California

One of the simplest things we can do to improve our productivity and economic well being is to increase the efficiency of our use of energy. We are so wasteful that there is an enormous amount of low hanging fruit. As New York state begins to get serious about this, we should look west to California, for a place that really knows how to make the most out of a kilowatt.

Since 1981, I've taught public management at Columbia, and I am not one of those people who believe that government is incompetent and only the private sector is efficient and effective. Some work is best performed by government, some by nonprofits and some by the private sector.  read more »

McCain in his speech, which was delivered just as the California results were starting to come in: "We are the front-runners for the Republican nomination for President of the United States." Does he have a hunch about how the Golden State is heading?

The trend line looks promising for Barack Obama in California. Two days ago, a Zogby poll gave him a one-point lead in the delegate-rich state. Yesterday, his margin swelled to six points. And this morning, the final round of data has him ahead by a staggering 13 points.

But there are two catches:

1) We saw this same kind of trend in the days before New Hampshire, and—amid predictions of a blowout Obama victory—it reversed itself on primary day.  read more »

One of the people involved with the new Barack Obama song “Yes We Can” is Tatyana Ali, of Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Fakin’ Da Funk fame, who I bumped into in an elevator after Thursday night’s debate here in Los Angeles.

She predicted the song would be huge.  read more »

Who knew that policy initiatives could get such a reaction on college campuses?

In a rally this morning at California State University in East L.A., Hillary Clinton used words like “affordable,” “student loan” and “apprenticeship training” to elicit cheers from the audience.

Sure, there were cameos Sally Field and Magic Johnson and music from the underappreciated Mariachi Divas.  read more »

SAN JOSE -- In California, Hillary Clinton is campaigning like Barack Obama – drawing massive crowds and casting herself as a grassroots candidate.

“Who are we for?” Diane Feinstein, who introduced Clinton, called from a stage crowded with California elected officials under a sprawling white tent in the San Jose convention center.

‘Hillary!” answered the thousands of fervent supporters.

The enormous and roaring crowds Clinton is attracting out here in San Diego and San Jose underline her popularity in California, and the intensity and volume of the crowd actually seems to have taken reporters aback.  read more »

Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama got their digs in, but both candidates took pains on Thursday night not to appear hostile or mean-spirited in what was their only one-on-one encounter before Super Tuesday.

Instead, the two surviving Democratic contenders spent close to two hours—the debate at the Kodak Theatre wrapped up a few minutes earlier than planned and included three commercial breaks—aiming most of their attacks at John McCain, the likely Republican nominee, and engaging in lengthy, painstaking and rather dispassionate discussions of policy.

From a civics standpoint, the debate was something approaching a triumph. But in terms of political theater, it didn’t even begin to approach the tension and pique that defined last week’s debate in South Carolina.

Both candidates had good reason to play it this way.
 read more »

The Census estimates out last week showed double-digit percentage growth in the South and the West since 2000. But in the Northeast--and in the Midwest--population growth was paltry.

The population of the Northeastern United States increased only 2 percent from April 1, 2000 through July 1, 2007. In the Midwest, the increase was 3.1 percent. (In the U.S. entirely, it was 7.2 percent.)

Part of the reason for the sluggish growth in the Northeast, as The New York Times noted last week, was higher housing prices. But, one has to ask, what about the Midwest, where housing prices are lower than in faster-growing places like Florida and California? Though it might be tempting for West Coasters to explain the downward population trends in the Midwest and Northeast as an aversion to cold weather, the two regions have more in common than chilly climates.  read more »

We've already grown fond of Radar Logic's relatively new monthly report that tracks home prices in markets throughout the nation, including New York City, and then compares the markets to one another.

For instance, the September report, out today (PDF), shows that the Cleveland metro area remains the cheapest housing market among the 25 polled, with an average price per foot of $92.26. Cleveland has been the cheapest in 10 of the last 11 months, in fact, ceding only one time (in June) to St.  read more »

Rediscovering Tammy Grimes, who is currently electrifying New York sophisticates at the new Metropol  read more »

Al Sharpton really enjoys making candidates beg for his endorsement.   And yet they come.  read more »

Mercury Public Affairs, the company that helped bring you three terms of George Pataki and is now working on John McCain's presidential campaign, just announced the hiring Arnold Schwarzenegger's campaign manager Steve Schmidt.

Interestingly, the formal announcement from Mercury's managing partner Kieran Mahoney doesn't mention McCain at all.

