the "Headline That Caught My Attention or the WTF" thread

Yeah....no thanks!

[URL unfurl="true"]https://nypost.com/2026/04/25/us-news/nyc-man-likes-eating-sushi-he-caught-in-the-hudson-river/[/URL]

Yeah....no thanks!

[URL unfurl="true"]https://nypost.com/2026/04/25/us-news/nyc-man-likes-eating-sushi-he-caught-in-the-hudson-river/[/URL]

Love my Bass Sashimi!!

The people are revolting!!
[MEDIA=youtube]h0iAcQVIokg[/MEDIA]

Yeah, one time, that's this year, will there be Billionaire Rape II next year??

My personal take on this, yes tax codes need to limit loopholes so the ultra wealthy pay a more reasonable tax rate. However, taxing assets is a very slippery slope, billionaires first, millionaires next...

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]California Billionaire Tax Has Signatures Needed for Ballot, Backers Say[/SIZE][/HEADING]
The measure calls for placing a one-time 5 percent tax on the assets of California residents with at least $1.1 billion. Opponents are backing competing measures to counter the tax.

The labor union backing a proposal to place a [new tax on California billionaires]('https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/20/us/california-billionaires-wealth-tax.html') says it has collected enough signatures to place the measure on the state’s November ballot.

Supporters have collected more than 1.5 million signatures on petitions that call for a vote on the proposed tax, according to a statement from the campaign on Sunday. The group backing the measure intends to announce on Monday when it will submit the signatures to elections officials.

If approved to go on the ballot, the proposal will kick off an expensive election fight that will tap into voter anxieties about economic inequality as well as concerns from business leaders that California could lose its luster as a cradle of technological innovation. Powerful people, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and numerous Silicon Valley executives, have vowed [to fight the proposal]('https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/13/us/newsom-billionaire-tax-california.html'), while Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent of Vermont, [has endorsed it]('https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/19/us/bernie-sanders-california-billionaire-tax.html').

The measure calls for placing a one-time 5 percent tax on the assets of California residents [with at least $1.1 billion]('https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/14/us/california-billionaire-wealth-tax.html'), and would dedicate most of the revenue to health care. The union leading the campaign, the Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West, argues that the tax is necessary to make up for cuts to Medicaid and other federal health insurance programs [by the Trump administration last year]('https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/29/us/politics/trump-policy-bill-health-insurance-cuts.html').

“Healthcare workers and our allies won’t quit until we fully protect our patients from the looming healthcare disaster,” Suzanne Jimenez, a leader of the union, said in a statement.

Opponents of the proposed tax intend to release a new economic study on Monday claiming that the tax would devastate California’s ecosystem of start-up companies just as the artificial intelligence industry is in its nascency. The new tax would lead to a raft of consequences, the report says, including the loss of an estimated 108,000 high-paying jobs and billions of dollars in income tax revenue over the next two decades. The study was written by consultants who worked in the finance departments of two former California governors, Jerry Brown and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[An earlier analysis]('https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Initiative/2025-024') by California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office found that the proposed wealth tax was likely to increase state tax revenue by tens of billions of dollars over several years. That analysis also found that the measure would decrease income tax revenue by hundreds of millions of dollars or more annually because some billionaires would leave the state.

“It’s gambling a potential one-time revenue bump in exchange for massive ongoing losses, which would force cuts to schools and health care,” said Dan Newman, a spokesman [for an opposition group]('https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1485007&view=late1') that is funded by the tech investor Ron Conway, among others.

[Another opposition group]('https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Campaign/Committees/Detail.aspx?id=1485007&view=late1'), funded by the Google co-founder Sergey Brin and several other billionaires, is supporting rival ballot measures that could undermine the billionaire tax. One of them would prohibit new taxes [on personal property and financial assets]('https://lao.ca.gov/BallotAnalysis/Initiative/2025-041'). The other two contain provisions that could invalidate the wealth tax in other ways.

Whether the billionaire tax or any of the rival measures will appear on the November ballot is still not certain. After backers of the wealth tax submit the signatures they’ve collected, election officials will go through a verification process. If at least 875,000 signatures are valid, proponents of the measure have until late June to decide if they want to proceed with placing it on the ballot.

