This past summer I happened to be in The Standard Hotel in NYC. There’s a lot to peep in that unique building — crazy interior design in the lobby, the well-appointed (if tiny) rooms overlooking the High Line, the shabby-chic hallways, the attractive staff, and the notorious Boom Boom Room. But my favorite part was the elevators, which featured an insanely cool Hieronymous Bosch-like video installation called Civilization.

This work, created by artist Marco Brambilla in collaboration with Toronto production company CRUSH, composites hundreds of images from movie footage, stock footages, and original film clips to create a journey from hell to heaven. You move up and down in this video mural as the elevator rises and descends. It’s frickin’ awesome, trust.

A few screengrabs for the peeps:

Check this bad boy out:

Here’s another link to the video in high-quality glory.

The elevator installations have 3-D layering that makes them especially mind-blowing — here are some interesting comments from the designers of the video that describe the process of its production.

A few images that caught my eye: Ahnuld as Conan the Barbarian, the creepy Oracle from 300, Wonder World from Beverly Hills Cop III, “The World Is Yours” blimp from Scarface, and Marilyn Monroe holding her skirt down in The Seven Year Itch.

In an interview with Interview, Brambilla commented: “I like to play with the idea of visual overload, and use it to ­ create the feeling of spectacle…For Civilization, my inspiration came from the giant murals at the Natural History Museum [in New York].”

Natural History Museum, NYC

Brambilla was later commissioned by Kanye West to do a video for his recent single, “Power,” along the same lines as Civilization.

It’s pretty bad-ass as well. More from Interview:

“It was a dream commission,” says Brambilla. “Working with themes I like to explore with someone like Kanye, who loves to experiment and isn’t afraid to take chances.” Brambilla says the key line to the video was, “No one man should have all that power”: “I’m interpreting that idea as a moment of transition, showing an icon of power at the tipping point. The idea of celebrity, sexuality, and excess… the psychological toll that can take on an individual.” The hyper-saturated result involves 24 layers of imagery combined into a seamless video, to create the effect of “characters, painted in frescoes and come to life.”

This video is packed chock-full of the kind of imagery that makes people think Kanye is in a cult. Beware Masonic wickedness!

Today brings news of a delightful lawsuit being filed by a disgruntled former employee of Manhattan billionaire Philip Falcone and his wife, the extravagant, luscious Lisa.

The Falcones have used their immense hedge fund wealth to become major players on the NYC social scene, but along the way they’ve garnered both good and bad publicity. This latest story is certainly the most unfavorable they’ve seen to date. While it’s too early to say how legit the employee’s claims are, it’s definitely not premature to announce that these people are hugely entertaining! Move over, Countess de Lesseps, because you’re about to be out-classed.

Philip heads Harbinger Capital Partners, a hedge fund with major stakes in the New York Times company and a variety of satellite operators. He bet big against subprime mortgages and made a staggering amount of money when the market collapsed. Hooray!

His wife grew up in Spanish Harlem, raised by a single mother on welfare — they met in 1992 when she was a fashion model/waitress and he was a young junk bond trader. Today, he’s one of the 300 richest people in the world, which has redounded to the benefit of Lisa’s ambitions to influence the fashion, culture and society of New York City. Together, they purchased the city’s foremost sex mansion.

However, according to their former house manager, they are also homophobic sex-harassers who won’t leave a gay man be.

The best source for background on Lisa Falcone is a fairly glowing profile in the New York Times that somehow fails to mention that her husband owns a huge piece of the company.

Here’s the strangest passage, in which the exuberant Lisa just can’t help but make a scene by throwing money around at a gala event…

Who is that woman and what is she doing?

That is what seemed to be going through the minds of many guests at a gala dinner in early June atop the High Line, the elevated downtown railway that has been transformed into a landscaped esplanade.

The long, elegantly decorated tables were packed with luminaries of the New York social circuit, including Oscar de la Renta, Martha Stewart, Harvey Weinstein and Jerry Seinfeld.

Joshua David, a founder of Friends of the High Line, which had saved the structure from demolition and spearheaded its revival, had just announced a $10 million challenge grant to the project from the media mogul Barry Diller and his wife, the fashion designer Diane von Furstenberg, prompting a standing ovation. Suddenly, a leggy brunette in a cropped bob, flouncy Roberto Cavalli minidress and slingback, peep-toe heels by Christian Louboutin (who was in attendance) rose from her seat, approached Mr. David in the middle of his remarks, whispered in his ear and took over the microphone.

She was Lisa Maria Falcone, she said, and she and her husband, Philip A. Falcone, were so excited about the High Line and so moved by Mr. Diller and Ms. von Furstenberg’s gift that they decided to match it.

If that isn’t the work of a Grade-A Upstager, I don’t know what is.

DVF played it cool, but you just know she’s up in her weird penthouse buckyball plotting revenge on Lisa Falcone.

Arts institutions around the city took notice of Mrs. Falcone’s impulsive generosity, and as Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan put it, “suddenly recognized Lisa’s unique insight into, you know, culture.”

When City Ballet asked her to be on the board last June, Ms. Falcone said she asked: “‘Why me? Do you really want me on the board? Is it about my husband or is it me?’”

Peter Martins, City Ballet’s ballet master in chief, said Ms. Falcone had brought a breath of fresh air to the board. “She’s unlike anybody else,” he said. “She is young, generous, has lots of ideas.”

I’m totally sure that the Ballet honchos were sitting around trying to decide who to invite to their board, they all said “You know who is a complete ballet GENIUS? Wacky hedge fund wife Lisa Falcone! I heard her husband is wicked rich but that’s no concern of ours.”

The Falcones next made headlines with their purchase of Penthouse founder Bob Guccione’s sex mansion in the East 60s.

Let’s just say this was a very special residence; this money quote from the real estate agent tasked with selling it sums it up perfectly.

Speaking about features like the first floor’s massive, shimmering Roman-style pool, she said: “It’s odd to talk about houses like this, but that house had an odd energy to it.” So, were experts brought in to remedy Mr. Guccione’s energy? “Certainly… I hired two different feng shui people to look at it, and we had quite a few clearings on it. But that never stopped people from having odd feelings about it. Whenever people brought in children, they were ready to leave.”

The house featured honest-to-God 100% marble toilets:

To say nothing of its unparalleled collection of many-titted sculptures:

Unfortunately, this cultural landmark was promptly slated for destruction by the Falcones, who decided to gut it completely and rebuild from scratch.

For shame!! How dare they desecrate Guccione’s Caligulan perfection?

In an email to Gawker, Philip Falcone protested that he’s merely restoring the mansion to its original greatness, running some game about bringing the 1890s back. I ask you, would you rather see the 1890s brought back — or SEXY brought back? I think that question answers itself.

Then again, when you are married to Lisa Falcone, you bring sexy back every damn day.

Thus far the only real scandal associated with the colorful Falcones has been Gawker’s accusation that she draped her tittay balls around David Schwimmer in the movie “Breast Men,” but that proved to be a specious claim.

However, the accusations hitting the tabloids today are both explosive and juicy, like the time Rudy Huxtable and her fat white friend forgot to put the lid on the blender.

When it comes to tawdry Manhattan scandals, you need to go to the New York Post first:

A filthy rich Upper East Side couple treated their gay hired help like dirt, court papers charge.

In the Manhattan Supreme Court discrimination suit, William Gamble says billionaire Philip Falcone’s wife Lisa Maria subjected him to homophobic comments, repeatedly hit on him and struck him when he rebuffed her advances.

The couple also made Gamble work in a former pig-sty – literally. The suit says the previous occupant of Gamble’s office was the family’s pet pig, Wilbur, who was moved into more luxurious accommodations to make room for the help.

NY Magazine’s Daily Intel blog reports that Gamble ran into trouble the moment he started working for the Falcones, because he committed the twin crimes of gaiety and hotness.

Philip and Lisa Falcone will not abide it when you flaunt the twin crimes!

Upon his hiring to run the Falcones’ several houses, William Gamble was asked by Philip whether he was gay. When he said yes, this apparently sent both Falcones into a mad sexual shame spiral. “Falcone thereafter saw fit to utter homophobic comments directed at gay people in general and [Gamble] in particular,” the lawsuit claims…

Falcone’s wife couldn’t handle Gamble’s beauty any better, Gamble claims: According to the suit, she told him his “demeanor did not live up to her idea of what a stereotypical gay man should be, as [he] was not ‘effeminate’ enough.”

She teased him on a vacation for wearing bathing suits that weren’t skimpy enough, and then once, when she was drunk, “a visibly inebriated Falcone confronted and assaulted” Gamble, “forcibly pushing her hand down his pants to grab his genitals,” the suit says, as reported by the Post. “When rebuffed, Falcone struck [Gamble] three times with her hand forcefully enough to leave deep bruises on his abdomen.”

