November 20, 2008

Mayor Bloomberg " city thermostats turned down as temperatures hovered near freezing."

Gasps the Daily News under the headline "Wear a sweater if you're chilly!' - and you may lose your job, Mayor Bloomberg says."

1. Despite the impression given by the headline, possible job loss is not connected to workers complaining that they are cold. It's just on a list of things Bloomberg might do to save NYC money.

2. It's not as if the thermostats set near freezing. The outdoor temperatures are near freezing, and the article doesn't tell us how low Bloomberg is setting the thermostats. I'll bet it's higher than the temperature I keep my house in winter -- 62° -- which is perfectly healthy and comfortable if you wear a sweater.

3. So I guess it's not "Nanny Bloomberg." Or ... wait... don't let nannies off the hook. Think:

54 comments:

john said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
john said...

62 degrees in the winter. Brrr. Do you get much company?

I get complaints at 68 deg.

There is a difference between sitting in a cold office and moving around in a chilly home. You can always cook something or stand by the stove, the heat vent, the fireplace.

Poor office people have to scrunch around their computers, or do a lot of copying.

Meade said...

I keep my thermostat set at 31° which is twice as healthy and keeps the nannies away.

john said...

Don't you mean ninnies?

MadisonMan said...

New Yorkers are absolute wimps when it comes to cold temperatures.

Temperatures hovering near freezing is a perfectly comfortable winter day.

Unknown said...

I don't even have heat.

Ann Althouse said...

"62 degrees in the winter. Brrr. Do you get much company?"

Not from pussies.

Unknown said...

I don't even have heat.

Doesn't mean you're not hot. :-)

Jeff with one 'f' said...

Bloomberg's right- this is the most overheated city in the world, with no small thanks going to the city for forcing landlords to have the heat running from Oct-April. We have to sleep with the window cracked open to avoid steaming to death when the radiators come on every night.

Plus the women in my office think it's their God-given right to wear sleeveless tops in the office in January, which means all red-blooded men have to have fans running at their desks and can't wear anything heavier than an oxford shirt because the office is heated to 80 degrees

Meade said...

Looks like I won't be accepting any invitations to visit Althouse in the wintertime.

Too hot.

I'd be sweating like Richard Nixon at the first televised debate. Have to strip down to just shorts and we know how that would go over.

kjbe said...

Our thermostat is set to turn down to below 60, at night, and 62 during the day when we're at work. It's set to 68 for the hours that we're home, though have a wood burning stove that keeps the tv/computer/family porch in the toasty high 70's when we're couch-potato-ing.

ricpic said...

The sun people in those offices will riot.

Justin said...

My thermostat is set at 73°. Last night the A/C came on.

Original Mike said...

I feel like a pussy next to you, Ann. I set my at 64 (58 at night and when I'm not home). I'd set it lower than 58, but the plants (the fig in particular) don't like it. Maybe I should get some more manly plants.

Bissage said...

"Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice."

-- Henry Ford

Palladian said...

"62 degrees in the winter. Brrr. Do you get much company?"

Not from pussies."

Do you have to light your oven and hold your pussy in front of it?

Meade said...

"Maybe I should get some more manly plants."

You should, Original. Just be sure they are big and manly. And when I say big, I mean unmockably big.

The cool cruel sweatered school lady does not suffer the undersized gladly.

john said...

Do you get much company?"

Not from pussies.


Ann only invites those who can pass the test.

holdfast said...

When we lived in Manhattan we had to keep our windows open all winter, because the City requires that the landlords keep the heat on all winter. There was literally no way to turn it off, so we heat going straight from the register out the window - what a huge waste of energy and rent money, but apparently New Yorkers are too retarded to keep from freezing to death on their own.

Trooper York said...

Nanny Bloomberg is a horrible and evil man. When he was talking about cutbacks in the time of economic trouble he said that to save money women should buy one less dress.

THEY SHOULD BUY ONE LESS DRESS! THAT FUCKING WORTHLESS DOUCHE BAG! MAY HE ROT IN HELL! OF ALL THE BUSINESS HE PICKS THE DRESS BUSINESS TO SCREW BECAUSE I OWN A DRESS SHOP!!! THIS MEANS WAR!!!!

Anthony Wiener has a tireless convert to his mayoralty campaign.

Meade said...

Is that pronounced whiner or weener?

Trooper York said...

Weener and he is going to ween the great city of New York off the nanny state tactics of the mega-billionaire elitist criminal who sold off the zoning rights to his real estate buddies. Soon we will be able to have real doughnuts and French fries again. We will be able to dance in bars without a cabaret license. We will not live in fear that eminent domain will be used to steal our business so his buddies can build a condo development.

THEY CAN TAKE AWAY OUR TRANS FAT DOUGHNUTS BUT THEY CAN NEVER TAKE AWAY OUR FFFFRRRREEEEDDDDOOOOMMMMM

Justin said...

holdfast said...

...the City requires that the landlords keep the heat on all winter.

Why would you live in a building where you didn't have control over your own heater? Did you have no other choice? That would be a deal-breaker for me.

DaLawGiver said...

