The health department has issued a warning to anyone considering hugging a raccoon in Central Park: Don't! Last week, two rabid raccoons were discovered in the park, bringing the city's total for the year to three, two more than in the past six years combined. So if you insist on hugging raccoons, just make sure they're not foaming at the mouth. [City Room/NYT]
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Harry Reid Thinks Health Care Reform Opponents Are Like Slavery Supporters
Senator Harry Reid has had about enough of Republicans and their "let's take our time" attitude on health care reform. This morning on the Senate floor he railed against those pushing Democrats to forget their wholesale approach to fixing health care and urging small steps instead.
"You think you've heard these same excuses before? You're right," Reid said. "In this country there were those who dug in their heels and said, 'Slow down, it's too early. Let's wait. Things aren't bad enough' — about slavery. When women wanted to vote [they said] 'Slow down, there will be a better day to do that — the day isn't quite right...'"
Republicans did not like:
Thirty-three year old Jeremy Olson was arrested today after he chucked two tomatoes at Sarah Palin from the second floor balcony of the Mall of America in Minnesota. He missed. [NYDN]
Goldman Employees Don't Much Like Modern Art
The employees of Goldman Sachs just moved into a badass new building in Battery Park and already they've found something to complain about. It's not the falling glass that may or not be killing people on the street, but the hideous mural greeting them inside the building's entrance. Titled both Sunrise, Sunset, and The Windmill, The Water, and The Grain (artists!), the $10 million Franz Ackermann mural is "loud and cartoonish" according to Clusterstock and universally detested by Goldman employees. It's also not alone. Another piece of art at a different entrance (this, a $5 million untitled painting by Julie Mehretu ) is equally reviled. What's that saying about money buying taste?
More Bad News About Goldman's New Art [Clusterstock via The Awl]
Edmund Andrews, Author of Book on Personal Fiscal Woes, Takes Times Buyout
Andrews and his wife, Patricia Barreiro.
Lists are being compiled all over the place on who has accepted the Times's latest buyout bid. Executive Editor Bill Keller needs to eliminate 100 positions, and the deadline to accept the buyout (which was offered to everyone) was today. Keith Kelly doesn't think he'll get near that number, but a few prominent names have already surfaced. (Last week the estimated number was closer to 50). The Business Insider has a list of business reporters, including vet Geraldine Fabrikant, while Politico has some of the D.C. takers. We don't know why, but we're most struck by the poignancy of this report, which has Edmund Andrews also taking the escape package. Andrews wrote the book Busted about his personal financial woes since the housing crash, and subsequently received flak for not disclosing that his wife had filed for bankruptcy twice before the financial meltdown. We're not sure what it means when someone who made his name on his own fiscal woes thinks it’s a better idea to take a pay package and jump ship from a steady job than it is to stay at the Times, but we're sure it will come to us.
New York Times DC Reporters Edmund Andrews And Stephen Labaton Also Taking Buyouts [Clusterstock]
State prosecutors have decided not to press criminal charges against Sandra Herold, the a Connecticut woman whose pet chimpanzee, Travis, ate the face off her friend Charla Nash this summer, on the grounds that Travis "had not previously exhibited violent behavior" especially toward Nash, "with whom he interacted regularly." Charla Nash and her family don't feel exactly the same way, unsurprisingly. They've filed a $50 million suit against Herold. [ABC News]
Earlier: Travis the Chimp’s Owner Getting Sued for $50 Million
There's still no wang (and never will be), but there is butt, hip flexor, and something slightly untoward with a hockey glove. [Playgirl]
Dashing Divorcé Puts East Hampton Mansion Up for Sale
Photo: Zillow.com
Elie Hirschfeld, the prominent New York developer whose wife, Susan, accused him of "feigning diarrhea," in order to ditch out of a family vacation, fly a private jet home, and empty his marital apartment of furniture china, silver, furs, jewelry, and some $30 million in artwork shortly before their divorce last year, is selling his East Hampton estate. The oceanfront property, which is going for $25 million, spans 1.2 acres and has eight bedrooms, five fireplaces, a heated pool, a sun/game room, large living salon, library, formal dining room, and gourmet kitchen, in addition to 7.5 very private bathrooms.
Joe Bruno Convicted on Two Felony Corruption Charges
An Albany jury, which had earlier feared that it would deadlock in the corruption case against State Senate Majority Leader Joe Bruno, today found him guilty of two charges. They cleared him on five other charges, and couldn't reach a verdict on a sixth. The guilty charges stem from Bruno's relationship with Albany businessman Jared Abbruzzese, who paid Bruno consulting fees eleven times in 2004 but couldn't explain what exactly Bruno was supposed to be doing for him. Bruno also failed to disclose a secret racehorse partnership with Abbruzzese. The former Albany powerhouse, who reigned for fourteen years, is bound to appeal the guilty verdicts, for each of which he faces up to twenty years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Here’s a Question: Do We Really Want to See Tiger Woods’s Junk?