Last month, Mr. Conway said that the rival ballot measures could serve as leverage for Mr. Newsom and other opponents of the billionaire tax to try to negotiate with its supporters to keep the measure off the ballot. Speaking [on Jack Altman’s “Uncapped” podcast]('https://x.com/jaltma/status/2036824156768219371'), Mr. Conway said that it was important that the rival measures collect enough signatures to also qualify for the ballot.

In California, if competing ballot measures on the same subject are approved by voters, the one with the highest number of yes votes takes effect. Competing ballot issues can also confuse voters, however, increasing the risk that any particular measure will fail.

“That will give Gavin some bargaining chips,” Mr. Conway said.

One time?

If anybody believes that I've got a bunch of real estate investments here. It's easy money since you can charge people for driving over your property.

So that's what they were signing....

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2026-03-13/california-launches-probe-after-video-shows-petition-gatherers-offering-money-for-signatures[/URL]

So that's what they were signing....

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2026-03-13/california-launches-probe-after-video-shows-petition-gatherers-offering-money-for-signatures[/URL]

Article is unclear as to which ballot measure(s) were getting signatures for. It implies at least one of them one was the measure against the billionaire tax...

So, is "His Honor" going to set an example and give Manhattan back to the Lenape???

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Mamdani’s Advice to Royals: Give That Priceless Diamond Back to India[/SIZE][/HEADING]
Mayor Zohran Mamdani and King Charles did not meet privately. But if they had, the mayor said, he probably would have raised the issue of the Koh-i-Noor Diamond.

Hours before greeting King Charles III in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday, Mayor Zohran Mamdani was asked about the royal visit during a news conference in the Bronx.

The mayor quickly distanced himself, saying that he would be attending a ceremony at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum “alongside a number of other elected officials” and that would be the extent of his interaction with the king.

But what would he say to King Charles if they were to have a private meeting?

“I would probably encourage him to return the Koh-i-Noor Diamond,” Mr. Mamdani said.

The mayor’s decision to invoke the 105.6-carat diamond — taken from an 11-year-old Indian prince in the 1840s when India was a British colony and presented to Queen Victoria — was in character.

[URL unfurl="true"]https://share.newsbreak.com/iaoisadr?s=i16[/URL]

Break out the ScanTrons again!!

[HEADING=2][SIZE=6]Computer Outage Disrupts Student Exams in New York State[/SIZE][/HEADING]
Thousands of children were unable to finish annual standardized tests, the second year in a row when technological issues emerged.

Thousands of students across New York State this week were unable to finish annual standardized tests after a technological issue disrupted the computer-based exams for the second consecutive year.

Students in grades three through eight from Buffalo to New York City encountered error messages on Wednesday when they tried to log in to their math or English language arts exams, which do not affect students’ ability to advance to the next grade. While some could sign in and complete the tests, others were kicked offline, frustrating students, teachers and parents.

For the past three years, New York State has been transitioning to digital exams, with this spring marking the first time that every student in those grades had to take them on a computer. So when students encountered issues on Wednesday, there were no paper exams available as a backup.

The developer of the state test, NWEA, an educational testing and research group, said it had worked overnight to identify the source of the disruption, which was identified as a problem with a server, and repaired it before school started on Thursday.

After problems emerged a year ago, the company pledged that it would not happen again. The New York State Education Department has awarded $116 million in contracts to NWEA to develop the [untimed, federally required assessments]('https://www.nysed.gov/sites/default/files/programs/state-assessment/handout-parents-3-8-tests.pdf').

The repairs this week came too late for many New York City students who were taking the math portion of the state assessment. Education officials in the city had advised principals on Wednesday not to reschedule the math test for the next day out of concern that the system could remain offline.

But some schools resumed the math exams on Thursday after the outage had been resolved, said Dominique Ellison, spokeswoman for the Department of Education. The remaining schools will administer the test in the coming days.

“I know this issue has been challenging and frustrating for schools, students and families who have been working hard in preparation for these exams,” Kamar Samuels, the schools chancellor, said on Wednesday night at a meeting of the Panel for Educational Policy, an oversight group.

It was unclear how many students in New York State had to scrap the exams, but the disruption appeared to be widespread. JP O’Hare, a spokesman for the New York State Education Department, said that 116,000 students had taken the tests on Wednesday without problems.

It was also unclear how many students were scheduled to take the exams on Wednesday because school districts have a window of several weeks in April and May in which they can administer the tests. There are about a million third-through-eighth-grade students in the state.

On Wednesday, Buffalo Public Schools stopped all math exams for students, while more than 1,600 students at Zeta Charter Schools in New York City had to give up on their English language arts assessments.

