From a reader, Gabriel Farkas.

” To reduce congestion in Manhattan, here is what I suggest:

Tow away any double parked car or truck (even if it is for one second) and charge them substantial amounts (over $1,000) for the retrieval of their vehicle. Confiscate repeat offenders’ vehicles.

Revoke any taxi license whose driver stops where it is not allowed (not near a sidewalk). Ticket pedestrians who stand off the sidewalk to hail a cab.

Convert the traffic lights to allow right turns only when the pedestrian light indicates “Do Not Walk.” At the same time ticket jaywalkers.

Revoke all permits for parking where others cannot park.

Create a task force that can clear traffic jams quickly (tow disabled cars away quickly etc.) at locations where these jams occur (mainly at entrances to bridges, tunnels and highways). Cooperate with other boroughs’ and New Jersey’s traffic departments to clear up traffic jams quickly at the other end of bridges and tunnels.”

PHOTO: Traffic in Times Square in December. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow)

Today, in the latest chapter of nasty Democratic attacks, CNN reports that Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign pulled a negative radio ad targetting Barack Obama.

The ad, which had been running in South Carolina, went after him for saying that the Republican party had recently been the party of ideas.

“Really? Aren’t those the ideas that got us into the economic mess we’re in today?” Clinton’s ad asked. “Ideas like special tax breaks for Wall Street.”

Obama’s spokesman, according to CNN, denounced the ad as a negative, dishonest attack. Here was the Illinois senator’s response: Clinton would say anything to get elected.

The last weeks have been ugly, with both Clintons coming down hard on Obama. I imagine they’re trying to do damage in advance of the South Carolina primary on Saturday when he has a good chance of doing well. And before the upcoming Super Tuesday on Feb. 5.

I can’t see that this is not hurting Hillary Clinton. The attacks have been sharp, not always accurate, and they play into the perception that the Clintons are ruthless.

Obama did not praise Ronald Reagan. This is what he said during a much quoted interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal: “I think Ronald Reagan changed the trajectory of America in a way that Richard Nixon did not and in a way that Bill Clinton did not.”

He did not say that he really liked the Republican ideas, as Hillary Clinton claimed. This is what he said: “The Republican approach has played itself out. The Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10, 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you’ve heard it all before.”

By this afternoon, the Obama campaign had sent out an appeal from Michelle Obama: “We’ve seen disingenuous attacks and smear tactics turn people off from the political process for too long, and enough is enough.”

The Clinton campaign meanwhile put out a list of 12 instances where it says Obama distorted the truth.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s view of Washington:

“They spent most of this decade running up bills with reckless abandon and when the economy started heading for the ditch, the special interest give-always got even bigger,” he said today according to prepared remarks. “They ate the seed corn without worrying about the next year’s harvest. Well, the next year is here, and the seed corn is gone. All we’ve got is a barn full of I.O.U.s.”

And his prescription for the faltering economy:

*Help people who are in danger of losing their homes stay in their homes.

*Finance infrastructure projects that cities and states can’t afford – bridges and roads and mass transit systems that need repair — and put people to work on them

*Promote manufacturing jobs by focusing on innovation

*Take the best ideas from the left and the right to reward work and raise real incomes.

*Pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The federal government has failed to secure the borders, but the country also must stop turning away people we need.

“The only question, once again, is whether we allow those jobs to be created here, or whether we continue sending them elsewhere,” he said.

Bloomberg spoke in Washington D.C. where he was honored by the U.S. Conference of Mayors for combatting climate change. He received the National Mayor Leadership Award.

PHOTO: Mayor Michael Bloomberg with Lance Armstrong during a trip to Texas last week. (AP Photo/Harry Cabluck)

Over the weekend, I wrote a column about the scrutiny that Rudy Giuliani is getting now that 9/11 is more than six years in the past.

This morning Andrea Bernstein did a piece on WNYC, New York Public Radio, on Giuliani reassuring residents about the air quality in lower Manhattan after the attacks.

Bernstein notes: “Very early on, both the city and the federal environmental protection agency had data that showed spikes in the levels of asbestos in Lower Manhattan.”

And she quotes Dr. Philip Landrigan of Mount Sinai School of Medicine and Mamaroneck who has been monitoring World Trade Center-related illnesses.

“For a period of many weeks the air in Lower Manhattan was not safe,” he told her. “And people who lived and worked there should have been told clearly that the air was not safe.

It’s worth a “listen”:http://www.wnyc.org/news/articles/92318.

PHOTO: Rudy Giuliani tours the site of the World Trade Center disaster on Sept. 12, 2001. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty, File)

At a breakfast honoring Martin Luther King Jr. on Monday, the Rev. Adolphus C. Lacey of Mount Olivet Baptist Church in Peekskill quoted a poem about King.