As Gawker and Perez Hilton have reported (and we've confirmed with Playgirl), someone is offering what they say are dirty cell-phone pictures of Tiger Woods's nether regions. They're on offer to the male nudie mag for the outrageous sum of $500,000, a rep told us. We don't know who is trying to sell the pics — though the original source is a woman — and now the magazine is in the awkward position of having to try to verify that what they're looking at are actually the private parts of one of America's most famously private celebrities. (Can we be one of the experts called in to testify, please?) But regardless of whether they're real, we're not even sure we want to see what's inside Tiger's pleated khakis. In fact, before this whole mess, we thought of him as sort of neutered. Can we please just go back to that era? Please?
Don't Get Hot and Bothered over Naked Tiger Woods Photos: Internet Cockroach Is Also a Cocktease [Gawker]
Tiger Naked Pics May Hit The Web! [Perez Hilton]
The Single Fashionista Not Looking for Love
Once a week, Daily Intel takes a peek behind doors left slightly ajar. This week: the Single Fashionista Not Looking for Love: 27, female, UES, straight, single.
DAY ONE
8:15 a.m.: The couple that lives above me is having sex at this ungodly hour. Squeaky metal is how I know it's the weekend.
8:17 a.m.: Cover ears with time-tested combo of turban and two pillows, and hum "Feeling Good" by Nina Simone, hoping this will block out the that fact that I have neither sex nor a job.
Linda Stasi, Criticizer of Frivolous Lawsuits, Files Suit Against the City for Tripping Her
Photo: Patrick McMullan
Venemous Post columnist Linda Stasi has written in the past about what she views as frivolous, expensive lawsuits. Also, she works for a paper that has criticized our suit-friendly laws, calling it a "Suer System." So when Gawker writer John Cook found out that Stasi was suing the city for $2 million over injuries she sustained after tripping over a police barricade, naturally, his interest was piqued. Stasi's injuries, the complaint says, left her "severely injured and damaged, rendered sick, sore, lame and disabled." Additionally she suffered "severe nervous shock and mental anguish, great physical pain and emotional upset." Now, this is no being put into a coma and almost killed by a giant tree branch, but it sounds painful. Except that Stasi never seemed to miss her Post column deadlines, even though the main injury was to her wrist.
Some Lucky Lawyers Will Be Picked to Defend the 9/11 Plotters
A couple of weeks ago we remarked that many New Yorkers would probably be itching to get onto one of the juries that decides the fate of the accused 9/11 plotters, so that they could personally dole out justice to the people who attacked us. But we doubt there's going to be such a clamor to serve as the alleged terrorists' defense attorneys, especially since said attorneys are honor-bound to work just as hard to defend a terrorist as to defend, say, a man accused of stealing medicine for his sick grandma. Of course, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and friends may decide to represent themselves at trial, so as to rant completely unfettered by the advice of their legal counsel. But regardless, there's a list containing about twenty veterans of previous death penalty and terrorism cases who are up for consideration as the plotters' legal representation. Some of them are more open to the possibility than others. For example, Avraham C. Moskowitz, "a 52-year-old Columbia Law graduate and former federal prosecutor who describes himself as a committed Zionist, who has family in Israel, and whose brother was in the World Trade Center when it was attacked in 1993," is, unsurprisingly, not too keen on the idea.
Neel Kashkari Gets a New Gig
If you think this is scary, imagine what it would be like to be that piece of wood.Photo: (c) 2009, Linda Davidson / The Washington Post
In an epic Washington Post profile this weekend, former TARPmaster and current wood-chopping enthusiast Neel Kashkari revealed that he was ready to re-join society. He had gotten a job offer in "financial services," he said, and he "feels ready to start work before the end of the year." Today we found out just where this job offer was from: PIMCO, the Newport Beach–based investment company, which sent out a press release this afternoon trumpeting their new hire.
Mr. Kashkari joins PIMCO having served until May 2009 as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, where he led the Office of Financial Stability. He was previously at Goldman Sachs. He will be based in the firm’s Newport Beach office. At PIMCO, he will help direct the firm’s expansion into new investment initiatives, including its equities business. Mr. Kashkari will be a senior member of the firm’s Executive Office and work closely with PIMCO’s portfolio management, business management and client-facing groups. Mr. Kashkari’s first day at PIMCO is December 14.
PIMCO didn't immediately respond to our query of whether, in light of this weekend's story, they had any qualms about the former Office of Financial Stability head's issues with math or that fact that he seems being slightly, er, unstable. Maybe they're just figuring that as long as he has proximity to his shed (it's just around 300 miles away), he'll be okay. Press release after the jump, Dealbreaker has the internal memo.
