New York City has a budget! $63 billion, with 2,000 job cuts.

Queens Republican John Haggerty, "One of Mayor Bloomberg's most trusted campaign aides," has been indicted for stealing $1.1 million from Bloomberg's Election Day fund. A million bucks to Bloomberg is like a nickel to you. He's a flinty bastard. [NYDN]

Why would someone try to blow up New York? We're so nice! Blowhard congressman Peter King says there are a "hundred possibilities" as to why—even South Park! We run down a few likely motivations.

Unaccountable billionaire Mayor-For-Life Mike Bloomberg jets off to his massive Bermudan estate many weekends, where he plays golf, spends money, and zealously guards his privacy. That's what you get when you elect an unaccountable billionaire Mayor-For-Life, New Yorkers. Duh. [NYT]

Deputy NYC mayor Ed Skyler, Bloomberg's top aide, is leaving his job (for money).

They weren't bad posts, just misunderstood. Nevertheless, we wrote them and you didn't want to read them. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the least popular Gawker posts of 2009.

Joe Jackson: dick, obviously. That Slumdog Millionaire kid, the theory: huge wang. Levi Johnston: famously awaited dong. Jon Gosselin, dickfore. King Bloomberg? You tell me. Paula Abdul, Fergie, Josh Duhamel, Adam Duritz, DMX. Presenting your Dicktacular Saturday Morning Gossip Roundup.

Alright. This has got to stop. After banning smoking in bars, New York City officials are now thinking of extending their totalitarian grip to public spaces. Will the madness never end?

Tila Tequila's crazy domestic abuse squabble: drank and puked out by the D.A., while Anna Wintour gets stalked by teenage crazies. Mischa Barton channels Marissa Cooper. Mayor Bloomberg might know about Lady Gaga's peener. Presenting: your Saturday Morning Gossip Roundup.

Tinsley Mortimer may taste reality television stardom. Tennis star Melanie Oudin tastes the sour side of fame. Jessica Seinfeld's culinary tastes weren't stolen. And Tila Tequila has no taste for foursomes. Happy Friday! Here's your gossip roundup.

Look how great this Ed Skyler guy is, with his Batman-esque crime-fighting work:

[Submit your own Gawker Stalker sightings to stalker@gawker.com] Feb. 19 @ 9:30pm Mayor Mike Bloomberg grabbing a burger with his wife at J.G. Melon. He's much shorter than I expected.

New York City Mayor-for-life Michael Bloomberg is bringing his Midas touch to the ailing media industry! In the form of a year-long study sponsored by the city. It's not that Bloomberg, who got rich running his own quasi-media company, has a soft spot for newsprint; it's that there are 160,000 media jobs in NYC, according to the Observer, and it would be beneficial for the municipal tax base not to allow them to crumble away in the face of a changing economy. The question is, can the city actually do anything about it?

Click to viewAll those people—such as myself!—who complain about what New York City is like today? Too much anecdote, not enough fact. What really happened to New York City? I thought of one way to find out. Over the last month, I have read the Metro section from each issue of the New York Times—starting in mid-2000 and ending with today's paper. Here's what I learned.

Last night, the D.C.-based Atlantic magazine celebrated 150 years of thought at the Kimmel Center Loading Dock at N.Y.U. In a striking display of awful judgment, the VIPs (Arianna Huffington, Moby, the Mayor) were allowed (forced) to mingle on stage. The poors sat in chairs in the auditorium and watched. Jared Kushner was either wryly funny or a dick. Porn queen Robyn Bird went unrecognized by Robert DeNiro and Boykin Curry claimed he doesn't rent his island paradise to whores. God, 'Ad Age' even turned against local goddess Patti Smith. Richard Blakeley was there to tell us what social apartheid looks like. That's satirist P.J. O'Rourke trashing the party from the stage, by the way. Welcome to the social disaster of the season!

The lil' ladies suing both Mayor Mike Bloomberg and his company Bloomberg LP for being discarded after they became pregnant have claimed they knew the Mayor talked regularly with Bloomberg's CEO—despite the wee helicopter-flying oligarch's loud protestations that he has nothing to do with the company. Oh guess what? "After a week of distancing himself from the company he founded and owns," says the Times, "Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg said yesterday that he talked regularly to senior executives at the firm and was kept abreast of what was happening there." Please, can please everyone please not use "abreast" when writing about sex discrimination litigation please?

Oh ho, Mayor Bloomberg's in trouble.... It seems last week's EEOC sexual discrimination lawsuit against his company, Bloomberg LP, was just the tip of the iceberg. Bloomberg's been kind of douchey for years, though he says the outfit is a Disneyland of family values.

"Hey, Hymie! Wanna get in on the best deal of the fall? Shh, c'mere. I've got a pair of tickets to the High Holiday services at Temple Emanu-El — you know, the one that Spitzer and Bloomberg go to — that I'm willing to part with at a major loss! You will not find a better deal than this all season, Jewish word of honor! Everyone knows that God only listens your prayers if you're praying alongside famous people! Don't be a schmuck your whole life, snap up these scalped temple tickets today!" Actually, we didn't even need to go with a joke on this one. The Craigslist pitch alone is enough.

Mayor Bloomberg has jury duty today. (Commute-wise, it's perfect: Right off the 4/5/6!) Hey, Mike, tell 'em you write for Gawker, you'll be back at your desk in no time! [NYS]

Here's the tally from yesterday's big bang: One dead, thirty injured (two severely). We're not sure what it says about where we're at when a statement from the mayor like this one is viewed as comforting ("There is no reason to believe this is anything other than a failure of our infrastructure") but there you have it. Oh, also, it may have rained asbestos all over midtown. Happy Thursday!