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BREAKING NEWS: President Obama announced today that all U.S. forces will be pulled out of Iraq by the end of the year.

I knew I was going to vote for Obama in 2012, but I had no idea that I’d be doing it proudly.

The Post has never been accused of being classy, but they kind of outdid themselves today. I mean, I expected some awful pun (ALIVE NO MOAMMORE or KHADEATHY or KHORPSE!) but KHADAFY KILLED BY YANKEE FAN: Gunman had more hits than A-Rod? With a full-color photo of his bloody corpse? Even I wasn’t expecting that.

Andy Soltis’ follow-up on page 4 (MOAMMAR GETS YANKEE-CAPPED) tells us that “Moammar Khadafy, the vile dictator… was heroically erased from the earth yesterday — apparently by a young gun-slinging Yankee fan.”

I guess wearing the hat makes him a fan. By that logic, this kid loves Samsung…

…this guy adores The Color Purple…

…and this guy is a big fan of the musical Hair…

…actually, that last one might be accurate.

One of the sub-headlines of this piece is • Tyrant pulled from sewer & beaten, but if you make it to the 26th paragraph you’ll learn that “There were plenty of questions still to answer. According to some anti-Khadafy fighters, his final act took place in an opulent compound and didn’t involve a sewer at all.”

This is a horrible newspaper.

There’s also a photo on page 7 captioned “LIBERATED: Libyan women in Tripoli salute their newfound freedom as they celebrate Khadafy’s death.”

I’m not so sure. I think they’re just excited about their new car.

Also on page 7 (in a piece by Geoff Earle) is a quote from “Michael Singh, a former Bush security aide now at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies.” Michael says, “Clearly the president is going to try to turn [the deaths of Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki and Moammar Khadafy] into a narrative that says: Look I’m strong on national security. Does it amount to a successful foreign policy? Frankly, I don’t think it does.”

Shut up, Michael.

Fun Facts: Khadafy created his own calendar for Libya (he changed January to Ayn al-Nar, which means “where is the fire?”) and had a plan to reunite Israel and Palestine into a single country (which he called Isratine).

“After recently discovering Brookyln’s ‘fine-ass dining’ scene, GQ magazine designated the borough ‘the coolest city on the planet’ in its upcoming November issue.”

OMG! Does this mean all of the hipsters will move out of Williamsburg now?

“Lindsay Lohan, fresh off a judge’s tongue-lashing for blowing off community service, remarkably missed her court-ordered gig at the Los Angeles morgue yesterday. The train-wreck occasional actress showed up 40 minutes late for an orientation class, according to coroner’s officials, who told her to turn around and come back to the morgue today — hopefully on time.” So why was she late, Lindsay’s publicist?

“‘Her lateness was due to a combination of not knowing what entrance to go through and confusion caused by the media waiting for her arrival,’ said Lohan’s publicist, Steve Honig.”

You know, maybe Lindsay wouldn’t need to go to Europe to earn money if she didn’t have to pay a publicist.

Poor Cindy Adams.

“Michael Douglas’ troubled son [Cameron Douglas] — who beat a mandatory 10-year prison stretch for drugs by ratting out his dealers — pleaded guilty to possession yesterday after getting caught with drugs [Suboxone and heroin] in a downtown jail over the weekend.”

“His nonbinding plea deal on the new rap recommends up to 18 more months behind bars, but [Manhattan federal Judge Richard] Berman warned Douglas that he still faces a maximum of 20 years.”

He’ll serve six. Tops.

Page Six (today on pages 16 and 17) features a photo of Katherine Heigl pumping gas.

She looks just like what I think of her.

On the 18th, Cindy Adams kvetched, “Listen, how about we all get together and stop ever and forever writing about Lindsay Lohan.” I asked how many days would go by before she wrote about Lindsay Lohan again.

The correct answer is three.

“False hair we do not even mention. Every Lindsay Lohan court date, it’s another color and length. Short, cropped, bobbed, long, ponytail, extensions down the back, brown, blond, brunette, red, curly, straight. Unreal. Like her alibis.”

Listen, how about we all get together and stop ever and forever reading Cindy’s column. Ah, who am I kidding? If we stopped reading Cindy’s column, where would we find wit like this: “Word is Viagra wants to merge with a soft drink that guarantees: ‘Not only 7 Up — stay up!’”

“Despite a campaign-style push this week by President Obama, the Senate last night scuttled pared-back jobs legislation aimed at helping state and local governments avoid lay-offs of teachers and firefighters… The 50-50 motion came on a motion to simply take up the bill and fell well short of the 60 needed to break a filibuster.”

What was it the GOP promised us again? Oh, right: Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

From Josh Saul’s Zuccotti neighbors: Stop dumping on us:

“‘They’re defecating on our doorsteps,’ fumed [Community Board 1] member Catherine Hughes, a stay-at-home mom who lives one block from the protest. ‘The cowbells start at 4 a.m. and the drumming goes past 10 a.m. A lot of people are very frustrated. A lot of people are concerned about the safety of our kids.”

The Internet is amazing. For example, it only took me 30 seconds to find this.

And that article (and accompanying video) lets us know that her family lives on the 14th floor of their building. And that their building has a doorman, so the odds of someone shitting in front of it is kind of slim. Also, her 19-year-old should be at college which means that she’s staying home to raise her 15-year-old.

And the same person who called the destruction of the World Trade Center “just part of the fabric of [her then 9- and 5-year-olds] growing up downtown” is now complaining that her now 19- and 15-year-olds are being exposed to protesters in Zuccotti Park?

I also think that she meant to say (and/or the Post meant to write) 10 p.m. (not a.m.), but either way I can’t imagine Ms. Hughes being able to hear anything in her 14th-floor apartment regardless of the time.

Bernie Madoff’s daughter-in-law (Stephanie Madoff) has written a book (The End of Normal) wherein she reveals that her husband (Mark Madoff) was writing a book that would “expose the behind-the-scenes torment he and his family went through because of his dad’s crimes” in the days before he killed himself. Stephanie also wrote to Bernie, hoping to hear how miserable he is in prison.

“‘They call me either Uncle Bernie or Mr. Madoff,’ Bernie wrote his daughter-in-law… ‘I can’t walk anywhere without someone shouting their greetings and encouragement, to keep my spirit up. It’s really quite sweet, how concerned everyone is about my well-being, including the staff… It’s much safer here than walking the streets of New York.’”

But then, if you were being brutally raped every day and made to drink everyone’s urine, you probably wouldn’t tell anyone unless you absolutely had to.

“Red-faced officials at a Florida school are scrambling after unwittingly passing out bracelets adorned with a photo of a naked lady. Kids at Jay Elementary School got the bracelets — with the pics beneath cloth coverings — as a reward for working in a school fundraiser. Only a few students have given back their naughty novelties, manufactured in China.”

Is it even possible for Texas and/or South Carolina to reclaim the mantle of America’s Shame from Florida?

Chuck Bennett’s Taxidermists rush in is a follow-up on the animals who escaped from the Muskingum County Animal Farm. Apparently, Zanesville is filling up with taxidermists who want to make some money from the “18 rare Bengal tigers, 17 lions, six black bears, two grizzlies, a wolf and three mountain lions” that the police have killed so far.

“‘We’ve gotten calls and e-mails about [is] going to happen to the animals…’ ABC News quoted Muskingum County Sheriff Matt Lutz as saying.”

Whose typo do you think that is? Matt’s? ABC News’? Or Chuck’s?

I’m-a say Chuck.

“Gov. Cuomo yesterday named Joseph Lhota, a senior aide to former Mayor Rudy 9iu11ani, to chair the MTA.”

Lhota will be paid 5% less than Jay Walder — just $332,500 a year.

Wouldn’t it be great if they paid MTA chairmen the way they pay some athletes? Like, the base salary is $50,000 but there are incentives like $100,000 for every project that gets completed on time and on- or under-budget.

A boy can dream, can’t I?

First the idiots.

Upper Montclair, New Jersey’s L. O’Berrigan writes, “These lazy, ill-informed, spoiled brats don’t know what a day’s work is — they have their hands out, and the only word that works for them is ‘free.’ Hardworking people are clipping coupons and struggling to pay taxes to foot the bill and feed the anarchists. Thanks a lot, Chef Eric Smith, for doing the cooking.” The food is donated, L. It doesn’t cost you a single penny out of your pocket.

Manhattan’s T. King writes, “If the dinners at Chez Zuccotti are being prepared at a soup kitchen by a professional chef, it’s time that hardworking New Yorkers stop donating to participating organizations and stop patronizing the farms donating the food. They will no longer receive a single penny out of my pocket.” Oh no! Those organizations and farms are really counting on the nothing you’re currently giving them, T!

Staten Island’s Joe DellaCamera writes, “Amazingly, with the time to protest corporate greed and for more financial equality, the demonstrators are eating off five-star menus. Something like this would only happen in America and only come from the left. Can I get a reservation for Saturday night?” Sure! All you have to do is go down to Zuccotti Park and open your mind. But it isn’t really a five-star menu. See, it was the Post (and only the Post) that called it a five-star menu — even though their food critic said it was far from it.

It’s getting late, so I’ll just thank Fresh Meadows’ Ron Isaac and Oceanside’s Tony Giametta for their eloquent rebuttals of the Post’s slanderous nonsense. It’s good to see that there are intelligent people reading the Post.

I think I just made up a new oxymoron! Intelligent people reading the New York Post!

Bill O’Reilly’s Attack of the Handout Brigade is the latest Post piece to cite Douglas Schoen’s recent poll of Zuccotti Park protesters as gospel.

“And what is [their] agenda? Schoen writes: ‘The protesters… are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing politics… [The movement] comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in the radical redistribution of wealth.’ In other words, these folks want our stuff.”

“Generally speaking, the Occupy Wall Street crew is comprised of bored morons who want handouts. Every American has a legitimate beef about something, but most of us don’t want to burn the system down. The protesters do. Maybe if their brains were occupied with some perspective, we could get somewhere.”

How can any self-respecting person write something like this?

“I respect dissent, but not stupidity.”

Touché.

Mark DeCambre once again writes, “In the third quarter, [Bank of America] posted profit of $6.23 billion, or 56 cents a share, down 15 percent from the same period a year ago.” Wrong again, Mark!

But Mark is right about this: “A plan by beleaguered Bank of America to foist [some $55 trillion] of funky Merrill Lynch derivatives onto its depositors is raising eyebrows on Wall Street. The rarely used move will likely save the bank millions of dollars in collateral but could put depositors’ cash behind the eight ball.”

We really have to close our B of A accounts ASAP.

MOVIE REVIEWS!

Kyle Smith gives three and a half stars to Martha Marcy May Marlene (“a potent psychological chiller”), one and a half stars to Paranormal Activity 3 (“70 minutes of aggressive banality followed by 10 minutes of banal aggression”), two stars to Oranges and Sunshine (“well-intentioned but uninspired”), one star to Revenge of the Electric Car (“interesting as a meta-documentary”), three stars to The Swell Season (“a tender little piece of heartbreak”), and two stars to The Mighty Macs (“warm-spirited but all too obvious”).

Lou Lumenick gives three stars to Margin Call (“Basically Titanic for the Occupy Wall Street generation”) and two stars to Johnny English Reborn (“belated and totally unnecessary sequel”), and two and a half stars to Norman (“well-acted indie charmer”).

Since it wasn’t screened for American critics, The Times of London’s Kate Muir gives one and a half stars to The Three Musketeers (“no expense spared and no intelligence used”).

Sara Stewart gives three stars to Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey (“you’d have to be a true Grouch not to be moved”).

V.A. Musetto gives three stars to Le Havre (nothing objectionable, but not for young children).

Gregory E. Miller rates “NYC’s freakiest Haunted Houses” and recommends “Times Scare” (669 Eighth Avenue) under the heading “IF YOU LIKE HALLOWEEN III” because it’s “based on the infamous horror film Halloween and features scenes from the flick, including a terrifying psychiatric ward where the film character Michael Myers is staying.”

Fans of the Halloween franchise are already laughing at Gregory — I’ll let the rest of you know why. There have been 9 sequels to Halloween (including the remake and the sequel to the remake). All of them are about Michael Myers… except for Halloween III: Season of the Witch.