Quoting the terrifying straight woman from all gay men’s dreams, Lisa Maria then allegedly told Gamble “all he required was ‘a good fuck’ in order to change him into a heterosexual.” When the gang returned to New York, Gamble claims things never went back to normal. At one point, Gamble says, Lisa Maria hissed at him: “If you weren’t so beautiful, you wouldn’t be here.”

Lisa Falcone is used to getting her way, and you’d better play along like a docile ballet company unless you want to get your nuts squoze…

The Daily News piles on:

His brief stint with the couple came to an end shortly after a March 2008 trip to St. Barts, when Lisa Maria Falcone allegedly suggested that he don a skimpier swimsuit and mused that strangers might think he was her boytoy.

“She treated him like a barnyard animal,” said lawyer Jack Tuckner of Tuckner, Sipser, Weinstock & Sipser.

For their part, the Falcones vehemently deny the charges leveled against them. They call Gamble a money-grubbing liar who’s still bitter about getting fired.

Furthermore, they allege that he’s a fruitacious pansy with WAY too conservative taste in beachwear who might learn a thing or two if he would just loosen up and boof a cougar.

Lisa Falcone refused to reveal her age to the Times, saying she wants to be an example to young people. So take heed, young billionheiresses!

When you hire a gay guy to work for you, don’t treat him like your own personal Stanford Blatch, ie. with respect and love. Instead, sexually harass the shit out of him and you too can live in a STD-ridden sex mansion.

It’s the American Dream that every little girl in Spanish Harlem clings to. For one, it came true.

—

UPDATE: All the Lisa Falcone aficionados out there should not miss the profile in BusinessWeek by the genius writer Alexandra Wolfe. It’s a seriously hilarious read.

I’ll tantalize you with the opening paragraphs:

Lisa Falcone is sitting at the head of a conference table, rapping to music by Swizz Beatz and waving her tanned arms above her head. She’s meeting with the two employees of her fledgling company, Everest Entertainment. Just outside the room, her husband, Philip Falcone, is running his $9 billion hedge fund, Harbinger Capital, but that doesn’t hold her back. She produced the song and sings along as it blasts from iPod speakers on the table: “Come on bitches, get your hands in the air, ugly bitches too, we don’t care!”

Harbinger analysts walking by barely look up at Lisa, 41, who is striking in a low-cut leather dress and a huge diamond cross pendant. They know she’s the boss’s wife. Harbinger’s young, blond British receptionist brings a tray with a mug of green tea for Lisa, who likes to point out that the space is as much hers as her husband’s. “This is our office,” she says. “Eighteen years and no prenup means family office.”

Hahahaha. This picture is also a gem:

Elections were held in New York City and Boston yesterday, and both cities re-elected their mayors to new terms.

Yet the true results of these elections were as different as the cities themselves.

In Boston, Mayor Tom Menino won a record-setting fifth consecutive term in office, defeating challenger City Councilor Michael Flaherty by 57% to 42%.

In NYC, Mayor Michael Bloomberg won a third term, but by a narrow margin, defeating insurgent William C. Thompson by 51% to 47%.

Boston’s Menino is being called “Mayor for life” this morning, while observers are reacting with shock that New York’s Bloomberg barely got himself back into office, despite high approval ratings and a staggering advantage in campaign cash.

Both men have come a long way from their childhoods in Boston — Bloomberg left town to become one of the richest men in New York City and the successor to Rudy Giuliani, while Menino has never strayed from his enclave of Hyde Park, and slowly, gradually amassed a iron grip over the city of his birth.

Menino cruised where B-berg struggled yesterday because he knew something that the Wall Street billionaire didn’t – In politics, dogged incumbancy is an unstoppable strategy for maintaining a hold on power.

Tom Menino is an unlikely master politician.

He won the Mayor’s job as an almost anonymous City Councilor in the aftermath of Ray Flynn’s nomination as Ambassador to the Vatican.

Menino isn’t particularly polished. He isn’t a policy wonk. He isn’t a charismatic figure or an imposing tough guy.

He’s also a fairly horrible public speaker, a trait that has earned him the nickname “Mumbles”:

Through four terms in office, Menino has had his share of shortfalls.

A complete lack of transparency — obstruction of transparency, even — created a scandal that engulfed Menino’s top lieutenant, Michael Kineavy. In violation of the law, Kineavy routinely deleted emails that may have implicated the Mayor’s office in political corruption probes surrounding the City Council.

The city’s education system is troubled, an issue that has dogged Menino throughout the past few elections.

The mismanagement of the Boston Redevelopment Authority has led to large-scale debacles such as the giant hole in the ground at Downtown Crossing:

Challenger Michael Flaherty harped on all these topics and more, and even engaged the active support of the #3 contender, City Councilor Sam Yoon, to form a combination platter that local pundits dubbed “Floon.”

In the end, though, it mattered little, as Menino rallied his winning coalition and cruised to victory for the fifth straight time.

As a compelling Boston Globe piece demonstrates, Mayor Menino achieved this success by dogged determination, unflagging hard work, and a unique knowledge of — and connection to — the city voters who have returned him to office time and again:

On their own, they are petty encounters: A couple of “friends’’ of Michael F. Flaherty were admonished by city workers to get off his Facebook page; a state aide got advice from a city official that led to a parking ticket being dismissed; a Sam Yoon campaign office was cited by city inspectors for having too many window signs.

But taken together, these seemingly inconsequential incidents offer a rare window into the workings of Thomas M. Menino’s City Hall, a place where not even the most trivial slights go unnoticed and the smallest opportunities unnourished.

If Menino is the urban mechanic who famously knows every neighborhood in his city, and is regularly seen in them all, it is his sprawling machine that knows every building on every block, and has a reach into nearly every one.

Menino has assembled the most extensive political operation in modern Boston history over his 16 years in office, rivaling that of legendary mayor James Michael Curley. He’s done it the old-fashioned way, by blurring the lines between politics and policy, between city work and campaign work, delivering services to everyday residents and warnings to his rare foes – many of them intended to strengthen his electoral standing.

“You have to give Tom Menino credit,’’ said City Councilor Charles C. Yancey, a 25-year council veteran who has not endorsed in the mayor’s race. “He really has mastered the nuts and bolts of politics in Boston.’’

The focal point of Menino’s operation is dozens, even hundreds, of city workers who make the mayor’s political cause their own. By day, they perform constituent services, enforce city codes, issue parking tickets, and tow cars. By night, they volunteer their time for the mayor, attending community meetings or campaigning on his behalf.

Take the case of Jack Kelly, the city’s neighborhood liaison in Charlestown, who sent a friend an e-mail, according to documents obtained by the Globe, asking that he remove himself from Flaherty’s Facebook group.

“If he gets elected I lose my job,’’ Kelly said in the first message. When the friend didn’t immediately remove himself, Kelly followed up with another saying, “You’re killing me.’’

Or take the case of Michael J. Kineavy, the former iron worker who now holds the title of Boston’s chief of policy and planning, but is better known as Menino’s most trusted political adviser and most effective enforcer.

Kineavy was able to rattle off, in an interview, the number of people – 14 – who attended a fund-raiser for Flaherty’s mayoral campaign. How did he know?

“There was a guy in the room that was ours,’’ Kineavy said. “What’s wrong with that? It’s recon. That’s not even negative. It’s knowing what your enemy’s doing.’’

A Boston Globe Poll showed that 57 percent of Bostonians have personally met Mayor Menino, a statistic that no doubt contributes heavily to his success in bringing voters back to the polls again and again.

In an interview this morning on WBUR, local political pundit Larry DiCara noted that the key to Menino’s success is a tried-and-true coalition of voters that have carried him to victory in each election: city workers, African-Americans, Italians and liberals.

Like other candidates before him, Michael Flaherty tried and failed to unseat Menino and strip away a bloc or two from his winning coalition.

Tom Menino doesn’t seem, at first glance, to be a particularly impressive politician.

Yet he has succeeded in obtaining an unprecedented fifth term in office as Mayor of Boston because he has built an unstoppable political machine that exists for one reason alone: to run and control the city of Boston.

Many politicians run for each office with another, higher office in mind. Major figures on both the right and left have won major elective office, only to leverage that position to obtain a better one. We need only look to 2008, when Senator Obama left Washington to run for President after only a year or so, while Governor Mitt Romney stumped down South, dissing his Massachusetts constituents for political props.

Mayor Menino never fell victim to the narcissism that leads so many politicians into the throes of the Peter Principle, obtaining that promotion that’s just elite enough to get them in over their heads. He’s a man of Boston, always has been, and it’s now clear that nobody will be able to force him to relinquish his hold over the city until he himself decides it’s time to go.