From the statement:

"[Schmidt's] experience in the presidential campaign, the California governor's race and the Supreme Court confirmation process gives him an unmatched understanding of how polling, grassroots mobilization, issue advocacy, government relations and media relations work together to achieve measurable business results."

Full statement after the jump.  read more »

-- Azi Paybarah

If you’ve been reading the real-estate pages in the newspapers lately, you could be forgiven f  read more »

With her dark scowls and dour “Don’t tread on me” warning signals, Christina Ricci  read more »

Welcome to The New York Observer.  read more »

Top-ranked purebred boxer Monroe (shown here) sure seemed glum on Thursday.

Perhaps it had something to do with not winning "Best of Breed" at this week's Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show.

Or maybe it was just being stuck at the icky Hotel Pennsylvania for too many days.

Ms. Monroe was one of many precious pooches hanging around the hotel's lobby on Thursday afternoon after the recent snowstorm grounded many dog-show contestants. (The show ended Tuesday night.)

One California dog owner, whom this reporter encountered whilst she scooped poop from the wood-shavings-strewn "Green Room," complained of already being late for her next competition on the West Coast. But she was genuinely grateful that hotel staff kept at least one mess-pen open for the laid-over pets.

Every year, the landmark hotel makes a big fuss over its hosting of the competitive canines--reportedly checking-in more than 1,000 dogs this year.

Its record of hosting humans is less stellar. Not unlike Dave Barry, Ms. Monroe's friendly owner was less than thrilled by the two-star accommodations.

This reporter can relate. (The hotel also has been associated with other, less-desirable critters.)

Enjoy it now, bitches--the trademarked "World's Most Popular Hotel" may be headed for demolition.  read more »

Pics from Hotel Penn's puppy latrine after the jump.

- Chris Shott

Bush and Spitzer Bleed City Hospitals  read more »

Biden on Iraq   To the Editor:    read more »

Biden on Iraq   To the Editor:    read more »

Biden on Iraq   To the Editor:    read more »

Bush and Spitzer Bleed City Hospitals  read more »

Bush and Spitzer Bleed City Hospitals  read more »

Fresh off his "statement of candidacy," Rudy Giuliani will head off to California this weekend to raise some money and address the GOP convention in Sacramento.

What isn't on the public schedule is a private meeting with Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, said a source familiar with the trip.

With talk of California possibly moving up its primary schedule, the state takes on added importance for Giuliani, whose moderate positions -- relative to the rest of the prospective 2008 field on the GOP side -- should be an unqualified positive there.

Giuliani already enjoys the diehard backing of Bill Simon, the 2002 Republican candidate for governor of California, who held a fund-raiser for Giuliani at his Pacific Palisades home on Jan. 29th. With all the necessary caveats about the overstated importance of endorsements, the addition of Schwarzenegger would be big.

--Jason Horowitz

Eliot Spitzer is still talking to reporters, but in the meantime, 1199 is already doing its best to pour water on his health care agenda.

An unusually harsh joint statement from 1199 and the Greater New York Hospital Association said that Spitzer's statements were "riddled with inaccuracies" and that there is "nothing strategic or policy-minded about a freeze in spending." (In other words, they're practically daring the press to portray this as a positive reform.)  read more »

The whole long, bluntly worded statement is after the jump.

-- Azi Paybarah

A friendly commenter makes the point that Jews voted against Bush (while the country was voting him in) and, by a good majority, opposed the Iraq war, per a lot of polls.

Fair enough. But I would say that we are talking now about attitudes, and a political movement is not built on attitudes. It requires leadership. As I wrote last year: 'There are 14 Jewish congressmen from New York and California (as I count them in the Almanac of American Politics). Twelve of them supported the Iraq war in 2002. Including good old Vietnam doves like Henry Waxman and Howard Berman of Los Angeles."

I don't dispute the attitudes, but I do question the political will of the body of American Jewry; if they feel misrepresented by the Israel lobby and their congressmen, they ought to rise up against them. George Soros says he's going to start an anti-occupation lobby. Good for him, I'm in his camp. Will he get numbers?

The $802.4 Billion City    read more »

The $802.4 Billion City    read more »

The $802.4 Billion City    read more »

For renters and would-be renters in New York City, 2007 will be--surprise!--another trying year.

A new report from investment brokerage Marcus & Millichap declares New York will have the lowest rental apartment vacancy rate in the nation (2.8 percent) by the end of the year, as well as the strongest growth in rents throughout the year.

