Tiny Autocrat Scolds Whiners

            New York, Dec. 29^th (INS). Faced with rising anger over his city’s immobilization after last Sunday’s blizzardcane, Mayor Mike Bloomberg scolded his critics, calling them “whiners,” “babies,” and “scumbags.”

            “If I had known I’d face such ingratitude,” the tiny autocrat declared, “I’d never have taken the trouble to violate the two-term limit for elected officials so I could run for a third term in 2009.”

            “New Yorkers have to grow up,” he continued. “We’re doing the best job we can to clear the streets and restore service to our transit system. My people tell me that this should be accomplished by January 3^rd, when real work resumes—unless you live in Sheepshead Bay, Williamsbridge, or Staten Island.” He added, “In the meantime, our tourists are having no trouble getting to the theater.”

            Mary Tobias, a Queens secretary for a Fortune 500 company in downtown, said she was just a schoolgirl when then mayor John Lindsay allowed a heavy snowfall to strangle her South Ozone Park neighborhood in 1967. “‘Goddamn Lindsay’ was the preferred name for that bum, and then he never filled our potholes. Now it’s ‘Goddamn Bloomberg’! I still can’t get to work in less than two hours from Whitestone.”

            Notable for her absence from her usual stance just over the mayor’s shoulder, so she appears there on TV newscasts, was Christine Quinn, the president of the City Council, who led the legislative way to allow Mr. Bloomberg’s third-term campaign. Often called the mayor’s heiress apparent, Ms. Quinn is following his advice to lie low lest she be tarred by the blizzard’s white brush.

            As for the mayor’s most recent retort, he told the press today at City Hall, “If these whiners don’t just shut the f--- up, I’m running for a fourth term!”