Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

January 11, 2013 By Fausta

Nanny Bloomberg: Feel the pain! UPDATED

Don’t get injured in New York City, because Nanny Bloomberg knows better than your doctor:
New York City to Restrict Prescription Painkillers in Public Hospitals’ Emergency Rooms

Under the new city policy, most public hospital patients will no longer be able to get more than three days’ worth of narcotic painkillers like Vicodin and Percocet. Long-acting painkillers, including OxyContin, a familiar remedy for chronic backache and arthritis, as well as Fentanyl patches and methadone, will not be dispensed at all.

How often is Oxycontin prescribed in emergency rooms anyway, and why is Bloomberg sticking his nose on this?

And lost, stolen or destroyed prescriptions will not be refilled.

After I came up with this post’s title I found out Stephen Green had it, too.

A mayor’s job is shovel the snow, catch criminals. Not this stuff.

If NYC has a problem with junkies and painkillers, I suggest they start dealing with the junkies. Instead, Bloomberg will crack down mostly on people who aren’t breaking the law, by doing what governments do best: Creating shortages of vital goods.

But fear not, the short, plump mayor knows what’s best for you.

UPDATE:
Howard Portnoy:

Michael R. Bloomberg isn’t a doctor, and he doesn’t even play one on television. But that hasn’t stopped him from practicing medicine. Last July, he ordered New York City hospitals to begin hiding baby formula so that mothers of newborns would be forced to nurse their infant children. A month earlier, he enacted a ban on soft drinks larger than 16 fluid ounces, seeming to understand that if he didn’t take action, his patients – er, subjects … er, constituents … would drink themselves to an early, sugary death.

Look up “Bloomberg” in the latest illustrated thesaurus & his photo pops up under “officious little pr*ck” faustasblog.com/2013/01/nanny-… @elbloombito

— Fausta (@Fausta) January 11, 2013

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Filed Under: government, health, Michael Bloomberg, New York, NY Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Nanny Bloomberg, nanny state

November 29, 2012 By Fausta

Today’s blogging brought to you by the runaway zony

Zebra + pony = zony

View more videos at: http://nbcnewyork.com.

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Filed Under: New York, news Tagged With: Fausta's blog, zebra

November 4, 2012 By Fausta

A sign of the apocalypse: The Daily News and Newsday endorse Romney

The Daily News:
Our choice for America’s future: The Daily News endorses Mitt Romney for president
Four years after endorsing Obama, News finds the hopes of those days went unfulfilled

First hitting Obama on unemployment and the economy, they go on,

First came emergency economic stimulus. Because Obama gave free rein to House and Senate Democrats in deciding how to spend $800 billion, the legislation was heavily designed to satisfy the party’s constituencies and hunger for social programs, and inadequately weighted toward job-multiplier projects like building and repairing bridges and railroads — including subways.
After originally projecting that the program would produce 4 million more jobs than the country now has, along with a 5% jobless rate, Obama pleads that he saved Americans from more dire straits.
Next came Obamacare. While the country bled jobs, the President battled to establish universal health insurance — without first restraining soaring medical bills. Then he pushed one of the largest social programs in U.S. history through a Democratic-controlled Congress without a single Republican vote.
R.I.P. and never to be resurrected — Obama’s promised bipartisanship.
While the legislation has yet to take full effect, the typical family’s health insurance premium has risen and many businesses will experience a hike of $70 per week per employee, further restraining wages or producing part-time jobs that lack coverage.
Next came trillion-dollar deficits. Deep in the hole thanks to former President George W. Bush, Obama helped run up a $5 trillion increase in the national debt.

Newsday:
Editorial: Elect Mitt Romney president of the United States

Had Barack Obama done the job of president with the same passion and vision he displayed in seeking it, he would likely deserve another term. He did not.

Go read both in full.

(h/t Instapundit)


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Filed Under: Barack Obama, Democrats, elections, Mitt Romney, New York, NY, politics Tagged With: Fausta's blog, NY Daily News

November 3, 2012 By Fausta

Private enterprise to the rescue!

How Victoria’s Secret Saved the National Guard During Hurricane Sandy

The initial call to the Victoria’s Secret crew came at about 7:20 on Tuesday morning. Consulting producer Dave Shapiro and his co-workers were staying a block away at the Hotel Giraffe. They came over, and ran some feeder lines from the Aggreko generators through a transformer and into the building. Some basic lights in the hallways and the basement’s hot water heater were back up and running. It was enough to get started.