These dual projections will keep New York, the report says, the tightest, priciest rental apartment market in the United States, ahead of No. 2 Orange County, Calif., and No. 3 Oakland. In fact, New York's the only non-West market to make the report's top 5.

Release on the report after the jump.  read more »

- Tom Acitelli

Following up on this story today, Congressman Jerrold Nadler just called in to say that he will be introducing his own bill within the next few days to try to force a withdrawal of American troops from Iraq by limiting funding for the war.

"You have got to use funding -- it's the only real enforcement congress has," he said.

Nadler said he recognized that slashing funds is politically problematic in that any restrictions on funding for the war will be portrayed as an abandonment of the troops.

"The way around that is not to cut the funding but to condition the funding," he said, explaining that his bill will "say no funds appropriated at all except for the following purposes: One, protect the troops. Two, withdraw on the following timetable. Three, reconstruction to help Iraq. And four, diplomacy to set up international conferences."

Nadler says the bill will also include a measure that bars any funds for increasing troops at any time.

Just to be clear, this is a longshot.

For the bill to go anywhere, it needs the support of the Democratic leadership. (Nadler says that, so far, Maurice Hinchey of New York, Lynn Woolsey of California and Jim McGovern of Massachusetts have expressed interest in supporting the measure.)

And even if such a bill made it far enough to come before the executive, President Bush would be likely to veto it.

"You put this as a limitation on the appropriations bill," said Nadler. "If he vetoes it he has no money."

And what about Democrats like Sen. Joe Biden, who has said that Congress "micromanaging" the war through legislative restrictions is unconstitutional?

"I don't agree with Biden," Nadler said. "You can certainly condition use of funds. The basic problem that you have is that you've got a stubborn jerk in the White House who will ignore anything and do what he wants to do."

--Jason Horowitz

Former city and state comptrollers may join a panel to screen comptroller candidates who would then be voted on by the state legislature.

Eliot Spitzer penned an op-ed saying that high taxes and cost of health insurance in New York can be reduced.

Spitzer reduced the price of phone calls for inmates.

Mike Bloomberg backed off his critique that legislators don't have the skills to be CEO of a city.

Word that Joe Hynes will help Andrew Cuomo investigate Medicaid fraud gets the approval of Post editors.

Hillary Clinton said the country should move towards universal health care as soon as it reasonably can, while Arnold Schwarzenegger pushes ahead with it in California.

Democrats are seeking a way to block financing for the military in Iraq without appearing like they're abandoning the soldiers already there.

Mitt Romney raised $6.5 million for his presidential exploratory committee.

And that weird smell may have come from New Jersey. There must be a punchline in there somewhere.

-- Azi Paybarah

I spent Christmas Eve at two parties in LA hosted by Jews—friends of my gentile brother-in-law. Didn't plan it that way; just worked out that way.

The first party was all film industry. I asked the host's daughter about being Jewish and having a Christmas party and she laughed and said, "Yeah. Basically we do whatever's fun. Like we had an Easter egg roll." I liked her attitude. California. No baggage.

The next party was more interesting because there was a Holocaust survivor there. He grew up in a wealthy German family, then spent years in Theresienstadt. After the war, stateless, he said No to Palestine and came here. In the last few years he has been able to recover some of the family's actual property. The survivor's wife took me in the kitchen and showed me some china they had finally gotten back. "This too survived Hitler," she said, touching the beautiful Deco-styled plates.

It felt like a west coast dream. Attitudes are different out there, people are more open to new ideas. At New York parties, I get in fights about Jewishness. Not in L.A.

I sat with the wife for a while at dinner and talked about my issues. She explained that she was firmly secular. Religion is a negative force in society. Jewish identity was important to her, but worship was no real part of her children's lives, and she'd never tried to separate them from kids of other creeds. She was a little regretful about intermarriage but it wasn't like she could have stopped it. Hey, it's America. The Holocaust was not something they talked that much about. When I asked her about Israel, she said, "Israel is important." When I asked her to elaborate, she repeated that statement.

I went in to get Christmas cake and passed a pretty towheaded girl singing, "Dreidel, dreidel, dreidel." It felt surreal to me.

