"Sanitation Department's slow snow cleanup was a budget protest."

Headlines the NY Post in an article that begins:

These garbage men really stink.

Selfish Sanitation Department bosses from the snow-slammed outer boroughs ordered their drivers to snarl the blizzard cleanup to protest budget cuts -- a disastrous move that turned streets into a minefield for emergency-services vehicles, The Post has learned....

New York's Strongest used a variety of tactics to drag out the plowing process -- and pad overtime checks -- which included keeping plows slightly higher than the roadways and skipping over streets along their routes, the sources said.

The snow-removal snitches said they were told to keep their plows off most streets and to wait for orders before attacking the accumulating piles of snow.

"The mayor has to stop acting like 'Baghdad Bob' saying the streets are fine. No they aren't. Where the hell are the plows?"

"Forty ambulances were still stuck in snowdrifts Tuesday night."

"No Labels, a group that aspires to build a grass-roots movement for political independents and independent-minded voters in both parties..."

Every couple of months we get something like this, don't we? It's the "Coffee Party" all over again — isn't it? — an attempt by elite Democrats to create the impression of a grass-roots movement. It never works. [Remember "One Nation"?] And "No Labels" is such a silly... uh... label. It has a certain nostalgic 60s vibe: I ain’t lookin’ to... analyze you, categorize you, finalize you or advertise you.... But I came from the 60s, and I'm sick of that vibe when it's used to advertise to me. Wasn't there some ad campaign with a sincere-looking model staring straight into the camera and saying "no labels"? Or was it "no games"? Or no some other damned thing?

On Sunday, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg flatly ruled out an independent run for president in 2012. On Monday, he appeared at the national unveiling in New York of No Labels...

It’s also possible, though, that he understands something about the modern political culture that many of those speculating about the purpose of No Labels do not — that an independent not only no longer needs to spend time encouraging the formation of a party organization to run for president, but he’s also probably better off without one.

Especially if he's a billionaire!

... No Labels was created by two Washington consultants, the Democratic fund-raiser Nancy Jacobson and the Republican image-shaper Mark McKinnon, and its slick opening event featured throngs of journalists, free boxed lunches and a song written for the occasion by the pop sensation Akon. The group’s slogan, printed on T-shirts and banners, summarizes its purpose this way: “Not left. Not right. Forward.”

Hey, that's the Wisconsin motto — "Forward." And free lunch, eh? There is a such thing as a free lunch. That could be a motto. Anyway, I just don't get the enthusiasm around Mayor Bloomberg.

Some commentators have speculated that No Labels could even form the basis of a serious third party, with the mayor at the helm, something America hasn’t seen since Ross Perot’s Reform Party collapsed from a long internal power struggle in 2000.

Hmmm. Let me think. What is the similarity between Mayor Bloomberg and Ross Perot?

Here's what Rush Limbaugh said about No Labels yesterday:

Now, what is this?  Well, let's take a look at who these people are.  Mark McKinnon, Kiki McLean, Nancy Jacobson.  I'll tell you what this is about.  It is about money.  These are political consultants.  They need candidates.  They need candidates running for office for whom they can take whatever the consultant gets, 5%, 10%, what have you.  All three founders of No Labels are Democrats.  They would love for Bloomberg to run for president.  Why?  Because he is a billionaire.  Get him to run as an independent, maybe even third party.  You know, sucker him into an independent run where they get the money, win or lose.  Whether he wins or loses doesn't matter.  They get the money.  And he would lose.  But there are always, as a friend of mine says, there are always political operatives who will tell a billionaire what he wants to hear....

We know the founders are left-wing political consultants and we know that Democrat and liberal are labels that do not help political people these days.  Of course they would want to get rid of them.  By the same token, conservative is a good label.  Naturally they would want to get rid of that.  And naturally they would find some so-called pseudo smart Republicans who would agree with them on this.  How many of these people belong to a particular religion, and why?  Because of their belief system.  Nothing wrong with labels as long as they are appropriate; as long as they are true; as long as they are properly descriptive.  It's called language.

ADDED: Here's Byron York:

No Labels was formed by a group of Democratic and Republican political consultants. On the Democratic side, there is Nancy Jacobson, a former finance director of the Democratic National Committee and veteran of Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign. On the Republican side, there is Mark McKinnon, who worked for former President George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain before announcing, as the 2008 general election race got under way, that he would no longer work for McCain because, as he said at the time, "I just don't want to work against an Obama presidency."

Now, after two years of an Obama presidency and a Republican opposition, McKinnon believes something is terribly wrong. "Nancy called me about nine months ago and said she wanted to start an organization to address hyperpartisanship," McKinnon says. "She had me at hello."

