Tomorrow afternoon when you wake up and start playing that CSI: My Hangover game, just count your blessings that you're not one of the people forced to attend Bloomberg's anticlimactic and low-key third inauguration ceremony at noon:

"About 4,200 people are expected to attend the one-hour ceremony, in which Mr. Liu and Mr. de Blasio will also deliver addresses. The attendees will receive commemorative biodegradable mugs (stainless steel was so 2006), paid for by the mayor and filled with apple cider."

If Bloomberg really loved New Yorkers, he would spike that cider with rum.

Bloomberg's Third Inauguration Will Be a Muted Affair [NYT]

(We'll be back on Monday. Happy New Year!)

In part because of the attempted bombing in Detroit on Christmas Day, security in Times Square will be heightened this evening. The Times has a rundown of a few reasons it might be better to skip out on the ball drop tonight:

Streets leading in and out of the square will be blocked with metal barriers and police cars. Some subway portals will be shut. Officers with rifles will patrol on rooftops. Others, in plainclothes, will mingle with the crowds to search for pickpockets or would-be terrorists. ... Hundreds of city police officers will have devices affixed to their belts that can detect radiation or the crude makings of a dirty bomb. Machines with similar technology will be on trucks, police boats patrolling the East and Hudson Rivers and on helicopters, [NYPD spokesman Paul Browne] said ... Other devices, deployed by the city’s Environmental Protection Department, will be in place to sniff the air for chemical or biological contaminants, Mr. Browne said. There will be decontamination facilities available, including areas for people to bag their clothes and shower in tents if necessary, he said.

Also, it will be raining.

Extra Security in Times Square for New Year’s Eve [NYT]

Rush Limbaugh is resting comfortably after being hospitalized for chest pains in Honolulu last night, and the shock jock reportedly told paramedics that he was taking medication for "a back problem." TV news outlets are reporting that straight, without commentary, as they probably should until more information comes in. After all, there are probably medications for "back problems" that are not painkillers like the ones to which Rush was addicted and faced jail time in 2006 for attempting to procure. At the time, Rush attributed his addiction to back pain.

Rush Limbaugh 'Resting Comfortably' In Hawaii Hospital [USA Today]

You know those people who blast Mariah Carey, Lady Gaga, or Flo Rida on their iPods on the subway, thinking that they are the only people in the car who can hear it? You know, the people who tempt you, halfway down the car, to dance along to the music just to let them know how effing loud it is? (Not the people who sing aloud to the song only they are hearing, because that's an entirely different breed.) Often we wonder if all that noise hurts their ears. And some of those people say it does, and joined a class-action suit over claims of hearing damage that has gone all the way up to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. Yesterday the court ruled against the plaintiffs, not because it's their own damn fault for playing the music so loud in the first place (why does the subway turn us into crotchety old men?), but because they couldn't prove that the iPod posed an "unreasonable risk of noise-induced hearing loss." Apple shares climbed $2.54 after the news.

iPod suit plaintiffs get earful [NYP]

It looks like Sad Anil Kumar, the McKinsey & Co. senior partner who was accused of colluding with Galleon Group CEO Raj Rajaratnam in illegal conspiracy and fraud, might be cutting a deal. Government prosecutors put in a request to the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn yesterday, signed by Kumar's attorney, which is likely a step in the direction of waiving his right to a grand-jury indictment. Experts told the Post this likely means that he's going to plead guilty, or that he's reached a deal with prosecutors at the U.S. Attorney's office. Either outcome will open him up to testify against his college buddy Rajaratnam, whom he's accused of illegally leaking proprietary information. If so, he'll join four people who already agreed to testify against Rajaratnam in hopes of lighter sentences. Bet ol' Raj wishes he still had that stun gun.

Ratting against Raj [NYP]

The Washington Times laid waste to its 170-member staff today, letting go of its top editor and decimating the Sports and Metro sections, neither of which will exist as stand-alones after Friday's issue. Earlier this month the paper announced it would cut at least 40 percent of its staff. The Washington Post says that number was exceeded. For those worrying about the future of the paper, stop. According to a statement, "Monday begins a new chapter in the history of the Washington Times as a 21st-century multimedia company." Exciting!

Washington Times lays off top editor, dozens of staffers [Washington Post]