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Unimpressed by Charles de Gaulle's droll observation that the graveyards are full of indispensable men, Michael Bloomberg, New York City's 108th mayor, has decided that he is indispensable. So the law limiting mayors to two terms must be revised to allow three terms. "It's not that anyone is indispensable," said Bloomberg when announcing that the term-limits law, which was enacted by referendum and then reaffirmed by a second referendum, is an intolerable impediment to his continuing as mayor for another four years in what he calls "tough times." He was referring to Wall Street's troubles, which will shrink the city...

Earlier this year, many voices in the media were warning for the worst when it came to the price of oil as economic uncertainty loomed ahead. One analyst even predicted in May that oil would hit $300 a barrel. However, now that financial turmoil has plagued the markets, the price of oil has fallen from its $147-a-barrel high in June 2008 to around $90 a barrel on Oct. 7. Around its peak, many were forecasting oil in excess of $200 by the end of 2008, but since that time the bull market in commodities has slowed or ceased, as Equidex...

The financial crisis of the past year has provided a number of surprising twists and turns, and from Bear Stearns Cos. to American International Group Inc., ambiguity has been a big part of the story. Why did Bear Stearns fail, and how does that relate to AIG? It all seems so complex. But really, it isn't. Enough cards on this table have been turned over so that the story is now clear. The economic history books will describe this episode in simple and understandable terms: Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac exploded, and many bystanders were injured in the blast, some...

After once calling an effort to revise his city's term limits law “disgusting,” Michael Bloomberg, the liberal mayor of New York City, has decided to gut the law so he can seek a third term in office. This nasty little tyrant who wants to control nearly every aspect of New Yorkers' lives is reportedly ignoring the advice of his three top aides at City Hall. Bloomberg plans to change the law through city council, rather than by going to the voters who put the law in place by referendum in the 1990s. Guys like Bloomberg are why term limits were...

After months of speculation about his political future, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg plans to announce on Thursday morning that he will seek a third term as mayor, according to three people who have been told of his plans. ight now, Mr. Bloomberg is barred by law from seeking re-election. But he will propose trying to revise the city’s 15-year-old term limits law, which would otherwise force him and dozens of other elected leaders out of office in 2009, the three people said. In his announcement, Mr. Bloomberg, a former Wall Street trader and founder of a billion-dollar financial data firm,...

The doom and gloom crowd was piling on after a record one-day 777-point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). David Tice, who manages the $1.1 billion Prudent Bear Mutual Funds from the Virgin Islands, offered a bleak assessment of the financial future in an interview with Bloomberg TV anchor Carol Massar on Sept. 30. “Unfortunately Carol, we don’t believe that the pain is over,” Tice said. “We think that we’re going to have to pay for the excesses of really the last five to 10 years of this excessive credit growth with a dramatic slowdown in the economy,...

In a bid to jump-start the snail's-pace reconstruction at the site, the mayor called on Gov. Paterson to dismantle the Lower Manhattan Development Corp. Bloomberg branded the state agency "just another level of bureaucracy you don't need" - and in a power grab, he said its redevelopment mission should be "handed over" to City Hall. Noting that one of LMDC's signature jobs is to demolish the toxic Deutsche Bank tower at 130 Liberty St., he said another agency, the Lower Manhattan Construction Command Center, is better suited to finishing the task by the July 2009 deadline. "The multilayers of authority...

SNIP The events that briefly torpedoed the airline's stock started Saturday night. But Tribune Co. and Google disagree on the exact chain of events. Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said sudden activity on the Sun-Sentinel Web site attracted the attention of a Google program to catalog information on the Web. However, Tribune Co. spokesman Gary Weitman, said a company investigation of activity on the Sun-Sentinel Web site found there was no activity on the story until approximately the same time the Google program, called a "bot," visited the Sun-Sentinel site around 10:30 p.m. Pacific time and found the story, which was...

On July 1, California entered fiscal 2009 without having enacted a state budget. Nothing new in that: Budgets have been late in 16 of the past 20 fiscal years. The cause was also not unusual: There was a budget gap, generated partly by the slump in housing, partly by the absence of enormous stock-market profits and partly by the ongoing boom in state spending. Nothing new in that, either. Meanwhile, the productive, private part of California's economy has been cyclical for decades, while the unproductive government part keeps growing, and spending money it doesn't have. The size of the gap...

** EXCERPT ** The story, marked “Hold for release – Do not use”, was sent in error to the news service’s thousands of corporate clients. The stock obituary was published "momentarily" after a routine update by a reporter, and was "immediately deleted", Bloomberg said. Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, but there is no suggestion that the news wire has recent news on his health. Most media organisations regularly update their pre-prepared obituaries of newsworthy figures. The obituary contained blank spaces for Jobs’s age and cause of death to be inserted.

