To be fair, there are a thousand reasons to be based in New York City: it's great, the talent is great, it's magical, all that jazz. Don't like living or working anywhere else. Plus, there's a Starbucks everywhere for when you have a cruddy office with no conference room. That is A+. Oh but wait, why would you support a non-NYC startup with coffee money? Take that meeting to, say, Gregory's Coffee. But what has the City done for you lately, besides offering terrific mass transit service and a lack of affordable rent? Mayor Bloombucks has gone on the charm offensive once more about tech startups: "New York Mayor [...]

1. Guss' Pickles green

2. Coney Island Mermaid Festival green

3. Joe Namath green

4. Mark Green green

5. Bowling Green green

6. Goldman Sachs bonus green

7. Sally Jessy Raphael Show green room green

8. Escaped Bronx Zoo pit viper green

9. Hydroponic delivery service jewel box green

“This is a historic moment for New York, a moment many couples have waited years and even decades to see, and we are not going to make them wait one day longer than they have to.” —You just can't ever stay mad at Michael Bloomberg, because then he pulls one of these—opening up the city clerks' offices on Sunday, July 24, the first day gay marriage is legal in New York State. (Servicey note: smart gays know you can apply online in advance.)

"Dozens of outraged bagels plan to boycott Mayor Bloomberg’s annual World AIDS Day Bagel Breakfast. They will picket outside the breakfast, which takes place at 8 AM, December 1, at the Brooklyn Public Library on Grand Army Plaza. The baked goods are angry that for the last three years the mayor has hosted a bagel breakfast where he professes his commitment to combating New York City’s AIDS epidemic—and a month later proposes a budget that would devastate services for low-income New Yorkers with AIDS, especially AIDS housing services." (via)

It's really the only dream of the phobic: to have a job where you don't have to fly. This is where Howard Wolfson made his biggest mistakes-signing on to national campaigns, where he was regularly forced to either drive huge distances overnight or, God forbid, get on an airplane. Now Wolfson and his ugly sweaters have made the best possible extremely weird choice: the long-time campaign operator is going to work for Mike Bloomberg at City Hall? His job is to "sell" proposals issuing from the Bloomberg Everybody Live Right Think Tank? (You know, the one where they don't let us smoke or eat fat or sell [...]

"Bloomberg is expected to use part of his address to push initiatives that would increase the number of parking spaces for electric cars and begin recycling more plastics and food waste. The mayor who has taken on smoking, sugary drinks and salt is also expected to talk about working with the City Council to ban Styrofoam food packaging from stores and restaurants." —Just 12 years into his life term as mayor, Michael Bloomberg is now coming for your takeout containers.

Oh, the constant see-sawing of Michael Bloomberg from hero to villain! Remember how we were loving him again just last month when he made that big old matching donation to Planned Parenthood? Well, a lot has changed in a month.

• The hand-holding visit to Goldman Sachs, followed by the trip to Shake Shack with Goldman co-CEO Lloyd Blankfein, in the wake of the resignation-by-op-ed of Greg Smith? That went over quite poorly. Dude: you already held their hand, in the form of tens of millions of dollars in concessions. Also, the City even gave them the address of 200 West Street, which should have been 201 [...]

The mayor's office has twice rejected totally every-day requests to see emails between the mayor's office and Cathie Black, the short-time Schools Chancellor, while she was employed at Hearst Publications (as well as with any other people at Hearst). The reasoning? The documents are exempt from disclosure because they're inter- or intra-agency communications. That's weird, I guess we all own part of Cosmo now? Anyway, now the City is being sued for the emails, quite rightly.

In short, almost literally no one knew that the chairwoman of Hearst Publications was going to be taking on the post of New York City Schools Chancellor. Not even Gayle King! But good news, I guess. "On Monday, Ms. Black was seen at the Hearst Tower with a thick stack of materials concerning public education." That's excellent, she's learning about public schools before she RUNS ALL OF THEM.

I.

In June of 1889, Andrew Carnegie published his essay "Wealth" in the North American Review: a famous document, as remarkable for the author’s delusional self-regard as it is for the case he makes for private philanthropy. The steel baron launched his argument with the dumbfounding claim that until "the past few hundred years [of human history] there was little difference between the dwelling, dress, food, environment of the chief and those of his retainers." He then sails blithely along to insist that we should all welcome the changes in society that make violent wealth inequality inevitable, because the benefits of wealth must inevitably trickle down to the least [...]

How does a 70-year-old man with a stressful job manage to maintain an air of, if not youthfulness, not-so-oldedness? Massive wealth! Anyway, your mayor is 70 today, which leads the New York Times to pose this query: "Would you want Michael R. Bloomberg’s billions (19.5 of them, according to Forbes) if you had to suddenly become 70 years old to get them?" Do bear in mind that rich people live longer.

As we promised: Nine in Bagel Suits Are Arrested at AIDS Protest.

Mike Bloomberg is an extremely generous rich man. Arianna Huffington dubbed him one of her "Game Changers" in giving, so you know it must be serious. With his $1 salary and relentless check-writing, the NYC Mayor is practically the Platonic ideal of a charitable tycoon: our Philanthropist-King.

All that benevolence looked pretty petty, however, when news broke that his charity invested so as to keep tax payments out of the U.S. The New York Observer unearthed the documents that show how the Bloomberg Family Foundation's money management team shuffled nearly $300 million into far-flung tax havens. The reporters smartly cull up a sarcastic quip from then-candidate Obama, pledging [...]