Update: A Pimco spokesman tells us they had "no issues with the article, but the announcement of Kashkari's hiring and its appearance was, unsurprisingly, a "total cooincidence."
Bankers Now Taking Jobs Away From Old People, High-School Students
Former AIG financial products head Joe Cassano.
First they blew up the economy with their financial products. Now bankers are keeping themselves in lucre by bogarting the few jobs we have left. As we saw last month, these creatures often bulldoze into whatever field they choose, be it in the Mister Softee truck classroom, driving away the competition with the ruthless energy honed on the trading floor. And now they've set their sights on the only jobs available to the people at the lowest end of the employment scale: senior citizens, stay-at-home moms, and high-school students. "The pay is low, the jobs temporary. And the work is hardly equal to their experience or expertise," the AP tells us today. And yet:
"You'll find Wall Street stock brokers and small business owners trying to find temporary retail jobs during the holidays," said Ellen Davis, vice president of the National Retail Federation.
Chilling. And we might add that parents will want to look carefully at the Santa at Macy's this year. You wouldn't want your child sitting in the lap of a Mark Madoff or a Joe Cassano.
Jobless professionals vie for holiday sales work [AP via Google]
According to the hearsay gossip of someone who almost witnessed the incident, an extremely Brooklyn-esque confrontation took place at a Brooklyn Heights Starbucks this morning. In a nutshell: While waiting for their drinks, Man No. 1 complained to Man No. 2 about the latter's crying baby. After Man No. 2 failed to satisfactorily remedy the situation, Man No. 1 slapped him. Everyone got mad at Man No. 1, and the police were called. The end. [Brooklyn Heights Blog]
In the first ten months of this year, NYPD officers wrote 4,160 tickets for car-seat violations in the city. That's fourteen a day, and a 55 percent increase over last year. The tickets are issued for not using car seats, not buckling up, or using them improperly. Children up to age 8 must be in booster seats, and fines start at $50. Hear that, parents? You should buckle your kids up this year because cops are on the lookout. Or, you know, because you want them to not die if you get in a car crash. [NYP]
Bailed-Out AIG Employees Consider Bailing Out of Company
Five top senior executives at AIG reportedly threatened to quit last week after the company's general counsel, Anastasia Kelly, advised them that not only was compensation czar Kenneth Feinberg probably going to slash their 2009 bonuses by 91 percent and limit their salaries to $500,000, he was going after their retirement, too: Starting next year, the "golden parachutes" built into their contracts would be gone. If they ever wanted to see that money, she told them, they would have to quit now or forever hold their peace. "You're worth more dead than alive," we imagine her saying, while fixing them with a steely stare à la Mr. Potter in It's a Wonderful Life.
Gay Activists Put Enemy Democrats on Notice
Photo: Courtesy Joseph Addabbo
In the wake of a larger-than-expected 38–24 defeat for same-sex marriage in the State Senate last week, gay-rights activists are placing targets on the eight Democrats who voted "no." People like Ruben Diaz Sr. and Darrel Aubertine, who were never expected to support gay marriage, won't be as much of a concern as senators such as Queens' Joseph Addabbo, who was elected last year with the help of the gay community. But the focus on wayward Democrats doesn't mean that marriage-equality advocates will shift their support to the Republican Party. After all, not a single GOP senator who voted backed last week's bill, and the ones that were considered gettable haven't provided very reassuring explanations. Sen. Roy McDonald of Saratoga, for example, claims he voted against marriage equality because he's "focusing [his] time on the things that the public wants [him] to do." Strange — we didn't realize saying "yes" was so much more time-consuming than saying "no."
Gay advocates see bloodbath for New York Dem 'no' voters [NYDN]
Red ink for Joe's friends [Times Union]
Man Sues City Over Near-Deadly Central Park Tree Branch
Blair-Goldensohn.
Claiming that a rotten tree branch that broke off and landed on him in Central Park was visibly rotted and should have been trimmed, Sasha Blair-Goldensohn has sued the city and Central Park Conservancy. Over the summer, Google engineer Blair-Goldensohn was walking through the park in the morning when the heavy limb landed on his head, cutting it open and causing brain and spinal damage, as well as a partially collapsed lung. He remains hospitalized and has had to undergo multiple surgeries. According to the suit, the tree fell from over 30 feet in the air. Blair-Goldensohn has sued for unspecified damages in the State Supreme Court that would be at least "an amount in excess of the jurisdictional limits of all lower courts in which this action could otherwise have been sought." Lawyers for the city are reviewing the documents and call it a "tragic case."
Man Hurt by Falling Tree Limb in Central Park Files Suit [NYT]
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