“The current system is failing, creating unnecessary challenges for students, teachers and administrators,” Emily Kim, the chief executive of the charter school network, said. “Our students deserve a testing experience reflecting the same level of preparation, care and accountability we ask of them.”

As they say, talk is cheap, but this proposal is going to need volumes of direct, accurate talk to reconcile and implement...

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Can a Second Home Tax Work in New York? The Numbers Don’t Add Up Yet.[/SIZE][/HEADING]
The tax proposal is being held up as a generational attempt to make the ultrawealthy pay more to society and potentially raise $500 million a year for New York City.

A push to tax multimillion-dollar second homes in New York City has been billed by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a civic mandate for the ultrawealthy to contribute more to society.

But as leaders in the State Capitol seek to incorporate the tax proposal into the state budget, the lofty rhetoric has been undermined by confusing information flowing from Ms. Hochul’s office about how such a tax would work.

The problems start with the numbers and the math.

To raise $500 million for the city, Ms. Hochul initially said the so-called pied-à-terre tax would apply to 13,000 homes, a number that her staff pulled from a [2023 report by the city comptroller]('https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/raising-revenues/'). Now, aides to Ms. Hochul are saying that the 13,000 figure was an early estimate requiring more analysis and was subject to change.

The governor’s team had first said the tax would be based on second homes with an assessed value of $5 million or more. But there is very little correlation between a property’s assessed value — a specific and complex measure calculated as part of the property valuation process — and actual market value.

The city does not use sales comparisons or recent listings to value condos and co-ops. Under a [state law passed in the 1980s]('https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/22/nyregion/city-revises-method-of-assessing-co-ops-raising-their-taxes.html'), the city is required to compare the units to rentals of similar size and age, assessed on the potential income that rental might bring in. There are [not great rental comparisons]('https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/nyregion/many-high-end-new-york-apartments-have-modest-tax-rates.html') for the highest-end condos and co-ops, dragging down their assessments; in some cases, these condo buildings are even compared to rental buildings with rent-regulated units.

An analysis of city records conducted by [Marketproof]('https://marketproof.com/'), a real estate data analysis firm, found just three residential properties in New York City with assessed values of $5 million or more.

One of the three was the notoriously expensive penthouse bought in 2019 by the billionaire financier Kenneth Griffin for $238 million.Its assessed value, [according to city records]('https://a836-edms.nyc.gov/dctm-rest/repositories/dofedmspts/StatementSearch?bbl=1010301082&stmtDate=20260116&stmtType=NPV'), is just under $7 million. Another condo, on the 57th floor of another Midtown luxury building, sold in December for more than $21 million, but it has an assessed value of around $1.3 million.

Jennifer Goodman, a spokeswoman for the governor, declined to offer specifics about the pied-à-terre tax proposal, saying this week that they were still being negotiated. The governor’s office said that they had wrongly described at first how the tax might work, and it is not going to be based solely on the assessed value of properties.

Instead, Ms. Goodman said, apartments subject to the tax would be determined by “a model that captures properties worth over $5 million through the use of various mechanisms such as comparable sales data where applicable.”

That raises another set of problems, as there is no official and consistent measure of how much properties in New York City may actually be worth on the market.

Building that kind of information is possible, but has not typically been done before by the city, said Kael Goodman, the president and chief executive of Marketproof.

“To get from doable on a technical basis, to doable on a practical basis — those two things are not the same,” Mr. Goodman said.

To demonstrate how such a tax could work, Marketproof created its own model analyzing more than 1.14 million tax parcels. Since there’s currently no official way to tell if a particular unit is a pied-à-terre, the company used a proxy: the subset of properties where the property tax bill was sent to a different address, indicating the owner didn’t live in the unit.

Then it looked at transactions recorded in city property records to find the units with market values over $5 million.

Marketproof estimates about 6,380 properties would be affected.

That analysis shows that certain well-known features of the city skyline, many clustered around Central Park — [Central Park Tower]('https://centralparktower.com/'), [432 Park Avenue]('https://www.432parkavenue.com/'), [One57]('http://one57.com/'), [220 Central Park South]('https://streeteasy.com/building/220-central-park-south-new_york'), [15 Central Park West]('https://streeteasy.com/building/15-central-park-west-new_york') — would be potentially subject to the tax surcharge, representing huge sources of revenue for the city. The 280 units in just those five buildings might owe more than $100 million in taxes annually.

