Get Ready for More 'Planned Flyovers' Over NYC

A Cessna 208B SKS Caravan by Shawn from Airdrie, Canada

Notify NYC tells us that we can expect "planned flyovers" in the wee hours of the morning (between the hours of 1 a.m. and 6 a.m.) from now until August. The city says  a low-flying Cessna 208 aircraft will be conducting "laser mapping of the NYC shorelines in all five boroughs. The aircraft will be flying at an altitude of approximately 1,475 feet and will be using a laser to measure erosion."

At the same time, Notify NYC also warns us of another set of planned flyovers that started April 8 and will continue until April 15, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m., centered over Midtown Manhattan. In this case, the flyover will be conducted by a tan/brown/yellow PA 27 Piper Aztec aircraft with tail #N170TA.

Recent Activity

There have been numerous flyovers in recent months. There was a flyover on March 30: "Three helicopters at low altitudes conducting aerial photography," we're told.

And on March 25, eight Alpha Jets conducted a flyover in the vicinity of the Hudson River and the Statue of Liberty.

Just the day before, on March 24, we were told to expect "three helicopters at low altitudes conducting aerial photography."

Another flyover was set for March 13, this one with 10 military helicopters which were conducting an "exercise over NYC at an altitude of 500-1,000 feet."

And another one on March 5: the same tan/brown/yellow PA 27 Piper Aztec aircraft with tail #N170TA, flying over.

Wow, what a lot of flyovers! (We're assuming that some of this activity has to do with Trump, since it picked up with his election as president.)

So there's no need to be alarmed. If you see a plane buzzing your building, it's likely just your government (and your taxes) at work.


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Happy ‘National Duck Out for a Drink Day!'

Photo: MK Metz

Today is ‘National Duck Out for a Drink Day,' America's favorite holiday.

The rationale is clearly and legally explained in a proclamation by Alex Balk at the Awl. It starts:

WHEREAS work is long, boring and especially difficult to take during the summer months when you could be outside, particularly when you consider how awful winter has been lately and will be for the rest of our lives and you’re starting to realize summer is almost over, and

WHEREAS contemporary human existence is a mostly unrelenting series of trials and tribulations of varying degrees of unpleasantness, none of which means anything in the end, the only reasonable temporary solution that has yet been discovered for being alcohol, and ... (More of the proclamation here).

Want some examples? Brokelyn tells us about some of the best times they skipped out of work for a drink (such as the time they got dumped in the morning and the Chipotle line was too long at lunch).

You can probably come up with some great reasons to duck out today, too.

Happy drinking!


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Brooklyn's Best Beaches and Brunches, Plus More Brooklyn News

#PublicArt: '10 #Murals Transform A Brooklyn Neighborhood Into A Public #Art Haven': "The #artist [Mike Perry],... https://t.co/JKVJxEYoJM

— Arts Ally (@Arts_Ally) May 31, 2016

- The insider's guide to Brooklyn's best beaches. [Brownstoner]

- A 12-year-old boy impaled his arm on a fence, and rescuers had to rush him to the hospital with the spike still embedded. [Daily News]

- Uber drivers confess they've driven while high, cheated on their wives with customers and told sneaky tales to get tips. [Daily Mail]

- Crazed woman charged with murder for allegedly stabbing Brooklyn YWCA tenant 80 times. [NY Daily News]

- Lineup announced for BRIC's Celebrate Brooklyn Festival. [Streets of NY]

- Best places for brunch on the cheap in Brooklyn. [Boozy]

- Stuck in the city over Memorial Day weekend? At least you weren't in Chicago, with over 60 shootings. [NBC]


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The Dem Debate, Condensed

Missed the debate last night and want to catch up? These websites have condensed it to its essential bits:

The #DemDebate, abbreviated: pic.twitter.com/6qVakC2fG9

— Slate (@Slate) October 14, 2015

AND MORE:
* Debate highlights: 9 quotes that sum up the Democratic debate. [Mashable]

* The 10 best moment's from the Dem debate. [Mother Jones]

* CNN's post-debate Nightcap. 

Best tweet about the debate:

I must say I am really proud to be a democrat tonight, this is how big boys debate, not like the clown show of the republicans. #DemDebate

— Michael Liu (@emmanuel763) October 14, 2015

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This Brooklyn Guy Is Running for President

Yeah, this guy. Photo courtesy Michael Szczepanski

Meet Dr. Michael Szczepanski, AKA Doc Mike, a Bay Ridge podiatrist who has declared his candidacy for the GOP nomination for President of the United States.

