The Unconstitutional Constitutional

Manhattan’s Community Board 6 conveniently overlooks that whole “Freedom of Assembly” portion of the First Amendment:

Officials at Community Board 6 want to outlaw organized pub crawls, claiming the booze-filled jaunts lead to late-night noise and bad behavior on their streets.

“It creates havoc,” said Toni Carlina, the district manager of the community, which covers 14th St. to 59th St. east of Madison Ave.

“Nobody wants to ruin anybody’s good time but people have to be considerate of their neighbors — and so do these bar owners.”

The board aims to pass a resolution banning the liquor trips at a March 31 meeting. They hope the advisory ruling, which would have no legal standing, will prompt state or city politicians to draft a law.

Wow, Is That Toby Keith Or Tom Jones?

You know what? Fuck you:

Kathryn S. Wylde, president of the Partnership for New York City, said 75 business leaders had signed the letter as of Wednesday afternoon. She said Ms. Black would bring a “woman’s touch” to the chancellorship.

“Many members of the school community have spent the last several years complaining about how badly managed the school system was,” Ms. Wylde said. “If anything else, this shows the mayor was listening, and he went after a manager.”

That’s funny — I got the impression that because Joel Klein did so wonderfully that it necessitated someone with no education experience.

Let’s make a deal — I’ll be happy to roll over and trust that rich people are looking out for my best interests just as long as all you all bother to take three seconds to coordinate your message a little better. We all know from the 2009 election that it doesn’t take much. Just try not to insult our intelligence. Just a little.

It’s As If They’ve Never Seen Yellow Balloons Before

Or maybe it shows just how rarely New Yorkers actually go to Times Square. I hope I’m not unwittingly participating in some dopey viral campaign for Iberia Airlines but those mysterious UFOs were actually yellow balloons with the Iberia logo that were handed out to passersby in Times Square and promptly released into the air over Manhattan by said passersby:

CBS 2 cameras captured the objects while shooting up above Chelsea at 23rd Street and Eighth Avenue.

Local media and the NYPD received several calls throughout the afternoon.

However, as CBS 2 cameras showed, the objects appeared to be yellow balloons, although there has been no official confirmation from the NYPD. On the streets below there was a lot of intrigue about the mystery going on up above.

I don’t know that you need the police to confirm that — I hope they would have better things to do.

Here are the mysterious balloons from Times Square:

Location Scout: Duffy Square.

The Upside Of Having An Elected Official With Like Five Weekend Homes . . .

. . . is that maybe now we can get past the fiction that it’s somehow comforting to have a politician on the scene of an accident:

Of course, even the head of the nation’s largest city is entitled to weekends off — especially when he bolted from his seat at the White House Correspondents Dinner in Washington the previous Saturday to bring order to the chaos in Times Square. But so did Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, and he was there in Staten Island on Saturday after dozens of passengers and crew members were injured in the latest mishap to befall the ferryboat Andrew J. Barberi.

Gov. David A. Paterson, who lives somewhere upstate, at least during the week, was at the ferry terminal, too, as was Mr. Bloomberg’s transportation commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan.

But over the weekend, a coy Bloomberg aide only fanned curiosity about the mayor’s whereabouts by offering that the mayor was “monitoring the situation” — from where, he would not say.

Wonderers were left to wonder -– was the mayor at one of his many other pieds-à-terre, in London, or Vail, or outside West Palm Beach? (A person in Bermuda who has reliably tracked the mayor’s movements in the past said that he did not visit the island, where he owns a waterfront estate, over the weekend.)

. . .

When asked, “How was your weekend?” the mayor responded coolly, “It was fine. How was yours?” and added, “Any other questions that’s not a social thing?”

Of course there are so few things that mayors actually do these days beyond campaign against food additives and answer 311 calls, so what else do they have to do on a weekend night?

Write Press Release First, Ask Questions Later

PETA cares less about biology than press coverage, as the Daily News discovers:

PETA accused Sik Gaek and East Seafood Restaurant, also in Flushing, of serving the octopus while it was still alive, and sent letters to the Queens district attorney’s office, demanding it seek animal cruelty charges against the businesses. The group also dispatched protesters to picket outside the restaurants recently, while holding signs like “Octopus Dismembered Alive.”

A PETA spokeswoman said the group is investigating the issue throughout the city and would not comment further on the dish.

But scientists say there’s a reason for the octopus acting like a creepy crawly — even when it’s dead.

“There is a lot of nerve activity that occurs in an octopus’ tentacles. It doesn’t matter if it’s dead or alive,” said Tim Carpenter, curator of fish and invertebrates at the Seattle Aquarium in Seattle, Wash.

The manager of Sik Gaek said the octopus, which live in a medium-sized fish tank inside the restaurant, is killed instantly by having its head split open and its brain removed. The octopus is then immediately chopped up and served to a customer.