The Russians call him Vilnius Nastavnic.

now i want a tank (or at the very least a streetcleaner) to roll over the folding tables and open suitcases of those shifty sidewalk merch-hawkers who sometimes swarm all over canal street.

YouTube link-rot is common.  links to the original video on the city's website and also some still-images without the PhotoShopped bloomie head on them are here:
http://grumpyvisualartist.blog...
yeah silly me i made a summary and sent it in as a gothamist tip and ~then~ found this existing article here on gothamist. oops.

On a side note, Vilnius is beautiful. The goons who maintain NYC's crumbling infrastructure should take a tour of Europe to see what first-world cities are supposed to look like.

you do not say! whenever I walk the streets of manhattan and see these hordes of freaking european tourists, I wonder WHAT THE HECK THEY ARE LOOKING FOR HERE IN THIS SMELLY DUMP

colonies

Do people actually believe that this mayor "commandeered a tank" and ran over an illegally parked car? Sorry, kids, in real life that kind of thing will not happen, not even in a place like Lithuania.

This was just a PR stunt. That Mecedes was purchased specifically to be run over by the tank in front of the cameras.

You are right, of course he didn't just run over on some random car. I'm living there. But that was a gooood PR stunt. 
Da best mayor ever!

and a ramp is built in front of that Mercedes for the "tank" to climb on top. and that is not even a tank, it is a fighter jet.

Proof?

"Proof?"

Really? There are two versions here, one that makes sense and one that is just silly, and the sensible one is the one that requires proof?

OK, if common sense isn't enough, get away from blogs and similarly sensationalistic "news" sources and you'll find it widely covered as having been staged to bring attention to the parking violation problem. 

For example:

http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/8...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/worl...

If you get your news from blogs, you're probably not actually getting the facts.

You know nothing about where I get my news from.

All I saw from you was someone making claims as if they were fact, while in fact giving nothing to indicate they were anything more than made up words from you.

NOW you've provided some sources to back up your words. That's more useful.

Didn't I just catch this video on some other blog which always takes care to credit THIS blog when borrowing material?

This story has been all over the internet.

Oh.

I support the use of tanks to enforce traffic and parking laws in the city.

Tank you.

He even cleaned up his mess! I'd vote for him.

saw a "golden touch" shuttle bus two days ago on chrystie street/hester (north bound lane) suddenly pull over onto the bike lane, a hispanic guy on a bike had to swerve quickly and almost got into an accident.  the guy jumped off his bike and ran over to argue with the driver in the shuttle bus who had his doors closed for security as this was an "ethnic neighborhood" and didn't want the passengers inside (white airline stewardess and pilots) to get hurt.  the reason why the bus pulled over? one of the stewardess had an emergency and ran to use the park employee only restroom located inside the (sara roosevelt) park HQ.

according to DOT rules, you are not allowed to pull into the bike lane to stop a car or park there.

Or just wait for snow and Sanitation workers will total parked cars at random.