Archive for September, 2010
Last night was wonderful. Not only were Teresa’s lasagna and garlic bread triumphant successes, but I had the foresight to but plastic plates. Which is why I don’t have two hours of dishes to do this morning. I don’t get to see the Dog Court kids as much as I’d like to. They’re great.
SIDE NOTE: They’re competing in the UCB Cage Match this Thursday at 11:00 p.m. I highly recommend attending.
SATURDAY
Lindsay Lohan (who was let out of rehab three weeks into her 90-day sentence) is denying that she failed two recent drug tests. “‘I’m fine,’ Lohan told UsMagazine.com. ‘They’re all nuts.’”
Paris Hilton’s assertion that the cocaine that dropped out of her purse wasn’t hers and also she thought it was gum? A judge has signed off on it. She’ll serve a year of probation.
Seems fair.
“A new study has found that the average couple can last only 22 minutes into a road trip before they get into an argument.”
When’s the last time scientists actually cured a disease?
Healthy dose of Tea: ‘Strife-torn’ GOP takes leads in key races is a good example of the Post’s cartoonishly blatant biases. Republican candidate Ron Johnson “catapulted to a 7-point lead” over the incumbent (Russ Feingold) in Wisconsin (51% – 44%). And in New Hampshire, the Republican nominee has taken “an immediate 51-44 percent lead,” which proves “Republican confidence [is] running high.”
“This week, respected political prognosticator Charlie Cook declared the contest between Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon a ‘toss-up’… The latest Quinnipiac poll showed Blumenthal with a paltry 51-45 percent lead McMahon [sic].”
When the GOP has a 7-point lead, it’s proof that the nation is swinging to the right. When the Democrats have a 6-point lead, it’s paltry. Fair, balanced.
Physicist Pedro Leonardo Mascheroni, 75, and his wife, Marjorie, 67, used to work at Los Alamos National Laboratory. In March of 2008, Pedro began trying to sell nuclear secrets to Venezuela. They were arrested yesterday.
But we must remain ever-vigilant, lest Venezuela go nuclear.
It was officially a tornado! 45,000 households lost power, 62 buildings were damaged and over 1,000 trees were destroyed. And 15,621 Con Ed customers in Queens are still without power (plus 186 on Staten Island).
I walked to Union Market yesterday and 7th Avenue (not to mention most of the side streets) is still littered with branches.
Never forget.
“British anti-terror police arrested six Muslim men yesterday in a suspected plot to assassinate Pope Benedict during his historic London visit.”
I wonder if this will turn out to be an actual plot or Riverdale II.
A woman told Eliot Spitzer than you have to “be smarter than a fifth grader” to be on TV, he replied, “To be on TV? No you don’t. No you don’t. In fact it’s better if you’re not. It makes it much easier.”
Spitzer’s new TV show debuts on CNN on October 4th.
Page Six (today on page 13) reports that “Courtney Love will perform next Saturday at the New York Recovery Rally on Randalls Island, a day of festivities to celebrate sobriety.”
I assume she will be performing on the “Before” stage.
MTA rail idiots at the table: $3M labor mistakes is the latest chronicle of how the MTA delights in pissing away the money we give them. At this point, do the details even matter?
Beth Holloway, mother of the late Natalee Holloway, snuck a camera crew into the Peruvian prison that Joran van der Sloot is in. She asked him for details about her daughter’s whereabouts, but he refused to answer.
What kind of half-assed penal system does Peru have where a woman can sneak in and chat with an inmate with a camera crew?
Jonah Goldberg’s CHOOSING TO KILL: No, not the Koran-burners begins, “Is Mayor Bloomberg to blame for the deaths of the 18 Muslim men in Indian-controlled Kashmir who rioted over reports that someone in America burned the Koran? Let’s think it through.”
What Jonah concludes is that Bloomberg should be criticized “for his thumbless grasp of church-state issues and his megalomaniacal incompetence, he’s not to blame for the actions of others.” However, “this wouldn’t be nearly the controversy it is today if only Bloomberg had been capable of getting the ‘Freedom Tower’ built in a timely manner.”
Could one argue that everyone in this country uniting against burning the Koran might also have prevented the deaths of those Muslims? Yes, but not in this paper.
This paper does, however, contain an editorial that expresses outrage over the firing of Derek Fenton, the guy who ripped and burned a Koran near Ground Zero on 9/11 (Fired for Free Speech). I hope someone at the Post appreciates the irony in their defending Mr. Fenton’s free speech — which he was using in the hopes of denying other people their rights to free speech. Probably not, though.
Investors (including several hedge funds) are offering to buy the claims of Bernie Madoff’s victims for roughly 20% of their actual value — in the hopes that they’ll be able to “flip the claim” later on at a higher price.
Um… even if they don’t flip it for a higher price? They’d still be making a 400% profit, right?
The Yankees win! The Rays lose! We’re in first place again!
This is Joe Torre’s last year as the manager of the Dodgers. His replacement? Don Mattingly!
People are already speculating that Torre might replace Girardi as manager of the Yankees. No chance. The Mets, on the other hand…
The Magic number is back — and it’s 9! Any combination of Yankee wins and/or Red Sox losses that add up to 9 means we’re in the playoffs. Yay!
Don Pardo is retiring from his job (which he’s had for 35 years) as the voice of Saturday Night Live.
I can’t imagine SNL without him.
Michael Starr gives the new Will Arnett sitcom Running Wilde two stars in his review, during which he calls Arrested Development “somewhat overrated.”
For a better idea of what Michael finds funny, here’s a tidbit from his latest (online-only) Starr Report: “Publicist Cathy Vo (SWPR Group) gets this week’s ‘Gold Starr’ for spunkiness in getting the word out about Documentary Channel (and she’s probably thinking, ‘Yeah, that’s all well and good, but why doesn’t he ever mention any of my docs?’)”
Michael gets this week’s “Gold Starr-Kweather” for making me want to climb a bell tower and shoot at him with a rifle.
SUNDAY
Vito Lopez is on today’s cover because the Post got an EXCLUSIVE audiotape where he “is heard bullying a group of grannies to back a judicial candidate he favors.” Here are some of the tape’s highlights:
“I’m not a fool or stupid, all right? I can’t always give and get smacked, give and get smacked… I am the political leader.”
Referencing the local competition between Hispanics and Hasidim, he told the Spanish-speaking old women, “If no one respects my leadership, how do I fight the Hasidim?” (JEDITOR’S NOTE: Ham on a stick?)
Referencing the upcoming taxpayer-funded trips that he hosts, “I want to take people on the trip who really don’t like me? I mean, that’s stupid, right? That’s what I’m trying to say.”
He also explains that his candidate’s victory isn’t enough. “Say Richard Velasquez wins, and most people think he will. He wins. But the only place we lose is over here, [PS]19. If you’re me, who do you help out? Do you help the area around here, or do you help the people in Lindsay Park? It changes everything to me.”
When Republicans don’t immediately speak out against, say, the Montana GOP’s assertion that homosexuality should remain illegal, or the repeated belief that Obama is a Kenyan Muslim, it puts all of the GOP in a negative light. And every minute that New York Democrats don’t get publicly angry at Lopez and Rangel and Meeks and every other scumbag in their party, it puts the Democratic Party in a negative light. It’d be nice to see some positive light again (if any still exists).
Years ago, Brooklyn officials used opossums to battle the rat population in the city. Now, those opossums have multipied and are their own epidemic.
We’d better release some feral coyotes!
Midtown’s Niketown has been closed following the discovery of bedbugs there.
It begins…
Wait a minute… UsMagazine.com got it wrong?!?
“Regrettably, I did in fact fail my most recent drug test and if I am asked, I am prepared to appear before Judge Fox next week as a result,” Twatted Lindsay Lohan recently.