Nicely done, Gregory.

Ten more days to Halloween, Halloween, Halloween! Ten more days to Halloween, Silver Shamrock.

“A former contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef: Just Desserts reality show has been indicted for possessing child pornography. Morgan Wilson, 38, of Plano, Texas was indicted Oct. 6 on three second-degree felony charges of possession with intent to promote child pornography. Wilson was arrested last Dec. 7 after undercover cops ‘received several file transfers from Wilson’s computer via Limewire in September 2010,’ according to the Plano Star-Courier. The files ‘allegedly contained images and videos of children as young as toddlers engaged in sexual acts.’”

I’m sorry, Morgan. Your dessert just didn’t measure up.

And also, you need to be put in a prison full of people who know why you’re there.

And that’s Friday!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Hey, Cindy Adams! Tell us a joke that isn’t funny!

“Next year Washington, DC, political operatives intend to announce all suspicious missives and packages addressed to congressmen and senators at their offices must henceforth be opened with a robot. So it would appear President Obama plans to continue working in the government.”

Cindy? Congress is made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Not all congressmen are senators, but all senators are congressmen. So saying “congressmen and senators” is like saying “people who should be dead and Cindy Adams.”

“A 30-year-old California man [Stanley Thornton] who wears diapers and lives as an ‘adult baby’ can keep his $800-a-month Social Security disability checks, the agency ruled.”

You may remember Stanley from the National Geographic television show he appeared on (Taboo) and/or how Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) demanded an investigation into his Supplemental Security Income checks.

“‘We recently reviewed the evidence in your Social Security disability claim and find that your disability is continuing,’ the agency wrote [Thornton].”

Fun Fact: That woman is not related to Stanley. She’s his roommate, Sandra Diaz, who also collects disability benefits. I’m not sure what her disability is, but I think it might have something to do with her breasts.

“Safety regulators have opened an investigation into an estimated 36,000 Mini subcompact cars after receiving 12 complaints about engine-compartment fires. The probe involves BMW’s Mini Cooper S cars from model years 2007 and 2008 sold in the United States.”

I totally forgot about BMW!

I think Honda is due for the next recall.

Rebecca Rosenberg, Antonio Antenucci and Josh Saul all take credit for TAKE A SHOWER!: Rain scatters anti-greed protesters. And they should all be ashamed of themselves.

“Thin-skinned Occupy Wall Street protesters fled for cover as soon as the skies opened up yesterday. ‘I got drenched and got angry, so I went to a McDonald’s for breakfast,’ said Rebecca Varner, 27, from South Carolina.”

Those stupid trustifarians scattered like cockroaches before it even started to rain! And then they got mad at the sky (I think — I mean, it’s impossible to figure out what they’re mad at, even for them!) and ran to one of America’s largest corporations for breakfast!

You know what? Read this. Keith Boykin does a pretty good job of debunking the false narratives that people like Rebecca, Antonio and Josh are so set on perpetuating.

“An allegedly drunk mom recklessly sped down I-95 near Ormond Beach, Fla., after her family attended a Blue Oyster Cult concert. The woman’s teen son called cops from the car to say mom was wasted and driving 100 mph, adding: ‘She’s not a very smart alcoholic — at all.’ Luckily the car ran out of gas and they ended up on the side of the road as cops showed up.”

Blue Öyster Cult is still touring?!?

I did a little research and found the woman’s name and mugshot:

I also learned this: “When the cops got there, Patricia wrestled with them and spat on them. She was arrested and charged with domestic battery, child abuse without great harm, resisting arrest without violence, and three counts of battery on a law enforcement officer.”

Your move, South Carolina.

Congratulations to Riverside County in Southern California for passing a new law that should have been passed nationally a long time ago.

“Riverside County supervisors passed a new law that bars registered sex offenders from decorating their home son Halloween night. They’re also forbidden to answer their door to pass out candy to kids.”

Can they still be mall Santas and clowns?

The editorial Rebels Without a Clue brays desperately that “the Occupiers haven’t a clue. ‘We’re here, we’re unclear, get used to it,’ read a sign held by a protester, who doubtless meant the slogan as wry humor, though it ratified an essential fact: Public policy ain’t the protesters’ long suit.”

“And a scant one in 10 of the tax-the-rich activists could identify the top marginal tax rate for America’s despised ‘1 percent.’”

Thus proving… something, I guess. Maybe it proves that if the protesters aren’t well-informed that their protest is invalid?

Boy, Tea Partiers sure are stupid, aren’t they (and fiercely proud of it!)?

B’also? “Democrats, led by President Obama, aren’t interested in more jobs for all Americans. They just want more government jobs.”

Well at least they want some jobs. The GOP refuse to even discuss Obama’s jobs bill. Because they refuse to help Obama help America (because then he might get re-elected).

Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charles Gasparino’s Stockholm Syndrome: Wall Street bigs embrace ‘occupiers’ informs us that “[Jeffrey] Immelt says the protesters who are camping out in Zuccotti Park, making life miserable for New Yorkers, make good points that we all need to consider, and ‘we have to be empathetic and understand that people are not feeling great.’ That echoes similar nonsense recently spewed by Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, Larry Fink of Blackrock and a few other banking honchos.”

Pay no attention to the the members of the 1% who agree with the 99%! They’re spewing nonsense about empathy and respect! Also, watch more Fox Business Network, whose executive vice president (Kevin Magee) felt obligated to send out a memo to the FBN staff telling them “I’ve been asked to remind you all again that [Fox Business Network and Fox News Channel] are separate channels and the more we make FBN look like FNC the more of a disservice we do to ourselves.“

Michael A. Walsh’s Stopping ‘Mitt The Inevitable’ laments the fact that Mitt Romney has no real competition as of yet. “Luckily, it ain’t over til it’s over. There are at least 13 more debates through next March and anything can happen. At this time in the 2008 election cycle, John McCain was buried near the bottom of pack [sic].” And at this time in the 2016 election cycle, John McCain will again be buried (forever).

But Walsh thinks Rick Perry has  shot at a comeback. “His adoption yesterday of the ‘flat tax’ — a flat rate, paid by everybody, to replace today’s Byzantine tax code — is a welcome sign.” But only if you’re very wealthy.

“And there’s always the possibly that one of the ‘out’ candidates — Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, Rep. Paul Ryan, even Sarah Palin — steps back into the ring, electrifying the anti-Mitt crowd.”

If you were wondering how incredibly stupid the Vulcan Muppet is, that last part provides the answer: He thinks Sarah Palin might run for president in 2012.

“Senator Richard Durbin, in a letter dated yesterday, asked Wells Fargo CEO Richard Stumpf to defend the bank’s decision to impose new fees for debit-card users in light of record quarterly profits reported Oct. 17.”

Gee, I wonder if Stumpf will respond.

(No, I don’t.)

Kitchen bitchin’! reports that “Industry insiders claim restaurants who advertise on Yelp are given prominence on the site and preferential treatment, while those who don’t advertise are bullied into ponying up. Haakon Lenzi [co-owner of Haakon's Hall on the Upper West Side] says Yelp has contacted him with advertising packages of $400 to $600 a month that would ‘filter’ bad reviews.”

Fun Fact: I found a single (five-star!) review of the New York Post on Yelp (under Print Media) from “Pinky and the B.” My favorite line? “I think this is a City news paper and not for hillbillies from Long Island or Smallbany.“

Linda 3Starsi reviews Kelsey Grammer’s new show on Starz, Boss.

She gives it…

…three stars.

“For obvious reasons, Ashton Kutcher and Demi Moore are the first couple being invited to appear on a new reality series, Divorce Hotel. ‘We execute clean, cost-effective divorces in as few as 2½ days by streamlining the process with an on-site team of attorneys, counselors and mediators,’ creator Jim Halfens wrote in a letter to the actors yesterday.”

They’d be fools to say no to that!

And that’s the rest of Thursday.

More to come…

Before I start on the Post, I’d like to share a graph with you.

It’s funny ’cause it’s true.

“Court officers slapped handcuffs on train wreck Lindsay Lohan yesterday after a furious judge found her in violation of her probation — and questioned whether she’s even an actress anymore.”

“[Judge Stephanie Sautner] teed off on Lohan for blowing off nine court-ordered sessions of community service at a women’s shelter. Lohan couldn’t be bothered to do her court-ordered time because she was too busy traveling through Europe looking for work — an excuse Sautner didn’t buy. ‘She needed to get off the stick and start doing community service,’ the judge said.”

Wait… does her being “on the stick” mean she’s not a lesbian anymore?

“‘The reality is that Miss Lohan has to support herself and she supports her family,’ [Lindsay's attorney] Shawn Holley said flatly. Then in a brutally honest comment about Lindsay’s trash-heap career, Holley said no movie-goer in America wants to see Lohan on screen… ‘Her opportunities are not in this country. They’re outside this country. And her traveling to Europe was not to have fun. It was to make money and support her family.”‘

David K. Li goes on to (poorly) write, “The judge in two weeks could sentence Lohan up to 20 months in jail. But as a nonviolent offender in overcrowded LA jails, that sentence could amount to just a few weeks actually behind bars.” So, even if the judge throws the book at her, she’ll probably serve less than 5% of the sentence. In any case, Lindsay is set to be sentenced on November 2nd. Expect another full-page cover story on November 3rd.

Poor Cindy Adams.

Hey, Jennifer Fermino! How do you feel about the city testing out electric taxicabs?

“Electric cars are fine for traipsing to Whole Foods…”

Traipse (verb): 1) To go on foot. 2) To walk or move wearily or reluctantly. 3) To walk or travel about without apparent plan but with or without a purpose.

Translation: People who have electric cars are reluctant to use them and possibly clueless.

Fun Fact: The second-largest holder of voting stock in News Corp (only Rupert Murdoch has more) is a member of the Saudi royal family (Al-Waleed bin Talal).

Geoff Earle and Carl Campanile’s Mitt’s fit vs. Perry miffs GOP begins, “Top Republicans worry that the open animosity between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry has hit the danger zone after Tuesday’s brutal debate in Las Vegas, with the bad blood threatening to imperil the party’s chance of beating President Obama.”

Ed Rollins is quoted as saying, “I think you saw some real disdain for each other. When people see this sort of friction and animosity, it sort of diminishes the ability to communicate effectively.” Yes, but if you remove the friction and animosity from the GOP, what’s left?

“Presidential hopeful Herman Cain leads the GOP field in South Carolina and in running neck-and-neck with Mitt Romney in Florida, according to two new polls released yesterday.”

South Carolina and Florida are now neck-and-neck with Texas for the title of America’s Shame.

Terry Thompson, the owner of the Muskingum County Animal Farm in Zanesville, Ohio, opened all of the cages on his 73-acre preserve — releasing 56 exotic animals, including 18 Bengal tigers — before killing himself. Police have already hunted down (and killed) 49 of the animals. They are still looking for a monkey infected with Herpes-B.

People are already calling this the worst ad campaign in the history of motion pictures.

Cameron Crowe could not be reached for comment.

“The NYPD dropped sex-crime charges against a bartender [Josh Flecha, 32] busted for one of the Park Slope gropings — an embarrassing setback in the high-profile case that has Brooklyn detectives scrambling for fresh clues… It’s the second time a man has been mistakenly arrested as part of the pattern. William Giraldo was arrested in June, but was cleared.”

Sigh.

“French writer Tristane Banon said yesterday she has abandoned legal action against randy ex-IMF honcho Dominique Strauss-Kahn.”

That’s weird. It isn’t like the French to give up so easily.

Andrea Peyser counsels Demi Moore to “Have a sandwich. He’s so not worth it.” because she looks so thin and Mandrea believes it’s because she is heartbroken over Ashton Kutcher. That’s so sweet that Mandrea would be so concerned over the well-being of the person she once referred to as a “pseudo-intellectual airhead.”

The majority of today’s page is devoted to He won’t be stereotyped, a loving tribute to Herman Cain.

