Office Tower to Rise in Harlem for Baseball TV Network

Major League Baseball plans to build a home on 125th Street, Harlem’s premier boulevard, for its cable network, which is scheduled to make its debut early next year with some 50 million subscribers, real estate and baseball executives said on Wednesday.

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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

tt

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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Macbook Air.....is it cool ?

MacBook Air review

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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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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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Time Warner: Download Too Much and You Might Pay $30 a Movie

Let’s say you buy a new Apple TV because you want to rent
high-definition movies. And say you are about to move to Beaumont, Tex.
If so, you might wind up paying Time Warner Cable as much as $30 when
you download a movie using its high-speed Internet service.

Time Warner said on Wednesday that it was going to start testing a
new rate plan in Beaumont that would limit the amount of bandwidth each
customer can use each month before additional fees kick in. Alexander
Dudley, a Time Warner spokesman, said that the exact terms had not been
set, but that packages would probably offer between 5 gigabytes and 40
gigabytes a month. The top plan would cost roughly the same as the
company’s highest-speed service, which typically runs between $50
and $60 a month.

Mr. Dudley said the company was still working on what to charge
people who exceed their limits, but he pointed to Bell Canada, which
has imposed bandwidth limits on its customers. According to its Web
site, Bell Canada charges as much as 7.50 Canadian dollars ($7.42) for
each gigabyte when customers exceed the 30-gigabyte limit on a plan
that costs 29.95 Canadian dollars a month. Since the average
high-definition movie is 4 gigabytes to 5 gigabytes, that would mean a
charge of at least $30 a download for customers on a plan like that who
were over their limit.

Technorati Tags: tonylimo, Apple, Time WARNER

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YouTube’s Traffic Continues to Snowball -

YouTube continues to grow faster than the overall market for online video.

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Silicon Insider: The Secret to Apple's Success

OPINION By MICHAEL S. MALONE
Jan. 17, 2008