Do you get much company?"

Not from pussies.


My sister got fired from her pharmaceutical sales job for talking about pussies in the doctor's waiting room. Of course that was a month after she pleaded nol contendere to choking a meter maid over a parking violation.

Chennaul said...

Obama's about to make Bloomberg look like the neighborhood part-time high school babysitter....

Obama's going to take care of you-

Chicago style!

Watcha gonna do about it?

What can you do about it-now?

Nothing.

Gonna be sixty years...or more.

Yeeeeeeaaaaaaarrrrrgh!

Dust Bunny Queen said...

Our home is passive solar heated double insulated. Our utility bills are very low.

The set back thermostat for natural gas zone heating is set to
58 at night
65 from 5am to 8 am.
58 until 4pm
65 until bedtime.

The heater rarely comes on during the day even in the winter and just a few times at night on the coldest winter nights. Winter temps here can be below freezing as a daytime high for a week or so and often below zero at night.

Zone heating is where each section of the house has a separate heater and control, so we can just leave the temp at 58 in those areas of the house we are not actually in at the time. (Spare bedrooms, office/craft room etc. )jun It is wasteful, not to mention expensive to heat the entire house.

I'm with Ann on this. Wear a sweater, warm socks. Use a down comforter at night. Drink a cup of tea.....better yet.... hot brandy with lemon!!!

KCFleming said...

Where I work, the people are often naked. That's okay. though; it's a doctor's office. They would hate hate hate 64 degrees in here.

Plus, many of the patients are quite old and complain of being cold all the time because aging and weight loss have changed their thermostats.

Some old people demand their home temps around 80 or so and still they feel cold
It's hell to get old.

DaLawGiver said...

Some old people demand their home temps around 80 or so and still they feel cold
It's hell to get old.


Yep, that's my Dad. If it's under 80 he's cold. When he comes to our house we jack the temp up to a sweltering 76 and he still needs a jacket.

Joe said...

I prefer my house in the mid-70s. I still freeze due to drafts. It's the biggest downside of living in winter country. (Not that Southern California is any better--houses there tend to be draftier than houses elsewhere and so it often feels colder than it is. Phoenix is nice in the winter months, though.)

Meade said...

"It's hell to get old."

Still beats the alternative though, right?

bearbee said...

I'm a 62 degree-er plus double pair of socks, sweat pants, hooded sweatshirt (**Free Burma**) over a double layered top.

No pussies, just backyard squirrels treated to walnuts and almonds.

Mrs. Slocombe's Pussy had me laughing for 5 minutes.

knox said...

62° -- which is perfectly healthy and comfortable if you wear a sweater.

New Yorkers are absolute wimps when it comes to cold temperatures.

I don't even have heat.

What is this, a contest? Who knew thermostats brought out such a spirit of competition!

Original Mike said...

No thanks, Meade. I've smelled that plant.

CarmelaMotto said...

Justin - there is no choice in NY City. It's the law that the heat goes on in October, even if it's 75.

I once had this studio with a lil loft (you sleep on a mattress on top of the closets). It would get so hot up there, I had the super turn my radiator off. No heat, but with apartments all around me it was warm enough.

Anonymous said...

"It's hell to get old."
Still beats the alternative though, right?


Hasn't stopped Sir Archy.

Now about thermostats, we were in Paris for most of the first two weeks of this month. We landed in a freezing fog, and the weather never got warmer. It was colder than Boston, hitting the mid-40°'s F. at best during the whole time we were there.

We stayed in a friend's apartment in a fairly modern building in the 15th, near the Eiffel Tower. The place had no thermostat, and was heated all the time to about 70° F. Everywhere we went—a music conservatory, a library, private businesses, restaurants—everything was overheated by typical American standards.

So much for all that Euro conservation and good-for-you discomfort of the American imagination. The French are a pleasure-loving people, and see no virtue in freezing in the dark. They did anything they could to prevent that dreary possibility, including scattering non-greenhouse gas emitting nuclear power plants around the landscape. Love those enormous high-tension lines in the Loire Valley.

They also believe nannys should correct children, but a vast and intractable bureaucracy will keep the adults in liine.

Justin said...

CarmelaMotto said...

Justin - there is no choice in NY City. It's the law that the heat goes on in October, even if it's 75.

Are you telling me that there are no apartments in NYC that can control their own heat? That's absurd! What about A/C? Is that controlled by the super as well?

Bissage said...

Go ahead!

Turn down that thermostat!

Put on a comfy sweater!

Give us a big smile!

Toasty warm!

ricpic said...

I'm surprised no one has mentioned yet that 62 degrees inside can be quite comfortable on a day of cold FAIR weather but is absolutely miserable on a cold grey damp day.

On damp winter days I'm not comfortable till I've edged the thermostat up to 68-70 degrees.

Anonymous said...

One more thing.

The only place that was really cold in France was Chartres Cathedral. I was inching near the candles, not so much out of devotion, but to keep my hands from shivering when I tried to take pictures.

Of course, that was built in the days when people really HAD to freeze in the dark, and got no joy from bragging about it, unless they were performing some particular pennance, in which case they really shouldn't have talked about it.