He learned all he needed to know about filing for the job by reading a Washington Post article titled, “How to run for president in 4 easy steps.”

“Other people are running. Why not me?” he told the Brooklyn Eagle, which has the whole story.

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Amtrak Service to Be Restored Between Philly and NY Monday Morning

Amtrak, by MK Metz

Amtrak says that service will be fully restored between Philadelphia and New York beginning tomorrow morning, Monday, 5/18.

The service restoration is scheduled to be effective in both directions with the departures of Train 110 from Philadelphia at 5:53 AM and Train 111 from New York City at 5:30 AM.

Following the tragic passenger train derailment in Philadelphia, Amtrak says it has completed the installation of an Automatic Train Control (ATC) "code change point" on the west side of the curve where the accident took place, which will ensure trains enter the curve at 45mph.

ATC provides a notification to the engineer when the train approaches a slow-down signal. If the engineer does not respond, the system will automatically apply the train’s brakes.

Investigators are still trying to figure out what caused a circular pattern of damage found on the locomotive's windshield.

Reuters reported late Sunday that the Amtrak engineer driving the ill-fated train made no report of an object hitting windshield before the crash.



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Barclays to Lose Entrance Plaza? Pervert Suspect Arrested in Bushwick; and More Brooklyn Briefs

8 little fellas were rescued from an abandoned building today & on their way to Bklyn AC&C. Kudos to #nypd #AC&C pic.twitter.com/Vhir1eVMfi
— NYPD 61st Precinct (@NYPD61Pct) February 9, 2015

After the cops rescued them, these little puppies were taken to the NYC Animal Care and Control unit in Brooklyn.

- Will Brooklyn Nets fans lose Barclays Center entrance plaza? [Nets Daily and Atlantic Yards Report]

- Brooklyn pediatrician Dr. Edna Pytlak: An unvaccinated child can develop “a horrific case of the measles if they catch it when they get older.” [Brooklyn Eagle]

- Taxi driver of the Brooklyn Orthodox couple killed on their way to Long Island College Hospital in 2013 said in court he was not rushing. [NY Times]

- A man suspected of perverted activity has been arrested in Bushwick. [WPIX]

- Williamsburg residents gave DOH a petition saying they want answers about the health effects of the big Williamsburg fire last week. [CBS] ... DOH told the Brooklyn Eagle last Thursday that the fire posed no immediate health risk.

- Think this is cold? New England got two feet of snow Monday, and Boston's subways, trolleys and commuter rail trains have ground to a halt. [AP]

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'Wanted Posters' for Rookie Cop; NBC Staffer Fingers Cosby; and More Brooklyn Briefs

- 'Wanted'  posters for NYPD cops who shot unarmed man are hanging in Brooklyn hosuing project. [Daily News]

- The parents of a 9-month-old girl who was accidentally shot in her Brooklyn home while her dad was cleaning his gun are being criminally charged. [NBC]

- The final Bridging Gowanus planning meeting takes place Monday, November 24 at 6:30, at PS 32 317 Hoyt St, Brooklyn. [PMFA]

- "He had everybody fooled. Nobody suspected.” Frank Scotti, long-time facilities manager at Brooklyn's NBC studio, speaking about Bill Cosby. [Daily News]

- Gov. Cuomo "accusing the National Weather Service of missing the storm ... is just one more bullet point on a list of stupid comments from a sub-par politician venturing into a topic he knows little about." [Gawker]

- The history of a cool little neighborhood called Brooklyn -- in Jacksonville, Florida. [news4jax]

- The U.S. is literally falling apart. [CBS]

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Friday Ebola Wrapup: 8 NYS Hospitals | 'It's Really Hard to Catch' | Lockdown Mode? | A 'Giant Hoax'

* On Thursday Gov. Cuomo said eight hospitals across New York state were chosen as special Ebola centers. Four of the hospitals are located in New York City and two in Long Island, leaving just two for the rest of the state -- in Rochester and Syracuse. [More at Brooklyn Eagle.]
Pictured above from left: Dr. Howard Zucker (DOH), Gov. Cuomo, Pat Foye (Port Authority), Tom Prendergast (MTA). 

* There are only four hospitals with biocontainment facilities in the United States, and they have 11 beds that can be used at any one time for Ebola patients. Four of those beds are currently being occupied by Ebola patients. [More at ABC News]

* Obama on Thursday urged Americans to keep the matter in perspective.  "Ebola is really hard to catch." Just a handful of cases, people. [White House YouTube]

* 75% of those who die from the Ebola virus are women. That's because most of the primary caregivers, nurses, and cross-border traders in those counties are female. [More at Bust]

* The situation in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone is deteriorating. [More at W.H.O.]