The event featured appearances by a number of Democratic politicians: Villaraigosa, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin, and retiring Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh. For some reason, most of the Republicans who showed up were recently defeated officeholders: South Carolina Rep. Bob Inglis, Delaware Rep. Mike Castle, and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. God knows why a group devoted to principle above politics would invite the opportunistic Crist to speak, but No Labels did.

AND: Does Bloomberg maintain that he's not running for President?

Bloomberg uses the quirk of phrase that shows he hasn't absorbed the most basic message of the Tea Party movement.

From today's "Meet the Press":

DAVID GREGORY: Do you believe the tax cuts have an actual stimulative effect on the economy?

BLOOMBERG: I don't think there's any question that they put more people -- more money in people's hands, and I think that the public will do a better job with more money in their hands to stimulate the economy than you will do with government programs.

GREGORY: But, Mayor, economists say, especially wealthier Americans don't end up necessarily spending money that they, that they keep through tax cuts. And look at the effect of the Bush tax cuts over a decade... what some have called a decade of, of futility, if you look at the number of jobs created.

BLOOMBERG: OK. But number one, some of these things are not connected, they just happen to have at same -- happened at the same time. And I think the more money you put in people's hands, the more they will spend. And if they don't spend it, they invest it. And investing it is another way of creating jobs.

Did you notice the phrase? He uses it twice. Interestingly, David Gregory takes care to avoid it, so Bloomberg had a good prompt, but he used it anyway.

"Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg on Wednesday unleashed a blunt and stinging critique of the federal government’s handing of the economic recovery..."

"... saying that lawmakers from both parties have 'abdicated their responsibility' in favor of partisan bickering... In a long and sweeping speech..."

I guess if it was long, it was written before yesterday's news of the big, bipartisan tax compromise. Poor Bloomie! The wind taken out of his sails just as he's launching his campaign armada.

The speech, far-reaching in scope and language, and delivered with much fanfare along the Brooklyn waterfront, instantly intensified speculation about the mayor’s political ambitions...

Delivered with much fanfare along the waterfront.... I'm trying to picture that delivery along the waterfront... with fanfare....

"2012: How Sarah Barracuda Becomes President -- Why do you think Barack Obama is being so nice to Michael Bloomberg?"

New York Magazine has a great title for this article (by John Heilemann):

... Until not long ago, the only people who took seriously the notion that Palin would make a White House bid in 2012, let alone win the Republican nomination, were those who really do live at the unicorn ranch—and spend their time there huffing pixie dust. When Palin quit the Alaska governorship in 2009, her political career seemed over.

Oh? Well, let me embed this clip from a Bloggingheads I did 2 days after that resignation:



I was right!

Back to Heilemann. It's a long article... and I don't think it's all that hard to see how Palin could win, so I'm not that inclined to slog through all the details. But speaking of living at the unicorn ranch and huffing pixie dust, Heilemann is really all about the President Bloomberg scenario. I don't get that at all.

"You know what the greatest city in the world is?" asked NY Mayor Bloomberg.

"Scottsdale, Arizona. It's clean, it's not too big, it's got a couple streets with shops and restaurants, and the people there aren't fucking insane. This place is fucking insane. And by the way, that's not a reason to like it. Anyone who says that is a delusional dirtbag."

"Michael Bloomberg tells people where to smoke and where to walk in Times Square, how much fat they can have in their food..."

"... how much fat they can have in their food, bullies anybody who gets in his way. Now anybody who disagrees with him on the building of this mosque is against freedom of religion and the First Amendment. Why? Because Bloomberg stamps his foot and says so, that's why."

Obama agrees with me about the mosque near Ground Zero.

Ben Smith reports:

Speaking to reporters today, President Obama drew a sharp line under his comments last night, insisting that his defense of the right to build a mosque does not mean he supports the project.

"I was not commenting and I will not comment on the wisdom of making the decision to put a mosque there. I was commenting very specifically on the right people have that dates back to our founding," he said.

Obama's new stance is logically consistent with his words last night, if a bit less "clarion," as Mike Bloomberg called the first remarks.

I had to Google "Mike Bloomberg." Oh, Mayor Bloomberg. Do we call him Mike?

Anyway... Ben, Mike... everybody... could you possibly take the trouble to pay attention to words?

And read the Althouse blog. It was all always obvious, as I told you here and here.

Obama's new remarks, literally speaking, re-open the question of which side he's on. 

Re-open the question only because you foolishly visualized a closed question.

"Literally speaking" ... what the hell does that mean? If you knew how to be literal, you wouldn't have read more into the old remarks than was there. You read subjectively. You let idiotically soaring hopes cloud your eyes.

Obama has made his brilliant career out of saying the most crashingly banal things to people who hear what they want to hear. Could everyone please wake up? Please!

Most of the mosque's foes recognize the legal right to build, and have asked the builders to reconsider.