This gives me an idea for a modernized remake of Judge Roy Bean starring Lohan as Judge Royal T. Fox.
“What we have here is a failure to rehabilitate.”
Michael Goodwin’s Holy moley, Bam (in its entirety): “So, six Muslim men are arrested in London on suspicions of plotting to assassinate the pope. More evidence Obama needs to hit the reset button in his outreach to the Islamic world.”
Because, obviously, the (alleged) actions of six men should ruin it for the billions of other Muslims across the world. Just as the Christian U.S. soldiers who kept the fingers of the Afghan civilians they murdered for sport as souvenirs should cause the immediate expulsion of Christianity from our armed forces.
According to Page Six (today on page 10), the scene Donald Trump shot for Wall Street 2: Money Never Sleeps has hit the cutting room floor.
Well, now I’m not going to see it.
That was quick.
“Six street cleaners suspected of plotting to attack Pope Benedict during his current visit to London were released without charge yesterday.”
So, six Muslim men are released without charge in London after being suspected of plotting to assassinate the pope. More evidence Michael Goodwin needs to hit the research button before submitting his article (just to make sure he isn’t contradicted four pages later).
ASK ASHLEY!
I just learned that swinger cruises sell out in a matter of weeks, and it seems that couples are swinging all around us. What does that say about matrimony? — Julie, Union City, NJ
ASHLEY: “Perhaps as a newlywed, witnessing swinging (or learning of its popularity, for that matter) is freaking you out a bit because you have a fairy tale idea of what marriage is and should be… Personally, I could never share my boyfriend or future husband with another woman. But that’s just me. But if your newfound knowledge has piqued your curiousity, that’s a different story.”
ME: “I won’t assume you’re a newlywed because you give no indication of that being the case. As to your question, if Americans focused more on their own relationships instead of the relationships of others, we’d be a much happier country (with stronger relationships!). What does your husband think of swinging? Is he as repulsed as you are? Would he find you seeking counsel from a (former?) prostitute repulsive? Does he know that curiosity only has one u in it?”
My boyfriend insists on showering immediately after sex. What’s a girl gotta do to get some cuddle action? — Anonymous
ASHLEY: “Maybe you can work out a compromise: He showers, then comes back to hold you. I know it’s not ideal for you since it sorta ruins ‘the moment,’ but everyone has their idiosyncrisies, and if showering after sex is his — and it has nothing to do with you personally and he truly cares for you — you should make allowances.”
ME: “I’m willing to bet that, if you showered with him after sex, he’d have no problem getting back into bed with you and cuddling. Unless he feels the need to shower because he finds you physically repulsive and the water hides the sound of his dry heaves. Also, did you know that idiosyncrasies is the plural of idiosyncrasy? True story!”
“This movie is great. Wall Street 2 is a powerhouse of a movie.It leaves us wanting more. Douglas is once again superb.” — Pete Hammond
Note to V.A. Musetto: The documentary you refer to as Camerman in your column is actually called Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff.
The Yankees won (and CC finally got his 20th victory)! But so did Tampa!
We’re still ahead of them by half a game. And Boston’s loss moves the Magic number to 7.
TODAY
You know that natural-gas pipeline that exploded in San Bruno recently? Well, a lot of the natural-gas pipes in New York are older. This is exactly the kind of stuff I love to read about in the morning.
Christine O’Donnell is now telling people that the clip of her on Politically Incorrect admitting to “dabbling in witchcraft” as a high school student (including going to a “midnight picnic on a satanic altar”) was just her “hamming it up.”
“It was high school! Bill [Maher] wanted ratings — I gave him ratings!” said the poor man’s Sarah Palin.
Well, I surely hope the media focuses on this O’Donnell story and not, say, the countless legitimate reasons to fear and despise this moron.
Colin Powell was on Meet the Press this week. He admitted to using illegal immigrants to do repairs on his house. “They’re all over my house, doing things whenever I call for repairs, and I’m sure you’ve seen them at your house. We’ve got to find a way to bring these people out of the darkness.”
Ah, go back to Kenya.
The Town topped the box office this weekend with a $23,800,000 haul. Easy A opened in second place ($18,200,000) and Devil took third ($12,600,000).
I have a feeling Devil will drop out of the top five by next Monday.
That Vito Lopez tape was from 2005 and, it turns out, he made good on his threat. His candidate did win, but he lost in PS 19, so he moved state housing aid from Latinos in his district to Hasidim.
Say what you will about Vito, but at least he’s a man of his word.
Not content with mislabeling it “the Ground Zero Mosque,” Perry Chiaramonte makes reference to the Islamic cultural center a few blocks away from Ground Zero (in his Muslim support pro mosque) as “Park51, the Ground Zero Project’s official name.” I love the inference that the Muslims knew they wanted a Ground Zero Project, but weren’t sure what it would be.
Bob Gorrell’s political cartoon on Page Six (today on page 12) features a copy of John Trumbull’s 1819 painting “The Signing of the Declaration of Independence” with the caption, “ANOTHER GROUP OF REACTIONARY, RACIST TEA PARTIERS MEETS TO SUBVERT THE ENLIGHTENED, LEGITIMATE POLITICAL ESTABLISHMENT.”
See what he did there?
P.S. — Slave owners are racists. Obama is not a monarch. American citizens have taxation with representation. Most of today’s Teabaggers don’t know what most of the words in that caption mean.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Alive, well and taking notes is the first column of Cindy Adams’ in almost five months. She is not dead. She has not retired.
My job just got a whole lot worse.
Andrea Peyser’s 9/11 church NY forgot laments the loss of St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Church and insists that it needs to be rebuilt at Ground Zero. “This is a disgrace. There must be room at Ground Zero for a little Greek church.”
There must be! Not for an Islamic cultural center two blocks away, but for a Greek Orthodox church. Good call, Mandrea!
The good news is that Andy Pettitte returned to the lineup yesterday and he gave up just one run on three hits in six innings. The bad news is that we still lost (4-3 in 11 innings). The good news is that so did Tampa Bay.
The bad news is that we play Tampa for the next four days. And the Magic number is still at 7.
Cubs rookie Tyler Colvin was on third base yesterday when Welington Castillo’s maple bat shattered at the plate. A sliver of the bat found its way into Colvin’s “upper right chest.” He will be out for the rest of the season, but is in stable condition.
At least we know Colvin isn’t a vampire.
How can Fox make people want to tune in to see J.Lo as one of the new judges on American Idol? Why, get her first husband, Ojani Noa, to audition, of course! What will J.Lo (who sued Noa to prevent him from selling risque footage of her taken during their marriage) say if and when she hears him sing?
I can wait to find out!
Linda Stasi reviews two new shows today. Hawaii Five-O (“pretty good — although there are so many explosions, you’d think the volcanoes were all acting up”) and The Event (“If it works, they’ll grab all the viewers who are lost without Lost. If not, let’s not talk about it.”). The latter gets three stars, the former gets two and a half (but let’s round it up to three for consistency’s sake).
House returns tonight! OMG! Television is getting good again!
Happy Monday, kids!
Super-cool footage of the recent tornado. This is the corner of 9th Street and 7th Avenue (the 7th Avenue subway stop is directly below). The store on the left of the screen is Brooklyn Industries. Listen for the shattering of their windows.
And here’s yet another reason why Sean Hannity is a tremendous piece of shit.
And this is David Letterman’s very first Top Ten list.
This is almost 90 years old.
This is John Roderick of the Long Winters (as presented by John Hodgman).
And that’s just some of what’s in the last 24 hours of my Facebook page’s news feed.
Triple-feature tomorrow!
The only thing I’m more excited about than tonight’s show is tomorrow’s get-together with Dog Court.
