After statistician Nate Silver (best known for his accurate predictions of the 2008 presidential primaries) ranked Brooklyn's Greenpoint as the fifth best neighborhood in the city, residents have felt everything from legitimized to confused. Silver rated each neighborhood on criteria like safety, access to transportation and nightlife, and Greenpoint beat out many more popular neighborhoods like the East Village, Williamsburg and Bushwick. One local teacher told the Times, “We’re on the map. I think we deserve even one, or two." But others weren't convinced they deserved such a high spot. more ›

Statistician Nate Silver of fivethirtyeight.com has named Park Slope the best place to live in the city, coming in just ahead of the Lower East Side and Sunnyside, Queens. The research, done for the latest New York Magazine, is based on things like cost of living, access to bars and restaurants, diversity and safety. Of course, Park Slopers are ready to burst out of their baby bjorns with joy. "I like what it was, I like what it's become, I like the people that live here. I like the sense of tolerance," resident Louise Fisher Cozzi told the Daily News. Sure there's tolerance, just as long as you don't try to keep their babies out of the bars. more ›

Governor Paterson hasn't winning any popularity contests in quite some time—maybe that's why he's played hardball yesterday, "stunning" people with his veto of the routine pension measure for police officers and firefighters that has been in place for almost thirty years. The plan allows newly hired employees to retire after 20 years at half salary. more ›

Baseball Prospectus, the annual book of hardcore statistical analysis and predictions, doesn't seem to think the big off-season moves of both our local teams have turned them into division favorites. (You may have heard of BP recently because of its many mentions as the launching pad for 2008 election predictor Nate Silver.) This year's Prospectus (courtesy this week's Onion) sees both teams coming in with under 90 wins— 89 for the Mets, 87 for the Yankees. Despite the Yankees becoming “simultaneously better and younger" with their free agent signings, the book says, "(They) only partly mask an aging lineup and a shoddy defense.” As for the Mets, BP doesn't exactly predict Philadelphia to run away with the NL East (with 93 wins) and goes so far to declare that the team “will never have a better opportunity to win a World Series with their current core than they do now.” The harshest criticism around town (as it often is with statheads) comes at Derek Jeter, who the book says “By 2010, Jeter’s glove won’t play in the infield and his bat won’t play anywhere else.” more ›