“Who’s afraid of Herman Cain? Hollywood loathes him. Academia abhors him. And the country’s leftist establishment is shaking in its boots. Sorry, folks. Herman Cain isn’t going anywhere… He is plain-spoken, articulate and a Tea Party conservative… Cain, 65, the Republican presidential front-runner, is also black. This makes him the biggest threat to the left since the fall of communism. Diversity — of thought — be damned.”

“Hollywood wants to crush Cain like a bug because he challengesthe shibboleth it’s been selling to America since birth — that African-Ameircans are forever barred from the table.”

But here’s the kicker: “Cain infuriated folks by saying African-Americans were ‘brain-washed’ — ‘accurately,’ said [Tea Party 365 founder David] Webb — into rejecting conservatism. A color-blind society does not rip a man because of his political beliefs. This is America, isn’t it?”

Peyser is full of shibboleth.

According to Page Six (today on pages 16, 17 and 18), “Kim Kardashian and hubby Kris Humphries already appear to be distant in their marriage, just two months after their wedding, sources said.”

I’m going to have to dig around, but I think I predicted they’d divorce after four months.

Unfortunately, this is as far as I can get right now. I will finish up this evening.

Pat Buchanan went on Sean Hannity’s program last night to promote his new book about the death of White America (Suicide of a Superpower).

I love the promos at the bottom of the screen (COMING UP… THE TRUTH ABOUT OCCUPY WALL ST and TOMORROW: DONALD TRUMP).

Buchanan is a racist and Hannity is whatever the opposite of “journalist” is.

And speaking of the opposite of journalism…

“Rich, fine dining is on the menu for Occupy Wall Street protesters at Zuccotti Park. A former chef de tournant at the Sheraton hotel in Midtown is now churning out food fit for a king, including last night’s menu at right — and organizers have it trucked to the masses in Manhattan every evening. ‘We’re running a five-star restaurant down there,’ boasted chef Eric Smith, who uses a donated soup kitchen in Brooklyn. ‘The other day, we made some wonderful salmon cakes with dill sauce and some quinoa salad and a wonderful tomato salad with fennel and red onion,’ Smith said.”

And here are some of the menu items:

“Brown rice with black beans and fresh herbs” (Filthy hippies!)

“Vegetarian penne pasta with tomato marinara and fresh basil” (Good thing they added “vegetarian” or I wouldn’t have realized it was for filthy hippies; good thing they added “tomato” or I would’ve thought it was the kind of marinara sauce that isn’t tomato-based.)

“Wild heirloom potato salad made from fingerling, Peruvian purple and baby red potatoes with either a mustard-based or vinaigrette dressing” (Well, which is it?)

“Dessert of fresh mixed nuts with banana chips from a grain co-op in Ithaca” (FILTHY HIPPIES!)

Page 5 features Rebecca Rosenberg’s follow-up (Protest mob is enjoying rich diet), informs us that “Hundreds of grimy protesters laying siege to Wall Street and stuffed into the now-smelly Zuccotti Park dine each night on gourmet meals prepared by a former hotel chef using only the finest organic ingredients… So last night, for example, while your family of four may have been forced to resort to Hamburger Helper, thanks to Smith’s culinary magic, hordes of Occupy Wall Street protesters instead feasted on organic chicken, spaghetti Bolognese, roasted beet and sheep’s milk-cheese [sic] salad and wild heirloom potatoes.”

Ms. Rosenberg is literally waging class warfare! Attention, lower- and middle-class Americans! While you suffer, the Occupy Wall Street protesters are “feasting” on “gourmet meals”! So are the people they’re protesting against, but the protested deserve their feasts! They work hard for their money, unlike the smelly, lazy, smelly protesters! The protesters don’t deserve anything except your derision!

It should also be noted that Herman Cain has argued that if your family of four is “forced to resort to Hamburger Helper,” you only have yourselves to blame (and the Post loves “The Herminator” because his 9-9-9 plan would give the country’s wealthiest citizens a gigantic tax break at the expense of America’s poorest).

Also on page 5 is Steve Cuozzo’s review of the donated food (Cordon bleu behind the cordon of blue). “Forget chef Eric Smith’s boast of ‘5-star’ cuisine. The meal I tasted last night… proves you don’t need to spend a fortune, or even peanuts, to turn out an edible dinner. You don’t need any money at all when farms, food co-ops and other occupier-enablers are willing to feed the cause without charging a dime. Can Occupy Wall Street’s affluent participants taste the irony in having their nightly feast whipped up in a poor, crime-ridden Brooklyn neighborhood that has nearly no restaurants at all?”

Wait… what? Did Cuozzo just call the Occupy Wall Street protesters affluent? [JEDITOR'S NOTE: Yes.] Is he an idiot? [JEDITOR'S NOTE: Yes.]

“The five courses I tried delivered bulk, tons of carbs and no more or less pleasure than at a high-end diner, a low-end bistro — or a Sheraton dining room, where Smith once worked.” He’s cooking meals for over 1,000 people, Steve. “Bulk” and “tons of carbs” is to be expected.

“You wouldn’t expect anti-capitalist cranks to gorge on truffle panna cotta, and so dessert was nuts and banana chips donated by a co-op in upstate Ithaca.” I also wouldn’t expect the Post to publish the food reviews of a convicted pedophile.

“But privileged protesters starved for attention shouldn’t complain if their free meal isn’t perfect.” No matter how affluent they are.

On page 4, we learn that the NYPD determined that Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna “violated guidelines” for pepper-spray use and has been severely reprimanded: He was docked 10 vacation days.

“Bologna was notified yesterday and has three days to accept the punishment or choose to appeal — which could result in a more severe result, sources said.”

Sigh.

There’s also Erik Kriss’ Back away from radicals, Dems told. It’s about how “top Democratic pollster” Douglas Schoen has deduced that 31% of the folks in Zuccotti Park embrace violence.

Rather than respond to this myself, here’s a clip from last night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann.

Rush Limbaugh is terrific, isn’t he?

Bonus Points: No, Rush Limbaugh is not terrific.

Erik Kriss also wrote GOP big fractures tax plan. Apparently, Deputy Senate Majority Leader Thomas Libous (R-Binghamton) currently opposes the “millionaire’s tax.” But “I’ve got a hurting community, and if my community needs revenue, I’m going to have to make decisions that maybe are out of the box for me. If my community, that is ravaged right now, cannot get natural-gas drilling, cannot get what it needs, then the possibility would be to look at any option available.”

So he’s threatening to support the “millionaire’s tax” if Gov. Cuomo doesn’t approve fracking in Binghamton. Um, Thomas? I’m not complaining because I’m for the tax and against fracking, but I’m pretty sure…

“A Manhattan judge has found [Courtney Love] responsible for more than $100,000 worth of jewelry that went missing last year, and Love is going to have to pay it back.”

Good thing she’s getting a cut of Nirvana’s re-release of Nevermind (special edition on sale at Walmart for just $139.88!).

I watched last night’s GOP debate (#37 in a series of 284). The only thing more repulsive than the people on the stage were the people applauding them from the audience.

Geoff Earle recaps the debate but fails to mention my favorite line of the evening. It was Michele Bachmann’s complaint about Obama sending troops to Uganda: “First he put us in Libya, now he’s put us in Africa.”

Let’s see what Michael Goodwin is angry about today… In Sagging intellect, he writes, “Susan Sarandon called Pope Benedict ‘a Nazi.’ It just proves some people will say anything when the career and the jowls are sagging.” How dare she refer to the man who served in the Hitler Youth as a Nazi! He was only following orders!

In Putting $$ where your Web is, he tells “the Warren Buffetts out there who want to pay more taxes” to just make “voluntary payments” to the Department of the Treasury.

In Love to work at nothing, he quotes “Reader Don Gill” as writing, “Just a wild guess but if you grab a few [Wall Street protesters] and did some background checks into their upbringing, I’ll bet you find their parents did a lousy job of passing on the work ethic.” Naturally, Goodwin agrees.

But most of Goodwin’s page is devoted to The job destroyers, which lists some of the folks who support Occupy Wall Street. “Iran’s chief mad mullah, Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, loves the protests, the government of China applauds them, and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez is positively gung-ho. Naturally, the American Nazi Party favors the lusty attacks on the ‘Judeo-capitalist banksters’ while the Socialist Party USA and the Communist Party USA are happy passengers on the anti-Wall Street bandwagon. Oh, and Barack Obama hearts the movement, too.” Then Goodwin reminds us that “you should judge a man by his allies.”

Calling Pope Benedict — who served under Adolf Hitler — a Nazi is ridiculous and offensive to Goodwin, but painting everyone in Zuccotti Park as an ally of the American Nazi Party? That’s kosher OK.

Goodwin goes on to explain that the aforementioned “allies” of the protests “reveals what the movement is really about.” But what does the fact that just under 90% of New Yorkers support the protests reveal?

Goodwin also cites Douglas Schoen’s contention that “a third [of the protesters] are willing to use violence to get their way” and calls them a “destructive cult” and “a group of hooligans who occasionally attack [the NYPD], spew anti-Semitic rants and turn the streets into toilets.” And they’re affluent!

“To endorse the radical movement’s sentiments is to deny reality and make the jobs crisis worse. More taxes, debt and regulation would kill the future.”

I’m sure all of the hippies in Zuccotti Park appreciate how Goodwin recycles the same erroneous points twice a week.

Bonus Points: John Stossel and Bill O’Reilly condescendingly discuss Occupy Wall Street.

Page Six is on pages 16. 17 and 18 today.

Here’s a joke (?) from Cindy Adams:

“Paris gossips say DSK is monogramming his shirts with: ‘The early bird gets the worm. The smart birds wait for the French toast.’”

If there really is a God, she will not wake up tomorrow.

David Mamet (!) writes the op-ed Maiden-Aunt America: NY’s ban on Ultimate Fighting, which is about how Mixed Martial Arts should be allowed in New York under the First Amendment (he argues it’s just as artistically valid as the burning of the American flag and Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ”).

I look forward to his HBO movie which argues that Phil Spector was innocent.

Mark DeCambre’s GIANT GRIPE FEST: Bank bosses cry over losses, regs explains that “Buffeted by the choppy markets and crushing regulations, bank bosses Lloyd Blankfein and Brian Moynihan would also like to get some gripes off their chests about the poor economy and rising regulations. At least that’s the sort of discontent bubbling up from Wall Street executives after Goldman Sachs and Bank of America delivered a double dose of disappointing third-quarter earnings.” DeCambre later notes, “In the third quarter, BofA posted profit of $6.23 billion, or 56 cents a share, down 15 percent from the same period a year ago.”

Fun Fact: Bank of America’s showed a $7.3 billion net loss in the third quarter of 2010. I’m not sure how losing $7,300,000,000 is 15% better than gaining $6,230,000,000, but I am sure that this is a terrible newspaper.

Crude oil is back up to $88.34/barrel.

The World Series starts tonight between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Texas Rangers.

I know more St. Louis fans than Texas fans so if I had any interest, I’d root for St. Louis.

If I had any interest.

Happy Wednesday!

This is not doctored, this is not an impersonator. This is Herman Cain in 1991.

I’m glad John Lennon didn’t live to see this.

Dan Wheldon, 33, died in a 15-car crash during yesterday’s Las Vegas Indy 300. His death is a tragedy and a stark reminder that when a bunch of cars drive really fast in a circle over and over and over again, there’s a possibility that someone will die.

This story is one of two on today’s cover; the other story is DSK ORGY SPREE: ‘Teen-hooker’ pimp ran his sex romps.

“Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s freefall continued yesterday when a French newspaper [Journal du Dimanche] claimed that a top cop in his homeland, caught up in the probe of an underage-hooker ring, served as his personal pimp, organizing orgies with prostitutes in New York and France.”

“Strauss-Kahn’s personal prostitutes were allegedly selected for him by a 62-year-old procurer named Dominique ‘Dodo’ Alderweireld, who made several trips to New York when DSK was there, the French paper said… Investigators said the ring had brought women across the Belgian border to have sex with wealthy clients in Lille hotels, including a four-star Carlton. Five men — including the Carlton’s director — have been arrested in France and charged with pimping. Prostitution is legal in France, as long as the women are 18 or over.”

Actually, I think this might help DSK’s political chances in France.

