Machines Don’t Just Serve To Justify Annoying Alternate-Side Parking Rules

Apparently they actually do suck stuff up there:

A Boston terrier was sucked into a fast-moving street sweeper and killed in a heartrending accident in the Bronx.

“It happened so fast,” said the dog’s owner, Robert Machin, who was holding Ginger’s leash when she disappeared. “It spun me around, and as it spun me around, I caught a last glimpse of her.”

Machin, who had been walking the dogs in the Soundview neighborhood Thursday morning, had the door to his Honda Civic open and was about to get inside with Ginger and his other terrier, Buster, when the sweeper struck the dog.

Witnesses said the Department of Sanitation vehicle was speeding.

“I was devastated,” Machin said. “I was completely dumbfounded and shocked. I mean, I just witnessed my dog sucked up into a street sweeper.”

He said he chased the sweeper for about 2 1/2 blocks, shouting for the operator to stop. The driver eventually went back to the scene, but refused to turn off the whirring brushes that had crushed the pooch until he arrived.

The Department of Sanitation called the death “a rare and unfortunate accident.”

That Is Not What Is Meant By “Amateur” . . .

. . . asshole:

A Rockland County businessman was busted for posing as a Park Avenue gynecologist, authorities said yesterday.

A source told The Post further charges were expected against Zalman Silber, 40, for alleged sex crimes involving two female patients.

Silber was charged with two counts of unauthorized practice of a profession for posing as a gynecologist at adjacent offices on Park Avenue in 2004, law-enforcement sources said.

Silber, of Monsey, allegedly treated two women, ages 18 and 24.

In reality, Silber runs a tourist attraction in the Empire State Building that simulates a flight through New York, records show.

Who Is The Worst Person Ever?

How about the person who kicks his pregnant girlfriend in the stomach and then murders a good samaritan:

Detra Young, 51, died earlier this week — two weeks after the vengeful 17-year-old shot her five times inside the Tompkins Houses hallway in Bedford-Stuyvesant, said devastated family members.

“You won’t get away with it,” Young told her shooter, whose first name is Charles, according her daughter Monique Young, 32, as the teen then unleashed a hail of gunfire.

“You f—ing b—h,” he said coldly, pressing the trigger, according to the daughter.

“I don’t know what monster he is that he would shoot an unarmed woman five times,” said Young’s heartbroken sister Roslyn Wright.

Last November, Young, a mother of four and grandmother of five, stepped up to protect her young, pregnant neighbor who was getting kicked in the stomach by her teenage boyfriend.

Cops arrested the violent teen. He was in jail until Memorial Day weekend — and threatening Young from prison, Wright said. “He was sending threatening messages to my sister through his girlfriend,” she said.

Three days after the youth was released from jail, his mother and his girlfriend’s uncle showed up at Young’s door in hopes of resolving their differences.

An argument began and as it escalated, Young, her daughter, her two sons and her son’s friend stepped out into the hallway. That’s when Charles appeared out of nowhere with a gun, Monique Young said.

Did You Save Your Hard-Earned Money Or, More Importantly, Listen To Your Mother?

Of course not. But at least he bought her a ring. In other words, here is the day’s most irresponsible piece of journalism:

A 44-year-old Manhattan doorman whose mother told him he was throwing his money away on lottery tickets won $5 million from a scratchoff card.

“Look, Ma, I’m on top of the world!” Richard [Sonny] Randazzo shouted to his stunned mother, Chora, Wednesday as news photographers snapped his photo and he accepted his jackpot.

The bachelor, who lives with his parents in Gravesend, Brooklyn, admitted he’s been buying up to $30 worth of lottery tickets weekly for the past 25 years with little to show until now.

On May 2, his luck changed when he bought a roast beef sandwich and his winning “Set for Life” scratch ticket at the Mill Basin Mini Mart.

“What a very strange trip it’s been,” Randazzo said at Wednesday’s news conference at Gargiulo’s restaurant in Coney Island.

Randazzo said he had “itchy palms” when he purchased his ticket, a telltale sign of luck. He said he chose to play “Set for Life” because he “zoned in on” the orange and red tickets.

When he saw he had won, he quickly called his parents, who were vacationing in Florida.

“We’re rich!” he shouted.

“I couldn’t believe it,” Randazzo’s father, Frank, a retired machinist, said of his son beating the nearly 1 in 4 million odds.

“I asked Richie, ‘You sure you read it right?'”

Chora Randazzo, a retired hairdresser, admitted she often scolded her son about playing the lottery: “I told him he was throwing his money in the garbage.”

The Tiffany diamond ring he bought her has changed her mind.

What Is This, Chicago?

The qualifying statement “which has a contract despite alleged mob ties” seems to be becoming a cliche*:

A thriving Queens restaurant and catering hall — which has a contract with the Parks Department despite alleged mob ties — keeps such shoddy records that it’s impossible to tell how much taxpayers are losing from unreported revenue, city Comptroller Bill Thompson charges in an explosive audit.

Based on the receipts they could find, Thompson’s auditors said the Merissa Restaurant Corp., which operates Caffe on the Green in Bayside, owes the city $120,607 in fees for nearly $1 million in unreported income during 2006 and 2007.

For example: “Though Nothing Has Been Proved”; The Bad Old Days Never Left — They Just Went To Work For Jofaz; It’s My Park!