I’ve Been Talking To The People That You Call Your Friends And It Seems To Me There’s A Means To An End

But pondering how Bloomberg got a third term now seems more outdated than Phil Collins:

It was one of the flash points of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s bid to overturn term limits and clear the way for a third term: officials and workers with the Doe Fund, a nonprofit group that works with the city’s homeless, testifying at Mr. Bloomberg’s behest before the City Council in support of his effort.

. . .

To critics of Mr. Bloomberg’s efforts to extend term limits, including some candidates who had prepared to run for mayor, the Doe Fund officials’ appearance amounted to a clear conflict of interest. For one thing, the organization, which has provided help to the homeless, drug addicts and ex-inmates for a quarter-century, has been awarded tens of millions of dollars in city contracts.

What was unknown in the fall of 2008, though, was just how much the Doe Fund had benefited from Mr. Bloomberg’s personal philanthropy. A review of Doe Fund documents and tax returns, as well as e-mail messages from the group and interviews with people knowledgeable about its finances, shows that Mr. Bloomberg, through his charitable arms, has regularly given millions of dollars to the group since he became mayor — at least $10 million of which came after the City Council hearings on term limits.

I’m glad the job is giving him so much personal joy. May that always be the case.

See also: Bloomberg For Mayor 2009.

Go Big Or Stay Inside

The only thing worse than record-setting heat is not setting a record for hottest month ever:

By the time Saturday ended, the average temperature for July 31 was recorded at 76 degrees, low enough to drag down the monthly average to 81.3, dooming July 2010 to second place. The Olympic-scale margin: a mere tenth of a degree.

All that sweat — for nothing?

“If July had 30 days, instead of 31 days, we would have broken the record,” said Matt Scalora, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Upton, N.Y.

Well Would You Want To Go To A Public Hearing About Charter Revision In This Heat?

I didn’t think so:

Two events of note took place in the Bronx on Wednesday. One drew 47,521 spectators. The other fell short of that number by only, oh, 47,468. One was a baseball game. The other dealt with how New York City ought to govern itself.

It will be left to you to match the event to the turnout.

Not that any person with a reasonable grip on sanity would have expected thousands to fight their way into a hearing on ways to alter the City Charter, New York City’s constitution. But 53 people?

Surrender, give up, move away . . . leave the city to those in charge. See you all at the beach!

A Modest Proposal

Let’s face it — pennies are annoying. Even if you don’t use them to clog up your sofa, it’s a pain to try to get ride of them. So this story about a thieving Home Depot automatic checkout machine on Staten Island made me think that best way to fix New York’s budget problems may be to “spare the change”:

On July 6, the reporter bought a screw priced at 56 cents. The tax was 5 cents, for a total of 61 cents. With 75 cents inserted, the receipt indicated 14 cents change due but just 12 cents popped out.

On Tuesday, the reporter bought a pack of key caps priced at $1.27. The tax was 11 cents, for a total of $1.38. The reporter put in $1.55 and got back just a nickel and two pennies.

. . .

Yesterday, a senior manager in Home Depot’s public relations division promised that a team would be dispatched to evaluate the machines’ operation.

Who knows how much money might be raised by invoking a temporary “spare the change” tax on all cash purchases. We’d see rising productivity in the retail sector — less change to count! In a time when the MTA is considering making Orwellian changes to the meaning of “unlimited”, it makes sense . . .

Slow Ride, Take It Easy

There are 8,000 MTA employees making more than six figures, which makes you wonder why they’re trying to make their jobs easier:

Also, single-ride tickets will be valid for only one to two weeks after purchase, replacing the current policy of six months.

The changes will cut down on the number of tickets that conductors don’t get to mark as paid on crowded trains.