Fredric, You Dicker U. Dicker’s page 2 EXCLUSIVE (PA chief blowing bucks on G. Zero) begins, “Hundreds of millions of dollars in ‘unnecessary spending’ were authorized by outgoing Port Authority Executive Director Chris Ward to accelerate the rebuilding of Ground Zero, an explosive new audit will show.”

“A source close to the Cuomo administration” (allegedly) told Mr. Dicker, “You can’t credit Ward with with accelerating the construction without holding him liable for the bill. The economics of this are going to be terrible for New York for decades to come as the bills keep coming in.”

Mr. Ward stepped down in order to pursue his love of theater. His one-man show, I, Phil Silvers Jr., is currently in rehearsals.

“[Occupy Wall Street] plans to possibly occupy Lincoln Plaza on the Upper West Side tomorrow — and is gearing up for a worldwide rally against police brutality Saturday.” Yay!

Yesterday, Brian Douglas, 33, of Bushwick, Brooklyn, proposed “to gal pal Deb Szczepkowski, 32, in front of a crowd of about 50 people in Zuccotti Park. Using a ‘mike-check’ moment… Douglas asked for her hand in marriage… He [said] — and the crowd repeated — ‘Will you occupy the rest of my life?’ His girlfriend accepted.” YAY!

“After a tumultuous face-off in Times Square and 92 arrests Saturday, the NYPD reported no Occupy Wall Street-related arrests or incidents yesterday.” SUPER-YAY!

With the exception of a slender sidebar on the far right of page 9, all of pages 8 and 9 are devoted to Herman Cain.

Carl Campanile and Ginger Adams Otis’ fawning Fast-food whiz beat cancer — and Bill Clinton in TV clash refers to a town-hall debate in 1994. I found the clip:

I like the way Cain says “calc-a-lation.” I also like how Slick Willie says he enjoys eating Godfather’s Pizza.

But most of the Cain coverage belongs to S.A. Miller’s Cain explains: Why America will go the whole 9-9-9, which begins, “Republican presidential juggernaut Herman Cain yesterday admitted for the first time that his 9-9-9 tax plan would be a tax hike for some Americans. ‘Some people will pay more, but most would pay less is my argument,’ Cain told NBC’s Meet the Press.”

When asked which people would pay more, Cain replied, “Who will pay more? The people who spend more money on new goods. The sales tax only applies to people who buy new goods, not used goods. That’s a big difference.” Miller correctly (and surprisingly) notes, “He did not explain which groups would see higher taxes.” But later on, Miller writes, “He insisted that every American would benefit from lower retail prices under the plan.” Except, I would imagine, retailers.

“Cain also responded to criticism from anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist, the powerful conservative activist who advised Republicans to oppose 9-9-9 because the national sales taxes would give Washington a new revenue stream to abuse.” I just found the one thing I like about Herman Cain: Grover Norquist doesn’t like him.

“‘Why me and not Mitt Romney?’ Cain said. ‘He has been more of a Wall Street executive. I have been more of a Main Street executve.’”

Fun Fact: Herman Cain served as the chairman (Omaha Branch board 1989-1991), deputy chairman (1992-1994) and chairman (1995-1996) of the board of directors of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. B’also? “Cain’s surge also has stirred fresh scrutiny, including questions about his ties to billionaire brothers Charles and David Koch and their conservative group, Americans for Prosperity. Some of Cain’s top campaign staff, including his campaign manager and a businessman who helped craft 9-9-9, have links to AFP, which lobbies for lower taxes and less government regulation and spending.”

There’s also a photo composite of Cain’s face and a Terminator robot (THE HERMINATOR) next to a list of some of his positions of various subjects. Under ABORTION, we learn that Cain “opposes terminating a pregnancy in cases of rape and incest” and once referred to Planned Parenthood as “a sham to kill black babies.”

He’s the current frontrunner.

Lindsay Lohan will appear before Los Angeles Judge Stephanie Sautner tomorrow. And Sautner (who has repeatedly inisted that she won’t give Lindsay another chance) could sentence Lindsay to “a year and a half behind bars for probation violations.”

Poor Lindsay Lohan.

According to Page Six (today on pages 12 and 13), Zachary Quinto is gay.

Also, Shannen Doherty married Kurt Iswarienko. I wish them fourteen months of happiness.

Cindy Adams accuses Occupy Wall Street of being criminals and then criticizes banks for preying on the poor.

“Besides social networks and Internet types mobilizing the rabble, moles in Wall Street trenches say their numbers include techie experts and wonks capable of hacking into banking and finance systems. The plan? To close down the Street’s operation through jamming their computers. Pay attention: I am warning the industry in advance.

More money info. With banks charging for credit cards, forward-thinking Chase is thinking forward. I, the world’s eyes/ears/mouth inform you that to offset lower-level customers saving extra tariff by not using debit cards, Chase now socks poorer depositors a fee for not using their debit cards. Only in corporate America, kids, only in corporate America.”

She doesn’t approve of Chase’s actions… or of the people protesting those actions.

Andrea Peyser notes that “Scarlett Johansson is the latest starlet to have nude photos stolen from her computer and leaked on the Internet.” She doesn’t note, however, that this happened over a month ago.

And in Pols only fanning the flames, Mandrea writes, “The Occupy Wall Street insanity grew predictably violent Friday as the owners of Zuccotti Park, lately used as a bed and toilet, backed off plans to temporarily move protesters, remove their sleeping bags, and hose down the place… Public Advocate Bill de Blasio stopped at the park to give aid and comfort to the derelicts.” She fails to mention that the protesters cleaned the park themselves. But she perpetuates the myth that they’re shitting in the park. And ignores the fact that her husband is a suspected pedophile.

“The Big Apple’s major airports — JFK, LaGuardia and Newark — are among the worst in the nation for on-time arrivals… More than one-third of the flights into all three of the airports were late in August.”

Well, at least air travel is more expensive and arduous and requires being molested and/or exposed to radiation.

Senior correspondent for Fox Business Network Charles Gasparino writes the op-ed New York’s Marxist Epicenter.

“The standard portrayal of the Wall Street protesters goes something like this: Ragtag group of unemployed young adults, venting often incoherent but overall legitimate populist outrage about economic inequality. But go down to the movement’s headquarters, as I did this past weekend, and you see something far different. It’s not just that knowledge of their ‘oppressors’ — the evil bankers — is pretty thin, or that many of them are clearly college kids with nothing better to do than embrace the radical chic of ‘a cause.’ I found a unifying and increasingly coherent ideology emerging among the protesters, which at its core has less to do with the evils of the banking business and more about the evils of capitalism — and the need for a socialist revolution.” And they shit in the street!

“Maybe the worse-spent dollar I have ever spent in my life was on a propaganda broadsheet titled “Justice,” which advocates ‘Struggle, Solidarity, Socialism.’” And maybe a worse-spent dollar would be the one your parents paid a school to teach you the difference between “worse” and “worst.”

“I don’t advise going down to Zuccotti Park to have a serious conversation with the protesters, given their growing propensity toward violence and the growing revolutionary tone of the movement.” And I don’t advise getting your news from any channel with “Fox” in its name, given their growing propensity to ignore facts and lie about anyone that doesn’t directly benefit their bottom line.

Alana Goodman’s Anti-Jewish ‘Occupier’ begins, “The main organizer behind Occupy Wall Street, Adbusters editor Kalle Lasn, has a history of anti-Jewish writing.”

And the GOP allowed Pat Buchanan to speak at the 1992 Republican National Convention despite writing this on March 17, 1990:

This May, Israel’s Supreme Court will decide whether John Demjanjuk, the Cleveland auto worker convicted of being “Ivan the Terrible,” the butcher of Treblinka who operated the gas chamber, follows Adolph Eichmann to the gallows.

Oddly, the closer Demjanjuk comes to death, the more certain his innocence appears. Had we known in 1980, when he was stripped of U.S. citizenship, what we know today, he would have walked out of his Cleveland courtroom a free man.

Since the war, 1,600 medical papers have been written on “The Psychological and Medical Effects of the Concentration Camps on Holocaust Survivors.”

This so-called “Holocaust Survivor Syndrome” involves “group fantasies of martyrdom and heroics.” Reportedly, half the 20,000 survivor testimonies in Jerusalem are considered “unreliable,” not to be used in trials.

Finally, the death engine. During the war, the underground government of the Warsaw Ghetto reported to London that the Jews of Treblinka were being electrocuted and steamed to death.

The Israeli court, however, concluded the murder weapon for 850,000 was the diesel engine from a Soviet tank which drove its exhaust into the death chamber. All died in 20 minutes, Finkelstein swore in 1945.

The problem is: Diesel engines do not emit enough carbon monoxide to kill anybody. In 1988, 97 kids, trapped 400 feet underground in a Washington, D.C., tunnel while two locomotives spewed diesel exhaust into the car, emerged unharmed after 45 minutes.

Demjanjuk’s weapon of mass murder cannot kill.

And now for the punchline: Buchanan’s piece (Dividing Line) ran in… the New York Post.

The Post’s online archive doesn’t go back that far, but I found it — and a thorough debunking of it — here.

I guess that means that everyone at the Post is a Holocaust denier, too, right, Alana?

And that’s Monday.

Before we begin, Ty Templeton posted this on Facebook. This is for the folks at Occupy Wall Street (and every other Occupation in America):

Well said, Mr. Rogers.

I told you they wanted to put violence on their cover. The caption is “Protesters are pushed back by cops yesterday as the Occupy Wall Street movement flooded Times Square — and cities around the world.” I guess “Furious, balding man juggles inferiority and superiority complexes while punching young woman in the face as his co-worker grabs a woman’s jaw for some reason” wouldn’t fit.

I’m not so sure about the head count of 5,000.

BusinessWeek reported 6,000 people were in attendance and WNBC cited “some 10,000 people.”

Hmmm… who to believe…

Anyhoodles, here’s some footage of those extremely violent protesters getting punched in the head while making peace signs with their fingers:

We now return to the Post’s completely unbiased coverage of Occupy Times Square.

“Forty-five people were arrested as a mob of protesters — voicing their anger about what many describe as the worst economic situation since the Great Depression — clashed with police trying to set up barricades to keep them on sidewalks… Officers and protesters could be seen shoving back and forth.”

Remember the horse that fell down in the above video? The Post has a photo of the horse with this caption: “MOUNTING ANGER: A cop struggles for balance as his horse gets pushed amid the Times Square protest yesterday.” Let’s see if that corresponds to the article the photo appears next to. “One cop’s horse tumbled to the ground after it slipped on a grating. The horse and officer were not injured.” Nope.

“Meanwhile, NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly yesterday defended the use of force against protesters despite some disturbing images caught on camera. ‘Sometimes these are not neat situations — they can get tumultuous,’ Kelly said.”

Tumultuous? What kind of arugula-eating elitist is Ray Kelly?

Cynthia R. Fagen’s Angry protests around the world features a black-and-white version of this photo:

According to The Washington Post, “tens of thousands of people around the world took to the streets Saturday” in “more than 900 cities in Europe, Africa and Asia, as well as in the United States.” Not surprisingly, the (New York) Post chose to focus on the one rally that turned violent.

Cynthia also notes that there were 40,000 protesters marching in Portugal. Portuguese television, however, put the number at 50,000.

I had no idea that there were so many lazy Brooklynites on the planet.

The Post recently reported that some of Rep. Mike Grimm’s constituents (in Brooklyn and Staten Island) are unhappy that the Tea Party Republican is endorsing Mitt Romney (a decidedly un-Tea Party candidate). Mary Kay Linge’s follow-up (Grimm and bear it: Rep. fires back at ‘betrayed’ Tea Party base) features Grimm explaining that “some of his newfound critics aren’t true Tea Partiers at all but ‘libertarians or 9/11 Truthers who have taken extreme positions and have never shared my overall views. Now that they’ve become irrelevant, they’re trying to say they’re part of the Tea Party.’ Cracks in the Tea Party movement are showing as purists out to slash big government split from pragmatists willing to work with establishment Republicans.”