At their rehearsal this week, someone asked me if I ever had a ritual that I performed before getting on stage. The only improv ritual I could remember doing was telling everyone backstage “I got your back” before the show started. But then I remembered that I did have a ritual in college, though not for improv shows. Before every performance of whatever play I was in, I would go outside and quietly sing Elvis Costello’s “God’s Comic” to myself.
Since I have a good decade and change on the members of Dog Court, no one had ever heard of the song. Allow me to fix that.
“He said (before it had really begun), ‘I prefer the one about my son.’”
Brilliant.
So, this happened yesterday.
Thus disproving global warming.
The cover of today’s Post (WILD!: Savage storm hits city) features a street in Park Slope that is littered with branches and people wearing “what just happened?” expressions on their faces. On page 2, we learn that 30,000 people lost power (but not us!) and Iline Levakis, 30, was crushed by a tree (which was blown over by the 100-miles-an-hour winds) after she pulled off the Grand Central Parkway in Forest Hills. But it still hasn’t been classified a tornado. Yet.
The windows of Brooklyn Industries (on 9th St. and 7th Avenue) had their windows destroyed and various trees ended up looking like this:
And, in Bushwick, a giant billboard for Ben Affleck’s new movie (The Town) was annihilated, but that might not be tornado-related. Staten Island, Queens and other parts of Brooklyn were also affected by the storm, but I don’t live there.
This did make me chuckle, though: A Starbucks in Manhasset, Long Island lost their power at the height of the storm and immediately kicked all eight of their customers out into the torrential rain.
Pelosi defies Dems who want Bush cuts
That’s the gigantic headline on page 6 (not to be confused with Page Six, which is on pages 14 and 15 today). Nancy gets ridiculed by Geoff Earle for ignoring “an intense campaign from moderate Democrats to continue all the Bush tax cuts.” And what’s the last sentence of this 12-paragraph piece? “Americans favor letting tax rates for the wealthy to go up by 54-44 percent according to a new AP/GfK poll.”
Not only isn’t it grammatically correct, but it also makes me wonder why the article wasn’t titled Pelosi sides with majority of Americans.
In completely unnecessary research news, scientists at the University of Westminster in London have discovered that “shoppers experience the same rush of endorphins when they stumble across a hot sale promotion as they do when they are sexually aroused.”
What kind of degree do you need to be a scientists who studies the endorphins of someone who finds a sale?
Remember when “Governor” Paterson promised not to fire thousands of state workers, signing a no-layoff pact with the unions? And then he said he was going to have to fire people and the unions complained and reminded him about the pact, so he promised again not to fire thousands of state workers? Well, guess what Mr. Magoo said yesterday about firing up to 10,000 state workers.
“They’ve left us no choice. We’re going to have to.”
Oh, Magoo. You’ve done it again.
For the next two weekends, there will be no 1 train.
I hate the MTA ever-so-much.
Paul Pardus, 50, of Arlington, Virginia, was so angered by the news that his mother was paralyzed that he shot her doctor in the gut and had a standoff with the police that ended with him killing his mother and then himself. This happened at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.
Could this mean… that there will finally be a sequel to…
?
Remember Bethany Storro? She’s the poor Vancouver, Washington woman who had acid thrown on her face by a Black woman on August 30th. Police have been searching for the mystery assailant ever since and people from all over the world have been sending Bethany money and condolences.
Yesterday, Bethany admitted that she threw the acid in her own face and that there was no attacker. This reminds me of my favorite children’s book, The Crazy Lady Who Cried Black Assailant.
Yesterday, I read about Fox News anchor Brian Wilson’s resignation from the network. It followed a temper tantrum he threw (he even kicked a chair!). After all of the Page Six stories about Olbermann and Schultz and other MSNBC folks allegedly throwing hissy fits, I’m surprised that there’s no mention of Wilson in today’s paper.
Oh, wait. No, I’m not.
Crude oil has dropped back down to $74.57/barrel.
MOVIE REVIEWS!
Lou Lumenick gives three and a half stars to both The Town (“exciting and well-crafted”) and Easy A (“a stiletto-sharp, zinger-filled script that recalls Mean Girls“), and three stars to both Jack Goes Boating (“ruefully funny”) and Leaves of Grass (“at least double the fun of your usual stoner comedy”). He also says nice things about 127 Hours and The King’s Speech, but calls Hereafter “sometimes unintentionally funny” (he saw them at the Toronto Film Festival).
Kyle Smith gives two and a half stars to Catfish (“delivers both less and more than it promises”), one star to Picture Me (“Darling, your banality is positively dowdy.”), and half a star to Alpha and Omega (“ugly, laughless… I’d rather listen to Michael Bolton”).
V.A. Musetto gives three stars to both The Girl (mature themes — it’s about a 10-year-old girl who is left to fend for herself and encounters a pedophilic neighbor and “a bunch of old guys she has to kiss on the cheek”) and The Anchorage (nudity), and one and a half stars to The Freebie (profanity, sexuality).
Pete Hammond calls The Town “Riveting and explosive. It’s Heat meets The Departed.”
Armond White says of Resident Evil: Afterlife, “This Resident Evil is superior to Avatar and Inception on every level.”
The Yankees begin a three-game series against Baltimore tonight. Burnett (10-13) will face Millwood (3-15). We’re 11-4 against the Orioles this year. The rest of the season has us facing Boston (7-5), Toronto (7-8) and Tampa (6-8). We really need to sweep in Baltimore.
It’s worth noting that the Post has stopped running the “Magic number” for the Yanks.
Linda Stasi loves Boardwalk Empire. She already listed it as one of her “6 shows not to miss.”
Scorsese series lives up to the high expectations is the title of her review. Wanna guess how many stars she gives it?
She gives it three stars. Seriously.
Last night marked the return of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. Tonight is the season premiere of Real Time with Bill Maher. Both are long overdue.
Tonight on American Movie Classics: Death Wish 4: The Crackdown at 5:45 and Death Wish V: The Face of Death at 8:00 and again at 10:00. Truly these are American movie classics.
But there does exist a semblance of truth in advertising! VH1 has a show on tonight at 11:00 featuring the band Train performing six acoustic songs. The name of the show? Friday Night Alright.
Which is followed, I presume, by Saturday Morning Meh and Dr. Drew’s I Guess… If There’s Nothing Else On.
The end!
Let’s Have A Ball welcomes back one of its bestest cast members (who I have never had the pleasure of playing with) tomorrow night. And the following day/night will be spent with the Dog Court kids (and Susan!). I seriously love those guys (and Susan!).
The weekend is nigh! Enjoy it!
YESTERDAY
The voters speak: HASTA LA VISTA BABY!
Senate bum Espada is trounced
Apparently, the voters also don’t fully understand when to use commas in a sentence, but the sentiment is a sound one. He got 28% of the vote to Gustavo Rivera’s 67% (“with 31% of the vote counted”). Now I’m no math doctor, but if you’ve only counted less than a third of the ballots, how can you declare a victory? Not that I’m complaining, mind you.
“What we need to do is get better at politics,” said the man who spearheaded a coup in Albany that shut down the government for months — until he blackmailed his way to a position of power. You may remember his partner in that affair, Hiram Monserrate. The Post declared him the loser in his own campaign to join the Queens Assembly by a 2-to-1 margin (against Francisco Moya). Charlie Rangel, on the other hand, got 51% of the vote against Adam Clayton Powell IV’s 23%.
Two out of three ain’t bad.
There were plenty of other shocking Tea Party victories on Tuesday night — Carl “I called Orthodox Jew Sheldon Silver ‘Hitler’!” Paladino beat Rick Lazio 63% to 37% (“with 84% of the votes tallied”), virtually guaranteeing a victory for Andrew Cuomo (unless Cuomo starts advocative teeth-brushing lessons for minorities, one of Paladino’s platform issues [I wish I was kidding]). New Hampshire’s Ovide Lamontagne and Delaware’s Christine O’Donnell emerged victorious.