Brian Mooney provides a fitting recap:

When he was sworn in as acting mayor more than 16 years ago, no one, not even Menino, could have imagined that he would one day become the virtual mayor for life.

How did he do it?

For more than 16 years, Menino’s City Hall has paid attention to the details – zoning, liquor licensing, and congestion – that affect the quality of life where residents do much of their shopping and socializing.

If Menino has a particular genius, it is that he understands Bostonians want to feel good about their neighborhood. That means visible police, antique street lights, and spruced-up business districts. From Brighton Square to Fields Corner, from Roslindale Village to Grove Hall in Roxbury, commercial districts have better stores and more restaurants and improved sidewalks and traffic controls.

He showed up, which matters a lot in politics. From the day he took office, Menino spent most days on the move, in every neighborhood of the city, meeting his constituents and hearing their hopes and complaints. Like Schaefer in Baltimore, he often took action which produced results that were tangible.

His administration devoted disproportionately large shares of discretionary funds to projects in Roxbury, the long-neglected heart of the city’s African-American community.

On matters of race, gay rights, and other social issues, Menino has been consistently progressive. Hizzoner’s Daley-like political machine tightened his grip on power, but even at its most efficient, a great field organization is worth only a few percentage points in the final vote tally. Menino, however, has sturdy political infrastructure in virtually all 254 precincts. His army on the ground is of every hue and generation, and many are City Hall’s eyes in their neighborhoods.

On Menino’s watch, the city has not suffered the financial crises and social upheavals of previous administrations. Crime and public education, always major issues in big cities, have been managed under Menino.

No one has found the silver bullet to solve the problems of urban school systems, and Menino is no exception. But with much work yet to be done on the schools, many voters seem to have given him a pass on an issue on which he once urged voters to judge him harshly.

Like Tom Menino, Mike Bloomberg was expected to win a new term in office, and he managed to do so. However, it was a victory that required changes in city law, not to mention a vast infusion of the Mayor’s personal wealth.

Bloomberg, a multi-billionaire Wall Street executive, whose visionary company Bloomberg LLP changed the way that bankers consume news, first won office in a tightly contested election against Democrat Mark Green.

After a highly successful first term, he captured reelection by 20% over Democrat Fernando Ferrer — a record for a Republican incumbent in New York City.

From the outset, Bloomberg’s management style was modeled on the one that served him well in the private sector:

Mayor-elect Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday that he would create a large, open office in the heart of City Hall — modeled after the one that he used to manage his private company, Bloomberg L.P. — from where and he and his top deputies would run the city. Mr. Bloomberg said he would relegate the mayor’s formal corner office to mainly ceremonial purposes.

The decision by Mr. Bloomberg, which he disclosed at a news conference yesterday called to announce the appointment of the United Nations Development Corporation president, suggests a major shift in the way City Hall is going to be run after Mr. Bloomberg takes over next Tuesday from his fellow Republican, Rudolph W. Giuliani. And it marks the clearest example to date of the extent to which Mr. Bloomberg intends to apply practices that he employed in the private sector to his first job in government.

”I will be working surrounded by the deputy mayors and main advisers,” Mr. Bloomberg said. He added: ”I mean, keep in mind there are physical constraints on what you can do at City Hall. But to the extent that that is possible — all my life I’ve worked in the middle, and I plan to do exactly that.”

The Park Avenue headquarters of Mr. Bloomberg’s company is a large sprawling floor of desks and computer monitors, without walls or dividers. His desk is set in a corner, visible and easily accessible to employees. Mr. Bloomberg said that the design of that office was intended to encourage employees, regardless of rank or stature, to approach him with ideas and questions. The open configuration has become a symbol of Mr. Bloomberg’s management style in the corporate world.

Bloomberg’s pragmatic approach and private-sector angle on government seemed to be serving him extremely well as recently as a year ago.

This led Bloomberg into an extended flirtation with the idea of seeking the Presidency as an independent candidate, potentially considering spending $1 billion of his wealth on the effort:

One day last July, Al From received an unexpected call from Michael Steinhardt. From is the founder and CEO of the Democratic Leadership Council, the centrist outfit in Washington that helped propel Bill Clinton into the White House; Steinhardt is the once-hellacious hedge-fund manager turned philanthropist whose name now graces the School of Education at NYU, a former chairman of the DLC, and a friend for decades of Mayor Michael Bloomberg. When From picked up the phone, Steinhardt greeted him thus: “How’d you like to come to New York and have dinner with the next president of the United States?”

From replied, teasingly, “I didn’t realize you’re so friendly with Hillary Clinton.”

The genesis of Steinhardt’s call was a conversation with New York City schools chancellor Joel Klein. Klein said that “Bloomberg was preoccupied—no, that’s too strong a word—that he was really focused on whether he should run for president,” Steinhardt recalls. Steinhardt reminded Klein of his association with the DLC and told him that if Bloomberg wanted to meet From “to get some perspective about the realities of running for national office,” he would happily arrange it. Fifteen minutes later, Klein called back and said that Bloomberg certainly did.

[...]

Steinhardt left the dinner buzzing and spent weeks talking up the prospect of Bloomberg 2008 at various dinner parties. From returned to Washington dubious about Bloomberg’s presidential prospects, yet firm in one conclusion. “They’re serious about it,” he tells me. “I don’t necessarily think that they’re going to do it, but they clearly want to be ready if the opportunity is there.”

Until last week, when the furor over the Queens police shooting erupted, Michael Bloomberg, 64, was having a nearly perfect year. His approval numbers, which in 2003 fell to 24 percent, had been above 70 percent since January. By taking visible and voluble positions on issues from guns to immigration to stem-cell research, he’d started to carve out a national profile…

From Bloomberg’s City Hall coterie comes a consistent refrain: that their boss has emerged as more than a competent, steady, managerial steward; that he is, in the words of Deputy Mayor Dan Doctoroff, “a great, visionary mayor.” This sentiment is echoed, not surprisingly, by his friends. “There’s just no question,” says the investor Steve Rattner, “that he is the greatest mayor of New York since Fiorella La Guardia.”

Fast-forward to 2009. Bloomberg wisely chose to avoid a Presidential run, which would have led to his trampling by the Obama juggernaut. Returning his focus to NYC, he presided over a colossal Wall Street crash and an increasingly disillusioned electorate.

Bloomberg persuaded the City Council to change the law to allow him to seek a third term; New York City voters have twice rejected appeals to change this law in the past.

In the run-up to the election, Bloomberg’s campaign team warned him that the metrics had turned against him. Re-election, once seemingly inevitable, would be a brutal slog uphill.

A terrific piece in the New York Times today gives us the rundown:

In the days after the mayor had emerged, victorious, but badly bruised, from his fight to rewrite the city’s term limits law, Mr. Bloomberg and his three top deputies, Edward Skyler, Patricia E. Harris and Kevin Sheekey, gathered in the Staten Island room in City Hall and began to plot his campaign.

They warned him that it would be entirely different from his campaigns in 2001 and 2005. “This will be really hard,” one participant said.

Mr. Sheekey, the mayor’s political guru, urged him to quickly send a warning to potential challengers. He suggested recruiting a high-profile attack dog for the campaign and disclosing it to the press. The choice was obvious: Howard Wolfson, the combative former communications director for Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential run…

Mr. Sheekey pushed what he called the Powell Doctrine — a burst of overwhelming force that would discourage anybody who was even thinking about taking on the mayor.

This strategy succeeded in pushing Rep. Anthony Weiner from the race, a victory that in retrospect seems absolutely crucial.

Bloomberg’s ultimate opponent, Comptroller Bill Thompson Jr., ran a lackluster and inept campaign, surprising the Mayor’s reelection team with its almost complete inability to grab the attention of the local media:

The only obstacle remaining was Mr. Thompson. At Thompson campaign headquarters near Union Square, Mr. Bloomberg’s display of political might over the summer — he had spent $37 million by July 11 — was having its desired effect. By August, Mr. Thompson’s advertising team had stopped trying to track the mayor’s television and radio spending, standard practice in a campaign, telling colleagues it was too depressing. Anne Fenton, Mr. Thompson’s press secretary, told friends that she was intimidated by Mr. Wolfson.

At times, the Bloomberg campaign, waging what they proudly saw as a presidential-level operation, seemed puzzled by the poorly financed, sometimes loosely disciplined Thompson effort. The candidate’s daily schedule was curiously light, and easy opportunities to score political points were neglected.

Midway into the campaign, Mr. Thompson scheduled a publicity tour through a foreclosure-battered section of Queens, , setting off fears among Bloomberg advisers that the next day’s papers would be filled with articles suggesting that Mr. Bloomberg had neglected New York City’s neediest.

