilling diva — who has professed her love for the Yankees — proceeded to repeatedly salute the crowd with her middle finger.

When fans rose for the seventh-inning stretch, she did, too — dancing and giving onlookers the double-bird salute.

She watched the rest of the game in just her undergarments without incident.

“She was psyched to go the game,” a source close to Gaga told The Post.

Location Scout: Citi Field.

Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep A Gun In The House

Tell me why — again — people think it’s OK to have dogs in apartments, because I really don’t get it:

The Marders had Nestlé’s vocal cords cut by a veterinary surgeon after a neighbor in the family’s apartment building on the Upper East Side threatened to complain to the co-op board about the noisy dog.