Let him go...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- U.S. authorities have brought the first Guantanamo Bay detainee to the United States, flying him into New York to face trial for bombing U.S. embassies, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

The department said Ahmed Ghailani arrived in the early morning hours Tuesday. U.S. Marshals took custody of Ghailani from his military jailers and brought him to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan. Ghailani is scheduled to appear in Manhattan federal court later Tuesday.

''With his appearance in federal court today, Ahmed Ghailani is being held accountable for his alleged role in the bombing of U.S. Embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and the murder of 224 people,'' Attorney General Eric Holder said in a press release. ''The Justice Department has a long history of securely detaining and successfully prosecuting terror suspects through the criminal justice system, and we will bring that experience to bear in seeking justice in this case.''

No trial...just let him go...in downtown Manhattan (Liberal epicenter of NY), set him up with a nice rent controlled apartment, and perhaps a library card. If these idiots are so bent on giving every benefit to human excrement...move them into their neighborhoods and watch them sweat (or continue on in blissful ignorance).

This has been a message from the NYC Office of Tourism and Gambling...

Hey, everyone...come to New York City and ride the subways. It's GREAT!!!!

Nature finds a way...

Each of these was featured last year in a snapshot of murder in New York City, where authorities have long been battling illegal firearms — and seeing a degree of success. But these people were killed by knives, contributing to a troubling statistic in homicides.

In 2008, even as gun killings fell, the number of killings committed with knives or other “cutting instruments” rose 50 percent in New York City, the Police Department said: to 125 from 83. Some other large cities saw no such increase last year, and police officials and experts are at a loss to explain what is either a new trend or a spike.

"Experts" refuse to see the reason, because these same "experts" believe guns to be sapient, animate objects that indiscriminately kill. They refuse to acknowledge that a gun cannot commit murder. The person pulling the trigger does that.

Similarly, the person holding the knife does the stabbing. The person wielding the lead pipe in the library does the bashing. The person gripping the knitting needles standing behind the old woman in the rocking chair....uh...ummm...forget that last one. I just saw a movie on cable where...well...the dear old woman looked like she had antenna after the deed. I think it was one of those old Agatha Christie stories...

You get the drift.

Lil' Napoleon of New York...

But if you are the mayor of New York, no such constraints apply. You can simply announce, as Michael Bloomberg did, that the city is starting a “nationwide initiative” to pressure the food industry and restaurant chains to cut salt intake by half over the next decade. Why bother with consent forms when you can automatically enroll everyone in the experiment?

And why bother with a control group when you already know the experiment’s outcome? The city’s health commissioner, Thomas R. Frieden, has enumerated the results. If the food industry follows the city’s wishes, the health department’s Web site announces, “that action will lower health care costs and prevent 150,000 premature deaths every year.”

But that prediction is based on an estimate based on extrapolations based on assumptions that have yet to be demonstrated despite a half-century of efforts. No one knows how people would react to less-salty food, much less what would happen to their health.

Bloomberg is a gnat type menace. I picture this tiny little Napoleonesque whiner sitting on his thrown at Chambers Street shelling out edicts while aids scramble to make sure his oat meal is exactly 105 degrees F.

Last summer he made it illegal to leave the door to your business open (a common effort to lure in potential customers off the beastly hot street into the beckoning air conditioning). That was to cure "global warming." Then, his hindendness decided that trans fatty acids in NYC sold food had to go. There was an effort to apply "congestion" taxes and fees below a certain street level in Manhattan. When he couldn't get that passed, he decided to compound the problem by disallowing vehicles in Times Square.

Now, with the twist of a hand, an a short dab of the lips with his perfumed hankerchief...Napoleon has decided to control salt intake of the city dwellers.

Pssst...he's allegedly a Republican. He is quite surely an egomaniac.

News of the Nothing...

A mad dash for ice cream at a Queens grammar school earned an 11-year-old boy more than a trip to the principal's office.

Rosanna Tomack, a former teacher's aide at PS 94 in Little Neck, is hauling little Joseph Cicack into court after the youngster barreled into her and knocked her down, injuring her bad back, according to a lawsuit filed in Queens Supreme Court.

Joseph, about 8 at the time of the May 2006 incident, is above the age when a child can be sued, said Edmond Chakmakian, Tomack's lawyer.

"It's a legitimate case," Chakmakian said. "It's not silly."

This falls into the "yeah...so what?" department. The NY Post, however, is trying to make it an issue that shows the teacher's aid in a negative light. Sure, she filed suit against an 8 year old (at the time of the incident)...but not really.

Actually, she filed suit against the parent's homeowners policy which provides liability coverage for the child should he commit an act for which he can be held responsible. This is a New York claim (which means there was a three year statute of limitations on bodily injury). Therefore, the Homeowner's carrier could not come to an agreement with the plaintiff on the value of the claim, and a summons and complaint needed to be filed to protect the statute. It's as simple as that.