Linge (with an assist from Grimm) explains that the Tea Party — which is all about cutting government spending and lowering taxes and watering the tree of liberty with the blood of patriots — is primarily pragmatists willing to work with establishment Republicans, and anyone who wants more than a slight adjustment to the way things currently are is a libertarian and/or a 9/11 Truther.

“Despite dimming enthusiasm among campaign foot soldiers, Grimm is confident his Tea Party support remains firm.”

And if it isn’t, it’s because those Tea Partiers were never real Tea Partiers.

Last week, there was a scuffle at a McDonald’s in the West Village. I didn’t write about it because I couldn’t find the video of the incident. I just did.

Rayon McIntosh Jr., 31, “is caught on tape using a metal rod to beat patrons Denise Darbeau, 24, and and Rachel Edwards, 24, breaking Darbeau’s skull and arm and cutting Edwards.”

Fun Fact: Before joining the McDonald’s family, Rayon “served nearly 11 years for manslaughter, assault and weapons charges.”

Bonus Points: Gary Buiso writes that Rayon’s father (Rayon McIntosh Sr.) “plans to order up a good defense layer.”

One successful food service pun (“order up”), and one (possibly unintentional) awful one (“defense layer”). But not one joke about how rayon is a manufactured regenerated cellulose fiber that works at McDonald’s.

“Con Ed has given the Ground Zero mosque an ultimatum: Pay the $1.7 million you owe in back rent, or we’ll terminate your lease and take back our property.”

Anybody want to bet that when the Ground Zero mosque Park51 comes up with the money, the Post starts demanding to know where it came from (but they’ll never question the hundreds of millions of dollars big business anonymously donates to the politicians the Post supports)?

“Two days after entering an upstate hospital [Orange Regional Medical Center] to get her tubes tied, a 32-year-old upstate woman [Ana Maria Mejia] found herself paralyzed — able to move only her eyelids.” She filed suit against the hospital “and her gynecologist, Dr. Christopher Allen… Allen could not be reached for comment.”

Mejia could be reached for comment but, you know…

Michael Goodwin is infuriating. Here are selections from ‘Left’overs hold the city hostage:

“Each day, about 3.7 million people go to work in New York City. For the last month, fewer than 500 people have been sleeping in a park near Wall Street so they can curse the economy that produces all those jobs for all those people. Guess which group is getting expressions of sympathy and even solidarity from the president to the mayor?” Every day, Michael Goodwin rubs dog excrement on his children and punches his wife in the face. Actually, chances are he doesn’t (though I have no proof either way), but neither do the protesters of Occupy Wall Street “curse the economy that produces [3.7 million] jobs.” They are protesting the fact that the banks own our government and that “we the people” are not represented by our politicians. They aren’t protesting “the economy,” they’re protesting the fact that gigantic corporations like Bank of America doesn’t pay any taxes (and also that they treat their customers horribly, as evidenced in the video below).

“The demonstrators include open anti-Semites, homeless people and anarchists, along with students, trust-fund babies and the terminally bored.” And the GOP includes deadbeat dads, homophobes, criminals, sexists, evolution deniers, Jesus freaks, racists, Holocaust deniers — and those are just the Republicans who are currently in office (and Pat Buchanan).

“They claim they represent the 99 percent of Americans who have been screwed over by the top 1 percent. It’s a catchy slogan, but backward. The people who work to support their families and lead productive lives are the backbone, heart and soul of America.” Wait… what? That’s like me saying “Michael Goodwin claims that he isn’t a pedophile and that the charges against him are false, but children are our nation’s most precious resource.” What Goodwin calls America’s backbone aren’t the people who Occupy Wall Street are protesting against! They’re part of the 99%, too!

“When times are tough, the tough don’t quit work so they can complain. And the people who really want a job aren’t playing drums in a park, getting stoned and taunting cops.” If everyone in Zuccotti Park quit their jobs in order to protest, there would be a lot more job openings in New York City. B’also? There are far more gun-toting racists at any given Tea Party rally then there are pot-smoking drum-players at any Occupy rally.

“If they ruled the world, we’d all be living in mud huts and begging for handouts.” Wow. He also refers to Occupy Wall Street as “this tiniest faction,” ignoring the fact that it has spread across the globe to almost 1,000 cities. And he calls Zuccotti Park a “law-free zone” where protesters are “breaking numerous laws, including the open use of drugs.” At least the Post has stopped claiming that protesters are having sex and defecating in the street.

“The freeloading rabble doesn’t need a pitchfork or even coherence to get action. All it needs to do is turn a park into a fetid camp and the government of the United States will drop on bended knee.” And all Goodwin needs to drop on bended knee is $20 and a mint for afterwards.

Bonus Points: One of his other “pieces” today is Stupidity is Jerry’s Job One (reprinted here in its entirety):

“They’re hiring in California! According to the Manhattan Institute, Gov. Jerry Brown caved in to a food-workers union by signing legislation that limits ‘the use of automated checkout machines in grocery stores.’ Brilliant. Stopping progress will definitely solve the jobs crisis.” Actually, stupid, he’s allowing more cashiers to remain employed. It won’t solve the jobs crisis but it won’t add to it, either.

According to Page Six (today on pages 10 and 11), Jason Davis is engaged! To a woman named Michelle Haugo!

They’ve apparently been dating (and wearing the same clothes) since 2008:

Can I use Jason (a closeted heroin addict) as a template for all people who vote for Republicans?

Also, are we sure Michelle is a woman?

“A public Brooklyn school refused to promote a Muslim boy to the sixth grade because of his religion, says an incendiary lawsuit in Brooklyn federal court. Abedin Kajoshaj, 11, had the marks to move on to the sixth grade at PS 180, the SEEALL Academy in Borough Park, but was inexplicably held back at the end of the 2009-2010 year, the suit claims.”

“In kindergarten, Abedin was suspended after presenting two notes from Muslim doctors that said he was allergic to eggs and that he could not be administered a vaccine… And two child-abuse claims made by the school to state officials were ‘founded in racism’ and dismissed, court papers claim.”

Somewhere, Herman Cain is giggling.

“Vincent Delgrosso, 26, claims in a lawsuit that he was left bloodied and battered after officers from the Staten Island Gang Squad stopped his car on Watchogue Road and arrested him for selling PCP. ‘They were just stomping on my face for four or five minutes,’ Delgrosso says of the alleged Feb. 17 attack. ‘They pulled down my pants first. I was naked on the ground. They started sticking objects in my rectum. I don’t know what they were,’ he says. The seven officers laughed during the beating and called Delgrosso a ‘faggot,’ according to a Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit he filed Oct. 6 against the city.”

After the NYPD footage I’ve seen over the last month, this seems chillingly plausible to me.

“A Florida man stabbed his 26-year-old son partly because the offspring allegedly stole a can of Dad’s lima beans, police said. Donald Wynn, 54, had been living with his son for just a month when he was arrested on attempted-murder charges. The younger man was hospitalized in critical condition yesterday.” Say cheese, Donald!

Ah, Florida.

“Get ready for an aberration of historic proportion.” — Herman Cain on his unlikely rise in the polls.

Are you sure he wasn’t referring to his “9-9-9″ plan?

“I do not think it’s even in the realm of possibility.” — Hillary Clinton on replacing Joe Biden on the presidential ticket.

OMG! She left the door open!

“If it’s too late for Chris Christie, it’s too late for me.” — Rudy 9iu11ani on running for president in 2012.

OMG! He left the door open!

Today’s contextless Harris poll is What’s your favorite holiday?

Christmas came in first (despite the constant war being waged against it by the voices in Bill O’Reilly’s head), followed by Thanksgiving and Halloween. But what made me laugh (and question the veracity of the the results) is that My birthday came in 9th — right after Memorial Day and Labor Day.

Tied for 10th place? Valentine’s Day and Hannukah (which I’ll assume means Hanukkah).

Whoever allowed this to go to press is so very fired.

A second contextless poll appears on page 27: Do you approve of Occupy Wall Street protestors? (note the English spelling of protesters)

No answer 3%

Oppose 24%

Undecided 35%

Approve 38%

That means that (according to this Reuters/Ipsos poll) 76% of respondents either approve, aren’t sure or have no answer. Does that mean that only 24% of the Post’s coverage will pander to those who disapprove?

[SPOILER: No.]

Pages 28 and 29 list various figures from the Census Bureau’s 2012 Statistical Abstract. First up: Demographics.

“Between 2000 and 2010, every single state’s population increased — except for Michigan, which had a 0.6% decline… NY increased by 2.1%.”

Didn’t the Post keep insisting that New York’s population went down in the last decade because of our high taxes? Or was that just New York City?

Also listed is the Median annual income for individuals (in constant 2009 dollars): Men, all races.

In 1990, the average was $32,284.

In 2000, the average was $35,303.

In 2009, the average was $32,184.

Now do you understand why there are protesters in Zuccotti Park? On average, American men are making $100 less per year than they were 19 years ago.

“Happy Bank Transfer Day! It’s unlikely you’ll be wishing that to your friends and family on Nov. 5. But if you are one of the millions of bank customers who loathe the new fees being charged by your financial institution, then the first Saturday in November could be a date to mark on your calendar. Critics of the industry have chosen Guy Fawkes Day as the symbolic deadline for a Facebook-driven crusade to get people to withdraw their money from regular bank accounts and stash it in feeless, but oft-ignored, credit unions.”

One of my favorite graphic novels of all time is Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta. It was made into a (decent) movie in 2006. Here’s a clip:

When the group Anonymous chose Guy Fawkes masks as their de facto uniform, I wasn’t sure if they were honoring Fawkes or Moore/Lloyd (or both). But when I read about Bank Transfer Day falling on November 5th, I immediately thought of one of the last images in the film version of V for Vendetta.

I think a lot of banks are in for a rude awakening (unless they continue to prevent people from closing their accounts like Citibank and Bank of America have started doing).

“Remember, remember, the fifth of November…”

ASK ASHLEY!

My wife and I haven’t been intimate in over six months due to an accident in which I sustained serious injuries. I have now been given the green light; however, I want to make it special. How can I spice things up to make it more memorable? — Dave, Astoria

ASHLEY: “The key to getting out of the usual sex routine, is literally getting out… book a room at a hot NYC hotel like the Standard… Then, if you really want to ’spice things up,’ how about looking through the hotel’s on-demand adult movie section? Even just flipping through the options and watching trailers might get you in the mood for something new!”

ME: “This is why you shouldn’t ask a prostitute for romantic advice. Getting a (comically-overpriced) hotel room and watching trailers for porn movies is only romantic if you are a hooker or a teenager. I would imagine that having sex for the first time in six months will be romantic enough for your wife (unless you’re not a satisfactory lover), but feel free to buy her flowers and cook her dinner, too.”

The 50-something-year-old man I’ve been with for 15 years insists he “needs” sex on a daily basis. I’ve explained that I simply don’t have the same sexual appetite that he does. Still, if we go two days without sex, he becomes sullen and makes snarky comments. His behavior is decreasing my interest in him sexually. He refuses to attend counseling because this is a “personal matter.” What do you think? — Anonymous

ASHLEY: “I do agree that he could use some counseling, if only for a neutral party to tell him that his behavior is unacceptable and pushing you further away.”

ME: “If your husband insists on having sex and you insist on not having sex, then you should either get a divorce or stay married and let him sleep with someone else. Ashley could probably recommend some cheap hoo-ers for you, if you’d like.”

Reed Tucker interviews women who dress up for the New York Comic Con in GIRLS GONE GEEK.

“‘Oh yeah. I get hit on,’ adds Yaya Han, a popular model who makes and models her own skimpy costumes based on video game and superhero characters. ‘Guys will say, “Nice boots,” when they mean nice boobs.’”

“‘I get hit on every five minutes,’ confirms Yuffie Bunny, a 26-year-old model promoting costume company Head Kandi. ‘I feel like the new pick-up line at conventions is, “Can I get a photo of you?”‘”

These women (Yaya and Yuffie) dress like a 13-year-old’s sexual fantasy and then get indignant when people pay attention to them? Feh.

Over in the Sports section, Hondo writes, “Experts say sanitary issues could cause a health crisis among the Occupy Wall Street protesters at the Zuccotti Park whiz- and dump-fest. With the unemployment crisis one of their areas of concern, some enterprising dissident probably could find work and make a killing by investing in a pooper-scooper and charging park dumpers for fecal-matter removal.”