Team Bloomberg swung into action, dispatching a group of researchers to dig up Mr. Thompson’s ties to what they called an “anti-union developer” and $400,000 in campaign donations from real estate companies. They tapped out a 2,000-word e-mail message to the news media, titled “Thompson’s Rhetoric on Affordable Housing Doesn’t Match His Record” and prepared to hit the send button.

But to their astonishment, the Thompson campaign attracted almost no press to the event. The e-mail message never went out.

Despite the lack of a compelling alternative, some New Yorkers felt strongly that a “not-Bloomberg” vote was the way to go.

An epic rant by Gawker’s Alex Pareene is difficult to excerpt, because it hammers virtually every gripe that the city’s residents have with Bloomberg. Here are some of the highlights:

Tomorrow is Election Day! You will probably not vote, because there are no contested races for anything important in 90% of the nation. But if you are a New Yorker, we have one message: don’t vote for Michael Bloomberg.

You know those idiots who don’t know anything about politics but think it sounds smart to say “I am a social liberal and an economic conservative?” Bloomberg is the candidate for them, if they love a liberal nanny state and a conservative religious fervor for the eternal goodness of private enterprise.

For all the talk of Bloomberg the power-player who at least gets things done without worrying about the unions and special interests, he’s been unable to win any political battle with anyone he couldn’t literally buy off. Like Sheldon Silver, who (thankfully) killed the West Side Stadium and (annoyingly) ended all that “Congestion Pricing” talk. And those unions and special interests were just bought off, which worked fine back when the boom whose end Bloomberg never saw coming was in full swing.

And about that stadium: what the fuck was that? And the Olympics thing? After bitching about Giuliani’s disgraceful subsidizing of the fucking Yankees, Bloomberg both turns around completely on that particular issue and attempts to build the fucking Jets a stadium, so that New York could get an Olympics that it did not want. And that failed, and everyone forgot about it. Meanwhile: 40,000 people in shelters! Bloomberg could personally buy every single one of those people an apartment in a vacant Williamsburg luxury condo building and still have enough left over to bribe a City Council member into supporting his fifth term.

[...]

His record on housing, like his record on nearly everything having to do with the outer boroughs and poverty and human beings who make less than $100,000 a year, has been a ridiculous disgrace. His entire philosophy of development solving everything turned out to be precisely, 100% wrong, and suddenly the city itself was driving the real estate boom, driving up land prices to absurd levels across the boroughs and tearing down neighborhoods only to replace them with vacant lots and half-filled cheaply built hideous high-rises once the bottom fell out of the City Hall-inflated market. But hey, we got the High Line and 311! So you can sleep in that fancy park while you call 311 asking if there is room in a shelter because you can no longer afford your home.

Eight years into the Bloomberg administration, Ground Zero is a still a hole that everyone continues fighting about.

[...]

What he has done is Keep Us Safe by never once giving a shit about Civil Liberties. The cops stop and frisk thousands more people every year, your 4th Amendment rights do not apply in the Subway system, and expensive and completely ineffective new rings of cameras are going up across Manhattan.

Bloomberg deserves to be run out of town on an inadequately funded public rail line for the 2004 GOP convention alone. Remember that ridiculous farce? No, of course not, no one does, besides the thousands of people improperly spied on, arrested, harassed, and detained by the NYPD. All of this was completely illegal. No heads rolled.

One more special bonus factoid: New York leads the world in marijuana arrests! Specifically, marijuana arrests of black people!

And he is personally a jerk. He is a thin-skinned, unpleasant, sanctimonious asshole. His company is being sued for a culture of sexual discrimination that plaintiffs say Bloomberg himself contributed to. He is a tremendous dick to reporters whenever he gets cranky. He is fucking race-baiting with Rudy Giuliani again, because why not?

He has been a shitty mayor and he does not deserve the support of anyone who claims to be a liberal. Though what all of his most destructive missteps as mayor have in common is that they do not in any way upset or inconvenience the well-off self-professed liberals who support him. Besides maybe a couple Critical Mass riders arrested in illegal sweeps. (Though he sure does like bike lanes, so it’s a wash, right?)

We cannot encourage you to vote for the Democrat in the race, because even we still aren’t sure if we’ll go for him or the much more delightful Billy Talen. Just don’t fucking vote for Michael Bloomberg.

Despite all this, Bloomberg won a third term — in a squeaker.

Why?

His unlimited campaign funds couldn’t hurt: the mayor spent $157.27 per vote, as compared to Thompson’s $13.12.

His opposition was pretty pathetic, and he managed to keep Barack Obama from endorsing Thompson – a critical power play that probably saved his ass.

At the end of the day, Bloomberg retains a 70% approval rating; and yet a quarter of those who supported Bloomberg’s performance voted against him regardless.

Nevertheless, you don’t get bonus points for winning an election by a landslide – it’s winner-take-all in the USA, and Mike Bloomberg won.

Now, it’s very difficult to draw parallels between a city with 8 million residents and a city with 600,000 residents.

New York’s mayor rules over Manhattan and all the diverse outer boroughs, with all the complexity that entails. Boston’s mayor need not worry about nearby urban centers like Cambridge, Somerville and Quincy — he’s the lord of a relatively small fiefdom.

Still, on the day after election day, it’s interesting to observe the asymmetries between Boston’s “Mayor for Life” and the once-unstoppable NYC mayor who has to be wiping the sweat from his brow as he reflects on the narrow margin by which he won yesterday.

Bloomberg’s presidential dreams seem, in retrospect, to contain the seeds of his near-downfall: the hubris, ambition, and self-absorption that turned many New Yorkers against him on election day were all wrapped up in that lengthy flirtation with higher office.

Moreover, though, if Bloomberg wants to be the Richard Daley of New York City, he’ll need to develop the kind of organization that Menino has — on a larger scale, of course — and get his tentacles into every aspect of the city. Bloomberg will have to decide that his ambitions do not exceed the mayorship of NYC, and focus on maintaining and extending his power. There’s no doubt that a stronger opponent than Thompson would have cleaned his clock. Until Bloomberg has more than money on his side, he’ll remain extremely vulnerable, especially with the city in a weakened economic state.

When the voters feel that you’re on their side, that they know you and you know them — you can maintain power essentially forever.

As The Awl’s Choire points out this morning, that isn’t the case with Michael Bloomberg and many New Yorkers:

What people were voting against, in one way or another, was about being left behind. It was about financial inequity. What every New Yorker knows is that the City ran amok with the cost of housing, while home prices increased 77% between 2002 and 2007, and while, in 2007, the median household income in New York City was still only $48,631. The skew of the top 1% of earners very nearly did the City in—before the top 1% did itself in.

Bloomberg’s biggest problem with voters, and the reason that he actually very nearly lost yesterday, to a man who could barely run a campaign, is that people believe that the rich side with the rich—and yes, even when the rich also sponsor massive charitable giving. The Bloomberg bad bargaining policies of million-dollar real estate kickbacks for corporate real estate, and the administration’s failure to reach its goals in affordable housing, rankle with the middle class for a reason: these policies create larger inequity each year.

And now, we believe that the goals of the Bloomberg third term are to restore the City to the planned outcome of his first term, before the crash—a place of ever-growing division between rich and poor. His outrageous $100-million-plus campaign only served to reinforce the impression regarding who he really represents.

It’s up to Bloomberg to convince New Yorkers differently between now and 2012.

ROTI’s official LEED expert, GoGoMrPoPo, submitted this great news to our inbox this morning.

The Empire State Building will soon be a lot more energy efficient: A series of green renovations were announced for the iconic New York City skyscraper that reduce its energy usage by 40%.

Work has already begun on the $20 million retrofit, which is being done as a joint project involving the Clinton Climate Initiative, Rocky Mountain Institute, Johnson Controls, and Jones Lang LaSalle, and is part of a greater $500 million in planned renovations. Building systems work is expected to be completed in 2010, with work in tenant spaces finished be the end of 2013. At least half of the energy savings should be realized by work completed within the first 18 months of the project.

Since full one quarter of NYC’s GHG emissions are the responsibility of commercial buildings, EarthTech asks, “What took so long?” for the tallest skyscraper to climb onboard the energy efficiency/GHG mitigation express.

But as a very informative post at Green Buildings explains, the project doesn’t simply seek to achieve a marginal increase in efficiency, or a fractional decrease in GHG emissions.

Instead of a dog-and-pony show in the name of “being green,” the Empire State Building is looking for MAXIMUM efficiency improvements across the board.

