The picture above is from the New York Daily News and is a nice tight shot of some of the protestors who threatened (and failed) to shut down the city yesterday. Led by the insufferable race baiting douchebag, Al Sharpton, hundreds of people appeared at each of a few strategic locations around the city. They had no intention of protesting. Their stated intention, and they made this loud and clear from minute one, was to “shut down the city.” When people reacted negatively, Sharpton changed his tune to call it a “pray-in,” but in the end, the locations were chosen because they could do the most damage to the city (or at least they could if you’re a complete idiot, but I’m not talking about execution; I’m talking about intent).

My question is a simple one.

If Osama bin Laden and his scumbags had made a threat to shut down the city, how long do you think we would have put up with it?

My guess is not very long.

But in this case, Al Sharpton and his band of merry goons incited the city into a frenzy (or at least the succeptible idiots that showed up for the “pray-ins”) and announced the locations he would be protesting in. Following suit like good little soldiers, the media echoed every single press release from Sharpton’s organization and actually helped to organize the rallies for him. For the mere price of a fax, the National Action Network had the stupid NYC media eating out of the palms of its hands and organizing the rally for him.

How insane is that?

That we allowed this to happen is ridiculous. That we allowed the media to organize it for him is even more ridiculous.

That it’ll probably happen again at some point and there probably won’t be any repurcussions or outcry over it is unacceptable.

12 minutes of the most aggravating footage you’ll ever see in your life.

I’ve been to a few Critical Masses myself and I can say, with all certainty, that this isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened, but it is the first time this much of it was captured in this much detail.

via Glass Bead Collective

Well, the good news for the ghetto trash throughout the city is now they have the excuse they need to hate the “pigs.” They welcomed the verdict from the courthouse steps with chants of “KKK” and a few scuffles as the civilized oppressed citizens of this city made the most of the fact that they had a few hours of getting away with anything they did in the name of being traumatized.

You could feel this coming from miles away. The Bell / Paultre-Bell family did a great job of poisoning the city with their outrage. Before a single word in the case was even heard, the city had already decided the guilt of the officers. Apparently, a lot of shots = guilty. Forget the situation. Forget the horrid neighborhood. Forget the fact that one detective was hit by a car that was used to flee and may have been used as a deadly weapon. Forget that Saint Sean Bell was a known problem with a record of drug dealing and weapon possession. Forget that he didn’t put his hands up when ordered by police. Forget that he was legally intoxicated.

Forget all that.

Cops shot someone.

Cops are wrong.

The race-baiters and anti-police contingent are all outraged over this. The news media is back to shoving microphones in the face of Al Sharpton, famous advocate for Tawanna Brawley whose lie about a police detective was amplified by Sharpton again and again until Brawley confessed that it was indeed false. As a result, Al Sharpton was ordered to pay civil damages to Steven Pagones; damages of which he has not received one single cent.

So now idiots are marching in the streets demanding justice. Police are being called racist pigs, and the justice system is being mocked. In the minds of those marching, justice isn’t justice. Justice is a conviction.

In fact, just look at this tripe:

In New York City it seems that cops can do anything without any repercussions.

That’s what the attitude is in this city from the minority “community.” Anything short of a conviction is a failure. Apparently, a justice system that doesn’t just summarily convict all police officers who are tried (well, all cops who are tried; if a minority in this city is convicted in a high profile case, that’s not justice).

The person quoted above mentions Bell and Amadou Diallo; another cause celebre among “the police are pigs” movement. Amadou Diallo, an African Immigrant who never bothered to learn English was shot in the vestibule of his apartment building. Police asked him to freeze and put his hands up. Instead of following instructions, the man put his hand in his back pocket and turned around. At that point, he was shot 47 times. The item he pulled out of his pocket in the dark was a wallet, and apparently, police are meant to assume every person going into their pocket is trying to get ID and not freezing when told means you just don’t speak enough languages.

I’ve had my run ins with the NYPD in the past. I wast at a Critical Mass that was an utter mess and the police spent most of the time harassing riders. I was harassed for stopping and taking photographs of the NYC Subway, something I used to do on a regular basis. Make no mistake, I’m not some mouthpiece for the NYPD, but when you watch your city fall apart because a few racist “community leaders” manage to fire up the masses and turn them all against the NYPD in the name of justice, it tends to rile you up.

The NYPD isn’t perfect, but the people baiting the city into riots over this decision have really picked the wrong horse to throw their saddle on.

Protest photograph by Jason DeCrow of the AP

Beth and I and some of the family went to the 2008 Tarrytown Rubber Ducky Derby.

A good time was had by all and it was an absolutely beautiful day.