Still, it may be challenging to make this all work. Unlike many suburban cities and neighborhoods, where it is relatively easy to find the market value of single-family homes based on comparable sales on any given street, it's difficult to compare values across condos and co-ops.

“That would be crossing a gap not previously crossed,” Mr. Goodman said. “That would be opening up a conversation among property owners that previous government officials have been unable to have a successful conversation about. They’ve just been unsuccessful in doing it because it’s way too complicated.”

It’s not clear whether the state or the city would have the capacity to come up with these valuations every year, and how public officials would deal with the expected legal challenges to any valuations.

A report about the tax [released on Thursday by the New York City comptroller]('https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-pied-a-terre-tax-and-its-potential-revenues/'), Mark Levine, found that the city Finance Department would most likely have to audit property owners’ claims about who lives or doesn’t live in any apartment. The report noted that “lapses” in the auditing capacity and accuracy “would reduce revenues and multiply taxpayers’ appeals and lawsuits.”

The report also said that it might be difficult to categorize condos and co-ops that were owned by out-of-towners but were being rented out to city residents, or units that were owned by limited liability companies or trusts, among other potential pitfalls.

“Each of these decisions can shift collections by tens of millions of dollars,” the report said.

So far, those details remain murky, even with senior city administration officials meet daily with state leaders, according to City Hall.

A senior aide to the governor said that state officials were not overly concerned about the complexities of determining market values. Negotiations were continuing over how much of the specific methodology would be written into the legislation, or decided later by the city.

A bigger concern, the aide said, was how officials would determine whether any given property was being used as a second home.

The negotiations come as Mr. Mamdani and other elected officials clamor for Ms. Hochul to increase taxes to fund an expanded safety net and help the city close a multibillion-dollar deficit. A coalition of powerful unions, including several that endorsed the governor’s re-election campaign, has also signed on, sending [a letter last week]('https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rDCiYJSuevrr8jD9APkOk6B9i-cWoHU6oFvK7u2IsbI/edit?tab=t.3uzasv16jrb5') to her and legislative leaders pleading for tax hikes on the wealthy.

On Tuesday, Mr. Mamdani and his sometimes political adversary, Council Speaker Julie Menin, said they would delay announcing an update to the city budget so they could jointly push for the state to reduce a tax credit that primarily benefits wealthy business owners, which they said could end up raising a billion dollars in revenue for the city.

Both this plan and the second-home tax proposal would need to be included in the state budget, which is still be negotiated and is now a month overdue. Ms. Hochul remains committed to the tax on second homes, but appeared unlikely to support other new taxes.

“Hochul is running out of excuses to not tax the rich in her final budget,” said Grace Mausser, a co-chair of the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

The D.S.A. is a close ally of Mr. Mamdani, who is a member, and both have [aggressively called on the city’s wealthiest businesses]('https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/nyregion/second-home-tax.html') and residents to shoulder a heavier burden. They have even named specific billionaires like Mr. Griffin, who they say are a drain on the city and its finances.

Mr. Griffin, who has spent close to [$95 million on real estate purchases]('https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/luxury-homes/ken-griffin-pays-38-million-for-his-next-door-neighbors-home-at-740-park-ave-a08deb71?st=f7fCCQ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink') in the city since the beginning of 2025, pushed back on these assertions, saying his companies and activity creates tens of thousands of jobs for the city.

“You can win political points by making an example of Ken Griffin, and they seem to have done that. Kudos to them for winning some political points,” Mr. Goodman said. “But achieving the tax goals is a different thing.”

As they say, talk is cheap, but this proposal is going to need volumes of direct, accurate talk to reconcile and implement...

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Can a Second Home Tax Work in New York? The Numbers Don’t Add Up Yet.[/SIZE][/HEADING]
The tax proposal is being held up as a generational attempt to make the ultrawealthy pay more to society and potentially raise $500 million a year for New York City.

A push to tax multimillion-dollar second homes in New York City has been billed by Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani as a civic mandate for the ultrawealthy to contribute more to society.

But as leaders in the State Capitol seek to incorporate the tax proposal into the state budget, the lofty rhetoric has been undermined by confusing information flowing from Ms. Hochul’s office about how such a tax would work.

The problems start with the numbers and the math.