In a few years, one of the most famous buildings in America could be rated LEED Gold:

The major element that sets it apart is its approach to achieving energy efficiency…

Instead of pursuing incremental improvements, the project partners asked themselves “How can we do this differently to achieve a different outcome … what would be the way to achieve maximum efficiency,” Campbell said.

“The idea was,” Nesler said, “How can we make the investment smarter?”

The result, Nesler and Campbell said, was a series of innovations that were developed for the Empire State Building efficiency upgrade but can be applied to other major commercial buildings.

The first group of innovations involve a whole-building approach to data collection, analysis, achieved and projected energy performance, and evaluation of potential improvements (60 measures were examined) based on the amount of carbon reduction and financial returns.

The second innovation involves providing tenants as well as the building owner with incentives to further efficiency efforts. In the Empire State Building, the owner and the occupants each account for half energy savings. The building owner benefits by realizing the savings made possible by the retrofit investment. And to better engage the occupants, a web-based tenant energy management system is being installed to measure energy at a floor level. The tool is designed to provide tenants with the data and advice to help them manage their energy use. In addition, several “green pre-built” suites are being constructed in the building as a models of high-performance, energy efficiency and cost effective office space.

The third leg in the innovation triangle involves the use of a performance contract in the project. Johnson Controls is guaranteeing the energy savings via a performance contract, and such an instrument would be effective in obtaining third-party energy efficiency financing for retrofit projects, Campbell and Nesler noted. Though such financing wasn’t necessary for the Empire State Building project, it could be crucial for retrofit projects undertaken by others.

The ability to replicate their model has been among the guiding principles of the project, Nesler and Campbell said. To that end, the measurement, performance modeling and financial tools and other material developed in the analysis process by the project partners are being made available online for public use[.]

This three-leg approach, as Green Buildings describes it, ought to be tremendously successful because it allows all the stakeholders to buy in to the project…

This plan works for owner Anthony Malkin (of Wein & Malkin) because it promises to demonstrate holistic improvements that will help reduce GHG emissions and energy expenses for the company’s flagship property. Malkin himself spearheaded this effort, so you know (a) the owners are very much on board and (b) this is probably great for the building’s bottom line.

Giving tenants access to energy-efficiency results is a brilliant move. Once tenants realize that the steps they take to reduce energy use have a very real effect – and they can see the results online right away – they will be spurred to take further steps in service of the GHG-reduction goal.

Finally, it’s encouraging to see that the project team itself is all-in on this one – tying its compensation to the results of the project. This is evidence of the team’s faith in the project and a great model for future energy-efficiency projects, in that it makes these efforts a demonstrably good investment.

After reviewing more than sixty options, the project decided to attack inefficiency using eight major strategies:

1. Window Light Retrofit: Refurbishment of approximately 6,500 thermopane glass windows, using existing glass and sashes to create triple-glazed insulated panels with new components that dramatically reduce both summer heat load and winter heat loss.
2. Radiator Insulation Retrofit: Added insulation behind radiators to reduce heat loss and more efficiently heat the building perimeter.
3. Tenant Lighting, Daylighting and Plug Upgrades: Introduction of improved lighting designs, daylighting controls, and plug load occupancy sensors in common areas and tenant spaces to reduce electricity costs and cooling loads.
4. Air Handler Replacements: Replacement of air handling units with variable frequency drive fans to allow increased energy efficiency in operation while improving comfort for individual tenants.
5. Chiller Plant Retrofit: Reuse of existing chiller shells while removing and replacing “guts” to improve chiller efficiency and controllability, including the introduction of variable frequency drives.
6. Whole-Building Control System Upgrade: Upgrade of existing building control system to optimize HVAC operation as well as provide more detailed sub-metering information.
7. Ventilation Control Upgrade: Introduction of demand control ventilation in occupied spaces to improve air quality and reduce energy required to condition outside air.
8. Tenant Energy Management Systems: Introduction of individualized, web-based power usage systems for each tenant to allow more efficient management of power usage.

Unless you’re a thermopane window junkie or an HVAC engineer, the TEMS (#8) is undoubtedly the sexiest of these items.

We always turn directly to the handy bar-chart on our ROTI headquarters electric bill to see how we did in conserving energy each month…

Now Empire State Building tenants will have a web-based interface that will (hopefully) enable them to drill down and see the fruits of their conservation efforts. Thumbs up.

All this said, we do have a bone to pick with an incredibly annoying blog post by Johnson Controls’ Iain Campbell, boasting about his company’s big contract and chalking it up to his belief in Eastern philosophy:

I believe in karma. What was announced today must be karma.

To understand, rewind to almost exactly 79 years ago — March 1930. It was one this country’s most economically depressing times. Business was in shambles and consumer confidence was waning. Two business titans got together as sort of a competition and to help restore confidence and strength in America. Walter Chrysler (Chrysler Corp.) and John Jakob Raskob (creator of General Motors) decided to see who could build the tallest building, and the Empire State Building in New York came into existence.

Fast forward and our world is facing some economic challenges, our automotive industry is struggling and we consumer confidence is waning. So what else would we do but something similar in scope to what was done 79 years ago.

[...]

Karma. Just like 79 years ago there was a drive to do something good during bad times…

And we’re starting with what is certainly one of the most recognizable and beloved buildings anywhere – the building named after the great state that it calls home: the Empire State Building.

Johnson Controls has always stated that improving energy efficiency is the first and most important step toward achieving sustainability in buildings and homes. Energy efficiency helps control rising energy costs, reduces environmental footprints, and increases the value and competitiveness of buildings.

Karma.

Efficiency now. It’s never been more important.

The idea that making capital investments during a recession equates with “karma” is straight idiotic.

Sure, there’s an argument to be made that building a skyscraper or fighting GHG emissions is a positive thing to do for the world. But that isn’t the motivation behind this project, nor should it have been.

Increasing energy efficiency and reducing GHG emissions isn’t about some touchy-feely Babyface “Change the World” ideology. Acting like this is all about “karma” is childish and makes the project sound frivolous, when it is anything but.

Energy efficiency is critical to the bottom line in business today. When energy costs are high and rising, bleeding energy out your building makes no economic sense!

Moreover, today’s consumers are more environmentally conscious than ever. People want to lease office space in green buildings, and will actually pay more to do so. When you demonstrate that your product or service benefits the environment, it’s a positive thing in the marketplace, especially in a green-conscious city like New York. Ignoring this reality also makes no economic sense!

Responding to the public’s demand for action, regulators in New York and elsewhere are rolling out new GHG regulations every day. Why wantonly spew GHG emissions out your stacks when it will mean a hefty bill from the state? Dropping the ball on energy-efficiency at a time of encroaching regulation makes no economic sense!

That’s even before you consider doomsday scenarios: if GHG emissions have the results that many scientists predict, Manhattan real estate could be seriously imperiled by rising tides! Contributing to a global peril that might put your first floor underwater definitely makes no economic sense!

Ultimately, Wein & Malkin is not ordering a wholesale efficiency overhaul because they want to build good karma.

They’re doing it because to do otherwise would be bad business.

Hopefully, every other skyscraper in New York will follow suit.

(And maybe toss the work to companies whose principals won’t waste our time with idiotic, self-congratulatory blog posts?)

Dan Meth, a cartoonist, animator, illustrator and web guru, has begun a series of pop-cultural charts that are truly glorious.

Above, please note his first effort, a skillful dissection of the greatest trilogies of our time.

Anyone might quibble with one or two of his ratings, but his list of perfect films among these trilogies seems pretty spot-on to us:

• The Empire Strikes Back
• Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Jaws
• The Godfather Part II
• Terminator 2
• Aliens

The very worst of the bunch are identified as Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Godfather III and Batman & Robin. Deliciously terrible movies all.

That is as good a reason as we need to post this video:

Dan Meth would deserve commendation had he rested with the Trilogy Meter, but no.

He has continued the series and it just keeps getting better.

Holy crap, that is so TRUE.

Incidentally, the Kitchen/Living Room shows are way, way better than the Living Room/Kitchen shows, in our humble opine.

I guess this means that if you want to have entertaining family, buy a house with the kitchen on the left.

(Assuming that an entire wall of your house was removed and you were viewing it from the outside…)

Now comes some truly groundbreaking aggregations of data…

Dan notes, “The untapped Williamsburg Hipster sitcom setting is plain to see,” while Cityfile wails, “Greenpoint could really use a sitcom.“

Spare us on both counts.

Finally…the masterstroke.

A chart that practically serves as a template for future sitcoms…

Pop-Cultural Chart #4: a work of magical genius.

(Click here for full size.)

Never before have the openings for legitimately novel (in setting, anyway) television ideas been made so obvious and plain.

