And What’s More, They Start Track Fires

The Post gladly reports how the MTA is pointing the finger at those free morning newspapers for the increased number of track fires during 2005:

All those thousands of free newspapers being handed out at subway stations are to blame for a huge jump in track fires, transit officials said yesterday.

“The papers get put down on the platforms and then, due to the vacuum effect of the trains, get pulled into the tracks,” said Michael Lombardi, MTA senior vice president for subways.

While they’ve all been minor blazes, the number of fires increased by almost 20 percent in 2005 to 1,673.

Although NYC Transit added 116 cleaners and the agency is cleaning the tracks more systematically, the volume of trash is hard to overcome.

The aggressive distribution of the free dailies, such as amNewYork and Metro New York, along with increasing ridership, have caused the daily garbage haul to grow by 15 tons, Lombardi said.

Discarded food and other trash is also to blame.

The newspapers say they do not deserve to be blamed for the fires, and transit advocates and elected officials agree.

God Help Me If The Post Ever Notices My Hair

Renowned dirty fucker Peter Braunstein gets a Gawker-ready hairstyle piece in today’s Post:

Accused fire fiend Peter Braunstein may have stabilized since getting locked up in Bellevue Hospital, but his hairstyles have been all over the map.

Braunstein showed up for a routine Manhattan Supreme Court appearance yesterday sporting a shaggy new beard. It’s the fourth makeover in as many court appearances.

Since his arrest in December on charges he masqueraded as a fireman so he could kidnap and sexually torment a female co-worker, the former Women’s Wear Daily fashion writer has gone from curly haired to buzz cut.

Braunstein, 41, has told cops he slavishly follows his own press coverage — and is so image conscious he once complained that his wanted poster made him look “like a crazed Mexican.” But his lawyer, Robert Gottlieb, joked yesterday that no significance should be attached to this latest “look.”

“I don’t think they give you razor blades over at Bellevue,” Gottlieb quipped.

Insert Cheap Shot “Ba-Dum-Bum” Here

The Post’s two favorite targets get the borscht-belt treatment in one fine piece:

Tired of endless bungling, bickering and bad ideas, a group of diplomats from the United Nations went on a fact-finding mission this week to learn how a successful New York institution works. Unfortunately, they wound up at a Knick game.

Looking like fish out of international waters among the long-suffering Knick fans, the group, led by U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, donned red NBA caps as they watched from a luxury box at Madison Square Garden Wednesday. Also wearing the goofy headgear were the wife of China’s U.N. ambassador and Russia’s envoy. The diplomats were treated to a true Knick experience — the team lost to the Miami Heat, 103-83.

Silly, The Inverted Pyramid Is For Sissy Papers Like The Times!

Someone at the Post gets it — reducing salacious, violent stories into theatrical components is the new inverted pyramid:

This is a love story with a moral: Don’t dally with your friend’s mommy or you might find a Valentine Day’s card carved on your face.

The characters: Elias Nazario, 18; his mom, Nelly; his pal Robert Quinones, 20; and her former boyfriend, a man known only as Freddy.

The place: 852 McDonald Ave. in Borough Park, where the aforementioned reside.

The back story: Robert is having a dalliance with Nelly under the unsuspecting eyes of Elias and the man known only as Freddy.

The action: Elias and Freddy find out about the affair on Valentine’s day, and Elias slashes Robert’s face, authorities say.

The result: Robert gets stitches. Elias gets Rikers.

And the past tense is for wussies like the Daily News:

On Valentine’s Day morning, Freddy goes to work. At 7:55 a.m., Robert wakes up to find several deep cuts on his face and Elias standing over him with a sharp metal object, authorities say.

Elias flees and his mother calls 911. Cops arrive. Robert is taken to Lutheran Hospital, where he gets stitches for the cuts.

Elias did it, he tells the cops.

The youth is picked up at his aunt’s home on Ocean Avenue and taken to the 66th Precinct stationhouse, where he is formally arrested at 2 a.m. Wednesday.

Later in the day, he is arraigned in Brooklyn Criminal Court on charges of assault, menacing, harassment and weapons possession.

Unable to make bail of $2,500, he is lodged in Rikers.

Nelly stonewalls.

“Nothing happened here. I have no comment. It’s all lies,” she said yesterday.

Now that’s the way we like to read these stories!

Post Headline Of The Day

The Post headline of the day is “Do You Believe This Sit?!”:

A ride home on the F train doubled the cost of Samantha Hoover’s groceries — after a cop wrote her a $50 ticket for putting the plastic bag on the seat next to her.

Sitting on the “mostly empty” Brooklyn-bound train Friday evening, Hoover, 33, said she tried to read a magazine, but her thoughts wandered between her day at work and the steak dinner she and her fiancé were going to prepare when she got home.

“Next thing I know, a police officer walks up and wants to know if I’ve ever been arrested,” said Hoover. “He asked for my identification and said, ‘You can’t put your bag there.'”

Hoover’s life as an outlaw was made possible by new MTA subway rules — prohibiting activities such as roller-skating or walking between cars, not to mention putting bags on seats.

They supplemented earlier restrictions on smoking and panhandling.

Taking up more than one seat had always been an offense punishable with a fine. But until now, it was enforced only against people sprawled across several seats.

Officer Mohammad Ishrat told Hoover to leave the train with him at the Jay Street/Borough Hall stop so he could check whether there were any warrants for her arrest, she said.

“I have had a couple of parking tickets,” she later confessed.

Instead, she tried to argue that her Whole Foods bag had not made any impact on the rest of the passengers.

“The train was empty,” Hoover said she told the cop.

Ishrat pointed at the plastic Whole Foods bag and explained it didn’t matter, she said. He then boosted the $46.73 she spent on steak, vegetables, strawberries and snacks with a $50 fine.

The NYPD did not return a call seeking comment.