God only knows how long the clean-up from Sandy is going to take but the MTA is already putting the Unwatering Crew to work in the city’s flooded subway tunnels. According to their Flickr site, the team is making progress: New York City Transit employees are pumping water out of two tunnels that carry the subway beneath the East River. The Cranberry Street Tunnel, carries the A and C trains between Brooklyn and Manhattan, and the 53rd Street Tunnel carries the E and M trains between Queens and Manhattan. Hit the flip for more shots of the flooded tunnels and the hardworking men who are down there pumping the waters out…
Really?? After all of that “freedom of religion gives us the right to be here,” the people who were so determined to open a mosque up the street from World Trade Center haven’t been paying their rent. Or at least that’s what their landlord would like us to believe. Lower Manhattan’s controversial Park51 Islamic center is now in a court battle with utility Consolidated Edison, which says the center owes it $1.7 million in a dispute over back rent. In court papers, Park51 says it owes Con Edison only $881,000 and calls the utility’s demand “grossly inflated.” The center has filed suit against the company over a default notice it was issued in September, and a New York state judge has stayed any action until after a hearing in November. In a statement to CNN on Sunday, Con Edison said it “remains hopeful” that it can work out an agreement with Park51, which leases part of its property from the utility. Park51′s developers did not return a phone call seeking comment. The center, which includes a mosque, drew intense opposition in 2010 from politicians, conservative activists and some families of the victims of the al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center. The twin towers stood about two blocks from the site before they were destroyed by the suicide hijackings on September 11, 2001, leading critics to dub the project the “Ground Zero Mosque.” The interfaith center’s leaders said the project will be a 16-story community center with recreational, educational and cultural programming rooted in a spirit of cooperation and coexistence. City officials refused to block its construction, and Park51 held its grand opening in September. According to court documents, Park51 has exercised an option to purchase the Con Edison portion of the site for $10.7 million. The center says it has been paying $2,750 a month — minuscule by New York standards — under its initial lease. The rent was to be recalculated based on the market value of the property after it renewed the lease in 2008, but disputes over the appraisal lasted until this August. In September, Con Edison demanded the $1.7 million it said it was owed. “The lease for the property calls for the tenant to pay this money now that an appraisal process has been completed,” the utility told CNN. “Under the terms of the lease, Con Edison requested payment of outstanding rent, but to date, tenant has not yet made the required payment.” The people behind the Islamic Center think this is just a new tactic to get them out of the building. We can’t help but feel like they might not be way off… Source
(YouTube link) Simon’s Cat teaches a kitten what’s what. It’s not at all simple, as anyone with more than one cat knows already. Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Neatorama Discovery Date : 07/10/2011 13:09 Number of articles : 3
Down with banks, student-loan debt, and expensive elections! Up with barter…capitalism…and…Mitt Romney?!?! On October 4, 2011, Reason.tv visited the Occupy Wall Street protests at Liberty Square in Lower Manhattan, on Day 18 of the ongoing demonstration. The crowd was relatively small at about 300, and included educated but unemployed workers, college students and recent graduates, Broadcasting platform : YouTube Source : Big Government Discovery Date : 07/10/2011 14:17 Number of articles : 2
That Empire State of Mind is nice and all but it’s time to get the heck out of dodge folks! Hurricane Irene is coming and officials in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut have already declared a State of Emergency in their states. Mayor Bloomberg has also asked something of New Yorkers that has never been asked before — he wants them to evacuate, especially if there home lies in a coastal area. Yup that means Lower Manhattan too! With Hurricane Irene speeding relentlessly toward the East Coast, officials announced plans to evacuate low-lying areas in New York City and shut down the sprawling subway and transit system. Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg ordered a mandatory evacuation — something he said the city had never done before — of coastal areas in all five boroughs, including all of the Rockaways; Battery Park City and the financial district in Lower Manhattan; and Governor’s Island. The evacuation covered 250,000 people in and around what the city calls Zone A low-lying areas who, the mayor said, should get out before the storm swept in. “You only have to look at the weather maps to understand how big this storm is and how unique it is,” the mayor said at a news conference, “and it’s heading basically for us.” Underscoring what he and other officials said was the seriousness of the situation, President Obama granted a request from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York to declare the state a federal emergency even before the hurricane arrived, according to the White House. And the mayor’s announcement prompted a cascade of cancellations for Saturday and Sunday: Broadway shows; the Mets’ games against the Atlanta Braves at Citi Field; performances by the Dave Matthews Band on Governor’s Island; an outdoor film festival of operas at Lincoln Center, among many others. Officials said the subway shutdown was prompted mainly by wind estimates that suggested the hurricane could rock subway cars where they run above ground. The commuter rail lines that serve Long Island, Westchester County and Connecticut will also be shut down, as will NJTransit operations in New Jersey. NJTransit will suspend service at noon Saturday. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo of New York said that a half dozen bridges — including the George Washington Bridge, the Robert F. Kennedy Triboro Bridge, the Throgs Neck Bridge and the Whitestone Bridge — would be closed if winds reached 60 miles an hour for more than a short time. Officials decided to go ahead with the shutdowns and evacuations, which they had first mentioned as a possibility at a City Hall briefing on Thursday, because, the mayor said, “Irene is now bearing down on us at a faster speed than it was.” As he stepped up the plans on Friday, the city was already evacuating hospitals and nursing homes in low-lying areas. State officials continued arrangements for coordinating emergency services and restoring electricity if the storm does the kind of damage many fear. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey said that all lanes of 28-mile stretch of a major highway in Ocean County would go in only one direction — westward — beginning at 6 p.m. on Friday to help speed the trip away from Long Beach Island, which is connected to the mainland by only a single bridge. Those preparations came as states of emergency remained in effect in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. The mayor said that 91 evacuation centers and shelters would be open by 4 p.m. Friday for people who could not stay in their homes. The mayor had said on Thursday that the city was ordering nursing homes and hospitals in those areas to evacuate residents and patients beginning at 8 a.m. Friday unless they received special permission from state and city health officials, among them the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Thomas A. Farley, who, the mayor noted, was chairman of the community health sciences department at Tulane University when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005. That evacuation order covered 22 hospitals, nursing homes and other facilities for older people. The mayor said city beaches would be closed on Saturday and Sunday and would remain closed “until they can op safely.” “Please, please, please, don’t go in the water,” the mayor said. “Tides will be much stronger than people can cope with.” In Connecticut, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said the state was considering widespread precautionary shutdowns of highways at midnight Saturday. He urged residents in areas that had “ever experienced flooding” to take steps to leave those areas by midnight Saturday as well. Mr. Malloy said officials were preparing for “tremendous tree damage” and the loss of electricity across the entire state. “Not just for a few hours,” he added at a briefing on Friday. “Days and weeks.” Can you imagine? Lights out for weeks!!! This storm is the real deal. Please everyone, if you live in one of the areas affected take these warning seriously and make sure you have a plan in place in case disaster strikes. Source
Well fancy that: The New York Times has learned what Times Watch has been pointing out for weeks: Not even New Yorkers want a large mosque built two blocks from the site of the 9-11 terrorist attacks. New York City residents were previously praised by Times reporters like Sheryl Gay Stolberg as better informed and thus more tolerant of the idea of a mosque at Ground Zero than ignorant outsiders. But a New York Times poll conducted last week showed that New Yorkers don’t like the idea of building a mosque near the site of the 9-11 terrorist attacks anymore than the rest of the country. In fact, New York City residents (that includes Manhattan and the outer boroughs) oppose it by a 50 margin. Yes, the nationwide opposition to the construction, twice declaimed as a ” nativist impulse ” by the paper’s main political writer Matt Bai, has infected even the tolerant, sophisticated liberals of Manhattan. Building its story around the poll, reporters Michael Barbaro and Marjorie Connelly reported on last Friday’s front page: ” New Yorkers Divided Over Islamic Center, Poll Finds .” (Actually New Yorkers are more than merely divided but are mostly opposed to the mosque being built near Ground Zero.) Two-thirds of New York City residents want a planned Muslim community center and mosque to be relocated to a less controversial site farther away from ground zero in Lower Manhattan, including many who describe themselves as supporters of the project, according to a New York Times poll. The poll indicates that support for the 13-story complex, which organizers said would promote moderate Islam and interfaith dialogue, is tepid in its hometown. …. Over all, 50 percent of those surveyed oppose building the project two blocks north of the World Trade Center site, even though a majority believe that the developers have the right to do so. Thirty-five percent favor it. Opposition is more intense in the boroughs outside Manhattan — for example, 54 percent in the Bronx — but it is even strong in Manhattan, considered a bastion of religious tolerance, where 41 percent are against it. The poll was conducted Aug. 27 to 31 with 892 adults. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points. It suggested that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, the center’s most ardent and public defender, has not unified public opinion around the issue. Asked if they approved or disapproved of how he had handled the subject, city residents were evenly split. Indeed, Times reporters took to Twitter to gush over NYC Mayor Bloomberg’s weepy speech in defense of building the mosque near the site of terrorist attacks committed in the name of Islam. The Times worked in its standard jab against Newt and Palin as outsiders (albeit outsiders who are on the side of the majority of New Yorkers on this issue): While a majority said politicians in New York should take a stand on the issue, most disapprove of those outside the city weighing in: Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin, among others, have tried to rally opposition to the center. The article was accompanied on the editorial page by a righteously concerned editorial, ” Mistrust and the Mosque ,” moaning over how New Yorkers have failed to teach a moral lesson to the ignorant masses. The furor over the proposed Islamic cultural center and mosque near ground zero keeps giving us new reasons for dismay. As politicians and commentators work themselves and viewers into a rage, others who should be standing up for freedom and tolerance tiptoe away. To the growing pile of discouragement, add this: A New York Times poll of New York City residents that found that even this city, the country’s most diverse and cosmopolitan , is not immune to suspicion and to a sadly wary misunderstanding of Muslim-Americans. …. Tolerance, however, isn’t the same as understanding, so it is appalling to see New Yorkers who could lead us all away from mosque madness, who should know better, playing to people’s worst instincts.