Yet another reason to love it…

Jen at Gothamist didn’t like my original post proving their pro-Obama out of touch bullshit. In an addition to the post I quoted, they’ve added the following…

Vinny at Insignificant Thoughts thinks there is scientific information showing who people will vote for and links to some polling data indicating Clinton is a favorite. However, the polls still include Edwards as an option and do not slice the data to the NYC-level - we can see how Hillary is a popular choice for New York state, given her years of getting to know upstaters.

And, hey, if we see a Hillary Clinton - or Mitt Romney/John McCain/Mike Huckabee - bake sale, we’ll let you know. Or you can let us know - tag your photo on Flickr with “gothamist” or send the photo to photos(at)gothamist(dot)com.

Jesus Christ, Jen. Yet another myth that takes about two seconds to defeat. Yes, the polls listed did, at the time, count Edwards because he hadn’t left the race yet (imagine that? They were counting a guy that was still in the race at the time?). I’m guessing that Jen was trying to prove the data that RCP was using was stale. EPIC FAIL JEN. Even so, at most, he was pulling 11%.

It just so happens, however, that RCP has updated their NY Primary polling data, without John Edwards, and guess what? Hillary is still beating Barack Obama by an average of 20 points.

Here’s the relevant data with John Edwards removed, again updated after he dropped out of the race (in other words after my original post…

That literally would’ve taken one click, but instead Jen chose to disprove my data by bringing up an irrelevant argument. After all, we know that Real Clear Politics is nowhere near the source for political polling that flickr is.

They should go back to talking about graffiti and third-rate comics and authors.

You gotta wonder if there is anything more to Rudy’s campaign than 9/11?

We get it Rudy. Really.

I hope you don’t run disaster aid in the United States. Judy would have an apartment meant for first responders and Bernard Kerik… Well…

I’ve discussed congestion pricing a lot on this blog in the past, and yesterday it came up yet again. This time, however, it’s the most stinging repudiation of the idiots that think that the poor and middle class will be most affected by it.

Check this out:

The Independent Budget Office released a report examining who might be affected by congestion pricing. The report, “Behind the Wheel: Who Drives Into The Proposed ‘Congestion Zone’” can be read here (PDF) but the topline is that drivers are middle-class and over half are from Nassau County, Westchester, NJ, Connecticut and Pennsylvania.

The report states, “Looking at the extremes of the earnings distribution for all congestion zone commuters, motor vehicle users were less likely to be in the lowest 10 percent of earners and more likely to be in the top 10 percent.” The average yearly income of motorists is $75,523, which is “24% more than other commuters,” and those drivers who live in NYC have a median income of $41,209, versus a median income of $32,379 for NYC residents who take other means of transportation. Other interesting points: Motorists are twice as likely to hold government jobs, are more likely to be self-employed, and many work in the private sector.

Reaction to the study is mixed: The NRDC says it proves “Congestion pricing would evenly distribute the cost of maintaining the transit system,” while congestion pricing opponent Richard Brodsky says it proves it’s a regressive tax. Well, regressive for the middle class, sure, as the study says, “These findings largely counter concerns that congestion pricing would disproportionately affect workers less able to afford additional commuting costs.”

While the whole thing is interesting, I never understood that last part. Is there anyone who realistically thinks that people who are poor are driving into Manhattan, specifically in the area below 86th Street?

Really?

Here’s the bottom line. If you can’t afford to drive into Manhattan, don’t. If you can, you probably shouldn’t either. Keep your gas-guzzler in the outer boroughs, not in the already grossly overcrowded Manhattan streets. There’s enough crap to deal with without some lazy schmuck from somewhere else whizzing in in his beautiful black Benz, alone, because he can’t be bothered congregating with the little people on the Subway.

I wish they’d do the congestion pricing thing already. Enough talking about it and start charging these sons of bitches that ruin the city for the people who live here a few bucks for making our lives more difficult.

Wifey and I were sitting in our office yesterday, and I smelled that familiar smell of rain hitting hot concrete. “Do you smell rain?” I asked her. “Nope, just someone barbecuing.” I shrugged, went out on the terrace and looked around, and sure enough there was no rain. “Must be smelling things,” I thought to myself.

So I go back to my desk and writing the Digital Life post, and all of a sudden I hear what sounds like a machine gun on the window next to Beth’s desk. I look up and it’s absolutely pouring like I’ve never seen in my life and I can hear the wind roaring past the train tracks. The tree was rocking pretty badly and the wind was coming so hard that it was arming a car alarm on a car parked on the street.

Here’s the scene as I saw it yesterday…

The nice part about it, though, is that the temperature dropped about ten degrees afterward and it looks like Summer has finally choked its last gasp in New York City.

Good riddance.