Here are a few riffs you LA peeps can run with…

The Oregon Trail (Wednesdays on ABC): Quarterlife coming-of-age dramedy centered around a group of Portland hipsters. When you’ve been told your whole life that you’re special…what if you’re not? Will Garen’s band hit the big time – and what would that mean for his relationship with college sweetheart Julie? And when will Trapper’s stoner antics ever quit? Giggles and tears blend effortlessly in this heartwearming paean to a generation. Theme song by The Shins.

Redstick at Large (Thursdays on NBC): Baton Rouge, LA isn’t a big enough town to contain gregarious ginger LSU offensive lineman Petey O’Brien. When he isn’t making a pancake block to pave the way for the winning touchdown, he’s causing trouble with his absurd pratfalls and irresponsible goofiness. Will Coach Mathis and Petey’s stern tutor Vanessa ever be able to whip him into shape? And will Petey ever win Vanessa’s heart? “My Name Is Earl” meets “Coach.”

Big Sky Country (Tuesdays on CBS): Chuck Freeman (Dean Cain) is a straight-talking cowboy whose family has run a Montana ranch for generations. That was before city-slicker Tucker Dyson (David Hyde Pierce) moved in next door, part of an influx of snooty liberals out to transform the state. The culture clash is bound to be gigglesome as these two opposites clash and reconcile every week! Co-starring Katharine McPhee as Becky, the winsome country singer who wins the heart of both men…

Man, we could do this all damn day. Assuming someone would pay us for it.

Thanks, Dan Meth.

We heartily look forward to more pop-cultural charts!

Dr. Thomas Frieden, the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, has put some serious notches on his public health pistol in recent years.

First, New York City banned smoking indoors, a revolutionary act that soon spread to almost every other major American city. The ripple effects even crossed the Atlantic: it’s now illegal to smoke inside in freakin’ PARIS.

Having wiped out a cultural trend almost single-handedly, and slashed the number of NYC smokers by hundreds of thousands, Dr. Frieden probably could have rested on his laurels as a public health hero.

Not so much.

Next victim: trans fats. New York banned ‘em, and surprise surprise, the restaurant biz didn’t collapse. There were already healthier substitutes available, it was just cheaper to poison their customers with the vile substance.

Again, the ban spread quickly to other cities and appears to be another major coup for Dr. Frieden.

The commissioner has also tightened up health inspections and mandated the sale of low-fat milk in NYC bodegas.

Now he’s poised for his next major strike.

New York City is about to force food manufacturers and restaurant chains to cut their sodium (salt) levels.

The tone of a recent meeting, and a media push led by a NYTIMES article out today, send a clear message:

Cooperate and slash salt content, or we will drop regulation on you FOR REALS.

DR. THOMAS R. FRIEDEN invited some of the biggest names in food processing to lunch last October. Grilled salmon and green salad were on the menu, but the subject was salt.

After a string of victories over smoking, trans fats and calories, Dr. Frieden, the commissioner of New York City’s Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, is waging a new campaign: to lower the amount of sodium America eats.

But don’t go hiding your saltshakers. The city isn’t going after the seasoning people add at the table or in the kitchen. That makes up only about 11 percent of the salt people eat, Dr. Frieden says.

His targets are packaged foods and mass-produced restaurant meals, which contribute 80 percent of the sodium in the average American diet.

When the food company executives had finished lunch, Dr. Frieden made his pitch: Over the next five years, identify the foods that are contributing the most sodium to people’s diets and cut the level of salt by 25 percent. In a decade, cut it by another 25 percent. And do it in unison with your competitors.

If they refuse?

“If there’s not progress in a few years, we’ll have to consider other options, like legislation,” he said in an interview last week.

The last two times Dr. Frieden stepped into the nutrition wars, he gave muscle to nationwide moves to ban trans fats and post calorie counts on restaurant menus. That means you could soon be hearing more about salt than you have in a long time.

“The one thing that’s disturbing is that he seems to be able to do just about anything he wants in New York City, and New York City serves as a model for the rest of the world,” said E. Charles Hunt of the New York Restaurant Association and a veteran of legal wars over Dr. Frieden’s food policies.

Commish Frieden may have a battle on his hands this time, as the restaurant and food industries realize that he’s been kicking their asses for some time now, and eventually they need to draw a line in the sand and fight.

Frieden: “Don’t get salty with me.”

The scope of Frieden’s plan is ambitious and enormous. Instead of effecting change through regulation of small businesses like restaurants, bars and bodegas, he’s attempting to coordinate a national sodium-reduction project that would primarily be implemented by large corporations, few of whom fall under NYC jurisdiction.

Frieden’s only hammer here is the clear power of New York City regulation to influence regulations in other cities, and the threat that sweeping legislation could prove more deleterious to the food/restaurant industry’s bottom line than a voluntary program would.

Because other nutritional culprits have gotten more attention lately, salt and the case against it has faded into the background. Most of the nation’s heart researchers agree that high blood pressure is a leading factor in the incidence of heart attack and stroke. And in some people, but not everyone, salt causes high blood pressure. While drugs can treat hypertension, not everybody has access to medication. And although doctors have been telling people to watch their salt for years, it hasn’t been working.

That’s why Dr. Frieden says a quiet, mass reduction in sodium levels — stealth health, they like to call it around the department — might be more effective. Lower sodium levels by 50 percent, and 150,000 American lives a year might be saved, he said.

Under his plan, which is based on one in the United Kingdom, targets for sodium reduction will be set for certain food categories. The prime suspects include cheese, breakfast cereals, bread, macaroni and noodle products, cake mixes, condiments and soups. The final list of sodium targets will be based on a formula that takes into account the amount of sodium in a product as well as how much food in that category people eat.

The idea isn’t to force small bakers or high-end chefs to salt less liberally. Health officials believe it’s the big companies that can have the biggest effect on sodium.

“If they bring it down by 5 percent, that is going to do more than Danny Meyer bringing it down by 50 percent,” said Geoffrey Cowley, an associate commissioner of the Health Department, referring to the New York restaurateur.

Although he has jurisdiction over only New York City, Dr. Frieden is presenting the plan as a “national salt-reduction initiative” that includes support from a half-dozen other health departments around the country and organizations like the American Medical Association.

To take his idea beyond the city, Dr. Frieden convened his series of salt talks. The first was in late October, when he asked companies like Unilever, PepsiCo and Goya to Gracie Mansion. In February, he and a team from the Health Department will meet with the leaders of chain restaurants.

People in the Health Department thought the lunch was such a success they celebrated over drinks later that day. Some industry leaders had a different perspective.

“I would say the invitations to come to Gracie Mansion weren’t very inviting,” said an executive with a food manufacturer who was not authorized to speak for the company about the New York Health Department. “There was definitely a feeling of ‘Don’t make us shame you.’ ”

Robert Earl, vice president for science policy, nutrition and health of the Grocery Manufacturers Association, said his members would prefer a national sodium strategy that included a wider range of players, including consumer and advocacy groups.

There are other problems, he said. Getting many companies to do something at the same time might have antitrust implications. And more research is needed to understand what consumers want and the complex health implications of sodium reduction.

One significant hurdle is the absence of a decent salt substitute. Whereas restaurants that had previously used trans fatty oils were easily, if not inexpensively, able to switch to more healthy oil substitutes, there is no salt-Splenda that can be quickly subbed in to provide the same great taste with less sodium-riffic fallout.

Therefore, the possibility exists of a public backlash if food becomes abruptly less salty at the Sizzler.

Currently, the guidelines suggest people eat no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day (although on food labels the upper limit of sodium for a 2,000 calorie diet is 2,400 milligrams). That’s about a teaspoon of salt, and half of what many people actually eat. Those more prone to high blood pressure, like African-Americans and older people, are advised to eat much less.

The food industry, too, has taken up sodium reduction with new energy. The grocery manufacturers’ group and the National Restaurant Association each held sodium conferences recently. At both gatherings, how to find a good salt substitute was a central topic.

“It’s frankly been one of those holy grails in the food industry for a number of years,” said Todd Abraham, a senior vice president for Kraft foods.

Kraft alone has spent $20 million on sodium reduction research, studying chemicals that block taste receptors and experimenting with yeast or potassium as substitutes.

It’s relatively easy to reduce salt that is applied topically, like that on potato chips. But those chips, while they may taste saltier, usually contain less sodium than items like muffins. That’s because salt’s role in processing packaged foods goes beyond flavor. It helps create structure in breads and encourages browning in baked goods. Salt helps emulsify the ingredients in bologna and American cheese, and keeps pathogens at bay.

As disturbing as this may sound, we recall similar arguments being raised when the trans fat ban came down…”your donuts will be flaccid without those sweet, sweet trans fats, people!!!”

Still, it’s clear that companies have been looking into this issue on their own, and would like to address it if they can.

