New York - Fausta's Blog

July 14, 2012 By Fausta

There but for the grace of God…

Couple handcuffed, jailed for dancing on subway platform

It was nearly midnight when Stern and Hess, a film-industry prop master, headed home last July from Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Midsummer Night’s Swing. As they waited for the train, a musician started playing steel drums on the nearly empty platform and Stern and Hess began to feel the beat.

“We were doing the Charleston,” Stern said. That’s when two police officers approached and pulled a “Footloose.”
“They said, ‘What are you doing?’ and we said, ‘We’re dancing,’ ” she recalled. “And they said, ‘You can’t do that on the platform.’ ”

The cops asked for ID, but when Stern could only produce a credit card, the officers ordered the couple to go with them — even though the credit card had the dentist’s picture and signature.
When Hess began trying to film the encounter, things got ugly, Stern said.

“We brought out the camera, and that’s when they called backup,” she said. “That’s when eight ninja cops came from out of nowhere.”

Hess was allegedly tackled to the platform floor, and cuffs were slapped on both of them. The initial charge, according to Stern, was disorderly conduct for “impeding the flow of traffic.”

“There was nobody on the platform. There were, like, three people,” she said.

First Smoking, Then Sodas, Now There’s No Dancing in Mayor Bloomberg’s New York…, so don’t let the bedbugs bite!

UPDATE,
Linked by Moe Lane. Thanks!

Linked by the Pirate’s Cove. Thanks!

June 13, 2012 By Fausta

OTOH, binkies have – 0 – calories

#NannyBloomberg’s appointees want your popcorn and your latte, too:

Health panel talks about wider food ban

The board hand-picked by Mayor Michael Bloomberg that must approve his ban of selling large sugar-filled drinks at restaurants might be looking at other targets.

The New York City Board of Health showed support for limiting sizes of sugary drinks at a Tuesday meeting in Queens. They agreed to start the process to formalize the large-drink ban by agreeing to start a six-week public comment period.

At the meeting, some of the members of board said they should be considering other limits on high-calorie foods.

One member, Bruce Vladeck, thinks limiting the sizes for movie theater popcorn should be considered.

“The popcorn isn’t a whole lot better than the soda,” Vladeck said.

Another board member thinks milk drinks should fall under the size limits.

“There are certainly milkshakes and milk-coffee beverages that have monstrous amounts of calories,” said board member Dr. Joel Forman.

Obviously they think we’re all helpless children who must be told, or, in Mikey’s own words, “forced to understand” what’s good for us.

Phinneas:

Other than a public comment period (and how much good do we really think that will do?), there is no check on their power to regulate the most basic behaviors of NYCers; the elected representatives of the residents of New York City, the city council, apparently have no say. It might take an act of the legislature to tell Mikey to “knock it off.”

As Dan Riehl says,

It must be wonderful living in a city like New York, where all the serious problems have been solved and all bureaucrats have to do is sit around worrying about what citizens eat and drink.

Yeah…I wonder how many “monstrous amounts of calories” it takes a bedbug to propagate.

And,

UPDATE,
In NYC, The Government Needs To Ban Soda For Adults, But In the Schools, Adults Have Nothing to Teach Children
A Blue Man Group school??

May 24, 2012 By Fausta

Gay Cuban-Americans protest Raul Castro’s daughter’s visit

The Castro regime’s hateful treatment of gays drove writer Reinaldo Arenas to suicide; now Raul’s daughter Mariela is visiting San Francisco and New York:

Steve Rothaus writes in his Miami Herald blog,
Cuban-American gay activists in Miami protest Mariela Castro’s visit to San Francisco, New York

Gay Cuban Americans in Miami are furious that Fidel Castro’s niece is meeting this week and next with lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender activists in San Francisco and New York City.

“For Mariela Castro, or anybody else under the Castro dictatorship, to say they are representing the rights of anyone is an insult to the hundreds of thousands who have either been killed, jailed or assassinated by their own hands, or the nearly 100,000 people who’ve jumped into the ocean looking for freedom who haven’t made it here,” said Herb Sosa, executive director of Unity Coalition, Miami-Dade County’s leading Hispanic gay rights group.

Mariela was welcomed in San Francisco with joyful applause and two standing ovations,

Playing to a pro-gay rights audience in San Francisco, Mariela Castro immediately fed the crowd her worn out gay rights propaganda. And naturally, the attendees lapped it up with nary a thought or a concern for the violent repression suffered by members of the LGBT community in Cuba who do not adhere to the ideology of her uncle Fidel’s “revolution.” As long as Mariela told them what they wanted to hear, they could blissfully ignore the miserable and violent reality of life in Cuba.