This is her on Bill Maher’s old show (with Eddie Izzard and Martin Mull!) explaining in great detail why she has no business holding any office whatsoever.
The Tea Party looks like it might be turning into a less-literate Ralph Nader in that it is torpedoing the GOP’s chances of gaining a majority.
B’also? Remember when I said that the switch to electronic voting systems was a terrible mistake? Well, despite the turnout of 10% of NYC’s registered voters, there were many delays and malfunctions, and voters now have a lack of privacy. Good thing there’s no paper trail!
Page 2 offers some great advice in Cynthia Fagan’s two-sentence article, What to do if NYC is nuked.
“Taking shelter in basements or behind thick office walls for 12 to 24 hours is safer than getting caught on clogged roads while being exposed to radiation.”
But once that 24 hours is up, feel free to move about the wasteland.
Over the past seven years, the LIRR and Metro-North have paid out $300,000 to cover “alterations to rider’s [sic] pants that routinely get ripped by faulty armrests.” The accompanying photo has the caption “Commuter Don Philly shows how his pants were torn.”
THAT IS NOT A MALFUNCTIONING ARMREST! THAT IS A MALFUNCTIONING COMMUTER!
It’s so nice to see why I’m paying more money for less service.
John Boehner said that if Obama refuses to retain the Bushh tax cuts for the country’s wealthiest ctizens, but will reinstate them for everyone else, he’d support that. “If the only option I have is to vote for some of those tax reductions, I’ll vote for it.” Naturally, the White House used this quote as a sign of compromise between the GOP and the White House. But Boehner said this before he got the memo that all Republicans were pledging that they would only support Obama’s plan if it gave the same cushy tax breaks to America’s billionaires, as well. So, naturally, Boehner accused the White House of putting words in his mouth.
“It’s disappointing and counterproductive that the president and his advisers have decided to spin my comments… as a sign that I am willing to accept tax hikes on any American. Here’s a news flash for the White House: I am not.”
Here’s a news flash for John Boehner: You’re a tool.
Time Warner Cable announced that they will be adding eight new pornography channels to their cable lineup (in addition to Fox, Fox News Channel, Fox Business Network, and Fox Sports Net).
Mayor Bloomberg is instituting a smoking ban in the city’s parks and beaches.
This is going to get ugly.
Francisco “K-Rod” Rodriguez is the Mets closer who beat up the father of his babymama (Daian Peña). He was told by the court that, as a condition of his release, he was not allowed to contact Ms. Peña in any way. Between August 19th and September 7th, he sent her 56 text messages. Here are my two (uncorrected) favorites:
“You are already a woman who can make her own decisions and because of that, our home in spite of its ups and downs we built it together no longer exist because of their greed. I pray to God that is not too late for you to open your eyes and reconsider.”
“Thank you for sinking me turning your back, take good care of my children… and now I see that your were with me because of the money to see that your family.”
K-Rod now faces additional criminal charges for violating the restraining order and attempted murder of the English language.
The Corn Refiners Association has filed a request with the government to officially change the name “High Fructose Corn Syrup” to “Corn Sugar.” I guess that’s easier than finding a way to make it less unhealthy.
Let’s compromise and call it Obesugar!
One of the cast members of Bravo’s Real Housewives of New Jersey was called as a witness in a defamation suit against another cast member. Caroline Manzo testified that Danielle Staub told her that Kevin Maher (her ex-husband) “beat her daily,” shot and/or hanged her dog, raped her on a bed of broken glass, forced her to become a prostitute, and “inserted a pistol up her vagina and played like a Russian roulette.”
Maher said in his deposition, “I really can’t think of which is worse… being accused of being a rapist or being [accused of] being a dog killer. And I’ve been accused of both, a dog-killing rapist.”
I can’t wait for Season Three!
According to Page Six (today on page 12), a new book about Jon Bon Jovi claims that he contracted pubic lice in Japan 25 years ago. “Anyway, in Japan, nobody has any body hair, so they never even heard of crabs.”
Until Bon Jovi came to town (cue wah-wah pedal intro from “Living on a Prayer”).
Dutch police arrested a drunk pilot who was preparing for take off in Amsterdam. The Post doesn’t say what airline it was or where the plane was going.
(does a little e-research)
It was a Delta flight headed for Newark! Hooray!
The French Senate passed a bill on Tuesday that bans wearing “burqa-style Islamic veil[s] on public streets and other places.” The bill passed 246-to-1.
How long before the GOP proposes a similar ban here? A year? A month?
Victor Alfaro-Marquez, 35, of Selden, runs an import-export business. In his spare time, he likes to dress up like a federal agent and pull people over. On Monday morning, he did this to William Zambito. Detective William Zambito.
“‘He asked my guy if he was NYPD,’ Detective Lt. Matt Sullivan said. ‘My guy said, ‘No, I’m a Suffolk detective.’ The suspect then ’said he was DEA, and quickly got back into his car and left,’ Sullivan said.” Zambito wrote down Victor’s license plate and Vic was arrested later that evening.
Michael Mann has already bought the film rights to this story. Look for the three-hour Zambito, starring Al Pacino and Val Kilmer in Fall 2012.
“Forty-one percent of the people who go to open houses in Manhattan and Brooklyn aren’t looking to buy a home at all — and many admit to snooping in owners’ closets, checking out their shoes and even reading notes on their refrigerators, according to a new survey.”
I blame the lack of good TV shows.
That guy who burned pages of the Koran near Ground Zero on 9/11? His name is Derek Fenton. And, as a result of his actions, he was fired from his job for “violat[ing] New Jersey Transit’s code of ethics.” Which consists of an index card with “DON’T GET CAUGHT” written on it in crayon.
One of the alleged “Riverdale bomb plotters” was being interviewed by a “jailhouse shrink” in July when he came up with a really creative way of establishing an insanity plea. “This is The Matrix, isnt it?” he asked.
Whoa.
“Singer George Michael was sentenced to eight weeks in jail yesterday for driving under the influence of cannabis when he crashed his car into a north London shop in July.”
When the verdict was read, Michael reportedly muttered, “I don’t want your freedom” and tried to fellate the stenographer.
Here are some letters to the Post regarding reporter Ines Sainz.
Beverly Meil, of Scranton, Pennsylvania, writes, “I am not condoning the Jets’ alleged behavior, but if she wants to be taken more seriously as a reporter, she needs to work on her wardrobe.”
Gregg Livesay, of Stamford, Connecticut, writes, “I don’t condone cat-calling and whistling at women, but the insistence that this woman dressed appropriately is laughable.”
Mark Romeo, of Brooklyn, writes, “I’m not condoning their behavior, but let’s keep this in perspective and see it for what it is. If she can’t take the heat, get out of the locker room.”
I love how the Post isn’t afraid to give voice to both sides of a story.
Twitter gets 370,000 new users a day and 2 of them actually have something interesting to say.
Gold hit an all-time high of $1,276.50 on Tuesday.
Wait a minute… if Glenn Beck was right about investing in gold… what else is he right about?
Mandy Stadtmiller calls The Social Network the “hottest movie of the season.”
Hyperbolicious!
Courtney Love was repeatedly denied access to the backstage area of Marc Jacobs’ Fashion Week show because she was “obviously under the influence of something.” I am shocked.
MOVIE REVIEWS!
Lou Lumenick gives Never Let Me Go two stars (“Science fiction movies don’t come more ponderous… this is a movie so solemn that for a brief moment I wished I were watching Michael Bay’s problematic cloning thriller The Island with the immortal Scarlett Johansson instead.”).
V.A. Musetto gives Kings of Pastry three stars (nothing objectionable). So it isn’t just Asian nudity that he loves. It’s also desserts.
