I Can’t Believe I Watched The Whole Thing

Brooklyn Paper’s Gersh Kuntzman visits a sex toy store. Innuendo and bad puns ensue. It almost makes you want to opt out.

The Hugo Chavez Of The Northeast

“Not surprisingly, the poll showed little sentiment among voters for overturning the term-limits law”:

Mayor Bloomberg, who has repeatedly denied interest in running for governor or extending term limits, has conducted a poll that includes questions about changing term limits — a move that would allow him to run for re-election — as well as his chances of winning a race for the statehouse, sources said last night.

“You know Mike Bloomberg,” said one source. “Data doesn’t determine the answers, but you can’t do anything without data.”

The Post first reported in April that Bloomberg was exploring a possible third term — a story immediately denied by mayoral aides.

Not surprisingly, the poll showed little sentiment among voters for overturning the term-limits law that will force Bloomberg and other city officials to leave office on Dec. 31, 2009.

Just The Kind Of Leader You’d Want In The White House

I maintain that in retrospect, it was probably for the best:

Mr. Bloomberg is often a man of quaint politeness in public. But in recent days, as he has endured setbacks on projects crucial to his legacy, another Michael Bloomberg has spilled into view: short-tempered, scolding, even petulant.

The mayor has watched the collapse of his congestion pricing proposal and the blocking of his plan to link teacher tenure to student test scores. He is hoping a revived deal to develop the far West Side of Manhattan, another crucial part of his vision for transforming the city, can become a reality.

And, with his presidential hopes shelved, the often fawning attention from the media has faded, too.

Suddenly, as he enters the twilight of his term, he is openly dressing down commissioners, taking obvious shots at officials who disagree with him and invoking the royal “we” while refusing to answer questions whose topics or phrasing he finds distasteful.

. . .

In some respects, associates say, Mr. Bloomberg’s anger stems from incredulity that systems do not function as they should, and from never fully adjusting to the last-minute, secret deal-making culture of politics, which he believes is a bad way to conduct business.

. . .

Mr. Bloomberg’s mercurial nature has been emerging most clearly in his dealings with members of the news media, with whom he has recently come to resemble the “Seinfeld” Soup Nazi of municipal government.

At a news conference on May 1, Mr. Bloomberg snapped at a reporter who tried to ask him about a discrimination lawsuit at Bloomberg L.P. “What does this have to do with the budget?” he asked, even though he had already offered his views on other issues. “Next time, don’t bother to ask us a question. Stick to the topic. Everybody else plays by the rules; you’ll just have to as well.”

Last week, at another news conference, he cut off a reporter who used the word “maintain” in a question, calling the word inappropriate because of its confrontational connotation.

“Next time you have a question, you want to insinuate that I lie, just talk to the press secretary,” he said, jabbing his finger toward the reporter. “I don’t think we have a question for you.”

Daily News Vs. Post, Too

More gloating, this time on the part of the Daily News:

You might want to think twice before you take any sweet-tooth recommendations from the New York Post.

Just Wednesday, the fact-challenged paper crowned a Staten Island bakery named Cake Chef as the best in the city for classic black-and-white cookies.

Too bad the Health Department shut the place down last week for a string of sanitary violations.

The Post crowed that the bakery on Jewett Ave. is “fabulous” and “one of the best in the city,” but inspectors ordered the place shut last Thursday after it racked up 62 violation points.

The place was deemed “conducive to vermin,” there was evidence of mice and workers’ personal cleanliness was rated “inadequate,” according to the report.

No One Knows A District’s Needs Better Than The Local Representative

More on those discretionary funds:

City Council members running for citywide office are allocating “member item” money to organizations miles away from their council districts, a New York Sun analysis has found.

The disclosure is reinforcing concerns that the taxpayer funds are being used to buy political support. It is also undercutting one of the most commonly made defenses of member items in the city’s budget, which is that no one knows a district’s needs better than the local representative.

The disclosure that council members are attaching their names to money sent to organizations miles from their constituents’ homes, in boroughs they don’t represent, is the latest angle in the “slush fund” scandal that began with the news that the City Council was budgeting money for made-up, nonexistent organizations as a way of stashing funds away to be allocated at the discretion of individual council members. After federal indictments of council aides, all four metropolitan daily newspapers in the city have come out with editorials calling for abolishing the grants of taxpayer funds at the sole discretion of individual council members.

The out-of-district grants are raising concern from council members and advocacy groups, who say it’s another sign that the member item system needs to be overhauled or ended completely.

“Why would you give your small discretionary funds to groups outside your district unless you are trying to curry favor for future elections or political purposes?” a council member of Queens who is running for mayor, Tony Avella, said. “It’s not like we get enough money as it is.”

See also: “Longtime Practice of City Council Financing Lands on Speaker’s Shoulders” (NYT, May 11, 2008).