To raise $500 million for the city, Ms. Hochul initially said the so-called pied-à-terre tax would apply to 13,000 homes, a number that her staff pulled from a [2023 report by the city comptroller]('https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/raising-revenues/'). Now, aides to Ms. Hochul are saying that the 13,000 figure was an early estimate requiring more analysis and was subject to change.

The governor’s team had first said the tax would be based on second homes with an assessed value of $5 million or more. But there is very little correlation between a property’s assessed value — a specific and complex measure calculated as part of the property valuation process — and actual market value.

The city does not use sales comparisons or recent listings to value condos and co-ops. Under a [state law passed in the 1980s]('https://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/22/nyregion/city-revises-method-of-assessing-co-ops-raising-their-taxes.html'), the city is required to compare the units to rentals of similar size and age, assessed on the potential income that rental might bring in. There are [not great rental comparisons]('https://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/16/nyregion/many-high-end-new-york-apartments-have-modest-tax-rates.html') for the highest-end condos and co-ops, dragging down their assessments; in some cases, these condo buildings are even compared to rental buildings with rent-regulated units.

An analysis of city records conducted by [Marketproof]('https://marketproof.com/'), a real estate data analysis firm, found just three residential properties in New York City with assessed values of $5 million or more.

One of the three was the notoriously expensive penthouse bought in 2019 by the billionaire financier Kenneth Griffin for $238 million.Its assessed value, [according to city records]('https://a836-edms.nyc.gov/dctm-rest/repositories/dofedmspts/StatementSearch?bbl=1010301082&stmtDate=20260116&stmtType=NPV'), is just under $7 million. Another condo, on the 57th floor of another Midtown luxury building, sold in December for more than $21 million, but it has an assessed value of around $1.3 million.

Jennifer Goodman, a spokeswoman for the governor, declined to offer specifics about the pied-à-terre tax proposal, saying this week that they were still being negotiated. The governor’s office said that they had wrongly described at first how the tax might work, and it is not going to be based solely on the assessed value of properties.

Instead, Ms. Goodman said, apartments subject to the tax would be determined by “a model that captures properties worth over $5 million through the use of various mechanisms such as comparable sales data where applicable.”

That raises another set of problems, as there is no official and consistent measure of how much properties in New York City may actually be worth on the market.

Building that kind of information is possible, but has not typically been done before by the city, said Kael Goodman, the president and chief executive of Marketproof.

“To get from doable on a technical basis, to doable on a practical basis — those two things are not the same,” Mr. Goodman said.

To demonstrate how such a tax could work, Marketproof created its own model analyzing more than 1.14 million tax parcels. Since there’s currently no official way to tell if a particular unit is a pied-à-terre, the company used a proxy: the subset of properties where the property tax bill was sent to a different address, indicating the owner didn’t live in the unit.

Then it looked at transactions recorded in city property records to find the units with market values over $5 million.

Marketproof estimates about 6,380 properties would be affected.

That analysis shows that certain well-known features of the city skyline, many clustered around Central Park — [Central Park Tower]('https://centralparktower.com/'), [432 Park Avenue]('https://www.432parkavenue.com/'), [One57]('http://one57.com/'), [220 Central Park South]('https://streeteasy.com/building/220-central-park-south-new_york'), [15 Central Park West]('https://streeteasy.com/building/15-central-park-west-new_york') — would be potentially subject to the tax surcharge, representing huge sources of revenue for the city. The 280 units in just those five buildings might owe more than $100 million in taxes annually.

Still, it may be challenging to make this all work. Unlike many suburban cities and neighborhoods, where it is relatively easy to find the market value of single-family homes based on comparable sales on any given street, it's difficult to compare values across condos and co-ops.

“That would be crossing a gap not previously crossed,” Mr. Goodman said. “That would be opening up a conversation among property owners that previous government officials have been unable to have a successful conversation about. They’ve just been unsuccessful in doing it because it’s way too complicated.”

It’s not clear whether the state or the city would have the capacity to come up with these valuations every year, and how public officials would deal with the expected legal challenges to any valuations.

A report about the tax [released on Thursday by the New York City comptroller]('https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/the-pied-a-terre-tax-and-its-potential-revenues/'), Mark Levine, found that the city Finance Department would most likely have to audit property owners’ claims about who lives or doesn’t live in any apartment. The report noted that “lapses” in the auditing capacity and accuracy “would reduce revenues and multiply taxpayers’ appeals and lawsuits.”

