Wednesday’s Post confirmed that the Independence Party slipped to the No. 5 ballot spot behind the Conservative & Working Family Parties.

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/if_you_re_con_then_you_re_on_6Trwj4ulcCPrCwQcNvw1cI

Mikhail Gorbachev speaking in the New York Times says that a nuclear test ban treaty must be concluded because it is “a step toward creating a truly global community of nations in which all share the responsibility for humankind’s future.”

I’ve been thinking through the response to the recent snowstorm in comparison with “the big one” in 1996. That storm is down the list from the point of view of Central Park, but it hit Brooklyn much harder. There was 30 inches on the table in my back yard according to a tape measure, before the windstorm (as in this storm) knocked all the snow from the rooftops down into the yards and streets.

The good news is that as I remember it (MSM organizations have morgues and should be able to make these comparisons more easily) subway service was restored and my street was plowed 24 hours and several days earlier in 2010 than it had been in 1996. But the 2010 storm was much worse in one key respect – the lack of emergency access during and in the first 24 hours after the storm, and the number of stuck and abandoned cars, trucks, buses and eventually plows and emergency vehicles littering the streets.

I generally get my weather directly from the National Weather Service website, where in addition to the text forecast I make use of the "Hourly Weather Graph" and radar to decide the mode (bicycle, subway) and timing of my commute. When something big may be going on, I also read the detailed "Forecast Discussion," which includes the thinking behind the forecast, information about models not in agreement, possible changes as events develop, etc. I certainly did so over Christmas weekend, with travel planned for my immediate and extended family. But I couldn't remember when the forecast changed.

So I went through the archived "Forecast Discussion" from the NWS, and found the following. As late as Christmas Eve, the storm was expected to basically miss most of the NY metro, excluding eastern Long Island and Connecticut. On Christmas morning, the possibility of a 6 to 9 inch snowstorm was forecast, and a “Winter Storm Watch” was issued. Someone should have been watching, because Christmas afternoon it was suddenly upgraded to a “Blizzard Warning.” It was still expected to be a powerful but not devastating storm in NYC until just after noon on Sunday, the day the storm hit, when the snow accumulation totals were updated. Bottom line: this storm put out more fakes than Michael Vick, so it is no surprise that a stunned city and MTA shanked a punt to Desean Jackson. The four “Forecast Discussions” follow in full: bold and italics were added by me.  If you bore easily, just read those parts.

The era of George W. Bush, by now a distant memory, still has historical significance as the age of mediocrity.  Nowhere is this symbolized more than in the Bush Administration whose ineptitude ranged from the War in Iraq to the response to Katrina where an American city was allowed to die.

I just read them over. They require all parked cars to be removed from a limited number of streets, and no travel on those streets without snow tires or chains. What is really needed in a blizzard this severe is for legally and safely parked cars to just stay put over much of the city, so the plows can work. And buses to be pulled from the streets. But that isn’t what the rule says.

The whole response needs to be re-thought for different scenarios, particularly since severe snowstorms are apparently becomming more common — and people need to be told to get where they are going or stay put ahead of time. The rethinking needs to take into account the fact that the number of vehicles that rely on street parking is right up to the number of potential spaces in many parts of the city. Anyone driving somewhere in these conditions will have no place to park when they get there, other than the middle of the street.

"Another problem on Monday was transportation for train operators, themselves. Many were having trouble getting to work, and Mr. Seaton said that a dearth of workers had contributed to the decision to shut down the entire B line."

Just thought I'd add what the New York Times missed. I hope I won't be hearing that some plows didn't run because the state legislature decided those from outside the city should be able to be NYC sanitation workers (but localities outside the city could continue to ban city residents from taking those jobs).

I walked from Windsor Terrace to that spot and didn’t see a plow on the street other than a Parks Department pick-up. But there must have been six to eight plows or garbage trucks with plows stalled within a block of 5th Avenue and 9th Street with their engines running. Along with a transit bus, a Boro Park-Williamsburg bus abandoned in the middle of the street, and a bunch of stalled cars. There was also a stalled bus up on 7th Avenue.

The side streets have four foot snow drifts — the plows running through last night before most of the now fell was a waste of time. The snow emergency routes had evidently been plowed during the night — you could walk in those streets — but more snow was blowing on to them.

The New Republic’s Marty Peretz, of all people, has written an angry piece making the case against clemency for Jonathan Pollard.

MARTY PERETZ?!? If as ardent and angry a Zionist as Marty Peretz opposes clemency for Pollard, it is hard for anyone to his left to disagree, especially when so much of what he says echoes my own feelings. 

And, yet… 

This list of the year’s worst anti-Semitic slurs is worth a read, but with items 9 & 10, we really get into the arguable realm.

9. Though Christina Patterson is a bit patronizing towards Hasidim I've heard Jews, many of them Orthodox, make almost everyone of these complaints.

Back when Domestic Partner was pregnant, she and her sister were standing on a train and could not get a seat. Several Hasidic men were absorbed in their religious reading, pretending not to notice.