DENVER -- Howard Dean came up from behind and clapped Walter Mondale on the shoulder. “Joe Biden,” he said. “Great choice. Great choice.”

It was two glasses into cocktail hour on Sunday evening at the International Leaders Forum, a quadrennial powwow of foreign dignitaries hosted by the National Democratic Institute, an organization that promotes good governance around the world. The NDI is loosely affiliated with the national Democratic Party, which explains why the forum’s opening reception, held at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts, attracted both Dean and Mondale, who’d spoken at an earlier panel discussion. (Not to mention House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who gave an opening speech, and a shambling Ted Turner, who politely declined to be interviewed.  read more »

Not this kind of Brig.

It's been exactly a year since we've heard about the City's plans for the fascinating Brig site in Wallabout. Today, however, brings an official Request for Proposals for the redevelopment of the former prison (conveniently neighboring the Brooklyn Navy Yard) into 400 new housing units.

But best of all: There will be 300 units of affordable housing, a small step towards Bloomberg's "$7.5 billion Housing Plan [for providing] homes for 500,000 New Yorkers over ten years, more than the entire population of Atlanta." Take that, Ted Turner.