* Preppers are prepping to go into Ebola Lockdown Mode. [More at The Daily Sheeple]

* And finally: Ebola is a giant hoax: "It's not the Ebola that's going to get you, it's the vaccination" . . . "The thing they put to your temple that you think is reading your temperature? It's a mind-control device." [More at Free Radio Revolution]


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President Obama's V-22 Ospreys Flew Over NYC Tuesday

Photo: MK Metz

 We were in Brooklyn Bridge Park today when we saw two impressive V-22 Ospreys take off from the helipad at the South Street Seaport in Manhattan.

We were told President Obama was flying off to get to a fund-raiser in Connecticut.

Security was tight in the East River, with police vessels blocking ships from coming near the heliport. A police car was stationed right on the edge of the pier in Brooklyn Bridge Park as well.

The Ospreys flew up, towards Brooklyn for a bit, then disappeared over Manhattan in the wink of an eye.


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Six Weeks Till Election: Today Is National Voter Registration Day

Tuesday is National Voter Registration Day!

Volunteers, celebrities, and organizations will hit the streets to register tens of thousands of voters.

Are you 18? Election Day is November 4. You can register online.


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Internet Slowdown Day -- See These Symbols on the Web?

Have you seen this symbol much on the Internet today?

Sept. 10th is the Internet Slowdown

Because cable companies want to slow down many Internet sites, Internet neutrality groups loaded the  web with symbolic "loading" icons today, to remind everyone what an Internet without net neutrality would look like, and drive emails and calls to lawmakers.

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Theater With Poor Door; and More Brooklyn Briefs

The following are the subway station stairway closures West Indian Day Parade pic.twitter.com/5Vn6AU5CYK
— NYPD 78th Precinct (@NYPD78Pct) August 27, 2014

Above: Stairway closures in Brooklyn during West Indian Day Parade.

- Clinton Hill play has ‘poor door’ for cheap-ticket holders. [Brooklyn Paper]

- Brooklyn Tech teacher indicted for sexting selfies to 16-year-old also mentored engineering students. [Brooklyn Eagle]

- Brooklyn political power brokers fighting over state Senate race to replace now-Borough President Eric Adams. [NY Daily News]

- The city has reached a new contract agreement with tschool safety agent, who are mostly female and make $7,000 less than other special officers. [NY1]

- The former acting director of cyber security at the Department of Health and Human Services was convicted on federal child pornography charges on Tuesday. He expressed an interest "in the violent rape and murder of children." [Business Insider]


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Wars Stop Worldwide As Nations Ponder Miracle of Brooklyn Bridge's White Flags

The White Flag. Photo: MK Metz, McBrooklyn

Israel and the Palestinians and combatants in the South Sudan offered to lay down their arms in temporary truces as the mystery of the Brooklyn Bridge's white flags struck a deep chord with humanity.

Pilgrims made their way along the Brooklyn Bridge's walkway at sunrise, pointing to to the stone towers, in what is now being referred to as "The Miracle of the White Flags."

A Hispanic woman surrounded by kneeling children, wearing white and praying on white rosary beads, called out repeatedly, "En la tierra como en el ciel!" as NYPD officers cordoned off an area to prevent crushing from the growing crowds. "Keep it moving!" they ordered the pilgrims.

A man sold T-shirts with a picture of the flags on the tower next to a picture of a lunar landing module and the word, "Believe!"

"I was here when they took it down," he said, waving his arms in the direction of the west tower.  "That's where it was."

He added, "It was white."

A man who said his name was Elmo sold bottles of water to members of a Canadian tour group at three dollars a pop.

"We wanted to see where it happened," said Olivia Norris, of Calgary, on tour with her mother Emma.

A man distributing pamphlets, who refused to give his name, said, "White flag has nine letters. And there's two towers. One-one. That's all I'm gonna say. What don't they want us to know?"

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Some People Are Mad the Super Bowl Is In Cold NJ, and Are Praying That It Snows Hard

Photo: Erik Daniel Drost

Driving through NY's rural upstate over the weekend, we were surprised to hear commenters on a radio call in show (I know, right?) cursing at the stupidity of the Super Bowl committee for holding this year's big event in an open stadium in the North East during the coldest winter in years.

With great venom, one after another called on the Powers That Be to unleash the Blizzard of 2014, along with freezing rain and a polar Sharknado.

While weather forecasting is notoriously fickle, at least one news outlet, CBS Sports, says the initial forecast calls for temperatures between 24 - 38, with a small chance of snow and low winds.