Zing!

(I guess the Post hasn’t stopped claiming that protesters are defecating in the street.)

And that’s Sunday.

I cannot believe I’ve never seen this clip before. It’s 21 years old, which makes it more mature than Rush Limbaugh will ever be. As David Feldman noted (in his Facebook posting of this video), Rush’s quote of “you have no idea if I mean what I say” is especially poignant.

Did I say poignant? I meant pungent.

If anyone knows who that woman is, please send her my love and admiration.

Other things worth noting:

1) The number for Rush’s call-in show was 212-35-CHIMP.

2) Rush’s claim that “words don’t kill” reminds me of the old “guns don’t kill people; people kill people” slogan. I guess what Rush meant to say is “words don’t kill people; people who say words that incite/justify hatred and violence kill people.” In which case, he does have blood on his hands.

3) Rather than engage in a debate that he couldn’t win, Rush evicted the audience from the studio — and then told his viewers “We’d like to point out to you that nobody was evicted from the studio.” To be fair, he’s technically right — they didn’t kick out anybody; they kicked out everybody.

4) I found an old picture. Can you figure out which of these three people is Rush?

The correct answer is… actually, a case could be made for Rush being all three. So… they’re all correct answers.

Also, for anyone who still doesn’t quite understand what the protesters on Wall Street are angry about, maybe this old Calvin and Hobbes strip will help (thanks, Will Choy).

Have the loveliest of Saturdays.

Today’s two cover stories are The return of ‘Footloose’ (REVIEW: PAGE 35) and WALL ST. FACE OFF: Park clash looms over cleanup (PAGES 4-5).

I’ll get to the former when I reach the movie review section (will the review justify its front-page promotion? [SPOILER: No.]). As for the “looming clash” at Zuccotti Park, it didn’t happen.

HELL, NO, WE WON’T GO!: Zuccotti hordes defiant explains the NYPD’s demand “that Occupy Wall Street protesters temporarily vacate their filthy encampment” in order for it to be cleaned. And even though the demands have since changed, I’ll share them anyway:

“Police Commissioner Ray Kelly said the cleaning will be done in three shifts this morning beginning at 7 — and when the protesters return, their grimy gear will be banned from the privately owned park. ‘People will have to remove all their belongings and leave the park,’ Kelly said. ‘After it’s cleaned, they’ll be able to come back. But they won’t be able to bring back the gear, the sleeping bags. That sort of thing will not be able to be brought back into the park.’ Hard-core protesters responded by defiantly issuing an ‘Emergency Call to Action’ seeking a mass gathering at the park at 6 a.m. to resist the cops and cleanup crews.”

Actually, this is the actual “Emergency Call to Action” referenced above. And this is my favorite part of it (which, for some weird reason, the Post didn’t mention): “Occupy Wall Street is committed to keeping the park clean and safe—we even have a Sanitation Working Group whose purpose this is. We are organizing major cleaning operations today and will do so regularly. If Bloomberg truly cares about sanitation here he should support the installation of portopans and dumpsters. #OWS allies have been working to secure these things to support our efforts.”

According to the Post, what will be permitted in the park from now on is: “Things that can be carried, including backpacks, small bags, laptops.” I wonder if that includes the cables, etc. necessary to provide live streaming of the park (as I write this, I am watching the live feed at livestream.com/globalrevolution so I guess the answer is yes… for now…). Among the things that won’t be allowed: “Lying down, coolers, and storage of personal property on the ground, benches, sitting areas or walkways.” So you can bring in your laptop, but you can’t put it anywhere except your lap. If the NYPD chooses to enforce these new rules, there will be a great deal of civil unrest. And most of it won’t be civil.

“Also yesterday, nine protesters were busted for disorderly conduct after refusing to leave a Brooklyn Supreme Court room where a foreclosure auction was scheduled. About 45 demonstrators sang a song protesting the high number of home foreclosures… Court officers asked the rowdy demonstrators to leave. Thirty complied; the other 15 were arrested.”

1) Were nine people arrested or fifteen?

2) 30 + 15 = 45 not “about 45.”

3) That 45 people were protesting in Brooklyn is certainly a newsworthy story on its own, but shoehorned into the already woefully inadequate OWS coverage, it acts more as an obfuscating distraction.

4) I think I’ve posted this before, but it bears repeating. Especially now:

B’also? I just found this online (watch it with the sound low because there’s a lot of shouting; pay special attention at the 1:40 mark):

Gothamist identified the man who got punched by the cop: “[Felix] Rivera-Pitre, who is HIV positive and used to be a dancer, tells us he was walking a little bit in front of the police on William Street, and admits he ’shot the cop a look.’ But then, according to Rivera-Pitre (and this is in line with what we witnessed), ‘The cop just lunged at me full throttle and hit me on the left side of my face. It tore my earring out. I remember seeing my earring on the ground next to me and it was full of blood. I was completely dumbstruck.’”

Carl Campanile’s Cain’s north poll trip: Rising dough man is giving Mitt fits has a lot of positive things to say about Herman Cain, especially from unbiased sources like… Herman Cain.

“Cain said he’s connecting with GOP voters ‘because of my enthusiasm and positive attitude.’” Well, it certainly isn’t because of his “9-9-9″ plan (which has been shown to cost middle- and lower-class families more money).

“If Herman Cain is our nominee against Barack Obama, I think [Cain'll] sweep the South.” So says Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, failing to note that if the 2012 election is between two Black men, huge chunks of the South will secede from the United States.

“Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, considered a leading GOP policy wonk, gave Cain’s ‘9-9-9′ plan a thumbs up. ‘We need more bold ideas like this because it’s specific and credible. I’m a flat-tax kind of guy,’ Ryan said.”

That about sums up most GOP policy — specific and credible. Not practical, not sensible, not rational, but specific and credible.

Ladies and gentlemen, say hello to Christopher Chaney, 35, the man who leaked Scarlett Johansson’s nude photos:

“It started as curiosity, and it turned to just being an addiction. I was almost relieved when they came and took the computer and told me they knew,” he told reporters about his hacking.

If he’s convicted on all counts, he faces __ years in prison:

a) 5

b) 10

c) 20

d) 50

e) 121

The correct answer is… e.

Silly Christopher. He should have murdered infants instead of reading celebrities’ e-mails! Then he’d be a free man in less than 10 years!

Guess who isn’t being prosecuted for attempted rape. I’ll give you a hint:

“‘It is clear that, for lack of sufficient proof, a prosecution may not be initiated over the count of attempted rape, but facts that could be described as sexual assault have meanwhile been recognized,’ French prosecutors said in a statement.”

The correct answer is… Dominique Strauss-Kahn.

So is he being prosecuted for sexually assaulting Tristane Banon in 2003? Nope. Why not? Because the statute of limitations for sexual assault in France is three years.

DSK still faces civil suits from Banon and Nafissatou Diallo, but they’ll probably both get thrown out of court.

Sigh.

Remember Shanel Nadal, 27, and Nephra Payne, 34? They kidnapped their eight children from foster care and kept them “in the back of a filthy van” until they were caught two weeks later.

“Lawyer Norman Steiner said his clients took action because they feared some of the kids were being sexually or physically abused. Prosecutors, he said, are trying to force the couple to take a six-month plea deal that includes forfeiting custody. Conviction at trial could mean 25 years in prison.”

1) They didn’t have custody when they kidnapped the children, so how would they forfeit custody?

2) Prosecutors are trying to force them to accept six months? Fuck it. Go to trial! Anyone who names all seven of their male children Nephra Payne deserves to be in prison for at least five years.

According to Page Six (today on pages 12, 13 and 14), Mark Zuckerberg and Sean Parker were fighting in West Hollywood earlier this month. “Sean argued that all Spotify users should not be forced to sign up for a Facebook account, but Mark wouldn’t budge. It was a full on [sic] screaming match outside the club, but stopped short of coming to blows. Then they stormed off in different directions.”

If Jesse Eisenberg, Justin Timberlake, David Fincher and Aaron Sorkin are game, I’d be down for a sequel to The Social Network.

Cindy Adams’ Shedding light on cab situation begins, “It’s great that the taxi group will redo their lights on top of cabs. Great. Heaven forfend that the industry blows their extra bread to feed our elderly homebound poor, or donate to Hurricane Katrina’s disenfranchised. Don’t even think of funneling loose shekels to save animals. And forget putting aside bail money for assorted NY state politicians. Fixing lights on cabs, great.” Cindy is faulting the Taxi and Limousine Commission for spending money to improve taxis instead of saving animals. There is literally no reason for her to still be alive.

“I personally, consider it shameful that anyone who really knows how to run this country is busy driving a taxi for a living. Who knows? Maybe Obama doesn’t even have a driver’s license.”

Please get in the box, Cindy. Enough already.

“Officials in a New Jersey school district are investigating claims that a high-school teacher [Viki Knox] who advises a prayer group posted remarks on her Facebook page that described homosexuality as ‘perverted’ and said it ‘breeds like cancer.’” I found this tweet from September 20th:

Human Rights Campaign provides the entire online exchange here. Here are some excerpts:

“Homosexuality is a perverted spirit that has existed from the beginning of creation… how they live and their actions, behaviors -CHOICES are against the nature and character of God! …I know sin and it breeds like cancer!”

“Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of us? AND YOU ARE WRONG! I/WE DO NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT ANYTHING, ANYONE. ANY BEHAVIOR OR ANY CHOICES! I DO NOT HAVE TO TOLERATE ANYTHING OTHERS WISH TO DO.”

The same people who applaud town clerk Rose Marie Belforti’s refusal to obey the law and issue marriage licenses to gay couples because she hates homosexuals will surely applaud Knox for sticking to her theological guns. And if Hell does exist (which it doesn’t), each and every one of those people will be there.

Going as yourself on Halloween is about to get a lot more expensive (and awesome).

REAL-f, a company in (where else?) Japan, will make a face mask of you for $3,920 or a full head mask for $5,800.

The masks are frighteningly accurate and will also allow someone that steals your mask to frame you for almost any crime. In fact, it would be a good investment to buy one and then destroy it. Then, if you ever wind up on trial, your attorney can say that your mask was stolen and the person on the surveillance camera footage isn’t you, it’s someone wearing your mask.

The defense rests.

Bill O’Reilly takes a break from politics to remind us that he’s a cranky old man (MACHINE-HEADS FACE THE FOREST).

“Recently, I had occasion to travel to New Hampshire with seven children ranging in age from 3 to 16. Don’t even ask how this happened.” Well, if he won’t tell me, I’ll just have to assume that he kidnapped them for perverted reasons.

“Mark my words: These machines are taking over. Many younger Americans are so addicted that they can’t function without them. Never mind nature, witty in-person conservation and games like stickball or keep-away. Those things are soooooo obsolete.” Actually, “Keep-Away 2011″ is expected to be one of the best-selling Xbox games this Christmas.

“‘We’re going hiking,’ I say. Silence. Finally, a reply: ‘Hiking?’ ‘Yeah, in the woods. The leaves are changing; the air is clean. Let’s go!’ No one moves.” What child wouldn’t want to go into the woods with an a notoriously short-tempered, creepy old man?

“When these children grow up, I pray they don’t have to fight the Chinese. War is always bad. And if the Chinese are hiding in the forest, we lose.”

None of these children made it back alive. If you have any idea where Bill buried their corpses, please contact the authorities. Their families just want closure.

Excerpts from the editorial High Noon at 7 a.m.:

“Just how long will City Hall let the flower children of Occupy Wall Street remain camped out at Zuccotti Park?”

“Well, no good landfill lasts forever, than God — and besides, the assembled trustifarians and their allies will be allowed back as soon as the washdown is completed.”

“The site is attracting rodents — the furry four-legged varity [sic], and their two-legged cousins.”

The Post hates it when people criticize the rich. Unless those people are criticizing rich people who criticize the rich. Trustifarians. Get it? Because they’re rich and they like Black people!

A lot of people wrote in to praise Andrea Peyser’s hatred of Amanda Knox.