The report also said that it might be difficult to categorize condos and co-ops that were owned by out-of-towners but were being rented out to city residents, or units that were owned by limited liability companies or trusts, among other potential pitfalls.

“Each of these decisions can shift collections by tens of millions of dollars,” the report said.

So far, those details remain murky, even with senior city administration officials meet daily with state leaders, according to City Hall.

A senior aide to the governor said that state officials were not overly concerned about the complexities of determining market values. Negotiations were continuing over how much of the specific methodology would be written into the legislation, or decided later by the city.

A bigger concern, the aide said, was how officials would determine whether any given property was being used as a second home.

The negotiations come as Mr. Mamdani and other elected officials clamor for Ms. Hochul to increase taxes to fund an expanded safety net and help the city close a multibillion-dollar deficit. A coalition of powerful unions, including several that endorsed the governor’s re-election campaign, has also signed on, sending [a letter last week]('https://docs.google.com/document/d/1rDCiYJSuevrr8jD9APkOk6B9i-cWoHU6oFvK7u2IsbI/edit?tab=t.3uzasv16jrb5') to her and legislative leaders pleading for tax hikes on the wealthy.

On Tuesday, Mr. Mamdani and his sometimes political adversary, Council Speaker Julie Menin, said they would delay announcing an update to the city budget so they could jointly push for the state to reduce a tax credit that primarily benefits wealthy business owners, which they said could end up raising a billion dollars in revenue for the city.

Both this plan and the second-home tax proposal would need to be included in the state budget, which is still be negotiated and is now a month overdue. Ms. Hochul remains committed to the tax on second homes, but appeared unlikely to support other new taxes.

“Hochul is running out of excuses to not tax the rich in her final budget,” said Grace Mausser, a co-chair of the New York chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America.

The D.S.A. is a close ally of Mr. Mamdani, who is a member, and both have [aggressively called on the city’s wealthiest businesses]('https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/17/nyregion/second-home-tax.html') and residents to shoulder a heavier burden. They have even named specific billionaires like Mr. Griffin, who they say are a drain on the city and its finances.

Mr. Griffin, who has spent close to [$95 million on real estate purchases]('https://www.wsj.com/real-estate/luxury-homes/ken-griffin-pays-38-million-for-his-next-door-neighbors-home-at-740-park-ave-a08deb71?st=f7fCCQ&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink') in the city since the beginning of 2025, pushed back on these assertions, saying his companies and activity creates tens of thousands of jobs for the city.

“You can win political points by making an example of Ken Griffin, and they seem to have done that. Kudos to them for winning some political points,” Mr. Goodman said. “But achieving the tax goals is a different thing.”

I made it half way through when I noticed the comparison to Trumps case where he supposedly inflated the price to the bank by comparing it to selling properties of the same size and area for a loan. Lawfare at its best.

I made it half way through when I noticed the comparison to Trumps case where he supposedly inflated the price to the bank by comparing it to selling properties of the same size and area for a loan. Lawfare at its best.

Irrespective of that, this puppy is DOA since property "value" determinations are way too subjective...

Irrespective of that, this puppy is DOA since property "value" determinations are way too subjective...

Better ask Leticia how subjective they are first.

Don't drink and boat folks

[MEDIA=facebook]id=1628239782637914;type=r[/MEDIA]

Don't drink and boat folks

[MEDIA=facebook]id=1628239782637914;type=r[/MEDIA]

Boating Safety Course Graduate 🧑‍🎓!!

28-year-old woman impersonated high schooler in NYC for 2 weeks before arrest - ABC News 28-year-old woman impersonated high schooler in NYC for 2 weeks before arrest

No pictures. I'm wondering how she managed to get past a first look being a decade older than when most people graduate.

28-year-old woman impersonated high schooler in NYC for 2 weeks before arrest - ABC News [28-year-old woman impersonated high schooler in NYC for 2 weeks before arrest]('https://share.google/HvDrA6v7ZErq1dgzR')

No pictures. I'm wondering how she managed to get past a first look being a decade older than when most people graduate.

Thank god they caught it before it went “Full Trans” on the students.

[HEADING=2][SIZE=7]Beware of Drunk Deer, French Police Say, Announcing Season of Inebriation[/SIZE][/HEADING]
Some wild animals, eating fermented or rotten fruits, “may exhibit completely unpredictable behavior,” the police warned drivers in Saône-et-Loire, a rural region in central-eastern France.