The National Weather Service shows a similar forecast, so far. 

In short, good football weather!

If this forecast holds, so many will be disappointed.

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Way Too Many People Are Getting Arrested In This Country

Photo: Nevele Otseog

Just in time for Dr. Martin Luther King day, the statistic comes out that almost 50 percent of black men in this country have been arrested (for non-traffic offenses) by the age of 23.

Further browsing finds that almost 40 percent of white men and over 40 percent of Hispanic men have also been arrested by the age of 23.

Put any ten men in a room and four or five of them have police records.

About 18 percent of women have also been arrested by age 23.

According to Time, the U.S. has 760 prisoners per 100,000 citizens. Japan has 63 per 100,000, Germany has 90, France has 96, South Korea has 97, and "crime-ridden" Britain has 153.

Many of those arrests -- half on drug charges -- take place during adolescence, after which a large chunk of the population will have records that may prevent them from getting good jobs and rising in life.

In 2012 in Brooklyn, there were 92,527 adult (age 16 and up) arrests, according to state figures. There were also 3,065 juvenile arrests in Brooklyn. The total is 95,592. That means almost four percent of Brooklyn's population got arrested just in that one year. (Though some perps may have beeen arrested several times, their numbers are probably not all that high.)

Two more statistics: States spend more on prisons than on higher education -- and it costs five times more to imprison a student than to send him to college.


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Photo: Polar Vortex Hits U.S.; Chicago = 'ChiBeria'

Deadly ice storm that struck some parts of Eastern Canada and the USA #EarthPics #PolarVortex #ChiBeria pic.twitter.com/knTlxCd8yl
— Google Earth Pics (@GoogleEarthPics) January 6, 2014

A photo from Google Earth showing conditions in Chicago, from the Polar Vortex extending into the U.S. from the Arctic. Chicago has been transformed into "ChiBeria."

The Polar Vortex is extending into Brooklyn tonight. While temperatures are plunging, an ice storm is not in the forecast.

#PolarVortex

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Twitter Makes It Harder for Governments to Spy on Users. They May Just Have to Buy Your Data Like Everybody Else

Twitter says it has implemented a new security technology that makes it harder for government intelligence agencies to spy on its users.

That's great. Now the only people spying on Twitter users are those who pay Twitter for the privilege of mining the data.

And the Library of Congress, which gets it for free.

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Another Sign of the End Times: Butterball Turkeys Won't Fatten Up

Photo: Techvt, Flickr

An inexplicable ailment has affected many of the unfortunate creatures known as Butterball turkeys.

According to WNBC, Butterball says that it will have a limited supply of large (16 pounds or heavier) turkeys for the holidays this year.

The company says the critters just won't plump up in time for Thanksgiving, and it has no idea why. Now they're stuck with a bunch of skinny turkeys.

We say it's trouble and we say we learned all we need to know about it in Hitchcock's "The Birds":

LYDIA ON PHONE
... Well, it's just no good. The chickens
won't eat it.
(pause)
They're always hungry, Fred. I opened
one of the sacks when I got home,
and I poured it out for them, and
they wouldn't touch it. Now you know
chickens as well as I do, and when
they won't eat, there's just something
wrong with what they're being fed,
that's all.
(pause)
No, they're not fussy chickens.
(pause)
Who? What's he got to do with it?
(pause)
Fred, I don't care how much feed you
sold him. My chickens...
(pause)
He did? Dan Fawcett?
(pause)
This afternoon?
(pause)
Well, that only proves what I'm
saying. The feed you sold us is...
(pause)
Oh. Oh, I see. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Uh-
huh. Maybe I ought to go over to see
him. You don't think there's something
going around, do you?
(pause)
No, never.
(pause)
No, Fred, they don't seem sick at
all. They just won't eat.
(pause)
Mmmm. Mmmmm. Well, I'll try to get
over to Dan's farm. Maybe he'll...
mmmmm... mmmmm... all right, Fred,
thanks.
(she hangs up, puzzled)

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Senator Schumer Is Squawking About Plan To Import Chicken from China

Photo: Watt Publishing

Thank goodness Sen. Chuck Schumer is speaking out against the plan to send U.S.-raised chickens to China, let the Chinese process them into food products, and then ship them back for us to eat.

This is the country that is killing our pets with poisoned jerky treats; where people won't let their children play in the cancer-causing yellow air; where tens of thousands of diseased, bloated hog carcasses float in the Huangpu river.

China has essentially no food safety rules whatsoever.

What does our country say about Schumer's concerns?

The USDA says that the senator is overreacting.

More at Grubstreet.

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