An obituary of very-much-alive Apple founder Steve Jobs has been accidentally published by the respected Bloomberg business news wire. The story, marked “Hold for release – Do not use”, was sent in error to the news service’s thousands of corporate clients. The stock obituary was published "momentarily" after a routine update by a reporter, and was "immediately deleted", Bloomberg said. Jobs was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2003, but there is no suggestion that the news wire has recent news on his health. Most media organisations regularly update their pre-prepared obituaries of newsworthy figures. The obituary contained blank spaces for...

On August 25 Patrick Donahue of Bloomberg breathlessly informed us that a recent poll showed that Germans love Barack Obama. In a week where Obama's soft polling numbers with Americans who will do the actual voting, you'd be excused if you wondered who cared, but apparently Bloomberg thinks this Obama puffing "news" is worth reporting. It's more reason to be suspicious that the Old Media is in the tank for Barack Obama, in any case. This particular Bloomberg story has little substance and is centered on a population that cannot even vote for Obama in the first place. Interestingly, however,...

All that talk last week about energy at Sen. Harry Reid's alternative fuels summit in Las Vegas sure got New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg fired up. Not "coal-fired" up, mind you. But fired up with that seemingly endless supply of clean energy long preferred by politicians: hot air. On Tuesday at the National Clean Energy Summit at UNLV's Cox Pavilion, Mr. Bloomberg vowed to make New York City the "No. 1 city in the nation" when it comes to producing green power. He laid out a vision that included wind turbines off the coast of Long Island and atop...

Even as he publicly remains coy about his political future, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has quietly approached some of the city’s most powerful media figures to assess whether their publications would endorse a bid to overturn New York City’s term limits, which could clear a path for him to run for re-election next year.

The visuals are terrific. Imagine the Empire State Building with a windmill on top rather than King Kong. That's how the New York Post depicted Mayor Michael Bloomberg's latest idea. Another illustrator adorned the Brooklyn Bridge with windmills atop its towers. It's all because Bloomberg proposed that the Big Apple should blossom with windmills to provide at least one-tenth of its power. What if his idea caught on? Why not mandate that every building taller than a few stories sport a rooftop windmill? We could include the Washington Monument. And every TV and radio antenna. And every hilltop and mountain,...

Interviews with architects, engineers and energy experts on Wednesday suggest that Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s proposal to place wind turbines atop the city’s skyscrapers and bridges, as well as off the coastline of Queens and Brooklyn, would be complicated and expensive and barely begin to meet the growth in demand for electricity that is expected in the coming years. “The smaller turbines that he’s talking about almost don’t pay in terms of kilowatts per hour produced,” said Daniel Karpen, a Long Island engineering consultant who has studied the feasibility of wind power. “He’s going to need money to build them,...

Bloomberg has publicly said he intends to leave when his term ends on Dec. 31, 2009, but has privately expressed interest in undoing the city's cap of two four-year terms with a legislative change, not a public referendum, sources said.

Energy Policy: The mayor of New York City would put wind turbines atop the Brooklyn Bridge under a plan announced Tuesday at a "clean energy summit." Will there be an ocean wind farm next to the Statue of Liberty?Speaking at the event in Las Vegas, Michael Bloomberg, one of many politicians to whom hot air is no stranger, embraced wind power as the alternative energy du jour. He even offered his city's skyline as a site for perhaps the world's largest wind farm. "Perhaps companies will want to put wind turbines atop bridges and skyscrapers, or use the enormous potential...

MAYOR Michael Bloomberg has proposed a renewable energy program for New York City that would include placing windmills on city bridges, solar panels on skyscrapers, and the use of tidal, geothermal and nuclear energy. Mr Bloomberg unveiled the outlines of his plan late yesterday at a major clean energy summit in Las Vegas organised by the University of Nevada. "Just five years ago last week - on August 14th, 2003 - this country got an object lesson in how big a gamble we're taking with our future if we don't change course," said Mr Bloomberg, referring to the giant blackout...

Mayor Michael Bloomberg Lays Out Plan To Put Windmills Atop Skyscrapers And Bridges (CBS/ AP) New York's mayor said solutions to the city's energy problems are blowing in the wind. At the National Clean Energy Summit in Las Vegas Tuesday night, Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed placing windmills atop skyscrapers and bridges and turbines in the East and Hudson rivers to help power the city. Bloomberg's "windmill power plan" is the boldest environmental proposal yet from the billionaire independent, who has been trying to make energy efficiency a legacy of his administration, reports CBS station WCBS-TV reporter Magee Hickey. The plan...