However, we summon to mind the Ford EcoBoost program: when it appeared last year that they would finally be forced to raise fuel efficiency by the federal government, Ford suddenly came up with an amazing new futuristic program to reduce fuel consumption by 20%.

Turns out that this technology was not at all new and had been in use by European carmakers for years. It simply took the threat of tough regulation to kick Ford’s ass into gear.

Could Kraft et al require a similar boot to the bottom to start thinking seriously about implementing salt substitution/reduction, as opposed to simply throwing money at it?

One important caveat noted by the Times story notes is that there is not a rock-solid medical research consensus on the health threats posed by sodium. Public health officials are of one mind, but academics aren’t so sure.

Beyond the technical hurdles, Dr. Frieden might encounter resistance on scientific grounds. Some medical researchers question whether a mass reduction in sodium is the best way to spend public-health resources when losing weight and quitting cigarettes would do more for the country’s heart health.

Genetics dictate that different people have different reactions to sodium. Some people are more sensitive to high levels of salt. For others, low levels of sodium can be unhealthy.

But public health officials say there is a strong consensus that salt leads to higher rates of heart attacks and strokes.

That consensus alarms Dr. Michael Alderman, editor in chief of the American Journal of Hypertension, who thinks more clinical studies need to be done. And, he says, wild swings in dietary regulation haven’t always worked out.

Even trans fat, in the form of margarine, was once promoted by health officials as healthier than butter. It turns out that trans fats were worse for heart health than saturated fats.

“Diet is an incredibly complicated business,” Dr. Alderman said.

Whether you think this proposed sodium-reduction plan is the tastiest fruit of the genius tree, or consider it damnable nanny-state meddling, you can get at Dr. Thomas Frieden in an ongoing public Q & A on the Times website.

Gossip Girl, one of the hottest and most controversial shows on TV!

This show has scandalized everyone with its ever-twisting plotlines, its admirable collection of young tail, and its off-set “showmances.”

And those names!! Those mellifluous names like “Badgley,” and “Momsen.”

The New York Times noticed, archly:

In any case, the normally tranquil block — Carnegie Hill has many needlepoint shops, boutiques with children’s clothing from France and, of course, private schools — contained a small mob scene of 11- to 15-year-old girls, particularly after 3 p.m. each day, when classes had let out. On Tuesday, they came in groups of four and five, in pairs and alone, and massed on Park Avenue and in front of the church entrance on 93rd Street, waiting to glimpse the show’s principals.

At first blush, it could be difficult to figure out who was in the show and who was merely watching the filming. Where did real life end and fiction begin?

“I totally want to see Chuck,” said 14-year-old Catherine, who appeared to be the ringleader of a group of Sacred Heart eighth graders and who was wary of sharing her full name. She meant Chuck Bass, the young roué played by Ed Westwick.

“Blake Lively is my idol,” she said, referring to the actress who plays Serena van der Woodsen. “But if Chuck walked out here, I think I’d jump him.”

Katherine Withseidelin and Hollis Alpert, who are in the eighth grade at Chapin, were there early on Tuesday afternoon. “We saw Chuck yesterday,” Miss Withseidelin said.

“Yeah, that was a big deal,” Miss Alpert said. “He sort of was just, like, walking back to his trailer. So we got pictures. This is our third time here.”

US Weekly squealed:

Apparently Ed Westwick and Jessica Szohr are mixing business with pleasure.

W Magazine is reporting that the Gossip Girl co-stars were spotted kissing “definitely on the lips” in a Dallas airport on Sunday.

“Not a French kiss, but a smooch definitely,” the magazine reports. “They were being very flirty when people were not paying attention.”

The New York Post adds that “they were trying to be discreet by stealing kisses near the gate.”

The two rode coach on their way back to New York City, the Post reports, and “were kissing in the aisles, but once they sat, she read her script and he drank a Heineken.”

A rep for the stars would not comment.

Good golly!! Noticed in publications high and low.

The Gossip Girl Facebook group has 762,618 members! (For reference, CBS timeslot rival The Big Bang Theory’s group has 180,392.)

Confession time. We’ve seen this show, and found it to be as delightfully stupid as many of its primetime teen soap opera predecessors. It’s not a good show, per se, but it achieves what it sets out to do.

And some of them ladies are fine…

Blake Lively is a good as it gets, and you gotta love Meester! She was born in prison!

Google Trends reveals that GG receives press and web coverage far outstripping any of its timeslot rivals:

There’s only one problem with this picture.

NOBODY WATCHES GOSSIP GIRL.

Brendon from WWTDD noticed:

The media goes all crazy over Gossip Girl, and no one really has any idea why, because no one watches that boring shit. Even in the coveted 18-34 demo, where one would assume it would do well, it was behind “Cuidado con el Angel”, and an hour later almost twice as many people watched “Feugo en la Sangre”. I don’t know what the hell that is, but if it’s like all the other Mexican TV I’ve accidentally watched, it’s pure fucking madness, a talk show with a midget in a diaper chasing money and a super hot hooker with big tits and a some really fat twins on a tiny motorcycle, and then a chupacabra report, brought to you by Nestles Abuelita. Way to go Gossip Girl.

There’s no shame in losing to 24, but to get pasted by every terrible show on network television that entire night?

That’s just weak.

You wouldn’t know how sucky this show’s ratings are from the cavalcade of coverage it has received.

Hmm, maybe this has to do with shooting your show in New York, media capital of Earth, and pitching your themes directly to the snooty, sleaze-centric audience of the media elite!

Despite all the press coverage, this show has a problem. It really doesn’t have that many fans.

Here’s a list of the ratings for every episode. Not one showing of this series has exceeded a 2.0 rating in the 18-49 demographic.

So, what stunt can executive producer Josh Schwartz pull to turn this baby around?

Eh, just his same old tricks from his “O.C.” days. Cheesy “hip” music and showmances.

We noticed this interesting note on a Gawker roundup of blind items:

“The old movie studio system used to match up gay stars with beards to improve their marketability. Times haven’t changed much. Two young Hollywood couples are now being employed in such a ruse. The men in each couple are gay, and the girls are the beards. All of them are aware of their roles. There’s an interesting twist coming up, though. Now that the novelty of each couple has worn off, each couple will be breaking up and swapping partners with the other to stir up controversy and to get them back on the magazine covers.”

So when Penn Badgley and Ed Westwick swap Blake Lively for Jessica Szohr, you can say you heard it here first.

Meanwhile, this show will be off the air in no time, because as scandalous and delightful as it might be, nobody is watching it.

—

UPDATE (12/4/10): Just as I was thinking I’d have to eat my words, everything I predicted has begun to come true!

The show’s ratings are tanking, Blake Lively is looking for the door hoping to start a movie career and dumping her showmance boyfriend Badgely, Taylor Momsen is driving directors to drink and taking a hiatus from the show. Most tellingly, the traffic to this article has fallen off completely! Everyone is 100% over this show and the fourth season just started!

I give this show five seasons, tops. It’s another O.C. and should never be mentioned in the same breath as legendary shows like the original “90210.”

Look out, Bernie Madoff victims! Another master criminal is plying his trade in the lap of luxury that many of you call home!

Police in Palm Beach, Florida are hunting a ninja.

A fat ninja who has yet to successfully pull off a crime!

One might go so far as to call him an anti-ninja. Pot bellies and failed ATM thefts are about the least ninja-like attributes one could imagine. WE are more ninja than this jackass.

Palm Beach County sheriff’s deputies are looking for a would-be thief who seems to think he is a ninja.

The unidentified man, who was dressed in a black ninja outfit with a hood that only shows his eyes, was caught on surveillance cameras trying to steal the ATM machines outside the Colonial Bank at 152 South State Road 7 on Dec. 29 and outside a Walgreens at U.S. 441 and Okeechobee Boulevard on Tuesday.

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Teri Barbera said she did not how the man tried to steal the machines, but that he was unsuccessful in both attempts.

The thief may be wearing a ninja outfit, but he does not appear to be of the same physical stature as martial arts legends Bruce Lee or Sonny Chiba. Surveillance footage shows the heavyset man has a noticeable pot belly.

Anyone with information regarding the attempted ATM robberies or can possibly identify this suspect, is asked to contact Detective McCranels at (561) 904-8273 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-458-TIPS.

First of all, we estimate the over/under on prank calls to Detective McCranels at 50,000. And we’re taking the over.

Secondly, this fat ninja wannabe has nothing on the legendary ninja thief of Staten Island, whose 2007 crime spree made for dozens of hilarious NYC headlines.

STATEN ISLAND NINJA BURGLAR STRIKES AGAIN, VICTIMIZES ELDERLY COUPLE

[...]

Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said the burglaries appear to be linked to the Ninja Burglar because in one case he had crept through an open door.

