The Telltale Feather

New York Post freakout coming in 5, 4, 3, 2 . . . blammo:

It was those damned geese!

A feather from a bird and “organic material” has been found on the engine, wings and fuselage of the US Airways airliner that crash-landed in the Hudson River, federal authorities said yesterday.

Investigators also have found that fan blades in the Airbus A320’s right engine “revealed evidence of soft-body impact damage.”

. . .

“What appears to be organic material was found in the right engine and on the wings and fuselage,” said the NTSB in a press release. Samples of that material have been sent to the US Agriculture Department for DNA analysis.

“A single feather was found attached to a flap track on the wing,” said the release, adding that the feather “is being sent to bird-identification experts” at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington.

It was the evidence of the old bird’s feather! It increased my fury as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage!

Wow

Who knew a picture of a tunnel was could be so enraging, in that where-the-fuck-is-all-this-money-coming-from kind of way:

Construction, it seems, is indeed under way for the extension of the No. 7 line, the cornerstone of the Bloomberg administration’s planned development of the far West Side.

The MTA’s capital construction page shows an update for November with pictures from below, where the agency is hollowing out the cavern for the station and making way for the eventual launch of a tunnel-boring machine, which will slowly dig its way along the 1.5-mile route.

The project, budgeted at $2.1 billion, would extend the line from Times Square to the base of the Javits Center on 34th Street, adjacent to the West Side rail yards. The Bloomberg administration has been the driving force behind the extension, which it says will help spawn tens of millions of square feet of West Side development.

The cash-strapped MTA had no desire to pay for the project, so the city is footing the entire bill, up to the $2.1 billion. Should costs exceed the budget (which many onlookers assume they will, given rising costs everywhere), the city and the MTA have yet to negotiate an agreement on who would cover them.

(Given the lack of real funding sources for the MTA’s next five-year capital plan and the $1.2 billion deficit in its operating budget, it’s safe to assume the agency isn’t eager to pony up any cash for a project the Bloomberg administration pledged would be paid for entirely by the city.)

The Man Who Would Single-Handedly Save An Entire City From Massive Budget Deficits And Worldwide Financial Crises . . .

. . . first must gin up the numbers to make his case. Suggested protest placard — “Bloomberg Lied, Democracy Died”:

On Oct. 21, two days before the City Council voted by a thin margin to allow Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg to seek a third term, the mayor sounded an alarm on the city’s economy.

New York City’s annual budget deficit, he said, would swell by $500 million during the current fiscal year because of weakening tax revenues.

At the time, the worsening picture seemed to strengthen his central argument for changing term limits — a vulnerable city needed his steady hand and business background for four more years.

But some of those inside and outside the administration say that Mr. Bloomberg’s remarks were inaccurate and may have painted a more dire financial situation than was warranted. Interviews with these people show that the city does not expect any budget deficit in the current fiscal year, which began July 1.

In fact, data that was provided to the city about the same time the mayor was speaking showed the city’s tax revenue grew at an unexpectedly brisk pace during July, August and September.

During that time, the city took in at least $200 million more than it had planned for, data and interviews show. Much of the unexpected revenue stemmed from sales, personal income and property transfer taxes.

Of course, the city could face deficits reaching into the billions in 2010 and beyond as a result of the global financial crisis, as layoffs mount, consumer spending falls and tourism slows.

But several economists said they were mystified by Mr. Bloomberg’s statement. Marcia Van Wagner, a deputy in the New York City comptroller’s office who focuses on budget issues, said that “it is extremely unlikely that the city would end the year in deficit.”

She said that tax revenue would certainly fall later this year, but that surplus funds now slated to be used in the 2010 fiscal year could offset any shortfall this year, “as can other reserves that are normally freed up during the year,” she said.

Ms. Van Wagner also noted that the mayor has already requested $500 million worth of spending cuts from city agencies this year, which could be used to close any budget gaps.

Asked why the mayor said the city faces a deficit this year, aides said that Mr. Bloomberg may have been referring instead to his expectation that revenues would be lower than the city forecast. But even if the mayor were referring to a potential falloff in this year’s tax receipts, the $500 million number is a greater decline than what many city officials and economists predict.

Mr. Bloomberg’s Oct. 21 remarks carried significant weight, and prompted articles in The Daily News and The New York Post about the city’s worsening economy.

Both articles reported that the city’s budget deficit would swell by $500 million, and mayoral aides never sought to correct those stories.

“I can tell you,” the mayor said, “that our deficit — we originally had ’09 balanced. Now we’ve got a $500 million hole in it.”

Enthusiastically Euthanasic

More democracy, not less:

Setting up a showdown over one of the most divisive issues in recent political memory, Speaker Christine C. Quinn announced Tuesday that the City Council would vote Thursday on Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s plan to revise the term limits law so he can pursue four more years in office.

Supporters of the change said the move reflected Mr. Bloomberg’s and Ms. Quinn’s confidence that they have gathered the 26 Council votes needed to pass the legislation.

There are also signs that public opinion is tilting against the change, and privately some allies of Ms. Quinn say she is anxious, if not desperate, to hold the vote before an advertising campaign opposing the change takes hold.

“If it’s not on Thursday, they’re in trouble,” said one council member who supports the bill, speaking on condition of anonymity so as not to upset the mayor or the speaker.

In Tough Times It Is Probably Good To Have More Choices . . .

Case in point:

One of the casualties of Michael Bloomberg’s move to run for a third term, it seems, is next year’s Democratic primary.

Yes, it’s still 11 months away, and the mayor has only just finished announcing his intention to overturn term limits, but the prospect of Mr. Bloomberg — and his billions of dollars — running again may have ended the contest before it even took shape.

Council Speaker Christine Quinn, a Bloomberg ally who was the favorite of much of the city’s business establishment, reacted immediately by announcing that she would abandon a planned run if the mayor went for reelection.

City Comptroller Bill Thompson, the only minority candidate in the prospective Democratic field, says that he’s running, but doesn’t sound incredibly convincing. For now, his game plan consists entirely of trying to block the mayor from running by casting public doubt on the idea of changing term limits without a referendum.

. . .

“No one believes Thompson stays in,” said George Arzt, a Democratic consultant. (Mr. Arzt, a former City Hall bureau chief for the New York Post and aide to Mayor Ed Koch, said that he had “spoken with” more than one potential mayoral campaign, but that he won’t work for any of them against Mr. Bloomberg if the mayor runs.)

. . .

“People do believe that, at least initially, Weiner will be in there, but if he sees he’s going to get crushed that he would back out, rather than suffer two different losses in two different elections,” said Mr. Arzt, referring to Mr. Weiner’s run for mayor in 2005 in which he narrowly missed making a runoff against the eventual Democratic nominee, Fernando Ferrer.

Consultant Jerry Skurnik was more hopeful about the chances of having some sort of primary contest, but only slightly: “The odds are two of the three will run, and that we’ll have a primary,” said Mr. Skurnik, referring to Mr. Thompson, Mr. Weiner and Mr. Avella. “But it’s possible that we won’t have a primary — that only one of them will run. I don’t know.”

Of course, there’s one more scenario — perhaps the least appealing of all for the Democrats: that Bloomberg, instead of destroying their primary, joins it.

Mr. Arzt said that an employee in his consulting firm already received a call as part of a telephone survey asking whether the employee would support Mr. Bloomberg if he ran as a Democrat in next year’s primary.