Then one of the associate producers suggested they might be able to power the whole armory up. They went into the basement and found the main switch connecting the century-old landmark to the lines of Con Edison, the local utility. The idea was to shut down the connection between Con Ed, then attach the Victoria Secret lines during to the armory’s busbar — the long metal strips that conduct electricity to a switchboard. It was a kludge, and it had to be done right: the producers didn’t want to fry the building when the local Con Ed substation finally started generating electricity again. “I have to admit, I was very skeptical,” Shapiro says.

But it worked. By 7 p.m on Tuesday night, the armory was fully powered; even the elevators worked.

The soldiers were still having communications problems, though. Many of the local cell towers were down, and so was the armory’s internet’s connection. Luckily, Shapiro had answer for that, too. For the show, he had leased a T1 line connected to a microwave dish on the roof. “We plopped two routers in their command center,” he says, “and now they’re sitting on our internet backbone.”

The troops also needed help distributing food. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had begun bringing tractor-trailers’ worth of emergency provisions to the armory. It was up to the troops to break up the pallets, load them in military trucks, and bring them to the seven distribution centers in Manhattan where the Salvation Army would hand out meals to Hurricane victims. One problem: the 69th didn’t have a fork lift. So again, they turned to the Victoria’s Secret crew.

Here you have it!

Meanwhile, Bloombito decided the Marathon wasn’t a good idea.

Over at the White House,

Where’s Obama? In Vegas, with Eva.

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Filed Under: New York, news, NY Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Hurricane Sandy

September 24, 2012 By Fausta

Life imitates art: Ahmadinejad in New York


Yum!


Last month I posted a brief review of Gary Buslik’s book, Akhmed and the Atomic Matzo Balls: A Novel of International Intrigue, Pork-Crazed Termites, and Motherhood. In it, the title character – who bears more than a passing resemblance to Ahmadinejad – loves to indulge in Jewish deli fare while on his junkets to the UN.

The NYPost must have hired Mr. Buslik, or perhaps they read his book:

The anti-Semite’s special welcome basket — from New Yorkers with love — included such locally procured goodies as Gold’s Borscht, Manischewitz Gefilte Fish and smoked whitefish from the world-famous Murray’s Sturgeon House on the Upper West Side.

If Ahmadinejad (pronounced: I’m a dinner jacket) needed midnight munchies during his visit to this infidel city, there were also plenty of H&H bagels, onion bialys and Zabar’s cream cheese.
…
There’s also a bobblehead Statue of Liberty to keep on his night table, a teddy bear to cuddle with during those cold Persian nights and a 9/11 American-flag refrigerator magnet that he can stick on the minibar.

For the (dic)tator who has everything!

Related,
Pass the bialy! Piers Morgan: Ahmadinejad would have ‘no problem’ if one of his children dated a Jew.

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Filed Under: books, Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, New York, NY, UN Tagged With: Fausta's blog

September 11, 2012 By Fausta

September 11: In memory of Joe Angelini, Jr.

This post honors three heroes of September 11, 2001: a father and two sons. Two died, one survived.

May they never be forgotten.

Project 2996

Joseph Angelini Jr., age 38 of Lindenhurst, NY, died heroically on September 11, 2001 in the World Trade Center terrorist attack. He was a New York firefighter with Ladder Co. 4

Joseph Angelini Jr.
A Firefighter Passionate About Family, Gardening

October 22, 2001

Joseph Angelini Jr. may have lived for the New York City Fire Department, but he didn’t hang around when his tour ended.

“Gotta get home to the kids,” he’d tell the guys in Manhattan’s Ladder Co. 4 before heading to the 6:33 p.m. train to Lindenhurst.

Angelini’s wife, Donna, has scheduled a memorial service for today to help 7-year-old Jennifer, 5-year-old Jacqueline and 3-year-old Joseph Angelini III to finally understand that he won’t be coming home anymore.

“My son asks everyone he sees in uniform, ‘Did you find my daddy, did you find my daddy?’” Donna Angelini said Friday.

The seven-year department veteran followed in the footsteps of his father, Joseph Angelini Sr., 63, who was the senior member of Brooklyn’s Rescue Co. 1 and also perished in the World Trade Center attacks.

The younger Angelini, 38, was assigned to a house that protects New York’s theater district. Its motto: “Never miss a performance.”

But at home, he was a cook, craftsman and avid gardener who grew pumpkins, zucchini, eggplants and hot peppers and filled the house with the smells of pizza and focaccia.

“He was the air in my lungs, and now that air is taken away from me,” Donna Angelini said. “I keep waiting for him to come off a 24 [hour shift] and come through the door and say, ‘You wouldn’t believe what happened to me today.’”

Angelini also is survived by his mother, Anne, a grandmother, Mary, sister Annmarie Bianco and brother, Michael, all of Lindenhurst; sister Mary Angelini of Washington D.C.; and by seven nieces and nephews.