But the clarification is, in political terms, puzzling. The signal Obama sent with his rhetoric last night wasn't that he had chosen to make a trivial, legal point about the First Amendment. He chose to make headlines in support of the mosque project, and he won't be able to walk them back now with this sprinkling of doubt. All he'll do is frustrate some of the people who so eagerly welcomed his words yesterday as a return to form.

Allow me to help you solve your little puzzle? You are a chump. You need to wake up, smarten up, and realize that words have meaning.

An art installation in NYC: pianos plunked down in 50 different places where anyone can step up and play.

Art is important, but it's not more important the real hour-to-hour life of the people who must live with big and intrusive works of public art. Consider:

The concept, devised by British artist Luke Jerram, has put more than 130 pianos in parks, squares and bus stations since 2008 in cities including London, Sydney and Sao Paulo. And now it's New York City's turn to play, Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced Thursday.

"There's going to be a huge amount of talent here," Jerram said in an interview. "The piano's actually a blank canvas for everyone's creativity, really, so I just hope that the city enjoys it."

So I just hope.... I just hope, if your apartment or office is within earshot of one of those pianos that you like "Chopsticks," "Für Elise," Billy Joel songs, and the way it sounds when someone drags their fingers the full length of the keyboard. Why do Jerram and Bloomberg think that saccharine everyman "creativity" will blossom? Hey, New Yorkers, have you seen this extremely popular YouTube tutorial — "How to play EXTREMELY annoying songs on piano"?



Oh, why am I so cynical?

Jerram got the idea at his local coin-operated laundry, according to a website about the project. He saw the same people there every weekend, but none of them talked to each other. He thought a piano might help bring people together in places like that.

You know, years ago, when we remodeled the law school building here at the University of Wisconsin, some lawprofs — I won't say who — thought it would be a wonderful idea to put a piano in the atrium — a big open space where the students hang out to talk or rest or study. These professors enthused about the existence of perhaps one student who was an accomplished classical pianist. They imagined bringing people together through the music that would be unleashed from the hulking object. I was horrified. It was one of the few times over the years — and I've been here for a quarter century — when I spoke out and told people — in person — that their well-intended project was unlikely to produce the human happiness they envisioned. (I hope a metaphor alert is unnecessary, but... liberal policies....)

The results in other cities have been surprising and life-changing, [the artist] said in an interview. A woman in Sao Paulo heard her daughter play for the first time on one of Jerram's pianos in a train station. The mother had worked to pay for lessons for four years, but the family had no piano at home.

In Sydney, a couple met at a piano and are now married, Jerram said.

So 4 individuals had a warm experience that they could have had in some other way. But then it wouldn't have pumped up the egos of the artist and the mayor.

"It seems like a good idea that brings a sense of fun and playfulness to the city," said David Rosenfeld, who was riding his bike in the area.

A man on a mechanical device that will scoot him right out of there if somebody's granddad decides to play "Woolly Bully" or "96 Tears."

Most pianos will be open for song until 10 p.m.

Oh, fine then. 10. After your nerves have been jangled for — what? — 14 hours, you can try to settle down to get enough sleep before it all starts again.

At least "Tilted Arc" was quiet.

What's so bad about hypocrisy?

"Does it matter how much salt Mayor Bloomberg puts on his food?... It reminds me of how people love to point out that Al Gore and Thomas Friedman don't do the best job of minimizing their own carbon emissions."

"Why the Defense Department wanted to do a photo-op right around the site of the World Trade Center catastrophe defies imagination."

Mayor Bloomberg raged, after a needless, stupid White House mission caused a panic in NYC:

“People came pouring out of the buildings, the American Express Building, all the buildings in the financial district by the water,” said Edward Acker, a photographer who was at the building, 3 World Financial Center. “And even the construction guys over by 100 North End Avenue area, they all got out of their buildings. Nobody knew about it. Finally some guy showed up with a little megaphone to tell everyone it was a test, but the people were not happy. The people who were here 9/11 were not happy.”

Mr. Acker added: “New York City police were standing right there and they had no knowledge of it. The evacuations were spontaneous. Guys from the floor came out, and one guy I talked to was just shaking.”...

In Jersey City, construction workers were evacuated from a condominium tower under construction at 77 Hudson Street.

The workers, who were on the 32nd floor of the construction site, said the plane circled three times past the Goldman Sachs tower, the tallest building in New Jersey. On the second pass, they said, the jet appeared to be only a few dozen feet from the building — close enough to clip the side of the skyscraper. A fighter followed right behind, mirroring its moves....

Sidney Bordley, a floor director in an office building at 1 Battery Park Place, said, “People were running out of the office, claiming they saw a commercial flight being pursued by F-16’s.” He added, “There was some confusion and a little excitement.”

A group of financial services workers, who were gathered outside the same building but declined to give their names, described their reactions. “I saw the landing gear and I was out of here,” one said. Another said: “There were people in my elevator, sweating and shaking. There were women crying. It was not an experience to be taken lightly.”