"The City Council is poised to approve new legislation on Thursday that would bar stores from keeping their doors open when air-conditioners or central cooling systems are in use. Any store or restaurant in violation of the new rule will first be issued a written warning and charged fines for subsequent violations. The second time within an 18-month period that a business is found to be violating the law, a fine of $200 would be charged by the city for every open door. That fine would increase to $400 a door for any subsequent violations during the same period."

Business owners who leave their doors open while an air-conditioner is running are about to face a fine for the offense. The City Council is poised to approve new legislation on Thursday that would bar stores from keeping their doors open when air-conditioners or central cooling systems are in use. Any store or restaurant in violation of the new rule will first be issued a written warning and charged fines for subsequent violations. The second time within an 18-month period that a business is found to be violating the law, a fine of $200 would be charged by the city...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg presents Brett Favre with a Broadway street sign.

The Bloomberg-funded Mayors Against Illegal Guns announced today it sent a six-question survey to both John McCain and Barack Obama focued on "common sense steps necessary to fix the nation’s broken background check system" that the group endorsed during its national summit in April. This isn't the first time the coalition has sought to influence the presidential contests that its benefactor once considered joining. It ran pint ads in New Hampshire and Iowa newspapers in advance of the primary and caucuses, respectively, and also aired a TV spot (in which the mayor, playing the role of an "undecided voter" was...

NEW YORK --If you like bilingualism, you will love septalingualism. Big Apple Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s latest brainstorm outstrips his notorious war on trans-fats, both for its audacity and sheer senselessness. America’s largest municipality soon will conduct official business in English and Spanish --which would be bad enough --plus five other foreign languages: Russian, Chinese, Korean, French Creole, and Italian. “This Executive Order will make our city more accessible, while helping us become the most inclusive municipal government in the nation,” Bloomberg crowed as he signed this measure on July 22. Bloomberg’s linguistic smorgasbord opens during a financial tempest. Thanks to...

KIDS ON MUGGING SPREE AMID TEEN-CRIME SURGE A roving pack of teen thugs - some believed to be as young as 13 - are targeting parkgoers in upper Manhattan, police said yesterday, adding that five of the six victims were mugged at night in Riverside Park. The last two attacks occurred on July 23 at around midnight, when about 10 youths jumped two men, demanding their backpacks and cellphones. The two incidents are among a rash of crimes by teens that has plagued the city since May and prompted action by state and city officials, The Post has learned. In...

Gov. David A. Paterson and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg warned on Monday of further deterioration in state and city finances, with each saying that he or his successor would have to grapple with huge budget deficits in the years ahead. Both men appeared at a meeting of the State Financial Control Board, where Mr. Bloomberg and the New York City comptroller, William C. Thompson, said that the city’s budget shortfall would balloon from $68 million in fiscal 2009 to more than $2 billion in 2010 and more than $5 billion the following year. But Mr. Bloomberg also said that the...

Burglars are movin' on up - but not just to the East Side. The city's latest crime statistics show skyrocketing increases - some higher than 25 percent - in some of the wealthiest neighborhoods. Greenwich Village and the Upper East and West sides are among the neighborhoods hardest hit, bucking what city officials said is an overall drop of 8.9 percent citywide. -snip- The Upper East Side's 19th Precinct has seen a 26.9 percent increase in burglaries, with 212 so far this year, compared with 167 last year at the same time. But Nicole Delia, 25, a mother of two...

DESPITE the fanfare attending Mayor Bloomberg's new way of measuring poverty, the effort is largely irrelevant to the most crippling burden a poor child in the United States can face today: growing up without his or her father. The proposed new measure of poverty would raise the number of New York City residents deemed poor - and thus eligible for more federal aid. That's why Democratic mayors across the country, eyeing similar results for their own cities, have greeted it with delight. Bloomberg's effort does nothing to improve the debate about the causes and cures for long-term poverty. Indeed, it...

City EMS crews were hit with a surge in call volume last week leading up to the Fourth of July, forcing some 911 callers to wait as long as 80 minutes for an ambulance, EMS sources told The Post.

Drug dens, homeless shantytowns and prostitution are rampant in New York City's parks, a Post investigation found. Comparing the manicured lawns of Manhattan's Central Park to the barren, rat-infested eyesore of Spring Creek Park in Brooklyn, the disparity is shocking. While the Bloomberg administration boasts that parks are in better shape than they've been in four decades, an investigation of 70 parks over the last nine months found: * Clusters of homeless living in tents and small shantytowns in 10 parks, including Riverside Park near 148th Street in Manhattan. * Hookers brazenly plying their 24-hour trade, including at Printers Park...