My wife is excited that Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown is becoming a Broadway musical. I wonder if she’ll still feel that way after she learns that one of the stars is Justin Guarini. Remember him? He’s the the co-star of 2003’s From Justin to Kelly. I wonder which woman he’ll play.
Speaking of shows I have no interest on seeing, Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark is scheduled to begin previews on November 14th. And may God have mercy on its soul.
Posada’s 10th-inning home run put the Yankees back in 1st place by half a game. But… for how long…?
In other Yankee news, Teixeira has been playing with a broken little toe for the last two weeks. He says he’s also been “battling a right hand problem that surfaced in late August.”
Joe Girardi’s response? “Mark has an extremely high threshold of pain.” Wait… he’s a Mets fan?
The critics have not been kind to Chelsea Handler’s lackluster hosting of the VMAs. Her response? “I had a really great time last night. And for anyone who thinks I didn’t do a good job, fuck off.” Will do.
Linda Stasi gives Outlaw no stars. I assume that’s a typo (she prolly meant to give it three).
Tonight on American Movie Classics: Death Wish 2 at 6:00, followed by Death Wish 3 at 8:00, followed by an encore of Death Wish 3 at 10:00.
When do we file the class-action lawsuit against AMC for false advertising?
TODAY
Vito Lopez is back on the cover (BOARD GAME: Dem Boss’ charity led by the clueless). The Post claims that none of the board of directors at the nonprofit where Lopez’s girlfriend and sister make six-figure salaries could identify any of the center’s programs.
“City investigators determined that at least seven of the nine board members of the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, a sprawling social services agency funded with $75 million in taxpayer money that has long served as Assemblyman Lopez’s power base, were figureheads who had no idea what contracts they were approving. Two unnamed board members admitted as much, saying they aren’t fluent in English, but always voted yes. The board chairwoman, Lucy Cusimano, 84, testified that the position was bestowed upon her — without herknowledge — while she was 1,500 miles away. ‘She was “not happy about that,”‘ investigators quoted her as saying.”
Sigh. If this is accurate, Lopez (and many others) belong in prison. But in a world where Charlie Rangel retains hefty support from his constituents, that’ll probably never happen.
Andrew Douglas, director of the 2005 remake of The Amityvile Horror, is suing his ex-wife (Ameena Meer) for telling him she was pregnant with his child 17 years ago, which lead to a brief marriage and plenty of child support. A recent paternity test proved that Douglas is not the father. He’s suing for $671,991 (plus punitive damages).
I wonder if Meer will blame it on demonic forces.
Mayor Bloomberg is expanding his smoking ban to the Crossroads of the World in Times Square.
This is going to get really, really ugly.
Page 8 is devoted to Carl Paladino (Call him crude — he won’t care) with a small sidebar by Charles Hurt (Party hacks need to taste the Tea or they’re toast). The Paladino piece tells us that he believes his dead son talks to him through his bulldog (named Duke), that he fathered a love child with his employee, and that he was a registered Democrat until 2005.
Over on page 9, Fredric U. Dicker’s EXCLUSIVE piece (FLEEING GOP POLS SAY PALADI-NOOO!: Local candidates’ ‘arm’s length’ strategy) indicates that Republicans are trying to distance themselves from Paladino. You know, on account of he’s crazy, racist and a scumbag.
Page Six (today on page 14) insinuates that Annette Bening and Warren Beatty may be close to separating. And they claim it’s because they’ve been arguing over their 18-year-old daughter, Kathleen, “and her plans to have gender-reassignmnet surgery.” They say that Kathleen has been living as a man for the last two years (named Stephen Ira!) and that Annette is OK with her (his?) upcoming surgery but Warren isn’t.
Who wants to help me write a screenplay about adorable twin brothers who rob banks behind their unsuspecting parents’ backs? If I can get Stephen Ira Beatty and Justin Bieber to co-star, it’ll make a fortune!
BP has that full-page full-color ad on page 21 today. Maybe what the old man and the female BP employee are staring at is all of the oil on the sea floor?
Edwin Newman has died at the age of 91. He was one of the best newscasters of all time and will be missed.
Rumor has it that Newman accidentally turned on Sean Hannity’s TV show and that’s what killed him.
Full-page ad for Bill O’Reilly’s new book on page 26. The book’s cover features a photo of Obama on the left and a photo of the author on the right. The book’s title is PINHEADS AND PATRIOTS. Who wants in on a $1,000 bet that O’Reilly will repeatedly insist that he isn’t calling Obama a pinhead and that anyone who disagrees is part of the “lamestream” media?
I don’t know how I feel about this.
In the seventh inning of last night’s game, Jeter screamed in pain at what appeared to be his getting hit by a pitch. He was given a free base and the Rays’ manager ran out to protest. He was ejected from the game. After the game was over (and we had lost), Jeter admitted that the ball had actually hit his bat. “That’s part of the game. My job is to get on base. I have been hit and not gotten on base.”
The fact that we lost means that his lie didn’t affect the outcome. Had we won because he scored in the seventh, it’d be a different story.
In any event, we’re off tonight and once again in 2nd place.
Sharon Osbourne responds to Vince Neil’s not-so-kind description of her as “the most evil, shittiest woman I’ve ever met in my life.”
“He’s the murderer, not me. He has murdered somebody in a car. He crippled two other people and he is still driving drunk. And that is why I used to keep my husband away from him. And if that makes me a bad person, then I am a bad person.”
Well, technically he’s a vehicular manslaughterer, but point taken. I can’t wait for Vince’s response!
Linda Stasi reviews the new season of The Apprentice. She loves it. Highly recommends it.
She gives it three stars.
Tonight on American Movie Classics, Death Wish 3 at 6:00, followed by Death Wish 4: The Crackdown at 8:00, followed by an encore of Death Wish 4: The Crackdown at 10:15.
And now we’re all caught up. The weekend is less than 25 hours away! Hang in there, kitten dangling from a branch!
I’ve had a long day and took some cold medicine an hour ago. I’m amazed I can even type at this point. Double-feature tomorrow, but I would be remiss in my duties (tee hee) if I neglected to mention this:
Pedro Espada lost.
(furiously waves miniature American flag)
BUMS AWAY: Vote today to boot the scoundrels
Today’s cover story notes that today’s primary elections give New Yorkers a chance to remove some grade-A scumbags from their offices. Pedro Espada and Charlie Rangel don’t deserve the jobs they currently have, and Hiram Monserrate is running for the Assembly seat that was vacated by the man who replaced Hiram in the state Senate (and he doesn’t deserve that job or any job, really). Nothing would make me happier than all three of these jerks to face defeat today. But it looks like Rangel is a shoe-in and Espada has a 50/50 chance of winning. Sigh.
But this story gets less than half of page 4 (not counting the less than half of the cover). You know what gets all of page 5, though? BATMAN’S POW!-ER PITCH. “I know a thing or two about keeping Gotham City safe. Sean [Coffey] is an independent voice who wants to fight those villains in Albany,” says TV’s Adam West, 81, in robo-calls being made to all New York residents who weren’t smart enough to get on the no-call list. And why would an Idaho resident care who gets the nomination to become New York’s next attorney general? Because West and Coffey went fly-fishing together a few years ago. Other celebrity endorsements include: John Slattery for Kathleen Rice; Cynthia Nixon and Alec Baldwin for Eric Schneiderman; Pete Seeger for Richard Brodsky; and John Leguizamo for Eric Dinallo.
I remember going to see Leguizamo on Broadway in one of his monologue shows (either Mambo Mouth or Spic-O-Rama) and being blown away. But now every time I think of him, this is the first thing I see:
According to GAGA IN ALL HER ‘GORY’, Lady Gaga explained her meat dress to Ellen DeGeneres after the VMAs. “It is certainly no disrespect to anyone that is vegan or vegetarian. But if we don’t stand up for what we believe in and fight for our rights, pretty soon we’re going to have as much rights as the meat on our bones. And I’m not a piece of meat.”