A memorial service will be held today at 11 a.m. at Our Lady of Perpetual Help Roman Catholic Church in Lindenhurst.
– Elizabeth Moore (Newsday)

CNN.com profile of Joe Jr.

Living Tribute to Joseph Angelini, Jr.

Joe’s father, Joe Sr. also died that day:
The Veteran and His Son

Joseph J. Angelini Sr. and his son, Joseph Jr., were firefighters, and neither survived the twin towers’ collapse. “If he had lived and his son had died, I don’t think he would have survived,” said Alfred Benjamin, a firefighter at Rescue Company 1 in Manhattan who was partnered with Mr. Angelini for the last six months.

The elder Mr. Angelini, 63, was the most veteran firefighter in the city, with 40 years on the job. He was tough and “rode the back step” like everyone else. His 38-year-old son, who worked on Ladder Company 4 on 48th Street, was on the job for seven years.

“If you mentioned retirement to Joey, it was like punching him,” Mr. Benjamin said. Joseph Jr. was proud of his father’s reputation and tried to copy him any way he could, said Joseph Jr.’s wife, Donna.

And they never gave up their tools. “Think about climbing 20 stories with bunker gear, ropes, hooks, halogens and other different types of tools and somebody wants to borrow a tool — no way,” Mr. Benjamin said. “You ask them what they need done and you do it for them. You carried that tool all the way up there, so you’re going to use it. If they thought they were going to need a tool, they should have carried it up. Joey Sr. always said carry your own weight. He always carried his.”

Joseph Jr. applied to the department 11 years ago. He got called seven years ago. “It was the proudest day for my father-in-law. It was a great opportunity,” said Donna Angelini. “His father was a firefighter and he wanted to be one, too.”

Mr. Angelini, who had four children, taught Joseph Jr. carpentry. Often they worked on projects together, including a rocking horse. Joseph Jr., who had three children, had started building a dollhouse for one of his daughters. Unfinished, it is sitting on his workbench.

Joseph Angelini, Sr.

Mychal Judge

A brother, Firefighter Michael Angelini, was there as well, but, in a move that probably saved his life, left when asked to help carry out the body of the Rev. Mychal Judge, the fire department’s chaplain.

From Newsday:

Between Funeral and ‘Pile’

September 21, 2001

Michael’s choice: remain with his mother, Anne, in Lindenhurst and support his family during the wake, today, and the funeral, tomorrow, for his father, New York firefighter Joey Angelini, 63; or, return to The Pile to continue searching for his missing brother, New York firefighter Joey Angelini Jr., 38.

Michael, 33, knew yesterday that his mother and Joey Jr.’s wife, Donna, his two sisters and his nieces and nephews needed him, needed a strong, grown, male Angelini nearby, perhaps as much or more than he needed to be nearer his brother. “It’s hard to figure out what’s the right place to be in,” he said, already having decided to stay with the family. “I want so much to go back there.”

Michael works for the Fire Patrol of New York, which operates under the New York Board of Underwriters, protecting the interests of insurers during and in the aftermath of commercial property fires. Wearing the same firefighting gear, except for the distinctive red helmet that denotes Fire Patrol, he responded to the World Trade Center disaster last Tuesday morning, as did his father, a 40-year FDNY veteran assigned to Rescue 1, and his brother, of Ladder Co. 4 in the Theater District. “We were all in the same area, and none of us knew it,” he said.

In the lobby of one of the stricken towers, a fire supervisor suddenly ordered him out of the building. They passed firefighters who had just encountered the body of department chaplain Father Mychal Judge. Michael helped carry Judge away. “… but then my officer grabbed me and said, ‘Let’s go!’” he said. “We ended up a block or two north on West Murray Street.”

Michael entertained a slender hope that his brother might have finished his tour early and gone home. He suspected otherwise, and he learned later that afternoon that Joey had done what his father would have done and what so many other firefighters did who were supposed to be ending their tours at 9 a.m. They went to work.

Once a jokester and a partygoer, Joey Jr. had undergone personality changes increasingly noticeable to Michael during the past seven years, since he had joined the department and Donna gave birth to the first of their three children, Jennifer. He had worked previously as an electrician with the Transit Authority. “I didn’t want him to leave Transit,” said his mother, “because they were about to make him a foreman. But, for some reason, he switched over to the fire department.”

“Since then,” Michael said, “I saw him taking on more and more of my father’s traits. Before, we used to go out a lot, he and I. He was silly, funny. Now, getting him to go out was like pulling teeth. I tell old stories to guys he worked with, and they’ll look at me like I’m talking about somebody they don’t know. He had become so, like, straight. He just wanted to be with his family. He was showing more and more of that integrity, that seriousness, like my father.