The director of the popular Arab-language TV station Al Arabiya says that the Muslim world is not angry over increasing American opposition to a proposed mosque at Ground Zero, and that any claims to the contrary are attempts to “fabricate a conflict.” “The lack of a unified stance throughout the Islamic world should be seen as response to the current attempt by some to ‘fabricate’ a conflict, claiming that Muslims are angry with the refusal to build a mosque in such a controversial setting,” wrote director Abd Al-Rahman Al-Rashid in an Aug. 29 column in a London daily. The column was translated and posted on the website for the Middle East Media Research Institute. Some news outlets have claimed that opposition to the Ground Zero mosque may “fuel Islamic extremism” in the Muslim world. “Opposition to the center by prominent politicians and other public figures in the United States has been covered extensively by the news media in Muslim countries,” reported a New York Times article on Aug. 20. “At a time of concern about radicalization of young Muslims in the West, it risks adding new fuel to Al Qaeda ‘s claim that Islam is under attack by the West and must be defended with violence, some specialists on Islamic militancy say.” And the NPR reported on Aug. 24 that “Experts worry the controversy surrounding an Islamic center near ground zero in Lower Manhattan is playing right into the hands of radical extremists.” But the director of Al-Arabiya TV – a competitor of Al Jazeera – said that the idea that the mosque controversy is inflaming anger across Muslim countries is nonsense. Director Al-Rashid argued that opposition to the Ground Zero mosque has not caused “a public reaction similar to what has been witnessed in dozens of previous cases that have provoked Muslims” – such as the 2006 publication of a cartoon mocking the Islamic prophet in a Danish newspaper, which set off violent protests across the Muslim world. The TV director noted that there have not been demonstrations related to the mosque in Arab countries, that imams have not addressed the controversy during their sermons and that the issue has not been taken up by Islamic religious and intellectual institutions. He also said that many Muslims don’t want the mosque to be built, and understand why the project may be insensitive. “[F]or many Muslims, building a mosque near the same land upon which three thousand people were killed by Muslims is not a necessity. Most comments from readers rejected the idea of building the mosque for fear of it turning into a symbol of hatred against Muslims,” wrote Al-Rashid. And while the TV director said that the organizers of the mosque have “good intentions,” he also added that they have acted “without taking into account the serious nature of [constructing] a mosque at such a particularly sensitive time and place.” This is not the first time Al-Rashid has spoken out over the Ground Zero mosque controversy. On Aug. 16 he wrote in another column that “Muslims never asked for” the proposed mosque at Ground Zero, and “do not care about its construction.” “I can’t imagine that Muslims [actually] want a mosque at this particular location, because it will become an arena for the promoters of hatred, and a monument to those who committed the crime,” he wrote. “Moreover, there are no practicing Muslims in the area who need a place to worship, because it is a commercial district. Is there anyone who is [really] eager [to build] this mosque?”