As Rick Jones once said, “Cocaine is a Helluva drug.”
The GOP has “vowed to block President Obama’s plan to cut middle-class taxes unless tax reductions for the wealthy are also preserved.”
How come the Republicans love to nail Reagan to the cross as the Second Coming but kick and scream every time a Democrat tries to raise taxes (for millionaires and billionaires) to a fraction of what they were under him?
The MTA has promised that “there are no future service cuts on the table.”
Which means we should expect additional service cuts by early 2011.
Yesterday’s cover story dealt with Ines Sainz, a sports reporter who claimed that members of the New York Jets made her feel uncomfortable, making salacious comments to/about her. Today, Ines claims that team owner Woody Johnson has apologized and she’s happy to move on.
And that’s that. Right, Mandrea?
“Sainz… is an embarrassment to journalists, to women and to the overgrown sandbox of professional football.”
“All bets were off the minute Sainz declared herself ‘the hottest sports reporter in Mexico.’ This calls into question exactly what she’s selling — her sweat and hard work, or her body parts. Women have worked long and hard for equality on the playing field and in the locker room. We don’t need a publicity whore to muck it up.”
Andrea Peyser hates attractive women. And that jogger in Central Park had no business dressing all sexy.
Michael Goodwin’s Extremist lion in moderate lamb’s clothing hates Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf. A lot.
“There’s a story about a Mideast zookeeper who insists he can get the lion and lamb to lie down together each night. An incredulous visitor asks how. Easy, the zookeeper says. I just bring in a new lamb each morning. Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf reminds me of the zookeeper. I’m not sure if he would get the joke, or even realize it is a joke. And that’s the problem.”
“He talks about ‘amplifying moderates’ and stopping extremists from ‘hijacking the discourse,’ but he has refused to call Hamas a terror organization and said the United States was an ‘accomplice’ to 9/11. His elastic definition of who is an extremist makes his words meaningless.”
Soledad O’Brien recently interviewed Rauf on Larry King (is barely a)Live. She asked him if the State Department is right to call Hamas a terror organization. He replied, “I condemn everyone and anyone who commits acts of terrorism. And Hamas has commited acts of terrorism.” He also said that he wouldn’t accept money from Hamas and their supporters for the Islamic cultural center. But Goodwin will continue to push the narrative that Rauf refuses to condemn Hamas. Because he is an irresponsible hack.
“Despite his self-description of a moderate seeking peace, virtually everything he says and does suggests he nonetheless subscribes to the false narrative of Islam being under attack by a conspiracy of the West and leaders in Islamic nations.”
We agree that it’s a false narrative, but we disagree on who’s narrating it.
Jennifer Raab, president of Hunter College, gets a mention on Page Six (today on page 12). Being married to Michael Goodwin is good for something after all!
Remember Miladin Kovacevic? He beat a college student into a coma for three monthsin 2008, had his $100,000 bail paid by Serbian diplomats and then fled to his native Serbia (with a fake passport also provided by the diplomats). The Serbians refused to extradite him.
Well, he agreed to a plea deal in exchange for testifying against the diplomats who paid his bail. He faced up to eight years under the plea deal, but it was just announced that he’ll serve two years and three months.
Does anyone still have any faith in the American justice system?
Andy Soltis writes the six-sentence Grim find on spill oil, which is on the bottom corner of page 18. A new study claims that all of that oil that BP claims to have removed is actually on the sea floor.
I hope they keep running those pretty full-page ads in this horrible paper!
The Obama administration is waiting for Congress to approve the sale of “up to $60 billion worth of sophisticated warplanes to Saudi Arabia and could add another $30 billion worth of naval arms.”
What’s the worst that could happen? I mean, it’s not like 15 of the 19 people directly responsible for the 9/11 attacks were from Saudi Arabia. Right?
Rich Lowry argues that John Boehner “might make a better hate figure if anyone knew who he is” and that “Obama’s focus on him speaks to a self-deluding lack of perspective.”
So Rich Lowry believes that most of America has no idea who the Republican House minority leader is, but Obama is the condescending elitist? Duly noted.
Last night’s Yankees-Rays game was a true pitchers’ duel. In 11 innings, each team managed just 4 hits. Sadly, the Rays came out on top (1-0) and Sabathia was denied his 20th win. Even worse, the Yankees are now out of 1st place by half a game.
There’s still plenty of baseball to be played, sure, but a lot of it is against Tampa. We need to start beating them.
Vince Neil called Sharon Osbourne “the most evil, shittiest woman I’ve ever met in my life.”
Ironically, a lot of people say the same thing about Vince Neil.
Paula Abdul wanted $10,000,000 to come back to American Idol. They said no. But Jennifer Lopez is reportedly getting $12,000,000 to join the show. Randy Jackson makes $8,000,000 and Ryan Seacrest makes $15,000,000.
So if you wanted to know how much is costs to bore me shitless, the answer is $35,000,000 a year (plus whatever Steven Tyler is getting).
Another day, another entry. Try and enjoy the remainder of your Tuesday.
Not a euphemism. Here’s a picture of Cher holding it.
Lady Gaga wore a dress made of meat at the VMAs last night. And when she went up to accept the Video of the Year award (for “Bad Romance”), she asked the presenter (Cher) to hold her meat purse, as evidenced by the above photo.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
SATURDAY
A whole lotta 9/11 coverage, including (but not limited to):
* Kin: It is indeed G. Zero credits “relatives of 9/11 victims” with saying that “mosque spearhead Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf was wrong when he said of his site: ‘This is not Ground Zero. No one’s body is in that location.’” And what are these relatives basing this claim on? The gaudy map the Post printed on Friday (which, I feel obliged to note, showed no human remains in the location Rauf was referring to). Also, it’s not a mosque.
* NIX ON THE BONFIRE OF THE INSANITY indicates that Terry Jones decided not to burn Korans on 9/11. It also claims that “a small Topeka, Kan., church said it would burn Korans if Jones doesn’t, and a Springfield, Tenn., pastor said he’d burn Korans today.” Jesus wept.
* WTC site gears for solemn hush — & then noisy protest anticipates “4,000 opponents and supporters of the planned mosque” (which isn’t a mosque) will hold raucous protests (how better to honor the dead than to scream over their unrecovered remains?).
You know what I don’t think the Post has ever pointed out? That there was a mosque in the World Trade Center. But why would they?
According to Page Six (today on page 10), there is a “Remembering 9/11 Celebrity Gift Retreat in Beverly Hills” today. “Among those listed as expeted to attend: Tila Tequila, Rachel Uchitel and Jenna Jameson.” Which is worse — the tastelessness or the false advertising?
Are you hungry? Are you in England? Are you an asshole? If you answered yes to all three of those questions, why not swing by Martin Blunos’ restaurant for his new $170 cheese sandwich. It features truffle-infused cheddar and 100-year-old balsamic vinegar, but the reason it’s so expensive is the edible gold dust.
I wonder if the sandwich comes with photographs of poor people to laugh at.
GAGA & EX IN TRUCE announces that the Rob Fusari v. Lady Gaga suit (and the Gaga v. Fusari countersuit) is no more. No details are provided. Fun Fact: According to Fusari’s lawsuit, he sent a text to “Radio Gaga” (his nickname for her), but the cellphone autocorrected “Radio” to “Lady.” And now you know… the rest of the story.
Pages 14 and 15 feature a gigantic photo of the aftermath of the gas explosion in San Bruno (BLOCKS OF DEVASTATION). The accompanying article includes the sentence, “The death toll, which authorities fear will rise, was announced as:” Then it goes into a checklist of other details about the explosion. But that’s not the most wince-inducing thing about this spread. That would be the ADVERTORIAL that takes up the left half of page 14: The BeachHouse is back on the market — at affordable pricing! Classy.