Yorktown Heights’ John Conklin writes, “I’m glad I’m not the only one who still finds Knox repulsive and suspects she may be a murderer.” And Collegeville, Pennsylvania’s Chris Johnson writes, “Thank you, Andrea Peyser, for your frequent nuggets of common sense.”

But not everyone agrees that Peyser is a hero and/or Knox is a villain. Manhattan’s Katherine Meeks writes, “Peyser hits a new low… Knox wasn’t convicted because she was ‘too pretty,’ and she wasn’t freed because she was ‘too pretty.’ She was freed because the only solid evidence, the purported sample of DNA, didn’t stand up to scrutiny.” And Yonkers’ Anne O’Leary writes, “Shame on Peyser. Knox is not guilty… Prosecutor Giuliano Mignini set her up, as he was trying to save his own name. There is no comparison between Knox and [Casey] Anthony.”

It’s refreshing to see that women hate Mandrea as much as she hates them.

In An Abhorrent Ally for Democrats, Michael A. Walsh compares Occupy Wall Street to the Tea Party. He starts by referring to OWS as “the unwashed rabble” who are frustrated with “a system that has served this country well from its founding” and who “loathe just about everything this country ever stood for — including the value of hard work, individual responsibility and the liberal use of soap and water.” Zing!

Toward the end, the Vulcan Muppet writes, “One [group] peaceably assembles to sing ‘God Bless America.’ The other vilifies success, screams anti-Semitic slurs and openly advocates violence.” Let’s play a game. See if you can guess if the people and signs in these pictures belong to the Tea Party or Occupy Wall Street:

and just for kicks:

Tim Ravndal was the president of the Montana Tea Party when he posted this on his Facebook page. Dennis Scranton is referring to to the murder of Matthew Shepard, to which Tim asks for a manual that could show him how to kill (and decoratively hang) more homosexuals like Shepard.

Michael A. Walsh is a despicable waste of oxygen. I was going to talk about more of the things he said today, but his vile rhetoric has already taken up enough of our time.

From Herman Cain’s editorial THE WALL ST. PROTESTS: Look in the Mirror:

“Visiting New York this week, I found the organized street protests against Wall Street were the talk of the town. But I’m sorry — they lost me at hello. Their rants to the media and those unfortunate enough to cross their paths have been all over the map — from tirades over big business, to 9/11 conspiracy theories, to admitting not even knowing why they’re there — but a common theme is that they’ve set their sights on rich people.“ Actually, they do know why they’re there. And, unless you’re ignorant (willfully or otherwise), so do you.

“I have a hard time imagining what these protesters think will come of this — that Wall Street execs will come running out of their offices to write them a check?” Yes, Herman. That’s what they want to come of this. Ladies and gentlemen, the current Republican frontrunner for the 2012 presidential nomination.

“From what I’ve seen of these protesters — including one news clip of a young man shouting at an elderly passerby that he wouldn’t work a $7-an-hour job — it seems they would rather have a handout than work.” Not only haven’t I seen that news clip, but I have no idea what it means. Was the young man saying that he wouldn’t work a $7/hour job? Was he telling the old man that he (the old man) wouldn’t work it?

I’m a big fan of “it seems.” It excuses you from having to tell the truth. If I say “Andrea Peyser’s husband, Mark Phillips, seems like a pedophile,” I am only speaking of my personal opinion so you can’t fault it. If I say “Mark Phillips is a pedophile” then the burden of proof is on me (though I still haven’t been shown anything that disproves that assertion). So Herman Cain can say that based on what he has seen (and he doesn’t have to tell us what that is — is it just Fox News clips?) that the OWS protesters “seem” like lazy idiots.

Hey, that reminds me of a joke: What did the German-American say when he was asked if Herman Cain’s tax plan made any fiscal sense?

MOVIE REVIEWS!

Kyle Smith gives three stars to Footloose (“Footloose won me over early, with a sequence in which the hero gets all heavy metal while restoring his badass… VW Bug.”), two stars to The Thing (“suspenseful enough and features some amazing gross-out effects”), and half a star to Trespass (“Nicolas Cage re-enacts his career arc in 90 grueling minutes”).

Lou Lumenick gives two stars to The Big Year (“stubbornly refuses to take flight, or generate more than a few chuckles”), three and a half stars to The Skin I Live In (“an eye-popping and genuinely shocking gender-bending twist on Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo“), two stars to both Father of Invention (“worth a look on DVD”) and Texas Killing Fields (“long on style and short on coherent storytelling”), and one star to Fireflies in the Garden (“was pretty much DOA when it premiered at the Sundance Film Festival nearly four years ago — and is now finally receiving a token theatrical burial”).

V.A. Musetto gives three stars to The Woman (violence, torture, nudity, sex) and two stars to Oka! (bare-breasted native women).

Sara Stewart gives one and a half stars to Connected (“has all the narrative focus of a Twitter feed”).

I got a little excited when I saw the headline of Michael Starr’s article (Koppel to join ‘Rock’), but then I learned that Ted Koppel isn’t joining the cast of 30 Rock — he’s joining the cast of Brian Williams’ new newsmagazine, Rock Center.

And then I remembered who Michael Starr is and I had to stop reading.

“HBO is developing a new family series based on The Kids Are All Right.”

I liked the movie (and I loved that it infuriated Mandrea), but I don’t know how HBO can get a series out of it. But if anyone can, it’s HBO.

And that’s Friday.

Have yourselves a lovely weekend.

Ladies and gentlemen, Elizabeth Warren:

And also, Elizabeth Warren:

If we were a country that didn’t vilify intelligence as a form of smug elitism, she would be our president.

My steamy night of passion with Ashton

SEE PAGE 9

I did! Apparently, Us Weekly and London’s The Sun newspaper offered Sara Leal, 22, more money than Mr. Kutcher, 33, because she has shared the intimate details of her (alleged) affair with Demi Moore’s husband. Don Kaplan writes, “After they had sex for the first time, the two made small talk, discussing where she grew up and when her birthday was. She also told him that she was religious — a Lutheran from Texas. ‘He said, “Oh my gosh, are you a Republican?” I was like, “What, do you like Obama?” He said, “Yeah,” and asked if I could name any up-and-coming candidates. I said Rick Perry.’ Then they had sex again.”

Leal may have had sex with Ashton Kutcher, but the fact that she considers Rick Perry an up-and-coming candidate proves she was already fucked.

Jennifer Fermino’s Views collide on bike lanes claims that a survey of residents near the Columbus Avenue bike lanes on the Upper West Side “reads as if it were conducted in two different cities.”

“In one corner, there’s the 31 percent who found that the 7-month-old lanes — which stretch from West 77th to West 96th streets — ‘very much’ keep them out of harm’s way. Contrast that with the other 31 percent, who said the lanes did zilch for their safety. Another 25 percent felt ’somewhat safer,’ and the rest weren’t sure.”

So 31% say it makes them “very much” safer and 25% say it makes them “somewhat safer,” which means 56% of respondents find them at least somewhat beneficial. Only 31% say they aren’t beneficial (though not necessarily detrimental) and 13% “weren’t sure.” Jennifer thinks this reads like it was conducted in two different cities? Maybe she’s referring to some of the survey’s other results…

“Overall, 40 percent said the current design of the bike lanes works well for everyone, while 33 percent called it a ‘good start’ that needed improvement.”

This is a comically terrible newspaper.

“A surprising 80 percent of teenage boys say they’re using condoms the first time they have sex, a government survey found in a sign that decades of efforts to change young people’s sexual behavior are taking hold. Boys’ condom use is up from 71 percent in 2002, according to the study — based on interviews with about 4,700 teens ages 15 to 19 — released yesterday by the National Center for Health Statistics.”

Rick Perry is the kind of guy I want to have a beer with just on the off chance that he’ll momentarily leave it unattended, allowing me to spit in it.

Bonus Points: Did you notice that The Texas Tribune misspelled pregnancy in the clip’s title card? They spelled it PREGNACAY. I guess it isn’t just abstinence education that Texas schools are botching.

They caught the person who leaked Scarlett Johansson’s nude photos.

“Christopher Chaney, 35, was arrested without incident yesterday morning at his Jacksonville, Fla., home for allegedly hacking into celebrities’ Google, Apple and Yahoo e-mail accounts between last November and February.”

What Chaney did was despicable and I’m glad they caught him.

After he leaked those pictures.

Ed White’s Undie bomber stuns court with confession tells us that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab “surprised” and “caught observers off guard” when he explained that his underwear bomb was a “blessed weapon to save the lives of innocent Muslims.”

Ed quotes three other people in his article: Abdulmutallab’s attorney (Anthony Chambers), Attorney General Eric Holder and one of the passengers on the plane that Abdulmutallab tried to blow up (Lori Haskell). Chambers says that he wanted to go to trial but his client insisted on pleading guilty, Holder applauds the court system that will ensure Abdulmutallab will die in prison, and 34-year-old Haskell (of Newport, Michigan) “watched Abdulmutallab’s plea by video in an overflow room. She called his statement ‘chilling’ but not surprising.”

Stunning.

Josh Saul’s Mrs. O: I’m the first shopper should earn him many, many journalistic awards.

“The first lady claims she’s a regular at Chipotle, Starbucks and Target — even though critics have doubted the authenticity of her incognito trips in the past.”

Other things critics have doubted the authenticity of: her husband’s citizenship, her husband’s religion, and her husband not being the Antichrist. In fact, many critics still believe these things.

I can only hope that someone hacks into Michelle Obama’s credit card activity soon, because if she’s claiming to shop at Chipotle more than she actually does, then surely that’s grounds for impeachment of her husband, right?

This article is on page 8.

Also on page 8 is Geoff Earle’s Cain gains to top GOP field: poll.

“[Herman Cain] now leads Republican rival Mitt Romney 30 to 22 percentage points in a new survey by Progressive Policy Polling.”

Of course, Rasmussen released a poll today that shows Romney and Cain tied at 29%. Which supports my contention that polls are virtually meaningless.

Geoff has another piece on page 8 (Team Obama ‘flips’ out over Romney) that mentions (at the very end) that Cain has “released his economic team’s analysis behind his ‘9-9-9′ plan… claiming it would bring in the same revenues the feds get now.” What Geoff doesn’t do is tell us if their claims are verifiable.

And S.A. Miller’s piece on page 8 (Defeated O keeps up fight – it’s a very crowded page) mentions that Republicans continue to oppose Obama’s jobs plan because “any tax hike is economic poison.” Again, a rudimentary understanding of how Google works can disprove that position in less than a minute. But the Post isn’t interested in pointing out the flaws of the GOP. After all, that wouldn’t be fair and balanced, now would it?

The good news: Occupy Wall Street gets more coverage today!

The bad news: David Seifman and Tim Perone’s Zuccotti getting clean sweep is about how Mayor Bloomberg went to Zuccotti Park last night to tell the protesters that the park’s owners need to clean up tomorrow so they have to leave — but they’ll be allowed back in as soon as they’re finished cleaning.

“The owner of Zuccotti, Brookfield Properties said ‘the cleaning will be done in stages and the protesters will be able to return to the areas that have been cleaned, provided they abide by the rules.’” I think that sounds a little fishy. So do some other folks. “Protesters last night were concerned this was a ruse to kick them out for good. ‘If they want to clean the park, why don’t they make a plan with the organizers of Occupy Wall Street to clean the park?’ asked David Martinez.” Agreed.

On the plus side, the article has a photograph of two protesters being arrested outside JPMorgan Chase yesterday:

In a related story, the Mark Morris Dance Group has announced they’ll begin their 2012 season with a piece titled “Occupy: Wall Street, Main Street, Beat Street” and released a promotional photograph of the production:

The proposed exodus of protestors is scheduled to take place at 7:00 a.m. Friday morning. I have a really bad feeling that something terrible is going to happen. I hope I’m wrong.

B’KLYN GROPER ‘FESSES’

They got him! “Adolfo Martinez, 26, spilled his guts after cops showed him surveillance video linking him to Monday’s attack on an 18-year-old in Sunset Park.” Martinez’s wife and 8-month-old son must be so proud! I’m just glad they finally caught the person responsible for all of those attacks.

