And In A Year Or Two When The Statistics Don’t Look As Good, It Won’t Matter Anyway

If the unemployment numbers and school test scores don’t cooperate, you can always take credit for fewer fat kids:

New York City is the biggest loser — and Mayor Michael Bloomberg is delighted.

Obesity rates among New York City public elementary and middle-school students have decreased during the past five years across all race and ethnic groups, marking the biggest decline in childhood obesity reported to date by any large city in the nation, according to a report released Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control.

At a news conference in the Bronx Thursday afternoon, the mayor is expected to announce new city standards to ensure that food vending machines at city buildings are stocked with healthy options. The Bloomberg administration also plans to launch a multi-agency task force charged with developing new policies to combat obesity.

On Throwing Bombs

How scary are the terrorist plots that the vaunted NYPD counter-terrorism unit brings down? You decide:

FBI Director Robert Mueller struggled to stop subordinates from criticizing the NYPD over its case against accused would-be pipe-bomber Jose Pimentel, he admitted Wednesday.

The feds passed on the case twice, but the NYPD took down the Bronx radical as he worked to complete a pipe bomb in a police informant’s apartment on Nov. 20.

Afterward, federal officials ripped the case, telling reporters, who gave them anonymity so they could dish, that Pimentel was incapable of carrying out an attack.

Message: I Could Not Care Less

A strange thing starts to happen when you lose focus and start to slow down in advance of leaving office — more people approve of your job performance — less “limited government” than “limiting your government.” Or perhaps it just proves that “the less you do . . .”:

While Mr. Bloomberg has had an uneven 2011, dragged down in polls by last winter’s blizzard and Cathleen P. Black’s brief stint as schools chancellor, he has ended the year on an upswing, with 49 percent of those polled saying that they approved of his job performance, and 42 percent saying they did not. Voters liked his policies, by a margin of 52 percent to 43 percent. And they held him in even higher regard personally; 64 percent said they liked the mayor, while 24 percent said they did not.

Somehow Principles Survived

Though I think they could have just as easily justified it as a sort of Robin Hood deal:

The location scout knew just the spot — a sweeping spiral with marble steps, filigreed wrought-iron railwork and a mural depicting the triumph of man over adversity running up its length, culminating in gold-crowned columns of fluted mahogany.

The money would be good — somewhere approaching five figures for a day’s shoot, the scout told the owners of the location, who, as fortune would have it, could definitely use the cash these days.

There was just one catch: the location was the Midtown administrative headquarters of Daytop Village, the famed drug and alcohol rehabilitation program.

And the advertising client was a prominent purveyor of hard liquor.

But you have to like the location scout’s response:

“It was one of those situations where you call and then you realize in the middle of the sentence, ‘This thing just won’t work.'”

There’s Something Almost Existential About The Idea That “There Is A Fine Line Between A Shopper And Someone Who Is Up To No Good”

Block watch initiatives can sometimes be imperfect:

Tony stores on Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill stretch are policing themselves — fending off hoodlums coming from Fulton Mall to rob their shops.

Surveillance cameras went up Wednesday, along with buzzer systems, a new policy of locking front doors — and quizzing potential customers about what they are looking for before they are allowed inside.

There are 10 signed members of B-MAC, Brooklyn Merchants Against Crime, and about ten more in the pipe line. Managers say they are most wary of men shopping for ladies clothes without a woman in sight.

“There is a fine line between a shopper and someone who is up to no good,” said [a manager of a store] on Atlantic Avenue.

. . .

[One shopper], 52, was turned away at [a consignment store] on Atlantic Avenue Tuesday afternoon.

[The angry shopper], a black man wearing canvas sneakers and a hip military coat, walked down the block to the [ . . . ] boutique complaining to the owner that the salesgirl wouldn’t buzz him.

“When you take off work to do some shopping and they don’t let you in, yes it is confusing,” said [the shopper], a teacher, after the owner explained the concept of BMAC and their new policy of turning away men not accompanied by a woman.

“It’s New York, so I totally understand,” said [the shopper]. “I just needed someone to explain this to me.”

Location Scout: Atlantic Avenue in Boerum Hill.