Over on page 16, we learn that off-duty NYPD lieutenant Sherif Nassef, 46, was assaulted at a crowded mosque on Staten Island on Friday.
Take a bow, Rupert.
The editorial Beyond Mourning is beyond disrespectful. “Obama notes that America is ‘not at war with Islam.’ That may be true, but it means absolutely nothing if elements of Islam are at war with America.”
You know who else noted that we aren’t at war with Islam? George W. Bush. And that may mean nothing to the Post, but it means a great deal to the millions of American Muslims currently being victimized by the idiots you fuel with misplaced rage.
Page 20 is a full-page, full-color ad for A FOX NEWS EXCLUSIVE.
The Rise of FREEDOM
A CONTINUING SERIES WITH EXCLUSIVE ACCESS
REPORTED BY FOX’S SHEPARD SMITH.
FOLLOW THE RISE OF THE NEW WORLD TRADE CENTER,
FROM START UNTIL THE SKY IS FULL!
Hey, New Yorkers! Remember when the sky was full of smoke? Happy anniversary.
The Yankees lost (in 13 innings) and Tampa Bay won. Just a game and a half separates us.
Would the Yankees have won if not for this incredibly awful call?
Maybe. Maybe not. But you have to admit it was a terrible call.
SUNDAY
BATTLE GROUND: Mosque rallies mar solemn 9/11 is today’s cover story, with follow-up on the following six pages. Page 2 features a photo of a girl holding a hand-drawn sign of the Twin Towers with airplanes about to hit both of them (REMEMBER? —> is on the left, About 3000 people died!!! is on the right). And in big clunky letters beneath the illustration is NO MOSQUE AT GROND ZERO (with a small U sloppily added as an afterthought). The article next to photo is Both sides desecrate vigil: kin. Amen.
RALLIES RAGE IN DOWNTOWN DUEL: Cops keep order amid a raucous mosque battle estimates there were 3,000 pro-mosque protestors and 2,500 anti-mosque protestors. Which is weird since there is no mosque being built near Ground Zero. It also tells the story of “a lone man” who “walked up to the intersection of Murray and Church streets and started tearing a Koran, burning a few of the pages.” Looks like Newt Gingrich has found his running mate!
But the thing that really set me off about today’s paper is page 7. Under the banner LESSONS OF 9/11, Michael Goodwin devotes his entire page to BAM’S ‘SORRY’ MISTAKE.
“‘The problem is not simply the extremism. And I think one of the mistakes is in thinking that if you deal with the extremists, you deal with the problem.’ Ideally, such words of wisdom would come from President Obama. But they didn’t, because Obama remains stuck in the feel-good myth that the problem is limited to a ‘tiny minority’ of Muslims distorting Islam and that America must prove it is worthy of trust.”
The existence of radical Muslim extremists is a feel-good myth. No such thing. All Muslims believe that Allah wants American blood to be spilled. All of them.
“The false narrative fueling the terror movement, [Tony] Blair told interviewer Charlie Rose last week, ‘is basically that Islam is under oppression from the West, that the West is hostile, and that by the leadership of Muslim countries being in alliance with the West, they are somehow complicit in a betrayal of the fundamentals of their religion.’”
That’s a very fancy straw man you’ve built there, Tony. So “the terror movement” is being fueled NOT by the near-decade of Americans being in countries that don’t want them there (with U.S. soldiers killing civilians for fun and keeping their fingers as trophies), but by a false narrative. Fascinating stuff, guy who plagiarized a movie to write his autobiography.
“The myth attracts believers well beyond the actual terrorists, Blair said, adding, ‘That is a narrative that has a broader reach than we think.’ The last point is as critical as it is controversial. It helps explain the ‘X factor’ — why most Muslims around the world, including millions in America, remain silent in the face of the grisly atrocities committed under the banner of their religion.”
What a phenomenal crock of shit. “Muslims denounce terrorism” yields 171,000 results on Google. Just because Fox doesn’t report on it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. Remain silent? Fuck you, Tony.
“By contrast, Obama’s misty-eyed mistake started from Day One, with his groveling in Egypt and elsewhere and abject expressions of respect for the thugocracy running Iran. These genuflections serve to confirm the belief among many Muslims that America has wronged Islam and that Obama will correct the error. It is no coincidence that among US religious groups, Muslims are Obama’s biggest supporters.
‘At a time when the country is anxious generally and going through a tough time, then fears can surface, suspicions, divisions can surface in a society,’ he said. The comments recall his campaign claim that small-town Americans are ‘bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them.’ Two years later, he still holds the same elite condescension toward his countrymen.”
I guess one man’s honest truth is another man’s elite condescension.
“He even drew George W. Bush to his side, saying he admired how the ex-president he blames for everything else was ‘crystal clear’ that we were at war with terrorists, not Islam. ‘I was so proud of the country rallying around that idea, that notion that we are not going to be divided by religion,’ Obama said, leaving the impression he views Koran burning and opposition to the Ground Zero mosque and a 9/11 trial as morally indistinguishable sins.”
That’s some nice journalism there, Mike.
“You certainly don’t counter the perversion of Islam by pleading guilty to it. If Obama comes to that realization, he will be a better president. Who knows, he might even be proud of America again.”
But… isn’t Islam a perversion in and of itself? How can Obama be proud of a country that has Muslims in it?
Did Pedro Espada’s people mail out postcards for “Daniel Padernacht” in the hopes of splitting the anti-Espada vote? Well, it wasn’t Padernacht since a) he goes by Dan, not Daniel, and b) he dropped out of the election days before they were mailed.
The fact that Espada still has a decent chance of keeping his job boggles my mind.
Last month, Rick Lazio led Carl Paladino in the polls 43-30. Now it’s a 43-42 lead.
It’s coming down to the wire to see who will get to lose to Cuomo!
Perez Hilton called 50 Cent a douchebag. Fitty responded on Twitter, “Perez Hilton calld me douchebag so I had my homie shoot up a gay wedding. wasnt his but still made me feel better” He attached a photo to the tweet of two well-dressed men being chased by an angry mob.
Back in 2004, he told Playboy, “I ain’t into faggots. I don’t like gay people around me, because I’m not comfortable with what their thoughts are… I’d rather hang out with a straight dude. But women who like women, that’s cool.”
A couple of years ago, I heard that most of the hardest thugs in rap have a weakness for transsexual escorts. I can totally see Fitty happily getting a blowjob from a trannie and thinking that he found some magical loophole.
According to Page Six (today on page 11), Geraldo Rivera recently called Glenn Beck “this generation’s Geraldo Rivera.”
Except he meant it as a compliment. To Beck and himself.
Michael Richards is being sued by a photographer who claims that Richards walked up to him on August 25th and just started punching and kicking him. I haven’t been able to find out what color the photograper was/is, but his name is Brendon O’Neal, so I’ll just assume he’s Malaysian.
Kyler Robertson was suspended from his high school in Texas because the staff suspected him of being on drugs. Their evidence? His eyes were bloodshot.
They forced him to take a drug test (which came back negative) and he was allowed to return. Wanna know the actual reason Kyler’s eyes were bloodshot? His father had died two days earlier and he had been crying a lot.
His teachers nowknow he isn’t a junkie, but now his classmates will assume he’s gay (those are the only people in Texas who cry… primarly because they’re gay and in Texas).
Teresa, cross Jackson, Kentucky off the list.
Stanley Neace, 47, wasn’t happy with the eggs his wife served him yesterday, so he shot her with a 12-gauge shotgun. Then he shot her stepdaughter. Then her sister. Then her cousin. Then a witness who stepped out onto her porch to see what was going on. Then himself. Six people dead (including Stanley).
