NYC mayor Bloomberg's #1 bad idea (and it has nothing to do with soda)

On the last few episodes of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart has freaked out several times over New York City mayor Bloomberg's proposed ban on sodas 16 ounces or larger.

Banning large sodas is obviously a stupid idea. When I first heard about it I thought maybe what Bloomberg actually wanted was to implement a tax on all sodas or items with HFCS in them, which would obviously make a lot more sense. By first proposing a ban on large sodas, then later suggesting a soda tax instead, the latter would look much better in comparison, as opposed to just proposing the soda tax in the first place.
 
Another thought I had in the back of my mind was that maybe Bloomberg was proposing the ban on large sodas, which is a pretty trivial thing, in order to distract attention from something else. But what?

Well now I know, since today Rolling Stone published online an article by Matt Taibbi about something else mayor Bloomberg wants to do:

Matt Taibbi: New York to Repeat Chicago’s Parking Meter Catastrophe

This is a hugely important thing, not only for New York City, but also many other cities which might be tempted by similar rotten deals over the coming years.

While I hadn't heard anything about this before today, it looks like this story was reported online by several outlets online on Monday.

Unless this plan gets some major attention on TV, like the proposed soda ban has received, it seems likely that this will be implemented without receiving much scrutiny.

Here's hoping that The Daily Show, as well as any other TV news shows, devote some serious attention to this plan. If it gets even a fraction of the amount of attention as the proposed soda ban has received, it might well be enough to stop this from happening in New York City or anywhere else.