To add insult to injury, Mariela, whose father has oppressed anyone who dares own books banned by the Communist regime, is scheduled to speak at the New York Public Library.

I expect that her entourage of sixty will be in attendance.

January 23, 2012 By Fausta

The NFL and prosperous cities

How Sunday’s NFL Cities Became Champs
Favorable property taxes were game changers for New York, San Francisco and Boston. Baltimore needs a Hail Mary.

All these cities had long pursued progressive political agendas with pride. But the problem with redistributive policies at the local level is that the donor classes might move out as fast as beneficiary classes move in—or, as the population figures cited earlier show, even faster. Robin Hood may seem a heroic figure, but once his rich victims flee Nottingham, even that city’s poor might question his effectiveness.

San Francisco and Boston were rescued from their folly by statewide tax revolts. California’s Prop 13, passed in 1978, capped property taxes in that state at 1%—which slashed San Francisco’s rate by almost two-thirds. Massachusetts followed suit in 1980 with Prop 2½, which mandated that municipalities could not increase their total property tax receipts by more than 2.5% annually. New York City taxpayers did not revolt, but state legislators rationalized the Big Apple’s chaotic property tax system in 1981; it now enjoys property tax rates that average about one-third of those in its surrounding suburbs (though its other taxes are certainly punishing).

While no single factor explains any city’s destiny, it is not a mere coincidence that Boston, New York and San Francisco reversed their declines at the exact moment they became favorable environments for private investment in residential and business capital.

It has to do with the fact that

Every time a city raises the tax rate on residential and business property, its owners suffer a capital loss (which economists refer to as “tax capitalization”). In effect, tax hikes are incremental expropriations; owners flee not just because of short-term wealth losses but in fear of future damage to their property rights. Tax caps not only improve the immediate cash flow on investments in real property but—perhaps more important—secure it against further expropriations.

Go read the rest.
Here’s the video,

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January 10, 2012 By Fausta

NJ assemblyman DeCroce dies in the Statehouse

N.J. Assemblyman Alex DeCroce collapses, dies in Statehouse after long legislative session

Longtime Assemblyman Alex DeCroce, the leading Republican of the state’s lower house who represented Morris County for 23 years, collapsed and died in a bathroom inside the Statehouse late Monday night, just moments after the 214th Legislature held its final voting session.

DeCroce, 75, of Parsippany, began serving the 26th Legislative District in the Assembly in 1989 and was the Republican minority leader since 2003.

I met him briefly at an event several years ago.

My condolences to his family and loved ones.

——————————-

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December 5, 2011 By Fausta

Clinton was paid $50,000/month by MF Global

supposedly for “helping Corzine improve his image as a CEO“. Makes you wonder if that included learning how to comingle funds

A former MF Global employee accused former president William J. Clinton of collecting $50,000 per month through his Teneo advisory firm in the months before the brokerage careened towards its Halloween filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Teneo was hired by MF Global’s former CEO Jon S. Corzine to improve his image and to enhance his connections with Clinton’s political family, said the employee, who asked that his name be withheld because he feared retribution.

“They were supposed to be helping Corzine improve his image as a CEO—I guess you can tell how that went,” he said. Corzine resigned as CEO and chairman November 4.

Before Corzine joined MF Global in May 2010, the firm was a smart and well-run commodities broker, a culture that was turned upside-down by his leadership style, he said.

“The traders would be shaking their heads,” he said. “They would come back to their desk and say, ‘Well, I thought we were going to do this—but Corzine would come by and do something else all by himself,’” he said.

The Teneo contract with MF Global lasted at least five months, he said. “The board cancelled it after Corzine resigned.”

Why isn’t Corzine awaiting trial yet?

And, by the way,
The Corzine Democrats: What Did They Say About Abramoff?

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November 20, 2011 By Fausta

#OccupyW

Two #OWS leaders are staying at the W Hotel in downtown Manhattan. Their idea of being “the 99%” includes spending $700/night.

Peter Dutro, member of the group’s finance committee, charged the room to his American Express card.

“Don’t leave home without it!”

Dominican-born Muslim convert arrested on plot to bomb NYC

The Wall Street Journal,

New York City authorities said Sunday they thwarted a plot to blow up post offices and police stations with crude pipe bombs.

Authorities charged Jose Pimentel, a Dominican-born Muslim convert, with providing support for an act of terrorism, conspiracy and weapons charges. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said Mr. Pimentel was arrested on Saturday after having been watched by the NYPD since May 2009.

The NY Times reports that the 27-yr old was in the process of building three bombs and:

was planning to build and detonate a bomb in New York with government workers, returning military personnel and elected officials as the target

Supposedly he was acting alone.

I’m curious about who converted him, under what circumstances, and what houses of worship he attended here and in the Dominican Republic.

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