Commission's Pricing Plan is Approved

The commission in charge of finding a solution for the chronic
gridlock that plagues New York City made its final recommendations
Thursday, approving a scaled-down version of the original plan that
still charges cars $8 to enter the most traffic-choked parts of
Manhattan.

The plan follows the lead of other cities around the globe that
started similar "congestion pricing'' systems and would make New York
the first city in the nation to embark on such an effort. The
commission's recommendations must now be approved by the City Council
and Legislature before taking effect.

The goal behind the fees is to get more people to take mass transit,
thus improving the notorious gridlock and pollution issues in the city.

Mass transit advocate Gene Russianoff said the commission
desperately needed to take action. "The city is drowning in traffic,''
he said.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's original plan called for $8 fees for cars
to enter Manhattan anywhere below 86th street, along with charging
drivers a $4 fee to travel within the so-called congestion zone. The
new plan eliminates the $4 charge to drive within the zone.
Instead, taxis would be hit with a $1 surcharge for trips that start
and/or end in the zone. Parking meter rates in the zone would increase
as well.

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Congestion Pricing Panel To Endorse A Plan

The commission studying ways to reduce traffic is expected to endorse a plan Thursday afternoon.



The Congestion Pricing Commission is expected to pass a proposal
that calls for an $8 fee for anyone driving in Manhattan south of 60th
Street.



The committee was formed after Albany legilsators agreed that
traffic problems had to be addressed, but couldn't agree on the
details.



Sources say the plan also calls for taxi fares to include a $1
surcharge and for some residents to lose an exemption from parking
garage taxes.


A controversial plan to put tolls on the East River bridges has
been scrapped for now, though motorists will still be hit once they
enter Manhattan.



A traffic reduction plan must be legally approved by March 31st for
the city to qualify for $354 million in federal transportation funding.

Technorati Tags: congestion pricing plan, tonylimo, news, nyc

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Traffic Congestion plan for NYC

Tony will tell the city what to do....

Gotta get moving..NYC Conjestion Pricing

Two huge deadlines face our deadline-averse lawmakers in Albany over
the next two months. One is the April 1 start of the new fiscal year,
the traditional date for passing the budget. The other is March 31, the
last day they can adopt a plan to cut New York traffic congestion
without risking loss of $354 million in federal funds. They can't
afford to miss it.


Last year, Mayor Michael Bloomberg came up with a plan to ease the
traffic that is hurting city residents, suburban commuters and
businesses. His congestion pricing plan would charge an $8 fee to cars
entering or leaving Manhattan below 86th Street on weekdays between 6
a.m. and 6 p.m. Though congestion pricing has helped such cities as
London, his idea drew a lot of fire.

Typical of Albany, the
solution was to appoint a study commission. It's due to finish its
report tomorrow. A draft shows that it has done solid research on the
mayor's plan, on an alternative that makes 60th Street the northern
boundary, and on other plans, such as one that involves East River
tolls and one that uses license plate numbers to ration who can drive
into the congestion zone.
Our point here is not to endorse any one proposal, but to remind
lawmakers that they now have the data they need to make a smart
decision - and soon. They have to pick a plan that uses congestion
pricing as its core, or the federal funds won't flow. That money would
beef up mass transit before the program begins, to carry the extra
riders that it's expected to discourage from driving. It's crucial. So
is the $400 to $500 million in annual revenue expected from the fees.

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Millions of iPhones Go AWOL

It's been dubbed the Mystery of the Missing iPhones. On Jan. 22, Apple
reported that it sold 3.7 million units of its smartphones worldwide
through the end of 2007. But AT&T, the exclusive U.S. iPhone
reseller and by far the largest buyer of the devices, reported that its
subscribers activated fewer than 2 million units last year. The big
question on the minds of Apple watchers is: Where have the other 1.7
million iPhones gone?

The uncertainty has helped sink Apple's (AAPL)
stock price to $130 a share, down 34% since the beginning of the year.
That is far worse than the 13% drop for the tech-heavy Nasdaq index.
Apple shares were already under pressure over concerns about how
weakening consumer spending would affect the company's shipments of
iPod music players and notebook computers. Now the worries about iPhone
sales have entered the mix. "In the past week the stock has fallen
further because of potentially lower iPhone shipments," says Shebly
Seyrafi, an analyst at Caris & Co..
A story that recently surfaced in a Chinese newspaper claimed that
Apple's iPhone component suppliers are cutting back on production in
anticipation of lower U.S. demand.