One of the claims of Jewish parochialists is that Where Hitler failed, intermarriage is succeeding: eliminating the Jewish people. It may be an incorrect statement (the latest Forward reports that Jewish #s in the U.S. are up to between 6-7 million). But right or wrong on the #s, it's ugly. It's guilting Americans who are making free and wide cultural choices, saying they're betraying their people. And the answer of the Michael Steinhardts and Elliott Abrams is, Segregating youth. Segregating privileged youth, at that. Think of the little blonde girls who won't get to sing the dreidel song.

I'm in L.A. One of the liberating things about being here is that while there's Jewishness all around me, it is not as confining a Jewishness as the one in New York. The definition is looser.

At a Christmas party of people in the movie business two nights ago, I talked to three Jews. 1 was a movie producer who said he welcomed Jimmy Carter's statements about the Middle East and couldn't believe the smearing he was getting, then went off to play with his child by a gentile woman. With 2 and 3 I had longer conversations about Jewishness.

2 was a producer married to a Jewish woman. He was the son of Holocaust survivors and in 1967 had been pressured by friends to move to Israel. He had refused and, feeling angry about the pressure, had come to the understanding he was American, and had moved west. He said he got along with his businessman father-in-law completely, agreed on all politics, till he'd had the worst argument ever with him over Carter's book. The father-in-law said Jimmy Carter was an anti-Semite. He didn't agree, he thought Jimmy Carter was saying important things.

3 was a beautiful woman who it seemed to me had traveled widely, using the powers of her beauty, and her mind. She had grown up here then gone to live in the middle of the country, where she had married and had kids with a gentile. Now she was going out with a non-Jew back here. She told me she felt really Jewish; it was her "core." I found that moving. And her father had said to her, "Israel is very important." But she was afraid to examine Israel. From what she had heard it was a place that prized violence and ethnic chauvinism. That wasn't her way. The soul of Jewishness, she said, was to participate in the modern world, and see the best in everyone, and reach out for greatness in other groups and add our greatness to the mix unselfishly. "High five," I said, mimicking Borat when the hotel clerk reads him the telegram saying his wife has been eaten by a bear. We high-fived. Her boyfriend came over, and our conversation petered out.

Comments. My focus group was self-selecting; of course this is a party an assimilationist like myself ends up at. In fairness to the body of American Jewry, it doesn't go to Christmas parties like this one, by and large, and has a stronger sense of Jewish chauvinism than anyone at the party. Still, we assimilationists have close connections to that more-conservative body. I bet that 3's father and 2's father-in-law both give money to Jewish organizations, maybe to arms of the Israel lobby. While notwithstanding their strong feelings, 3 and 2 are not having much effect on our foreign policy.

On the East Coast I feel a lot more pressure to be Jewish-identified in a chauvinist way. People who live in New York tend to be more particularist-Jewish than California Jews. (It's no wonder that Michael Lerner, one Jew to endorse Jimmy Carter, is in S.F.) And affluent Jews on the east coast form the heart of the Israel lobby. They have been given that role, by history, by the Jewish people, by Israel—someone—to stand with Israel and insist that America do so too, because they believe that America if left to its own devices would abandon Israel.

There is a Hebrew word for me and my Christmas-party Jews. We are galut. Galut means diaspora, homeless, exiled. To make aliyah in Israel (to emigrate) means to go up—because Israel is the highest spot. We are down. And galut is a judgmental word, it carries the hint, spiritually-alienated.

I'm still in that high-five moment with 3, a core Jew, not feeling alienated, offering a non-chauvinist way of identifying Jewishly to an America that, mimicking Israel, is mired in a bloody, racial clash with the Arab world. Happy holidays.

On a recent afternoon, David Boies, 65, and his son Christopher, 38, pulled up chairs for an intervi  read more »

Eliot Spitzer has a house upstate.

The Assembly has a list of its pet projects.

The state nurses' union doesn't like the Berger Commission's recommendations.

Elizabeth Dole said the Senate Republican Campaign Committee is under "an avalanche of debt."

Rudy could benefit if California and Florida move up their GOP primaries to the first Tuesday in February, says the Giuliani Blog.

Greg Sargent wants to know whether Washington Post reporters and editors are officially allowed to call Iraq a civil war.

Adolfo Carrion is the city's only Rodel Fellow from the Aspen Institute.

Mike Bloomberg met quietly with the family of shooting victim Sean Bell.

And above is Adam Green.