The teacher's aid required a fusion which is an invasive surgical procedure that results is significant work duty restrictions and permanent disability. This is NOTHING unusual. However, the NY Post decided to make it an issue for the teacher's aid...and I think it was a low blow.

The teacher's aid could not file suit against the school since that party likely pays her Workers' Compensation and there is mutual exclusivity in NY. Plus, I'm betting the Homeowner's carrier is placing a low value on the claim based on a lack of exposure...since the teacher's aid is one of the parties responsible for enforcing the rules, which were broken.

Semantics of content

ALBANY -- Gov. Paterson late yesterday denied 3 percent wage hikes to 13,000 non-union state employees, saving an estimated $20 million a year.

I don't have an MBA...but I know for a fact, that you don't SAVE anything by not agreeing to an increase. Instead, you avoid the increase. In order to SAVE something, you have to reduce.

Why is this such a difficult subject for politicians and the media to understand?

Dumber than a box of rocks...

ALBANY -- Personal income taxes for the upper middle class and the rich are about to skyrocket under a secret, soak-the-wealthy tax deal reached last night by Gov. Paterson and leaders of the Legislature, sources told The Post.

The two-tier tax plan would bring in $4 billion annually, in part by hiking income taxes a stunning 31 percent for all New Yorkers making more than $500,000 a year, the sources said.

Heh!

Has anyone ever noticed that Liberals are quick to point out that the decimation of the Two-toe Striped Tickle Fish will effect the ecosystem in such a way that all other animals are put under hardship? You know...predators have nothing to eat...and so on up and down the line?

Why is it they have a disconnect on trickle down economics? New York is about to lose their tax base altogether with this idiocy. New Jersey and Connecticut, however, are about to receive an influx.

Irresponsible Jackasses...

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A New York City hospital will lay off 240 employees, including doctors, nurses and management positions, because of the difficult economic times, the hospital announced in a statement Monday.

Well...rest easy...these fine folks will be able to amuse themselves down in the Battery...

The city will begin construction this fall on a Battery Park amusement ride that lets patrons hop aboard giant sea creatures and take a psychedelic journey into the underwater world.

Dubbed the SeaGlass, this aquatic-themed carousel should be up and running in the spring of next year, according to Parks Department documents released yesterday.

What a wonderful consolation...

Associated Press carrying the water...

Associated Press Headline today:

NYC says street homelessness down from past years

It's like clockwork. When a Democrat takes the highest office, all of a sudden homelessness drops.

This is a disingenuous, however. Homelessness has not dropped. In fact, in recent months it has shot through the roof due to the foreclosures in the area. This survey only refers to people sleeping in the actual street (or subways, Port Authority bathrooms etc). Personally, I haven't noticed a reduction in those at all. The same characters are at their assigned places every morning and evening that I can see.

The city's estimate was from a street survey across New York's five boroughs conducted on a specified night. Volunteers looked for homeless people sleeping on the streets, and decoys were planted to test the accuracy of the head count.

Ah...volunteers...and they fail to tell you when the survey took place on that "single night." Here's a clue. If you do the survey in the summer time, the figures are higher as opposed to when the temperature is Lowwwwwww.

The number of homeless people on New York City streets declined 30 percent from last year, thanks to revamped agency policies, the city's Department of Homeless Services said Wednesday.

"Revamped policies" is a euphemism for throwing money at the problem despite having none to throw. New York just settled a law suit back in September 2008 on what defines a "homeless" person or family.

The main sticking point in the case over the years has been whether a family is “homeless.” Virtually all the families in the system are single-mother households, many headed by very young women or teenagers. These young unwed mothers often live with their own single mothers, who themselves usually occupy public housing or rent-controlled apartments. At some point, grandmother, mother, and grandchildren decide they’ve had enough family togetherness, and the younger single mother applies to the city’s homeless-services department for her own city-subsidized apartment. The second-generation single mother and her lawyers claim that she is “homeless”; the city maintains that she has available housing, even if it is more crowded than an apartment of her own would be. This scenario has many possible variants: the single mother may be living with friends or other relatives, or she may be facing eviction from her own apartment but have another possible apartment—that of friends or relatives—theoretically available to her. In almost none of the cases has the shelter-seeking mother literally lost her home through an emergency like a natural disaster. Her housing situation, while crowded, is usually no worse than that of immigrants who may live five to a room and sleep in rotating shifts.

That's a fantastic new policy (sarcasm). My main gripe is how the Associated Press used a headline that really doesn't tell the story. A better headline would have been:

"Why our city is broke"

Personal Responsibility is not an issue...