It was written in 1969 by Carl Wendell Himes, and here it is:

Now that he is safely dead, let us praise him
Build monuments to his glory, sing hosannas to his name.
Dead men make such convenient heroes:
They cannot rise and challenge the images we fashion from their lives
And besides it is easier to build monuments, than to make a better world.
So, now that he is safely dead, we with eased consciences will teach our children
That he was a great man. Knowing that the cause for which he lived is still a cause.
And the dream for which he died is still a dream, a dead man’s dream.

PHOTO: AP/File

It’s little wonder that John McCain comes to New York City tomorrow. Two new polls show him leading Rudy Giuliani in the former mayor’s home state.

The Siena College Research Institute found that 36 percent of Republicans supported McCain to 24 percent for Giuliani.

The Marist College Institute released similar numbers: 32 percent for McCain to 22 percent for Giuliani.

So McCain will take a break from campaigning in Florida to hold a press conference in midtown.

PHOTO: Arizona Sen. John McCain gives a thumbs-up to people in the Little Havana section of Miami today. (AP Photo/J. Pat Carter)

Hillary Clinton shows a sense of humor.

From The Associated Press’s Beth Fouhy.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton welcomed her traveling press corps aboard her campaign plane Wednesday with a humorous riff on the standard flight attendant speech familiar to commercial air travelers.

“Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, and welcome aboard the maiden flight of Hill Force One,” Clinton said over the plane’s intercom as it taxied down the runway en route to Reno, Nev.

Nevada holds precinct caucuses Saturday; polls show Clinton in a tight three-way contest here with Barack Obama and John Edwards.

“My name is Hillary and I am so pleased to have most of you on board,” she said. “FAA regulations prohibit the use of any cell phones, Blackberries or wireless devices that may be used to transmit a negative story about me.

“In a few minutes, I am going to switch off the ‘Fasten Your Seat Belt’ sign. However, I’ve learned lately that things can get awfully bumpy when you least expect it — so you might want to keep those seat belts fastened.

“And in the event of an unexpected drop in poll numbers, this plane will be diverted to New Hampshire.

“If you look out from the right, you will see an America saddled with tax cuts for the wealthiest and a war without end. If you look out from the left, you will see an America with a strong middle class at home and a strong reputation in the world.

“Once we’ve reached cruising altitude, we’ll be offering in-flight entertainment: my stump speech.

“Once again, thank you for joining us on Hill Force One. We know you have choices when you fly, and so we are grateful that you chose the plane with the most experienced candidate.”

PHOTO: In this photo from video, Democratic presidential hopeful, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y. jokingly welcomes the media aboard “Hill Force One” on Wednesday. (AP Photo/Pool, Mark LaGanga)

More ammunition for the people who don’t like Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s congestion pricing plan?

The New York Civil Liberties Union wants the commission reviewing all the plans to make sure anything it recommends will protect New Yorkers’ privacy rights.

“In a letter sent Tuesday to the city’s Traffic Congestion Mitigation Commission, the NYCLU reiterates its concerns that congestion pricing could entail the installation of thousands of cameras that would allow the government to track the daily movements of the hundreds of thousands of people who drive into Manhattan,” its release reads. “It asks the commission to take steps to mitigate privacy threats, such as offering ‘anonymous E-ZPass accounts’ that could allow drivers to enter and leave Manhattan without becoming part of a government operated database.”

The commission is to make a recommendation by the end of the month.

The results of the Michigan primary show Hillary Rodham Clinton doing poorly among African Americans.

According to “CNN”:http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2008/01/16/potentially-troubling-news-for-clinton-in-michigan-win-2/ exit polls, 70 percent of the state’s African-American voters choose “uncommittedâ€? over Clinton. They overwhelmingly favored Barack Obama, whose name was not on the ballot.

Had his name been on the ballot, CNN reports, he would have gotten 73 percent of the African-American vote to 22 percent for Clinton.

(The national Democratic party punished Michigan for its early primary by stripping it of its delegates; Clinton left her name on the ballot, but Obama and John Edwards removed theirs.)

PHOTO: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton at the Democratic debate in Las Vegas last night. (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

Over the weekend, I wrote about trying to ease traffic jams in New York City.

Mayor Bloomberg has proposed charging to drive in the most congested parts of Manhattan during business hours, but he needs approval from Albany.

And Assemblyman Richard Brodsky doesn’t like the plan, hasn’t liked it from the start and prefers limiting cars based on license plate numbers. He argues congestion pricing favors the wealthy.

Here are some comments from a reader, Leonard Hyman, which make a great deal of sense.

“I was intrigued by the odd-even plate scheme, because they did something like that in Sao Paulo, and I remember my relatives down there switching from the odd to the even license plate car in the family in order to accommodate the rules without cutting down on the driving,” he wrote.

Rich commuters with more than one car would drive into Manhattan at will. Those less affluent would take public transportation without the improvements that Bloomberg’s plan promised.

“A number of cities have congestion pricing in place. Why not find out why, figure out what did and didn’t work, and try it? Every public policy has unintended consequences, and one way to avoid some of them is to learn from other people’s experiences, preferably from real people, not from politicians.”

Why not?