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METS TRADE FOR JOHAN SANTANA

January 29, 2008 -- The Mets today completed a trade with the Twins
for Johan Santana for four prospects. The deal is pending a contract
extension for the ace left-hander, who also must pass a physical.

By being persistent and hanging around while the Yankees New York Yankees
dropped out and the Red Sox grew more tepid in their interest, the Mets
landed the biggest trade prize of a busy trade season. That is if they
can sign Santana.

The lefty has the right to veto any trade and has indicated he
wants a six- or seven-year contract for as much as $25 million a
season.

The Mets have said they will not go beyond five years in any package.

But there is probably middle ground if the Mets are willing to
add option years that are easily obtainable. That the Mets have a
strong relationship with Santana's agent, Peter Greenberg, who also
represents Jose Reyes Jose Reyes , also is beneficial.

The Mets will surrender Carlos Gomez Carlos Gomez , Deolis Guerra, Kevin Mulvey and Phil Humber. The Twins initially told the Mets there would be no trade without Reyes.

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LETS GO GIANTS...

NY Giants going to the Super Bowl and what’s going on in the NY Post plus Jessica Simpson, Heath Ledger and Rambo’s new movie

Led Zeppelin coming to an arena near you?

TOKYO - Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page said Monday he was ready to take the iconic band on a world tour after burning up the stage at last month's reunion concert in London. But it probably won't be before September.

"The amount of work we put into O2 was what you would normally put into a world tour anyway," Page, 64, said of the intense rehearsing the band did for the Dec. 10 concert at London's O2 Arena.

The band's three surviving members — Page, singer Robert Plant and bassist-keyboardist John Paul Jones — were joined at the sold-out benefit show by the late John Bonham's son Jason on drums.

Page, who was in Japan to promote the new Zeppelin release, "Mothership," said the two-hour-plus concert was proof that Led Zeppelin can still perform at its best.

He said the band, which formed in 1968, was ready musically to get back together and take it out on a wider run, but it was not clear when it would go on tour as the singer had other plans.Robert Plant has a parallel project and he is busy with that until September," Page said.

Plant and bluegrass star Alison Krauss will begin their world tour with a run of shows in the southern U.S. this spring. The two released an album in October called "Raising Sand" that debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard chart in the U.S. The duo will tour Europe in May before returning for North American shows still to be announced for June and July.

Page said the band set their standards very high before agreeing to do the reunion, their first in 20 years. Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980 after the elder Bonham's death.

Page said they rehearsed for weeks, apprehensive that the cohesion they had in the 1970s when they were at their peak might be hard to rediscover.

Technorati Tags: tonylimo, led zeppelin, NYC

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Giuliani seeks one more 'I told you so' in Florida primary

FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) -- Rudy Giuliani loves to prove people wrong. He's trying to do it again in Florida.

Polls
show the former New York mayor, last year's national front-runner,
trailing badly in the state where he has bet almost everything in his
pursuit of the Republican presidential nomination. If he wins on
Tuesday, he will have earned the biggest, brashest "I told you so" of
his political career.

Lose, and Giuliani may be uttering his final words of the campaign.

"Wednesday morning, we'll make a decision," he told reporters between campaign appearances.

"In
the past, I've done the impossible - things that people thought were
impossible," he told supporters at a rally Monday. He was talking about
immigration policy, but he might as well have been discussing how to
resuscitate his presidential campaign.

Technorati Tags: tonylimo, Rudy Giuliani

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Caroline Kennedy Endorses Obama, Ted Likely Next

NEW YORK (AP) -- The daughter of President John F. Kennedy endorsed Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama
, saying he could inspire Americans in the same way her father once did."I have never had a president who inspired me the way people tell me that my father inspired them," Caroline Kennedy wrote in
an op-ed posted Saturday on the Web site of The New York Times. "But
for the first time, I believe I have found the man who could be that
president, not just for me, but for a new generation of Americans."

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The Coming Wave of Gadgets That Listen and Obey

INNOVATION usually needs time to steep. Time to turn the idea into
something tangible, time to get it to market, time for people to decide
they accept it. Speech recognition technology has steeped for a long
time: Mike Phillips remembers that in the 1980s, when he was a Carnegie
Mellon graduate student trying to develop rudimentary speech
recognition systems, “it seemed almost impossible.”

