All You Railyards They Are Not Belong To Us

Great news for the inner stadium hater (see posts passim), with the news that the MTA has realised that it can no longer be the piggy-bank for demented constrction schemes. Since Gringcorp spent an hour on a truly flaky B train this morning, the notion that the MTA should soak the developers to sort out the hellhole that is DeKalb Avenue is an appealing one. And so, it is now demanding that the Jets pay three times what they had offered for the West Side railyards, as Gothamist reports.

Then comes this excellent post from Kevin Drum in California. Apparently threatening to move to LA has been a favorite of team owners ever since O'Malley pulled it off with the Dodgers. LA never offers any money, though, and the allure of such a large market may cause an owner to move there without taking any bribes at all. The impact on Mr. Ratner's scam, which relies on shaking down anxious civic leaders and the MTA, should be clear.

Other culture from Gringcorp's EYEEEEZ:

Hotel Rwanda. Give Don Cheadle an Oscar and the keys to Brooklyn. A nasty, complicated story, based on Philip Gourevitch's book. Understand why rules are needed for invading small, brutish countries, and why invading brutish countries is sometimes necessary.

St John's University's School of Risk Management's Insurance Leader of the Year dinner. Gringcorp was the guest of a flack, despite not writing one sentence about the insurance industry before that one. The guest of honor was Brian Duperreault, formerly of AIG and ACE, who spent the evening smiling wanly and making offhand remarks about "buying stuff". No point getting too upset about this, because buying insurance companies doesn't put too many people out of work. Still, a couple of charitable donations, and some reasonably-adjusted children do not a superstar make, despit the best efforts of an A&E Biography produced video of purest schmaltz.

Only in insurance, kids, only in insurance.