There's a lot to admire about the Middle Ages.

holdfast said...

Justin - I am sure some folks have found a way to beat the system, but in all the buildings I know of, you can't turn it off. You can turn it UP if you feel a sudden urge to simulate Saudi Arabia in summer, but not all the way off. I dealt with it by moving out of that insane city - now I live among the merely massively corrupt, and I come into the city to work and play.

I am sure this heat thing was implemented to save crack babies in case where there crack ho mothers would pass out with the window open and the babies would freeze to death, or some such thing - but it is rather annoying for the adults in the crowd.

KCFleming said...

Removing choice and skewing incentives, turning citizens into subjects, ultimately creating more problems than you've solved, nannystaters everywhere mewl 'that's not what I meant to do at all!'

Legislating room temperature is what petty tyrants do.

Cue the sun!

Ann Althouse said...

I should add that I keep the temperature at 62° in the colder months for my health and comfort, not to save money (or "the planet"). I get a cold maybe once a decade, and I never get sinusitis as I did ever single year when I was at the mercy of a NYC landlord's radiators. The point is to breathe cool air. You can keep your body warm with clothes and comforters, so breathing should be the #1 concern when you set the heat.

KCFleming said...

Next Bloomberg can demand control overy all the TV remotes in NYC.

One channel is all anyone ever needs.
The Bloomberg channel.

Original Mike said...

breathing should be the #1 concern when you set the heat.

Breathing has been pretty much my #1 concern ever since I was rudely dumped into this bright, cold existence.

Anonymous said...

actually if you people would soak your feet in a hot bucket of water you would keep warmer. The feet take in lots of heat and hot water and heat transfer...wait... did i forget my lawys of physics? Besides my feet are almost as soft as a baby's bottom by now from soaking and oiling. If i ever give up my born again virgin status that special somebody might confuse the softness of my feet for...wait... that's private information.

Keep a hot water bottle inbetween your sheet and down comforter an hour before bed time. You could probably sleep with an open window if you had two or three and you would be all the more healthier from not breathing all that forced air.

The average air temp in my house is probably 55 degrees as required by my landlady.

Anonymous said...

that's the minimum requirement.

Meade said...

You mean any colder than that and she'll evict you?

Damn! That's cold!

Anonymous said...

i cannot keep it colder than that. that is usually in rental leases. they require a minimum temperature. I will admit I keep my living room hotter and the rest of the rooms cooler.

I also cannot have a space heater, but the heating ducts had animals in them when i moved in. They replaced a small part of one but not the entire system saying they were checked. Well, all heat ducts are connected and i don't like the thoughts of having forced air from animal trackings blowing on me so i do have a space heater. It is wrong and against my lease. She can come and evict me if she want. i refuse to use those heat ducts.

Anonymous said...

Tightly woven merino wool. Incredible.

Stay away from fleece. It's recycled plastic soda bottles.

Cedarford said...

jdeerripper -

Polar fleece may be recycled soda bottles but it is cheap and works great and is not "scratchy, rash-making" like wool is.

"Better living through chemistry!"

Then I had to give up that line as a military officer as giving subordinates the wrong idea...

In my area, I don't bother recycling plastic. Just throw it in the trash along with "recyclable" newspaper and it gets burned in the local trash-to-energy plant that makes reasonably cheap electricity.

I did learn a fun fact today. Our #1 export to China is recycled plastic and cardboard. Which is used to make all the China stuff we buy or to make the containers the China stuff comes in. A story today had the Port of Los Angeles, San Pedro, now clogged up with high value China stuff stores aren't taking anymore, along with piles and piles of Jap cars and high end electronics the stores won't take...And America's "free trade!! Free markets!!" competive response - piles of plastic and paper waste once stuffed into shipping containers for the return trips to China and Japan now just piling up higher and higher..

Cedarford said...

Mental vision of Althouse throwing out law students she invited over for tea - who then whined and shivered her house was too cold...

"Out, out! You weak little pussies!"

rhhardin said...

62 degrees

My rooms are quite variable. Upstairs is unheated as far as I can easily manage it (stairway blocked off by a curtain at the top to keep heat from downstairs from escaping upstairs), and it drops to about 40 degrees in deep winter.

Downstairs where the computer and thermostat are, it runs about 65 degrees. Much of the heat is from the computer, with the furnace taking up the slack when needed. That's the room where I am, so that's fine.

Other downstairs rooms where I am never sedentary take on whatever temperature they take on from heat drifting around.

The colder upstairs is, the less heat you lose through the roof and walls.

For sleeping upstairs, a down blanket and a 101 degree F Doberman is plenty of heat.

Anonymous said...

I did learn a fun fact today. Our #1 export to China is recycled plastic and cardboard. Which is used to make all the China stuff we buy or to make the containers the China stuff comes in.

thank you for that fact. i have been asking for the last year what goes in the containers that go to China. now I know. Now it all makes sense. and now my glass bottled, grass fed traderspoint creamery milk, and the homemade yogurt i make myself from such, tastes even better.

Anonymous said...

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