Now,
devices that incorporate speech recognition are starting to hit the
mass market, thanks to entrepreneurs like Mr. Phillips. He is the chief
technology officer and a co-founder of the Vlingo Corporation, an
18-month-old start-up in Cambridge, Mass., that is selling services to
cellular carriers and other software companies that want to give their
customers the ability to let their mouths do the walking — and
the searching.

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Macbook Air.....is it cool ?

MacBook Air review

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Technorati Tags: tonylimo, apple, macbook air, tech

NYC'S...Fees Likely for Traffic Plan

Nearly half the members of a commission studying ways to tame city
traffic said the panel would likely recommend imposing fees for driving
into the most congested part of Manhattan, a newspaper reported Friday.



The commission's choice will likely be a less ambitious version of
Mayor Michael Bloomberg's proposal to charge cars $8 and trucks $21 to
drive into Manhattan below 86th Street on weekdays from 6 a.m. to 6
p.m., The New York Times reported.



Eight of the 17 Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission members said
they expected the group would emerge with a modified take on
Bloomberg's plan, the newspaper said. A leading possibility, according
to the Times: making the cutoff for entry at 60th Street, and not
charging drivers for trips within the fee zone.



An estimated nearly $500 million a year in proceeds would pay for mass transit improvements.

Technorati Tags: TONYLIMO, NYC, TRAFFIC

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Victorious Giants Return Home and It’s Time to Party On

The Giants, set to play the Patriots in the Super
Bowl, came back to New York with their N.F.C. title to a restless city
that loves a winner and knows how to profit from one.

• Predict the Winner: Giants vs. Patriots
• Roundup: Patriots Are Reluctant to Solve Limp Mystery
• Senior Bowl Opens N.F.L. Scouting Season

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Apple 5ave pt 2

NEW YORKS PLAZA HOTEL and Apple's 5th AVE STORE

Cops: 4 Charged with Stealing $93K Worth of i-Phones

NEW YORK (AP) -- A shipment of Apple I-Phones valued at $93,000 was stolen from a warehouse in Valley Stream.

Nassau County Police say the I-Phones were taken from Rojay World
Freight. They were stored in a warehouse in Valley Stream before being
shipped via Cathay Pacific Airways from John F. Kennedy Airport to Hong
Kong.

However, Cathay Pacific realized the package had been tampered with
and discovered it was full of reams of paper rather than the I-phones.
Cathay Pacific notified Hong Kong Police who called the Port Authority
of New York-New Jersey. They in turn notified Nassau County Police.

Detectives arrested four people for the thefts.

Police say three Baldwin, Long Island men,, 20-year-old Emmanuel
Etienne, 22-year-old Jarred Thomas and 20-year-old Duane Carlos - are
all charged with grand larceny and conspiracy.

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Giants Stun Packers and Head to the Super Bowl

GREEN BAY, Wis. — Under a full moon, a black sky and a crisp and cruel blanket of cold, the Giants stood on the frozen sideline of Lambeau Field, waiting for a rush of warmth.

With one errant toss from a legendary quarterback, and one kick from
the right foot of Lawrence Tynes, the Giants sent themselves from the
northern prairie and into the southwestern desert, all the way to the Super Bowl.

Tynes’s
47-yard field goal 2 minutes 35 seconds into overtime gave the Giants a
23-20 victory in the National Football Conference championship game.
The Giants will next head to Super Bowl XLII in Glendale, Ariz., where
they will be two-touchdown underdogs to the undefeated New England Patriots on Feb. 3.

The Patriots defeated the San Diego Chargers, 21-12, in the American Football Conference title game.

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As NYC Builds Taller, High-Rise Construction Accidents on Rise

NEW YORK (AP) -- Building tall is getting more dangerous in New York.

This week's death of a worker who fell 40 stories off a Donald Trump
tower and a spate of recent accidents at other high-rise construction
sites have exposed failings like faulty cranes, tight schedules and an
ineffective inspection process, industry observers say.

The number of accidents last year at high-rise sites --
buildings 15 stories or higher -- more than doubled, causing five
deaths, up from one in 2006, city Buildings Department records show.

And as more and more tall buildings go up in New York, straining the
industry's work force and increasing public pressure to finish quickly,
the risks are growing, experts say.

"It's not a question of if people are going to get hurt, it's a
question of when,'' said Joel Shufro, executive director of the New
York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health, a workers' rights
group.

The five deaths last year include two city firefighters killed while
a toxic skyscraper was being dismantled across from the World Trade
Center site. Fifty-two people were injured on high-rise sites last
year, up from 32 a year earlier, city records show.