A flummoxed Mayor Bloomberg yesterday said it was "incomprehensible" that a Manhattan jury awarded $2.3 million to a man who lost his leg under a subway train after falling drunk onto the tracks.

"Sometimes, juries do things that you find a little incomprehensible," said Bloomberg, responding to The Post's front-page story about 25-year-old Dustin Dibble, of Brooklyn.

"I wasn't sitting in the courtroom. I wasn't on the jury. But on the face of it, you'd think there's a personal responsibility here," said the mayor. "And I think a lot of us should be a little more responsible for our own behavior."

Hizzonor needs to get out more. This type of verdict comes out every single day (mostly in Brooklyn and Bronx Counties...which is where all the plaintiff lawyers file regardless of the location of the incident due to plaintiff friendly jurors and Judges).

The thing is...it is usually the insurance carrier that gets dinged. As a result of these outlandish "sticking it to the man" type deliberations, most carriers, and corporations holding a sizeable self-insured retention will end up settling a claim for significant money regardless of liability due to the potential for renegade (consistently pro-plaintiff) juries in these venues. That way, they save court costs, and the always present Sword of Damocles potential of some whacked out pain and suffering award that would exhaust the limits and, also, ding the excess coverage.

Here's a dirty little secret about NY filed Summons & Complaints. Rarely is one filed by a plaintiff attorney that doesn demand an award of at least seven figures regardless of the incident or the severity of the alleged injuries...most times more.

New York reformed their "Joint and Several" liability position a while back. Therefore, in order for this drunk troglodyte to have collected this $2.3 Million award, the MTA would have had to have been found over 50% liable. They were found 65% liable...while the passed out moron who fell off the platform onto the tracks (and cannot remember anything about how he got there) was only found to be 35% liable.

Even so...these cases are daily in New York. They are daily in Cook County Illinois, Metarie, LA, Philadelphia County PA, Palm Beach County FL...The list is long and indistinguished. Interestingly, there is always a correlation between the creativity of juries and the southward turn of the economy.

I would say that these juries are cutting their own throats with such verdicts since insurance carriers pass on these losses to their policy holders, and the MTA passes it onto straphangers. However, when you see statitics such as Philadelphia estimating over 70% of the vehicles on the road are uninsured (illegal by the way in PA)...these folks don't care, and rarely make the connection to their own wallets anyway. That, also, would require personal responsibility...which is sorely lacking all over the spectrum.

Top ten list of mouth breathers in NYC...

The impatient subway boarder - described as "brainless salmon people, desperately trying to swim upstream" - narrowly beat out full-volume headphone guy for fourth place in the poll.

Heh!

They mention the the idiots who carry patio furniture around with them and claim it as a personal umbrella. My experiences on the NYC sidewalks put that one right up on the top. They're all mouth breathers...all 10 on the list.

Pill Popping & Paralogism...Perfect Together...

Nervous New Yorkers are popping more pills.

Prescriptions for anti-anxiety drugs, anti-depressants and sleep aids are surging as residents struggle with the economic crisis, Crain's New York Business reports.

"If we looked to diagnose the city, I'd say it has an anxiety disorder," psychotherapist Dr. Mel Schwartz told the weekly.

Too easy...insert your own jokes...there are many.

Related:

US News & World Report ("Why Conservatives Say They Are Happier Than Liberals")

$715 Grand babysitters...

A half-dozen public-school principals - including some booted from previous posts - are earning six-figure salaries to oversee rooms full of teachers doing nothing, The Post has learned.

I live in the real world...you know that unforgiving land in which a company will keep you if you're an attribute to their goals. Of course, a prerequisite to it all is that you can't assault your co-workers or...you know...hit on minors...those sort of things.

However, in the ever evolving, and truly nuanced New York City...you get to sit in the "rubber room," collect a full salary...and periodially flex your "free agency" and become part of "turkey trades."

A band of city teachers languishing in so-called "rubber rooms" on disciplinary charges are demanding that their temporary reassignment centers be recognized as permanent chapters of their union - just like schools.

Two things:

1. Unions are bankrupting this country.

2. New York City Education is a great example of just how deluded and incompetent Liberalism truly is.

Oh...did I mention that NYC is way, way deep in the red...and getting deeper by the second? All the while...over 700 teachers and administrators sit around day after day doing absolutely nothing...while getting paid.

Angry yet???? How about this?

The New York Post reports (9-30-07) that the number of teachers waiting in the city's rubber rooms has doubled since 2005. Some 757 teachers now clock in to the nearest rubber room, read magazines or watch DVDs all day, and go home. They make between $42,500 and $93,400 a year, for a total cost to the city of about $40 million a year. The city also pays millions more to rent the rooms themselves, and to pay for substitute teachers to replace those in rubber rooms.

Good NON-work if you can get it...huh?