Technorati Tags: rain, nyc, bronx, new york

That’s right… You’ll probably see very little on the blog from me today. Tomorrow is a wholly different story, though. Anyway, enjoy this video. It’s the neighborhood around my office as seen from the roof. I know it’s a bit jittery but I was more interested in demoing the quality of the video than making a great cinematic experience

Technorati Tags: long island city, new york city, nyc, queens

Not bad. My real age is 31.

Recently, the NYPD released a bunch of documents related to the heavy-handed tactics they used during the 2004 RNC Convention including the detention of people in a GOP-owned facility at Pier 57. In the massive document dump was this gem (relevant WTF’s highlighted in red, click to embiggen if needed):

Apparently, the NYPD isn’t particularly bright because they actually documented this information as if it were true and, according to the document, they continued to investigate this claim. Now you may wonder why I think this is stupid. Well, it’s really a geographic consideration. The person who “saw” these “Middle-Eastern” men was on the train platform at 85th Street & New Utrecht Avenue. The complainant supposedly saw the men taking photographs of each other while under the Verrazano Bridge on three successive days.

Here’s a map of the area in question (click to embiggen if needed):

See that box with a plus in the middle of it next to the text on the right? That’s where the train station in question is. See the pushpin on the left? That’s the Verrazano Bridge and you can see the multiple roadways snaking up onto it.

So I ask you, my intrepid readers, two questions.

1. How the hell did this guy see these men at that distance (as the crow flies it’s 1.6 miles)?

2. Why is the NYPD “investigating” this as if it’s even plausible?

The simple fact is the NYPD was looking for ammo to investigate people during the RNC Convention. If you hadn’t seen the actual document, all you would’ve heard is that the NYPD was investigating claims that men were seen photographing each other under the Bridge on multiple occasions.

Instead, since we know the truth, we see that claim is dubious at best.

I can’t wait to read more of this “report.”

Technorati Tags: nyclu, rnc, 2004, wtf

The fight to name a park after a racist anti-semite piece of shit continues. From Gothamist:

In addition to heckling Council Speaker Quinn during the proceedings, Barron’s chief of staff Viola Plummer vowed retaliation on Leroy Comrie, a black councilmember who abstained from voting on the failed amendment to support Carson’s street-naming. The Observer elaborates on Plummer’s remarks, which included “If it takes an assassination of his ass, he will not be borough president in the borough where I live.” When we remarked on a mention of an assassination yesterday, we figured Plummer was being metaphorical, but that sounds literal.

Wow.

Leroy Comrie is the Queens councilman who introduced the measure to symbolically ban the “n-word” earlier this year.

Goes to show he has no concept of what the real problem is in the “black community.” when one person in a supposedly civilized setting can threaten the assassination of another, you know for damn sure the problems facing urban youths have nothing to do with some kid calling another kid a nigger.

Sonny Carson won’t be getting a Park named after him.

First, who is Sonny Carson?

Since his death in 2002, many New Yorkers may have forgotten just who Sonny Carson was. But his record of hate dates back to the contentious 1968 school strike on Ocean Hill-Brownsville, where he stood out for his demagoguery.

A decade later, he was convicted of kidnapping and attempted murder and served a stretch in prison.

Carson’s backers claim this is when he changed, devoting his life to fighting drugs and police brutality. But those who followed his career knew otherwise.

In 1990, Carson personally led the campaign of boycott and physical intimidation against Korean-owned delis in Brooklyn’s black neighborhoods, marching with signs that read, “Don’t Shop With People Who Don’t Look Like Us.”

Defy the boycott and you were spat upon and threatened: “In the future,” he said, “there’ll be funerals, not boycotts.”

A year later, he hailed the Crown Heights lynch mob that killed Hasidic scholar Yankel Rosenbaum, saying he was “very proud” of what had happened.

Accused of anti-Semitism, he replied: “I’m anti-white - don’t limit my anti’s to one group of people.”

Carson proved that when he mourned the death of Khalid Abdul Muhammad - a demagogue so odious even Louis Farrakhan disavowed him - by praising him as “a fighter.”

So let’s understand… A racist attempted murderer who praised a guy so radical that Farrakhan thought he was too much and who praised the murder of an innocent boy by a lynch mob of racist wilding thugs deserved a street named after him?

Who the hell would be behind something that utterly idiotic?

Charles Barron, for one. Surely you know the former black-panther who wants to slap white people in the face, you know, for his sanity? The same Charles Barron who warned police after the shooting of Saint Sean Bell that black people wouldn’t be unarmed for long? Yep, that Charles Barron.

Oh and Brooklyn Councilman Al Vann. Al Vann is a member of the Land Use Committee, the Zoning & Franchises Committee, and most astonishingly the Education Committee. And, he’s the Chairperson of the Community Development Committee.