-- Azi Paybarah

• New domes heading for famed Ladies' Mile building.
[NY Times]
• Tenants couldn't stop Stuy Town, Cooper Village sale.
[NY Times]
• Manhattan developers adjust to slower condo market.
[NY Times]
• Take a look at Loew's Paradise in the Bronx.
[NY Times]
• Signs - literally - of a cooling California market.
[NY Times]
• Coney Island grapples with the hazards of renewal.
[NY Times]
• Matching newer buildings with older quality.
[NY Times]
• Larchmont bucks Westchester housing cooldown.
[NY Times]
• Slow sales at the Stanhope spur marketing changes.
[NY Times]
• Did Manhattan House conversion kill tenant? [at bottom]
[NY Times]
• Donald Trump Jr. is very hot right now.
[NY Times]
• Making mortgage lenders more responsible for borrowers.
[NY Times]
• Who kills the mice in a co-op?
[NY Times]
• Don't hire an incompetent moving company.
[NY Times]
• City's second Trader Joe's coming... to Queens.
[NY Times]
• It's another round of Columbia vs. Harlem residents.
[NY Times]
• Wave of video store closings sweeps city.
[NY Times]
• Inclusionary housing debate on in Chelsea.
[Villager]
• Northeastern homebuilding starts rise in October.
[NY Post]
• Former KB Home CEO may reap $175 million windfall.
[NY Post]
• Reckson postpones shareholder meeting for other bid.
[NY Post]
• Newark mayor rents the top floor.
[NY Post]
• Workers pour concrete foundations of Freedom Tower.
[Daily News]
• Blackstone may buy Equity Office for $20 billion.
[NY Sun]
• Homeowners, local governments fret eminent domain.
[NY Sun]
• The "growing pains" of New York home defects.
[New York]
• City churches wrestle with real estate temptations.
[New York]

Did we miss any New York City real estate news this morning? Please send along tips and links.

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A few years ago, I spent an afternoon on the Upper East Side with a keen-eyed Frenchman during his m  read more »

Did you see those two monkeys in the Times Science section last week?  read more »

Did you see those two monkeys in the Times Science section last week?  read more »

Ten of the 12 state referenda restricting the government's right of eminent domain passed Tuesday, according to the Castle Coalition. No Land Grab says the two that failed (Idaho and California) were "anti-regulatory, anti-environment ballot propositions disguised as eminent domain reform."

-Matthew Schuerman

Health-conscious L.A.-based frozen-yogurt purveyor Pinkberry is plotting a massive low-calorie invasion of New York.

But can a trendy Southern California upstart truly compete in a cooler Northeastern climate long dominated by the Tasti D-Lite juggernaut?

With one Manhattan location already open (7 East 32nd Street) and another three sites now under construction, Pinkberry's local leasing reps, Robert K. Futterman & Associates, announced plans Monday to establish 15 additional so-called "GUILT FREE" venues by 2007, "in Manhattan, the Outer Boroughs, Westchester County, Long Island, Rockland County and throughout New York State," according to a press release.

An aggressive expansion to be sure but still a far cry from the 30 sites presently under Tasti D-Lite control in Manhattan alone.

A spokesperson for "NEW YORK'S #1 FROZEN DESSERT" downplayed the potential Pinkberry threat.

"We don't consider it any competition at all," says Tasti D-Lite's Gertrude E. Bakel, who likened the frosty faceoff to an "apples and oranges" comparison.

"It's a very different product," she says of Pinkberry. "It's frozen yogurt, and our product is a unique frozen dessert which contains no yogurt at all."  read more »

Among the lactose intolerant, at least, Tasti's top-dog status remains safe.

- Chris Shott

I’m sick of New York. There—I said it.    read more »

I’m sick of New York. There—I said it.  read more »

The star of Ned Lamont's new television ad is none other than Joe Lieberman.

It is Lieberman's voice, back in 1988 when he debated incumbent Senator Lowell P. Weicker Jr., that narrates the ad. "After 18 years, it's time for somebody new," he says."In this campaign I promise you I will not miss more than 300 votes."

On the screen it says "The Fact: Joe Lieberman has skipped more than 418 votes."

The Lamont campaign says that it is putting the finishing touches on the ad but it should be up at around 3pm.

According to the Lamont campaign, Lieberman skipped half of all votes on the Iraq War, missed votes on Medicare to attend fundraisers in California, and failed to vote once to fund the inaugural budget of the Department of Homeland Security.

We're waiting to hear back from the Lieberman campaign for a response.

--Jason Horowitz