Those must have been awful eggs.
According to Maureen Callahan, Lady Gaga got her name when she and a bunch of her friends (including some of Rob Fusari’s employees) were trying to “think about what name is going to be marketable.” Wendy Starland claims, “We talked about Queen and their song ‘Radio Ga Ga,’ and someone came up with ‘Lady,’ and we put it together.”
For more riveting stories like that, look for Maureen’s upcoming book, Poker Face: The Rise and Rise of Lady Gaga.
Connie Spence, 50, of Francis, Oklahoma, was driving her lawnmover down a city street at 10:15 p.m. on Friday when she hit a pothole. She was thrown off the mover, which then ran her over.
If you want a used lawnmower at a greatly reduced price, call the Spences of Francis, Oklahoma.
The latest poll in the New York State Senate primary puts Espada at 32%, Gustavo Rivera at 32% and 35% are still undecided.
Wow.
Tony Blair’s Wake-Up Call is an editorial that picks up where Goodwin left off.
“Unlike other memoirs by retired politicians, A Journey [Blair's autobiography] is important — and not just because it has nice things to say about George W. Bush.”
Set that bar high, Post.
Joseph Carducci, of Pittsburgh, writes in to explain why he doesn’t care what Stephen Hawking (or any other fancy scientist) thinks about God. “The Catholic church, which maintains hundreds of thousands of schools, including 2,000 colleges and universities, is the greatest proponent of science in history. I prefer to hear what it has to say about God.”
I don’t think “science” means what Joseph thinks it means.
ASK ASHLEY!
I live in a huge house with several 20-somethings. Recently, some new housemates moved in, and I’ve found myself attracted to one of them. I don’t want to date him (after a serious relationship ended badly I’ve become relationship-phobic), but I’m definitely up for some no-strings-attached sex. Common sense says this is a bad idea, but I don’t see the harm in messing around with someone while not letting things get too serious. It’s just sex, right? What do you think? — Anonymous
ASHLEY: “But if chatter doesn’t bother you, and you’re sure that all you want is good old no-strings-attached sex, then go for it.”
ME: “Common sense says this is a bad idea. And there’s a reason it’s called common sense.”
I’ve been married for 23 years. Recently, my husband told me that his brother, who has also been married for 23 years, brought his girlfriend on their boy’s trip to Bonaire in the Caribbean, and because he didn’t want my husband to be a “third wheel,” he fixed him up with a girl. My brother-in-law has always cheated on his wife — from hookers and maids to waitresses and hostesses, you name it. He’s even had steady girlfriends in the past. I think he crossed the line by trying to get my husband to cheat as well. Now the entire family is a mess. Where do we go from here? — Jamie
ASHLEY: “There are a lot of issues to address including, and starting with, your brother-in-law’s cheating (though, really, he and his wife should have their own sessions to address this since it’s the heart of the problem), his influence on your husband, your trust in him going forward and communication barriers and breakdowns.”
ME: “If your brother-in-law has been doing this for 23 years, chances are your husband has known about it for a long time. That means he’s been keeping it from you. That means he loves his brother more than he loves you. That means you should either get a divorce or start dressing more like his brother.”
The answer to Sunday’s Wonderword (titled Lady Gaga) is POKERFACE. Coincidentally, this is also the title of a book about Lady Gaga written by a Post employee and excerpted in today’s paper.
The Yankees lost (when Mariano hit a batter with the bases loaded!) and Tampa Bay won. Our lead is just 1/2 a game.
Oof.
MONDAY (that’s today!)
The Health Resources and Services Administration sent $1,050,000 in stimulus fundsto Pedro Espada’s Soundview Health Center. Federal officials noted that the oney was being used “improperly” and froze the account. The HRSA is now demanding it back.
Sadly, this probably won’t affect his polls.
This weekend, Resident Evil: Afterlife made $27,700,000, Takers made $6,100,000, The American made $5,900,000, Machete made $4,200,000 and Going the Distance raked in $3,800,000. That means that RE:A made 7,700,000 more than the other films in the top five combined.
The bad news: This virtually guarantees a(nother) sequel.
New Jersey Transit has stopped work on their $8,700,000,000 Hudson River rail tunnel to Herald Square for a month because they’re worried the project might be up to $1,000,000,000 over budget. They will use the month to re-examine the budget and make sure everthing is going as planned.
The MTA was astonished to learn that you could do such things.
State Senator Carl Kruger has helped steer $7,000,000 (of taxpayer money) towards the building of a state-of-the-art office for a Brooklyn community board. The board has just two members. One is Kruger’s sister. The other is his girlfriend. Kruger is a Democrat and, if this is true, a scumbag.
Page Six (today on page 10) tells us that Robert De Niro had problems keeping an erection while shooting the movie 1900 back in 1977 (according to Gerard Depardieu, who shared this information with the folks at the Montreal World Film Festival). Gerard claims that he cured De Niro of the problem. He said that his secret involves Tiger Balm and water. And not looking at Gerard Depardieu.
I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this before, but Diandra Douglas (Michael’s ex-wife) has 6-year-old twin boys named Hudson and Hawk.
I don’t understand how that’s legal.
A plane from Bahrain landed at Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila yesterday. When the plane unloaded its trash, an infant child was found inside. He was rushed to a hospital and given a clean bill of health. No attempt will be made to find the child’s family; if they don’t come forward, the child will be put up for adoption.
Sometimes, I wish we’d all remained monkeys. They don’t pull shit like this.
Thomas and Lynn Roddenberry bought a box of Chocolate Chip Crunch cereal from the Save-A-Lot in Thomaston, Georgia, in 2008. They are now suing the store because Thomas claims he poured out a bowl of it and found a used tampon inside.
I’m never eating cereal again (but I’ll continue to shop at Save-A-Lot because you really do save a lot).
Lemrick Nelson Jr. stabbed Yankel Rosenbaum to death during the 1991 Crown Heights riots. He served 10 years in prison for the crime.
He was found unconscious with wounds to the back of his head last night. An ice pick (the assumed weapon) was found by his side. He was taken to the hospital and is in stable condition. If he recovers, he’ll have a much better idea of how his victims felt (he was also charged with slashing a man in Georgia with a knife in 1994).
The Yankees were swept by Texas. Thankfully, Tampa Bay lost last night. Our half-game lead remains.
CC Sabathia (19-6) will pitch tonight against Tampa’s David Price (17-6). They have each faced the other team twice this year and are both 1-1, but Sabathia’s ERA against Tampa is 2.53. Price’s ERA against the Yankees is 7.11.
C’mon, Yankees.
Linda Stasi lists her 6 shows not to miss in the upcoming TV season.
Boardwalk Empire (agreed), Lonestar (actually, it’s called Lone Star, and I refuse to support anything Jon Voight does), Sister Wives (a reality TV show about polygamists!), The Event (“If 24, Lost and The 4400 had a baby, it would be The Event“), Outsourced (have you seen the promos? P.U.!), and Mike & Molly (“Too bad lines like ‘Take her to a lesbo club. I hear they like the beefy gals’ are drowned out by a horrible laugh track.”). Too bad, indeed.
I look forward to missing five of Linda’s six picks. She is the absolute worst TV critic in the entire state of New York. I give her three stars.
Time to run errands and head into the city for a rehearsal.
I hate Mondays, but I love you!
Until tomorrow…
I can’t get enough Louis CK. Enjoy!
Triple-feature tomorrow!
I was going to post something 9/11-related and somber, but thought that was a weak idea (if you want that, look at almost any other Web site today). Then I was going to post the Team America: World Police theme song (America, Fuck Yeah!) but decided not to for similar reasons.
Instead, here’s some nice non-political lowbrow comedy, as provided by my Hollywood Doppleganger.
Try and have a nice day.
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