“Three things were important to my father: his family, the church and the department, and I’m not sure in what order. My father was honest to a fault, religious. I remember walking back from the store with him. I was only little. He realized that the counter girl had given him 30 cents too much in change, and we had to walk all the way back. I mean, it was almost ridiculous. Joey was becoming more like that. It was good to watch, but it’s hard to live up to.”

The elder Angelini was in special operations that morning, and Michael hoped he too might have been sent elsewhere, but he really knew better. His father was legendary in the department for loving the work, for loving “to get dirty,” for loving “making a grab [rescuing somebody],” for routinely walking out of a mostly extinguished inferno and lighting a cigarette while younger firefighters lay sprawled around him, exhausted.

Earlier this year, at a Holy Name Society communion breakfast tribute for his 40th anniversary as a firefighter, the short, wiry, gray-haired Angelini resisted efforts by his fellow firefighters to get him to wear more of his medals. “They convinced him to put on maybe a third of them,” Michael said. “Then he said, ‘Stop. I’m tired of pinning these on.’

“He kept them in the back of a drawer, in a box,” Michael said. “He didn’t tell us about half of them. He didn’t talk about what he did. You would be eating dinner across from him and notice that he looked dif- ferent, like, strange, and then you would realize that his face was all red, and his eyebrows were completely gone, and his hairline had receded. He was burned. You would say, ‘What happened to you?’ And he would say, ‘Aw, something flashed over me.’

“At the site, all week, guys were joking about him finding a pocket and eventually walking out. They said to me, ‘He was probably buried in a void, and as soon as he runs out of cigarettes he’s gonna come walking out.’”

Rescue workers found the body of Joey Angelini on Monday. He had been listed as missing since the day after the attack. Joey Jr. still is missing. After tomorrow’s funeral Mass at Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Lindenhurst, Michael probably will return to the site.
–Ed Lowe (Newsday Columnist)

The Veteran and His Son in Portraits of Grief

Attacked

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Filed Under: 9/11, New York, NY, terrorism Tagged With: Fausta's blog, Joe Angelini Jr, Joseph Angelini Jr, World Trade Center

August 9, 2012 By Fausta

Bloomberg doesn’t want you to have a vibrator

No joy in bloombergville! Nanny Bloomberg shut down the free Trojan’s Vibrator giveaway.

Mental Recession has video and plenty of puns,

Hundreds of people lined up for their chance to receive a vibrator, but the gathering quickly grew flaccid as city officials came in and told promoters to shut down due to the big crowds.

The hot dog carts had a sign that read, “relish the moment.”

Trojans was giving them away at BlogHer12, and were a huge success shaking up the place. The two guys manning the booth were young (very young – do their moms know they do this?) and very cute.

The rumor was that an enterprising BlogHer attendee stole a case – probably to sell on eBay.

It was the most popular booth, outdoing the free make-up, shoulder massages, manicures, and Jimmy Dean’s Mr Sun.

Trojans gave away 4,000 at BlogHer. They’ll be back in Manhattan today, from “mid-town to the meat packing district.”

Let the good times roll!


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Filed Under: Michael Bloomberg, New York, NY, Sex. Tagged With: BlogHer12, Fausta's blog, nanny state, Trojans

July 15, 2012 By Fausta

Oh, go away! UPDATED

Anthony Weiner, the Chicken Run look-alike and all-around perv waited a year and a month, but he’s got a comeback in mind,
Disgraced pol Weiner eyes mayor or public advocate run

The disgraced former congressman — who’s sitting on a $4.5 million campaign war chest — is mulling a bid for citywide office next year and “seriously considering” a mayoral run, multiple sources told The Post.

The cocky pol is also open to the post of public advocate as a backup plan, said sources, who described the Queens Democrat as “desperate” to get back into politics.

Weiner, 47, has even spoken to former staffers about going back to work for him, according to another source.

And he wants to run soon because the public match on his campaign funds are due to expire after the 2013 election.

The cocky pol waxed, too, butt I digress.

And then, there’s pubic public advocate,

The buzz in political circles is that the sext-happy Weiner has a better shot at public advocate — a $165,000-a-year job viewed as a “cleansing” post where he could put his character issues further behind him as he prepped for a 2017 mayoral run.

Cleansing, waxing, whatever. Just go away!

——————————–

UPDATE, 18 July,
Oh, look, right on schedule, Weiner’s on People Mag with baby pictures.

Next: Huma writes a book. Oprah interviews them. Media fawns.

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Filed Under: Democrats, New York, politics Tagged With: Anthony Weiner, Fausta's blog

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