During a recent Fox and Friends segment surrounding the Islamic cultural center/mosque that is proposed for Lower Manhattan, guest analyst Dan Senor pointed out that Imam Rauf had previously received funds from a Saudi organization that is alleged to also “fund radical madrassas all over the world” and is headed up Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. Jon Stewart used that clip to then reveal that bin Talal just so happens to also be a large partner News Corp. business partner, or in his words, “The terror funder is Rupert Murdoch’s News Corps’ funder!” When future trumped up media controversies (like the Park 51 story) reveal themselves, the nation should first looks to Jon Stewart for reason, context and common sense. For no one can more clearly point out the many inherent absurdities in alleged fake controversy surrounding the “Terror Mosque” as Stewart chose to call it. The crux of Stewart’s clip is best summed up by the following rough transcript of the central thesis: That’s right – the guy they are paying as a sinister money force, owns part of Fox News. Let’s do as Fox News commands and follow the money:This is the proposed ‘terror mosque.’ We know that it’s a ‘terror mosque’ because the money may be coming from a bad guy, who definitely owns part of Fox News. Now we know he is a bad guy because we just heard it on Fox News. And by hearing it on Fox News watching Fox News, I’m increasing their viewership and their advertising rates go up. Now, part of that money goes to the bad guy we learned about on Fox, because he’s their part owner, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal, allowing him then to make it rain, so to speak, on the terror mosque. My point is this: if we want to cut of funding to the terror mosque we must, together as a nation, stop watching Fox. It’s the only way. Using their reasoning, its the only way to cut off the revenue stream to these bad dudes. Stewart then points out that the most curious part of this entire report was that Fox and Friends never revealed who the evil money source was to the viewers of the show. He then had on correspondents Wyatt Cenac (representing Team Evil) and John Oliver (representing Team Stupid) to debate whether or not, well, the producers at Fox and Friends were being stupid or evil. Click the story link to see video added by: TimALoftis
Is charitable giving distorting Americans’ view of the public good? Kimberly Dennis thinks it might be. Bill Gates and Warren Buffett announced this month that 40 of America’s richest people have agreed to sign a “Giving Pledge” to donate at least half of their wealth to charity. With a collective net worth said to total $230 billion, that promise translates to at least $115 billion. It’s an impressive number. Yet some-including Messrs. Gates and Buffett-say it isn’t enough. Perhaps it’s actually too much: the wealthy may help humanity more as businessmen and women than as philanthropists. What are the chances, after all, that the two forces behind the Giving Pledge will contribute anywhere near as much to the betterment of society through their charity as they have through their business pursuits? In building Microsoft, Bill Gates changed the way the world creates and shares knowledge. Warren Buffett’s investments have birthed and grown innumerable profitable enterprises, making capital markets work more efficiently and enriching many in the process. Do we have a distorted view of charity and the public good, or should the wealthiest Americans feel obligated to “give back”?
What kind of shameless shill do you have to be to claim the President is on a winning streak as his poll numbers plummet, the economy teeters on a double-dip recession, and his Party is facing historic losses in both chambers of Congress? A Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist and former managing editor of the Washington Post, that’s who. Consider that just days after numerous polls were released showing America’s confidence in Barack Obama at an all-time low, and stallwart supporters such as CNN and the New York Times’ Maureen Dowd claimed that even George W. Bush was better at delivering a coherent message to the American people, Eugene Robinson wrote the following Friday: This is a radical break from journalistic convention, I realize, but today I’d like to give credit where it’s due — specifically, to President Obama. Quiet as it’s kept, he’s on a genuine winning streak. Robinson then listed the following items by way of recent headlines: “Last U.S. combat troops leave Iraq” “General Motors to launch stock offering” “Gulf oil spill contained” But here was the best one. In fact, it’s so good it requires a serious warning to remove all fluids, combustibles, and sharp objects from proximity to your computer: And finally, “President wades into mosque controversy”: Yes, I’m serious. Supporting the mosque in Lower Manhattan didn’t score any political points. But Obama saw his duty to uphold the values of our Constitution and make clear that our fight is against the terrorists, not against Islam itself. Instead of doing what was popular, he did what was right. He still hasn’t walked on water, though. What’s wrong with the man? Yep. Robinson is so captivated by this President that he even believes Obama has handled the Ground Zero mosque situation well. Now THAT’S some impressive shilling, wouldn’t you agree? This is sooooo good it requires what Hillary Clinton would call a willing suspension of disbelief. For instance, here are some recent headlines one would have to ignore to come to the conclusion Obama is on a winning streak: Jobless claims hit 500K, a nine-month high New jobs numbers: Bad for economy, worse for Democrats US unemployment figures increase fears of double-dip recession Critics say Obama’s message becoming ‘ incoherent ‘ If polls are any indication, GOP can expect big gains in the fall Even the Poor Are Abandoning Obama , According to Gallup Poll Data Obama Sees New Lows in Job Approval Obama Receives Low Marks in Economic Poll Poll: Majority now disapprove of Obama’s job performance 1 in 5 Americans Thinks Obama Is Muslim If this is what Robinson thinks is a winning streak, I can’t imagine what losing looks like to him.