The latest accident on Monday killed Yuriy Vanchytsky, 53, who fell
off the Trump SoHo hotel-condominium complex after framework holding up
freshly poured concrete collapsed. City officials were investigating
whether the crane on the job had swung and hit the tower before the
accident; neighbors had complained previously that the crane had
slammed into nearby buildings before. They were also considering
whether too much concrete was poured at once.

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Did Steve Jobs deliver ?

We had a big row - or rather a reasoned debate - in our morning
editorial meeting about whether Apple deserves quite as much coverage
as it gets. A leading economics journalist pointed out that the Ford
Focus is a much bigger seller than the iPhone - but gets much less
coverage. I felt the Focus was just a car – while the iPhone
heralded major change in a whole industry

Did Steve Jobs deliver?

But we all agreed that Steve Jobs would have to come up with
something pretty special to justify news of his keynote spreading from
our web journalism to mainstream TV and radio bulletins.

So Darren and I trooped into the venue where journalists from across
Europe were watching the relay from San Francisco and assessed each
Jobs announcement for real news value as it happened.

First new product is Time Capsule – a wireless storage device
– designed to be a companion to Time Machine, the Leopard feature
which allows painless back-up of your data. Nice but not newsworthy.

So news value: 2/10

Then there is iPhone news - 4 million sold in 90 days. Pretty good,
and makes the target of 10m sales by end of 2008 look very achievable.
A few software updates for the phone, including the ability to locate
yourself in Google maps and customise your home screen. And, at last,
you’ll be able to send an SMS to more than one person at a time.
Ipod Touch will also get new features, including Mail – but
existing users will have to pay for upgrade. Again, cute stuff for
existing users, but not a breakthrough for anyone else.

News value: 3/10

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Mitchell, Selig, Fehr to Discuss Steroids

This time, no one was going to get away with telling Congress they didn't want to talk about the past.



Baseball commissioner Bud Selig and union leader Donald Fehr were to
head to Capitol Hill on Tuesday, three years after a theatrical hearing
where both men were chastised for what lawmakers called a lax steroids
policy.



Selig and Fehr had to share the spotlight with the author of the
Mitchell Report, but not with players, unlike on March 17, 2005.



That was the day Mark McGwire repeatedly said, "I'm not here to talk
about the past,'' while Rafael Palmeiro pointed his finger for emphasis
and told congressmen: "I have never used steroids, period.'' Palmeiro
was suspended by baseball later that year after testing positive for a
steroid.

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Tag Teaming it, Vlog Whore #1

LED ZEP....IN NYC

I myself was honor to be at New Yorks City's Madison Square Garden for their 6 nights in June, 1977. It was a show i will never forget and would wish they would come back and play at the Garden. Rumors are circulating about their return this year.

Led Zeppelin - Official Website

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How vulnerable is New York?

How prepared is New York for another terrorist attack or major
disaster? That’s the question a group of researchers and
disaster-response experts are discussing at a two-day conference
addressing ways to protect New York City and New York State.

STERNBERG

“The biggest threats to New York City today are terrorism,
pandemic flu and coastal surge from an off-shore hurricane,” says
conference organizer Ernest Sternberg, president of Protect New York
and professor of urban and regional planning in the UB School of
Architecture and Planning.

“The conference will highlight advances in protection and
response for these scenarios and other potential disasters in New York
City and throughout the state,” explains Sternberg, who studies
decision-making during a crisis.

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New Yorkers, You May Be Excused: A Pay Toilet Opens

Few toilets — if any — have ever received the level of
government and media fanfare that greeted the new public pay potty that
opened today in Madison Square Park. First, the full force of New York
City’s newspapers, television and radio were there to tape,
record and take notes on the first flushes. Second, the toilet is the product of an on-and-off decades efforts (detailed below) by city officials to, uh, serve the needs of New Yorkers.
So it was understandable that the city officials reveled in the toilet
paper roll-cutting ceremony (which, fittingly, they did with their
hands) on Madison Avenue, between 23rd and 24th Streets. But they
couldn’t resist the temptation of scatological humor: “No.
1!” (Janette Sadik-Khan, transportation commissioner), “in
loo of” (Adrian Benepe, parks commissioner), “doesn’t
block pedestrian movement” (Daniel L. Doctoroff, outgoing deputy
mayor for economic development).

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Hearing featuring Clemens, McNamee, Pettitte postponed until Feb. 13

WASHINGTON -- Congress wants to be prepared when
Roger Clemens and his former trainer, Brian McNamee, head to Capitol
Hill.