Let me repeat that, for those of you who didn’t get it. He’s the Chairperson of the Community Development Committee. Now what in the hell is a guy who got his Master’s Degree in Education from Yeshiva University doing promoting an admitted racist and anti-semite to the level of naming a park after him? No one quite knows.

Kudos to Christine Quinn for standing up to the black lynch mob that formed at the Council hearings over this absolutely asinine idea and shame on the black “leaders” who thought that iconizing a piece of garbage like Sonny Carson would reflect well on the “community.”

Don Imus got fired for calling some ghetto-gold-wearing tissue-paper-feeling-having basketball players nappy-headed hoes. This guy tried to kill someone, admitted to being an anti-semite, praised the murder of a rabbinical student, and said he hates white people and he gets a park named after him.

Yep. Don Imus is the “real” problem, not a self-nihilistic culture of racist praising and murderer glorifying.

New Jersey Governor John Corzine, who in April was in an accident that nearly killed him when his driver was flying (literally) on the Garden State Parkway and he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt, has done exactly what I said he was going to do.

The day after his accident, I wrote the following:

Expect any and all of the following from the crash dummy:

1. New PSA’s about the importance of seatbelt wearing lest you end up like him.
2. A spate of enforcement, the likes of which will lead people to think that everything is safer and the government is looking out for them.
3. A bunch of schmucks commending him for his bravery but not condemning him for his blatant and obvious stupidity.

We’ll keep you posted as any of those develop.

Well… Here’s #1:

We’ve already seen enough of #3, and I don’t live in New Jersey so I don’t know if #2 is happening but something tells me it is…

Anyway, just thought I’d share.

Technorati Tags: john corzine, corzine, seatbelt, accident, moron

WFNY in New York, formerly Free FM is now (and once again) 92.3 K-Rock. Ironically, they’re called K-Rock, which was their name before the disastrous changeover to Free FM took place in January of 2006, but it was because their old call letters were WXRK. I wonder if this means they’re going to have to apply with the FCC to change their call letters or if there’s some kind of limit on the amount of time you have to wait to do it?

Either way, welcome back K-Rock and good riddance to frigging FreeFM.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, yes, Opie and Anthony are still the morning show on the new 92.3.

Life is good.

Hat tip to Chris who’s been covering this all day like a fat broad covers a skinny guy while having sex.

Or something.

Technorati Tags: 92.3, k-rock, wxrk, wfny

Morris Park Subway Station from my terrace overnight. I clipped out about 25 seconds where nothing happened. 1 exposure every 30 seconds using a Canon TC80-N3 and a Rebel XT.

Technorati Tags: morris park, bronx, ny, subway, nyc, time lapse

Last night I had the privilege and rare honor of seeing Martina McBride at Radio City Music Hall. Let me tell you something. Few people can put on a show the way she can, and much like the first time I saw her, she just blew me away. Truth is, I expected to love every song and I did, but what caught me the most was that her two opening acts were just fantastic.

First Martina.

She did a great batch of her older and newer stuff and even some covers of Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette. For the song Concrete Angels, she had the video playing on the gigantic LCDs around her and the projection screens stage left and stage right. If you’ve never seen the video, it’s probably one of the saddest things ever. The song is a song about child abuse and the video is devastating to the point where Martina actually teared up singing it. The video is below:

Other mega hits were “Where would you be?” and even a pretty stirring encore in which she did “Hit Me With Your Best Shot.” Other favorites played included “When God Fearing Women Get the Blues” and one of my all-time favorites, “Independence Day.” All in all, Martina dazzled the crowd and got a standing ovation for almost every song she sang. Who knew country could be that big in New York?

Beth and I are huge Martina fans, but we had never heard of Rodney Atkins or Little Big Town, and frankly they impressed the hell out of us too. So much so, that I went on to iTunes and bought the newest albums from Both artists.

Rodney Atkins is the man. He came out just looking like a nice young guy and proceeded to rock the shit out of RCMH. In fact, I don’t know anyone that was sitting after his short 4-song set. Like most country singers he had that “awwwwwwwww” moment that makes you reflect, and in this case it was “Watchin’ You” which got what seemed like a never-ending standing ovation. Here’s the song if you’ve never heard it:

Of course, one can’t forget Little Big Town, another band I had never heard of. They started off slow, but really picked up steam. One of my favorite songs from the night was A Little More You…

Overall, we went for one singer and got three awesome performances. I was quite happy and I’m glad I went. It was well worth the $90 a ticket price for 23rd row seats and I would definitely go see any of those three if they were back in New York in the near future.

Technorati Tags: martina mcbride, little big town, rodney atkins