New York is having a cannoli conundrum. The shell-encased treats at two of the city's top bakeries tested well above the Health Department's trans-fat limit that went into effect Tuesday, according to lab results commissioned by the Daily News. Veniero's, the popular East Village eatery where one cannoli contained trans-fat levels four times above the city limit, vowed Friday to pull the shells from the shelves until the supplier it deals with bans the bad-for-you fat. "I want to thank you for alerting me," owner Robert Zerilli said. Veniero's wasn't alone. The taboo fat was also found in a cannoli...

This vicious mugger has attacked six women and one man since April on the Upper West Side and West Harlem, police said yesterday. The thug targets his victims randomly and strikes in the early evening or early morning. He first punches his victim in the face, then demands cash and valuables.

BELLEVUE, WA – Anti-gun New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg should “mind his own store before telling others how to operate theirs,” said the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, after an audit found that the New York Police Department lost track of dozens of guns in its own storage lockers. “While this guy has been bullying gun dealers around the country about so-called ‘slip-shod’ operations,” chuckled CCRKBA Chairman Alan Gottlieb, “his own police department seems to be slipping quite a bit on its own. Bloomberg needs to back off, shut up and get his own house...

The Supreme Court's gun ruling is driving a wedge through the ranks of Mayor Bloomberg's Coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns. As mayors from across the country denounced the decision to overturn the Washington, D.C., ban on handguns, Mr. Bloomberg issued a statement saying it would "benefit" his coalition, and predicted it would have no impact on the city's regulation of handguns. His remarks were a sharp departure from those made by mayors Richard Daley of Chicago and Gavin Newsom of San Francisco, both prominent members of the coalition whose cities' gun laws have been targeted by the National Rifle...

General Motors has been an American fixture for 111 years, but some warn that might be ending. The Michigan automaker faces tough obstacles ahead critical to its survival. Brian Williams raised the possibility of General Motors (NYSE:GM) going out of business on the June 26 “NBC Nightly News” to Jim Cramer, host of CNBC’s “Mad Money.” “[J]im, I know you talk about this, think about this everyday for a living and have a formula regarding this,” Williams said. “But first, what’s going on out there? I heard one analyst today said, ‘GM will go out of business,’ though I know...

A teenager was fatally shot on the lower East Side during a bloody 12-hour stretch that left four other people in the city murdered, cops said Tuesday. Vincent Cruz, 17, of Washington Heights, was shot once in the head at about 2:10 a.m. Tuesday on Eldridge St. during a fight with a group of men, police said.

The city's murder rate is up nearly 8 percent this year - with surges in rapes and robberies as well, police statistics show. Nevertheless, the NYPD said the city's overall crime has dipped 3 percent so far this year. Through Sunday, there were 238 murders, compared with 221 during the same period last year - a 7.6 increase. Five additional murders have been reported since Sunday. The rise in deadly violence has been accompanied by a troubling 6.2 percent increase in rapes, as well as a 4.4 percent rise in robberies.

Let the little people pay higher gas taxes. That was the harsh message for beleaguered motorists delivered yesterday by Mayor Bloomberg. With drivers around the country fuming about rising gas prices, Bloomberg dropped a bombshell into their tanks yesterday by calling for increased fuel taxes to cut consumption. The billionaire mayor offered the politically explosive suggestion during a discussion of offshore drilling - a sensitive issue in Florida - following a speech about Barack Obama to a Jewish group here. Bloomberg endorsed drilling as part of a comprehensive energy strategy and said he's been even-handed in his criticism of the...

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg Friday condemned false rumors that Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is a Muslim. Speaking to Jewish voters in Boca Raton, Fla., Bloomberg said people should reject the whisper campaign against the Illinois senator, the Palm Beach (Fla.) Post reported. He called Obama's Republican opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain, a stand-up guy for denouncing the rumors. Obama has said he is a Christian. Bloomberg, a Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent, told those gathered at the Jewish Federation of South Florida that Jewish voters have been the targets of demagogues attempting to exploit political differences between Jews and Muslims. We cannot...

Michael Bloomberg defended Barack Obama in a speech to Jewish voters in Florida this morning. According to the Palm Beach Post, Bloomberg told an audience at an event organized by the Jewish Federation of South Palm Beach County not to believe the "online whisper campaign" against Obama. Bloomberg's day in Florida -- he will be making three separate appearances -- has all the markings of a Kevin Sheekey project. It's two days after a poll indicated Barack Obama is doing better than expected in that all-important battleground state, and, not insignificantly, as Bloomberg has been mentioned (for what that's worth)...