The House hearing involving Clemens, McNamee and Andy Pettitte
was postponed Wednesday from Jan. 16 until Feb. 13, giving
lawmakers more time to gather evidence and to coordinate their
investigation with the Justice Department.

The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform was to
begin meeting with lawyers for the witnesses Thursday. Clemens'
attorney, Rusty Hardin, said he hopes to meet with committee
staffers next week. In addition, McNamee is to meet with federal
prosecutors Thursday in New York.

"Roger hasn't done anything," Hardin said. "The federal
government looking at Roger is fine with me."

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New York City Tour of Rich & Famous Creates Jackie O Sightseeing Bus Tour

NEW
YORK, NY, January 9, 2008 - Michael DeMaria, an attorney from New
Haven, Connecticut wanted to provide his wife Dana, a lifelong fan of
Jackie Onassis, with a 40th birthday surprise party she’d never
forget. Michael hired a private mini-bus with fully stocked bar,
invited 4 couples and contacted Rich & Famous Tours of New York
City to provide a special "niche" tour around the Big Apple with a
twist: viewing sites having to do with the late First Lady.

Rich
& Famous Tours Co-Founder and guide Jim Dykes thoroughly researched
the late Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy's life and included dozens of Big
Apple sites such as Jackie's former home address at 1040 Fifth Avenue
on Central Park, as well as 740 Park Avenue, the elegant building she
was raised in which was recently the subject of a best-selling book by
Michael Gross, 740 Park, The Story of the World's Richest Apartment
Building. Also featured in the tour were the various churches in
Jackie's life including St. Thomas More, St. Patrick's Cathedral and
the church of her christening and her funeral, St. Ignatious on Park
Avenue. Also included in the tour were schools, shops and hotels such
as the Carlyle where Jackie signed her pre-nup with Onassis' attorney
and JFK allegedly had his extra-marital romps and the Waldorf where
Jackie was crowned "deb of the year" in 1947.

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7 Arrested in Craigslist Porsche Scam on Long Island

Police say seven people have been arrested on Long Island in
connection with a robbery scam that used Craigslist advertisements for
a Porsche as bait.

In two cases, people who showed up looking for a bargain were beaten and robbed.

Nassau County police say a 17-year-old Queens girl placed both ads. Her alleged accomplices range in age from 16 to 19.

The robberies took place in Baldwin on Dec. 6 and in Freeport on Nov. 26.

In the Freeport robbery, a couple drove from Pennsylvania to buy a
2006 Porsche. When they got out of their car, three or four men
attacked them, stealing a cell phone and several thousand dollars.

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Javits Center, NYC

Tonylimo's takes you through the outside of the Jacob Javits Center in NY'S westside on 11ave.

Apple ships new Mac Pro, Xserve ahead of Macworld

Apple got a little business out of the way before next week's
Macworld extravaganza, announcing new versions of the Mac Pro and
Xserve to go along with new Intel chips.

These systems are very high-end computers, designed for heavy work
rather than organizing photos of your latest trip to St. Louis. Both
the Mac Pro and the Xserve are available with two of Intel's Xeon 5400 series quad-core processors, and come with loads of memory and other performance-oriented features, like RAID hard drives.

Apple's Mac business has expanded quite a bit
over the past year or so, but creative professionals are still the base
of that support and these are two products were designed for them,
according to David Moody, vice president of Mac product marketing. Very
few businesses have standardized on Mac OS X Server in the server room,
and therefore the market for the Xserve is somewhat limited. Still,
smaller shops that want to have a Mac OS X environment front to back,
as well as educational customers, are key Xserve customers.

The Mac Pro is a little different, as it represents the most powerful
computer Apple can put together, and is a favorite of graphics
professionals that need tons of horsepower. It's also one of the few
Apple products for which there are dozens of configuration options;
most other Mac products have just three or four choices for
combinations of processor, memory, and storage.

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Tonylimo Show # 9

Tony takes you to JKF,NYC

Dell (and Others) Trying to Catch Up with Apple's Style

With CES right around the corner, the Wall Street Journal
looks at a growing focus amongst PC manufacturers: design. With
increasing competition and the clear appeal of Apple's industrial
design, PC manufacturers are increasingly focusing on the physical
designs for their upcoming computers. This is a sharp turn-around from
the corporate attitude only a few years ago:

Technorati Tags: tonylimo, tech, Apple

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Dean Martin and Sinatra

at there best.