“We caution people to lock their doors,” Kelly said. “Keep their windows locked as well.”

The Ninja has hit at least 18 homes since May 20. The last heist before this weekend came on Sept. 21.

“There had been enough publicity, and people were upset,” said Dr. Mohammad Khalid, president of the Iron Hills Civic Association. “He probably thought it wise to stop his activities.”

The suspect has entered through garage doors in the morning and second-story windows and skylights at night, cops said. He wears all-black, including a ski mask, and usually steals cash and jewelry.

In one incident, a resident stabbed the bandit after the intruder smacked him in the collarbone with his ninja sticks.

Now THAT’S a felonious ninja you can respect! (A serious hat tip to the Daily News on adding the nunchucks to the graphic.)

NYC police ultimately pinned the ninja crime wave on some Albanian guy who was quietly deported (read: sent to a secret CIA prison for torture until he gave up his ninja techniques to interrogators).

We still think U-God had something to do with it. Honestly, does he have anything else going on? Besides making devils cower to the “Caucus Mountains,” of course.

We leave you with the legendary Afroninja. Also way better than Fat Ninja.

It stinks that the Patriots finished 11-5 and will still miss the playoffs, while the horrid San Diego Chargers won their putrid division with an 8-8 record and get to HOST a postseason game.

However, New England fans can still rejoice today as one of the region’s #1 enemies has been dethroned, embarassed and sent packing.

Jets coach Eric Mangini got fired last night!

Mangini, 37, came to the Jets as the youngest coach in the NFL before the 2006 season, replacing Herm Edwards. His first season, the Jets went 10-6 and made the playoffs. Mangini was dubbed “Mangenius” and had a cameo on “The Sopranos” after the season. His stock was never higher.

The bottom fell out in Year 2 with a 4-12 record. That led to a makeover last winter where the team spent $140 million acquiring veterans Kris Jenkins, Alan Faneca, Calvin Pace and Damien Woody.

The Jets then made their biggest move, trading for Brett Favre in August. The trade raised expectations and the pressure on Mangini.

Mangini looked poised to return to the playoffs in mid-November after big road wins in New England and Tennessee. The team was 8-3 with a two-game lead in the division but the bottom fell out.

They lost at home to Denver and in San Francisco before getting a miracle win over Buffalo at home. The Jets still controlled their playoff destiny entering the final two games of the season but lost in Seattle and at home to Miami to end the year 9-7 and out of the playoffs.

Mangini’s reign will be remembered for his tight-lipped approach with the media and the paranoia felt in the locker room. He brought the approach of his mentor, Bill Belichick from the Patriots. Jets veterans grumbled at how Mangini treated them.

We’ve always felt that it was amusing that Mangini was asked to appear on the Sopranos since he is the Big Pussy of the NFL. His tenure was short and fraught with human weakness, and his best-known coaching move will probably always be his decision to snitch on his former boss:

Before joining the Jets, Mangini served as New England’s defensive coordinator under Bill Belichick for a season after five years as the Patriots’ defensive backs coach. He quickly became regarded as one of the game’s top young coaching minds.

After the Jets traded the rights to coach Herm Edwards to the Kansas City Chiefs for a fourth-round pick in the 2006 draft, they replaced him with Mangini.

With a workmanlike and tightlipped approach, Mangini drew instant comparisons to Belichick. And they appeared warranted, especially after a quick turnaround season.

When Mangini came to the Jets, it was believed Belichick was annoyed his young assistant left him, marking the beginning of a rift. There also was talk that Belichick was angry Mangini was speaking to Patriots players and coaches about joining him in New York. That was capped by New England filing a tampering charge against the Jets in connection with New York’s trade talks with wide receiver Deion Branch. The Jets were cleared of the charges and Branch ended up in Seattle.

The dispute came to a head last year when the Jets reported the Patriots illegally used videotape to steal New York’s defensive signals during the season opener. Belichick was fined $500,000 and the team docked $250,000 and a draft pick.

Still, Mangini couldn’t lead the Jets out of the Patriots’ shadow — even with Tom Brady sidelined for the year — and were surpassed in the division by the Miami Dolphins.

A snitch AND a failure. Also, he’s extremely dopey looking.

Eric Mangini was never that good of a coach to begin with, his work on the New England defense was nothing special, and his coaching tactics in New Jersey were all cribbed from the competent coaches he’d worked for – boxing films from Parcells, being an asshole from Belichick. He’s a fraud.

Not that the team that just fired him deserves much credit, either. The Jets have long been too impatient to develop their own players and coaching talent, and for the last two decades have been pretty much just ripping off the hard work of other teams by throwing money at opposing players and coaches to come rescue them. The idea of developing stars instead of purchasing them, or the idea of putting a system in place from the top instead of trying to buy a coach who will show up white-knight-like with his own plan…these concepts are completely lost on the team Gregg Easterbrook calls “Jersey-B.”

Looking back across the past decade or so, the results of the Jets spendthrift technique have been pretty stinky. The Parcells/Curtis Martin heist netted the Jets a lot of regular season wins but nothing in the playoffs. The Herm Edwards years…we’re pretty certain nobody wants to dwell on those. Then the Jets hired Mangini away from their rivals to the north, figuring perhaps that his lack of any meaningful experience would be offset by his snitching abilities and talent for stealing Patriots staff. They tried to buy offensive and defensive lines on the free market and greedily snatched up Green Bay star Brett Favre, throwing away Chad Pennington in the process.

When Tom Brady got hurt, the NY media basically crowned the Jets division champions.

The Jets got off to a great start…then the team folded up like a well-lubed card table. Pennington showed up on the last week of the season leading Miami, beat the Jets’ asses and dropped them into 3rd place.

On cue, ownership blew everything up again.

The New York papers are already beating the drums for former Pittsburgh coach Bill Cowher, calling him “The Holy Grail“. What they and the Jets don’t understand is that Bill Cowher’s coaching career was so successful because he worked for an organization with a strong, consistent, time-tested approach to winning in the NFL, one that is not predicated on throwing money at other people’s ideas, coaching talent and players.

Next up: Jets push hard to sign Matt Cassel.

As for Mangina, we hope he gets sent to the same group home that Randy Wagstaff was banished to, where daily beatings and “snitch bitch” carved into everything you own is de rigeur.

McCain spoke first, and here’s a wrapup of his best zingers from MARC AMBINDER:

He was very very gracious and funny…

McCain says he fired all of his campaign staff; “All of their positions will now be held by a man named Joe The Plumber.”

Says that Joe Biden falsely claims that Joe The Plumber isn’t rich enough trigger the Obama tax hike; “What they don’t know is that Joe The Plumber recently signed a lucrative contract to handle all the work on all seven of their houses.”

Says his pet name for Obama is “The One”; Obama’s for McCain is “George Bush.”

“I can’t shake the feeling that some people here are voting for me. Nice to see you, Hillary.”

Bill Clinton “has been hammering away with me with epithets like, “hero.”

“It’s going to be a long, long night at MSNBC if I manage to pull this thing off. I understand that Keith Olbermann has ordered up his very own Mission Accomplished banner. They can hang it up in his padded room”

“We know the press is really an independent-minded, civic-minded, non-partisan group, like ACORN.”

A nice tribute to Obama at the end, saying that he can’t “wish him luck,” but he does “wish him well.”

Here’s Ambinder’s wrapup of Obama’s best lines, although devoid of sympathetic commentary, for whatever that’s worth. We wish we could locate the dormant comment thread where Ambinder hid his admission of voting for McCain – not that there’s anything wrong with that, but it seemed like a pretty lame way to announce his choice. That said, his blog is a must-read for political junkies.

“People tell me I share the politics of Alfred E. Smith and the ears of Alfred E. Neumann”

“I was originally told that we would able to move this outdoors to Yankee Stadium. Can someone tell me what happened to the Greek columns I requested.”

“On the Waldorf Astoria: They tell me, from the doorstep, you can see all the way to the Russian Tea Room.”

To Al Smith IV: “I obviously never knew your grandfather, but from everything Sen. McCain has told me…”

Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s term limits maneuverings caused Bill Clinton to say: “You can do that?”

The housing crisis “has been eight times harder on John McCain.”

“The last few weeks, John’s been out on the campaign trail asking the question Who Is Barack Obama. I’ve got to admit, I was surprised by the question: the answer is right there on my Facebook page.”

“I was not born in a manger. I was actually born on Krypton….”

“I got my name Barack from my father…. it’s actually Swahali for “That one.”

My middle name, it’s not what you think. It’s actually “Steve.”

“There was a point in my life when I started palling around with a pretty ugly crowd…. that’s right… I’ve been a member of the United States Senate.”