ALBANY BUREAU CHIEF ALBANY - Gov. Paterson wants to give the National Rifle Association - of all people - a state-sanctioned role in training would-be gun owners in New York. Paterson is proposing a gun safety bill that, in part, requires buyers of guns to first take a firearms safety course. A clause tucked away in the bill says the program must meet or exceed the standards of "the home firearms safety course as approved by the National Rifle Association" or another course approved by the state police. While the NRA training program is well-regarded, its inclusion in the bill...

Mayor Bloomberg is a nasty, untrustworthy, tan trum-prone liar who "has little use" for average New Yorkers - like the 1,500 workers who would have lost their jobs had OTB closed, a furious Gov. Paterson has said privately. "He appears to be self-destructing," the governor said. According to a source with firsthand knowledge of Paterson's comments, the governor said that during talks last week on OTB's future, Bloomberg threw the same kind of bizarre tantrums that disgraced former Gov. Eliot Spitzer had been known for. "He has the same kind of anger that reminds you of Spitzer," The governor charged...

Republican presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain praised New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg during a visit to the Big Apple and hinted that Bloomberg could be considered as a possible running mate. Bloomberg is leaving office next year due to term limits and has been rumored to be mulling a run for governor in New York. Asked about that speculation, McCain told the New York Post: “Do I think he could serve the state of New York and the country well? Of course.” When asked about the possibility of Bloomberg, an Independent, running as the GOP’s vice presidential candidate, McCain refused...

Sen. John McCain praised Mayor Bloomberg yesterday - talking up Hizzoner as a strong candidate for governor and refusing to rule him out as a vice presidential candidate. Asked during an interview with The Post whether the term-limited billionaire mayor should be able to seek re-election to a third term, he said there's been "some speculation" about Bloomberg trying to move to Albany. "Do I think he could serve the state of New York and the country well? Of course," McCain said, during a sitdown at the New York Hilton. He was also asked about having the mayor as his...

Bloomberg, Clinton, And Giuliani Shut Out Of White House WASHINGTON (AP) ― Damn Yankees. After 19 months of primary campaigning, that seems to be the attitude of the nation's voters. A year ago, three New Yorkers -- Republican Rudy Giuliani, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and independent Michael Bloomberg -- loomed large in the presidential sweepstakes. With Clinton's departure from the race, they officially have gone 0-for-3 -- a shocking bagel hole for the Big Apple. In January 2008, Clinton and former New York Mayor Giuliani were seen as the clear front-runners of their respective parties. They had the big...

Bloomberg Warns Voters Against Confusing Charisma With Substance By RUSSELL BERMAN, Staff Reporter of the Sun June 11, 2008 http://www.nysun.com/national/bloomberg-warns-voters-against-confusing-charisma/79709/ Mayor Bloomberg yesterday warned voters against confusing "charisma and presentation with substance" in choosing their leaders — a remark that could be seen as a jab at Senator Obama, whose soaring oratory and packed rallies have fueled his success in the presidential campaign. The mayor made an abrupt detour into politics at an event in Lower Manhattan yesterday to unveil a plaque dedicated to the Super Bowl champion New York Giants at the site of their ticker-tape parade earlier this...

WASHINGTON — The presidential campaigns of Senators Barack Obama and John McCain on Sunday rejected an invitation for a town-hall-style meeting in Manhattan that had been proposed by ABC News and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York. The invitation came in the form of a joint letter on Sunday to the campaigns from Mr. Bloomberg and David Westin, president of ABC News. The two had proposed a 90-minute session at Federal Hall National Memorial in Lower Manhattan that would be moderated by Diane Sawyer, one of the hosts of “Good Morning America” on ABC.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and ABC News have invited Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain to participate in a 90-minute, primetime town hall meeting to be broadcast live from Federal Hall in New York City, but the two campaigns said today they do not want the event to be broadcast by only one network. Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., may be taking the suggestion of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., and visit Iraq. However, Obama will not be joined by his opponent. (ABC News Photo Illustration)Obama, D-Ill., and McCain, R-Ariz., have indicated a willingness to participate in such a forum...

The issue came up yesterday, when the mayor mentioned on his weekly WOR radio show that he had spotted someone exiting the subway with a bicycle just as he was getting on that morning for his commute to City Hall. "I don't run the subway system, I don't run the MTA, but if I did - if I had total power - I guess I'd say it's too crowded for bikes," the mayor said. -snip With an ambitious agenda to stave off climate change, the city is promoting pedaling by adding numerous bicycle lanes in all five boroughs. But the...