A French law enforcement agency is warning drivers to watch out for drunks on the road.

They are not referring to humans.

It is inebriation season for wild animals, according to the agency, the Gendarmerie de Saône-et-Loire, which is based in a rural region in central-eastern France. “In the spring, some wild animals consume buds, fermented fruits, or decaying vegetation — and may exhibit completely unpredictable behavior,” the agency wrote last week on social media.

The police force noted that tipsy animals can quickly cause collisions if humans are not vigilant. To prove this point, the authorities in the picturesque Burgundy region, known for its berries and wines, posted a video of what appeared to be a very drunk deer that has captured international attention.

In the video, the deer spins in tight circles, dizzyingly, around and around. Soon, it tumbles onto its back, flips over and staggers back up, standing again on wobbling legs, and staring ahead, unaware — or not caring — that it is being filmed.

Then it runs off into another field, where it repeats the routine.

“If Bambi has had a bit too much of that forest aperitif, now might not be the best time to drive as if you own the road,” the agency’s post said. It warned drivers to slow down, be aware of their surroundings and “avoid sudden steering maneuvers.”

It was not immediately clear how many car accidents have been linked to such animals in France, and the Gendarmerie de Saône-et-Loire did not respond to a request for comment.

A variety of animals have shown a predilection for alcohol, though scientists have debated whether it is anecdotal, hard evidence or humans seeing themselves in nature.

Researchers have seen chimpanzees in West Africa [stealing palm wine]('https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/10/science/for-some-chimpanzees-happy-hour-starts-with-stealing.html'), tree shrews in Malaysia [sipping]('https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/29/science/29obdrin.html') nectar and waxwings that [died from alcohol poisoning]('https://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/health/of-drunken-elephants-tipsy-fish-and-scotch-with-a-twist.html'), seemingly from too much fermented fruit. In anecdotal cases, people have found [moose]('https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/sep/08/drunk-moose-cut-loose-sweden') and [elk]('https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-14842999') eating rotten apples, stuck in trees and [tangled]('https://www.heraldnet.com/2007/11/29/moose-gets-tangled-then-tipsy/') in Christmas lights.

Some researchers have [questioned]('https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/20/science/drunk-elephants-genes.html') whether animals, especially large ones like elephants and elk, can actually become drunk, given their size and the limited alcohol in the environment. But a 2020 [study]('https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article/16/4/20200070/34761/Genetic-evidence-of-widespread-variation-in') found that elephants and many other mammals lack a key enzyme that quickly metabolizes ethanol, helping keep stories of drunk and unruly elephants alive.

In 2025, another [study]('https://www.cell.com/trends/ecology-evolution/fulltext/S0169-5347(24)00240-4') posited that most animals that consume fruit and nectar also consume ethanol, though it is not clear if they do this for a buzz or some other reason.

Many French people also wanted to share their own anecdotes in recent days, claiming in comments below the deer video that they had experienced the phenomenon.

“It’s very common at this time of year; you just have to let it happen,” said one commenter, noting with amusement that “Bambi is absolutely wrecking the young corn” in the video.

“Roe deer absolutely love the buds of the alder buckthorn (shrubs typically found in hedgerows) and here is the result,” wrote another person. “They end up ‘drunk,’ ‘wasted,’ and so on.”

Another commenter said that while she did not live in the area, the guidance was “applicable everywhere in France.”

However, some observers were not amused, worrying about the fate of the erratic deer and suspecting that humans may be to blame, for instance, through fertilizers or pesticides.

As for what happened to the deer in the video, neither the French police nor the commentators could definitively say.

Here's Bambi having trouble holding his alcohol...

[MEDIA=youtube]w8rS6KL03ac[/MEDIA]

Who writes this stuff?

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2026/05/18/west-marine-files-for-bankruptcy/[/URL]

East Penn Manufacturing isn't the fishing reel company. They're a battery manufacturer. Doesn't anyone do any homework anymore?

Ah, what should you expect from a bunch of blow boaters. :(

Who writes this stuff?

[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.sailingscuttlebutt.com/2026/05/18/west-marine-files-for-bankruptcy/[/URL]

East Penn Manufacturing isn't the fishing reel company. They're a battery manufacturer. Doesn't anyone do any homework anymore?

Ah, what should you expect from a bunch of blow boaters. :(

That’s where I get my batteries in West Babylon. I buy the blems at 1/2 price. Never had a problem