“Martinez fits the description in most of the other attacks, but cops believe there may be as many as three other assailants.” Oh.

If you recognize any of these men, please contact the NYPD ASAP. And if you recognize the man in the middle, please contact me ASAP and tell me why he has a waffle face. I bet there’s a really funny story behind it. Oh, and if you recognize the guy on the right, ask him where he got a baseball hat made of wood. I’d like one.

Pull up a chair and get get comfortable. Andrea Peyser’s cup of crazy runneth over today.

She directs her acerbic {whatever the opposite of wit is} at various targets — Nancy Shevell, Amanda Knox, The View, Hasidim in Williamsburg… on any other day, I’d have fun making fun of her misplaced rage (except against Shevell — I have no love for that woman). But I only have time to deconstruct two of her pieces. The first is Buy soap & Occupy a shower.

“Day-tripping to the home of Occupy Wall Street last week, my sense were assaulted by the stench of unbathed humans, cut by the intoxicating aroma of marijuana. It’s gotten worse. As The Post reported, cretins seeking cheap drugs, warm bodies and free food are bedding down in Zuccotti Park next to trust-fund-fueled activists unable to coherently articulate what the devil they’re fighting for… Only in America would people intentionally expose themselves to dirt, disease and sexual assault to prove — what? Time to go home.”

Mandrea is perpetuating the idea (started by Fox News, naturally) that everyone at the protest is a drug-addled idiot (but also a trust-fund hipster) with no idea why they’re there. I’ve already posted more than enough video clips that disprove this condescending falsehood, but Victoria Jackson recently uploaded to YouTube what she believes is footage of her proving the same point Peyser is making here. Except she actually proves the opposite, proving that she incredibly dumb. Only watch this if you have time to kill and want to see protesters patiently answer Jackson’s ridiculously juvenile questions.

But most of Peyser’s page of misplaced venom is devoted, once again, to The 99. It’s Islam’s superzeroes is a retread of the piece she wrote for Monday’s paper (Better to tune out this scary cartoon), only shriller.

“As we speak, Kuwaiti psychologist Naif Al-Mutawa is on a quest to install in your kids’ TV a posse of righteous, Sharia-compliant cartoon Muslim superheroes (right) — including bad-ass Batina, who fights villains covered head-to-toe in a burqa.” His changed his name from Naif al-Mustawa to Naif al-Mutawa since Monday? Actually, a quick search reveals that his name has always been Naif al-Mutawa. So Mandrea got it wrong (repeatedly) on Monday. She should really take more pride in her shame. B’also, is anyone else freaked out by her visceral opposition to a superhero believing in Islam? Fun Fact: There have been Islamic superheroes (and villains) in comics for a very long time. A partial list of Middle Eastern characters can be found here. And a story about the French Muslim version of Batman (Nightrunner) that DC Comics introduced earlier this year can be found here. And, just for the heck of it, here are some character sketches of Nightrunner.

But please continue, crazy woman(?).

“His animated series, The 99, has drawn howls from Western pundits, mainly me, who see it as a stealthy move to instill Middle Eastern values in Christian and Jewish minds. AtlasShrugs.com blogger Pamela Geller calls the cartoon ‘cultural jihad.’ Al-Mutawa hit back. He blasted critics, who’ve kept his cartoon off the air so far in the United States, as ‘intellectual terrorists’ to CNN.com. Nice. I thought we were just concerned moms.”

How dare the man you falsely accuse of trying to indoctrinate our children into supporting Sharia Law call you and Pamela Geller (who once said “Obama is a third worlder and a coward. He will do nothing but beat up on our friends to appease his Islamic overlords.“) intellectual terrorists! After all, there’s nothing intellectual about either one of you!

“In most of America (Sunday in New York and LA), Al-Mutawa argues the case for foisting The 99 on impressionable kids. He stars in a sympathetic PBS documentary that’s called — I can’t imagine how politically correct eggheads at PBS missed the message — Wham! Bam! Islam! Shut! My! Mouth!” Oh! Please! Do!

What do you suppose the “message” that PBS missed is? “Wham!” and “Bam!” are common comic-book sound effects. Islam rhymes with both of them. And I’m assuming that the documentary is about Islamic superheroes… what am I missing? Seriously, please tell me.

“I talked to Al-Mutawa to give him a shot at turning me. Talking faster than a speeding bullet, he said he created The 99 as a comic book to show his five sons that, after 9/11, Muslims can be positive role models. OK. So why the burqa? ‘I don’t agree with the burqa. I don’t believe it’s part of my religion. It’s part of Arab culture,’ he said. I repeat — why the burqa? Long pause. ‘You’re supposed to tell little girls who have to wear the burqa that they’re not part of the world?’ he finally said. ‘It makes them feel good about themselves. I’m not here to judge anyone.’ So, if the cartoonist can’t judge, then what is and isn’t permissible in The 99? Stoning?”

Wouldn’t it be amazing if people started demanding that all of the Christian superheroes eschew all of their religious identities because The Bible (in Deuteronomy 22:28-29) says that a virgin who is raped must marry her rapist (as long as her rapist pays her father fifty shekels of silver)? Or would you be OK with that if someone raped your daughter, Mandrea? So long as your husband got fifty shekels?

“My column is the only one named in the documentary as having spooked the network from airing the show. But rather than confront me, Al-Mutawa is sweetness and light. ‘I respect your opinion.’” What a jerk! He actually had the audacity to show you tolerance? That’s it. Where’s my pitchfork?

“‘One way or the other,’ Al-Mutawa told CNN.com, ‘The 99 will get on air in the US.’ He toned down even these fighting words when trying to spin me. ‘If reason is going to prevail, it will air in America,’ he said. Naive Al-Mutawa means well. I hope. But his cartoon has no business near your kid.”

Who made this haggard imbecile the arbiter of what the country’s children should and shouldn’t see? The same person who complains about the government butting into her life is declaring that the nation shouldn’t have access to a cartoon aimed at the millions of Muslim children that live here as American citizens?

If anything has no business near your kid, it’s Peyser’s husband, Mark Phillips. After all, he’s a suspected pedophile.

According to Page Six (today on pages 16 and 17), Forbes listed Bethenny Frankel as the third-highest-earning woman in entertainment after they were told that she made “an estimated $100 million” from the sale of her Skinnygirl Margarita mix to Fortune Brands. But it turns out she was actually paid $8.1 million, not $100 million.

Priceless.

Cindy Adams is (sigh) back.

“Let’s just elect a eunuch for president. At least there won’t be any inaugural balls.”

I see what you did there, Cindy. And it wasn’t dying, which angers me to no end.

“A Queens narcotics cop [Stephen Anderson] caught on video framing four men in a bar has pleaded guilty to a drug-sale charge, been sentenced to two to four years in prison — and agreed to testify against other cops.”

I say again: If your job is to uphold the law and you break it, your consequences should be far more severe than those of an inner-city youth who doesn’t know better and commits the same crime.

George Will (when did he drop the middle initial? why wasn’t I informed?) pens the op-ed The Idiocy of ‘Occupy’: Protests will alienate America.

“In scale, OWS’ demonstrations-cum-encampments are to Tea Party events as Pittsburgh, Kan. is to Pittsburgh, Pa. So far, probably fewer people have participated in all of them combined than attended just one Tea Party rally, that of Sept. 12, 2009, on the Washington Mall. OWS is to the Tea Party as Lady Gaga is to Lord Chesterfield.”

Fun Fact: Will has a 39-year-old son, Jon, who was born with Down syndrome. But I would bet good money that Jon could easily explain to his father what’s egregiously wrong with his column. For example, I wonder what Will thinks the attendance of that rally was. Is he going by the actual figure or the one that Freedomworks exaggerated by 2,000%? And is Will accounting for the fact that Glenn Beck spent months promoting the rally (it was part of his “9-12 Project,” not a spontaneous revolt)? And does Will think that any of the folks at that rally would have had the fortitude to camp out and put their money where their mouths for weeks at a time? I mean, the tea bags dangling from their made-in-China tri-corner hats would start to stink after a couple of days — especially if it rained. If the protesters in Zuccotti Park are idiots, George, then what does that make you? Actually, you inspired me to make an analogy of my own:

George Will is to a smug asshole as a smug asshole is to a smug asshole.

“Universal Pictures abandoned a plan to offer the Eddie Murphy comedy Tower Heist on pay television three weeks after its theatrical release, yielding to a threatened boycott by exhibitors.”

So most of us will have to wait much longer to not watch it on TV after not seeing it in theaters.

See you tomorrow.

First, here’s Bill Maher on The Rachel Maddow Show last night:

And here’s Cornel West and Tavis Smiley on The O’Reilly Factor last night:

And here’s last night’s Bloomberg/Washington Post GOP debate in New Hampshire (watch at your own risk):

Michele Bachmann is phenomenally stupid. But you didn’t need to watch last night’s debate to know that.

IRAN IN DC BOMB PLOT

Bust at JFK foils scheme

“Members of Iran’s military schemed to blow up Saudi Arabia’s US ambassador in a crowded DC restaurant, the feds revealed yesterday — adding that they nabbed one plotter at JFK.”

“An elite Iranian military unit plotted to blow up the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States in a Washington restaurant packed with hundreds of diners, federal authorities revealed yesterday. The plot was coordinated by a US citizen, Manssor Arbabsiar, who arranged to pay $1.5 million of Iranian blood money to a man he believed to be a ruthless Mexican drug-cartel hit man, but who was actually an informant, the feds said.”

Crisis averted! Whatever the feds are doing must be working. Bravo to everyone involved! Wouldn’t you agree, James Jay Carafano, national-security expert at the Heritage Foundation?

“This summer, President Obama revealed his new and improved strategy for combating terrorism. Pop quiz: What did it say about Iran? Almost nothing. Despite its record, Tehran merited just one mention in 19 pages.”

Mr. Carafano’s Obama’s taking us back to the bad old days on page 4 explains that “Even a foiled plot raises [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad’s stature — to violate American sovereignty and pay little. And Tehran could well have succeeded where 41 other post-9/11 plots against the United States have failed.”

Wait… how many post-9/11 plots against the United States succeeded? How many terrorist attacks have succeeded here during Obama’s presidency? And yet, on the day that the feds announce that yet another plot has been foiled, the Post lets a pig-faced conservative complain that Obama’s anti-terrorism plan is “to make nice with evil regimes”?

How fair, how balanced.

Bonus Points: The only other piece of page 4 is Undies fiend’s rituals, which discusses the start of the trial of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (“the underwear bomber”), who is pleading guilty. It’s been almost two years since Umar unsuccessfully tried to blow up his junk. Have any other terrorists managed to pull it off (and the “it” that “pull off” refers to is the terrorist plot, not flaming underwear)?

Erik Kriss’s Wall Street’s job losses $ocking NY begins, “The state’s chief fiscal watchdog is sounding a warning about a new Wall Street slide that he says will belt New York with a new round of job losses and plummeting tax revenue.”

“And [Gov.] Cuomo has said he worries that Wall Street’s problems could inflate the $2.4 billion deficit projected for the state’s next fiscal year, which begins on April 1.”

Well, the state is going to lose $5,000,000,000 (that’s billion with a b) in tax revenue if the “millionaire’s tax” expires in December. So… we all agree that it shouldn’t expire, right? Because New York desperately needs that revenue, yes? Right, Erik? Hello?

“Russian officials claim they have ‘indisputable evidence’ that the fabled Yeti, a half-human creature is real and lives in the Siberian tundra. One expert, Dr. Igor Burtsev, says the Yeti, better known as the Abominable Snowman or Bigfoot here, exists in the remote Kemerovo region.”

Dr. Burtsev provided the media with some photographic proof:

Geoff Earle reports on last night’s GOP debate (Ganging up on Cain: Foes hit GOP poll vaulter) and provides the insightful opinions of a panel of three “registered Republicans” who (allegedly) sat through the whole thing.

Lawyer Hyman Silverglad, 79, of the East Village, declares Mitt Romney the winner (“he injected hope”) and Herman Cain the loser (“His constant repetitions of 9-9-9 [his tax plan] was not to my liking”).

Medical assistant Carol McGuinness, 66, of Stuyvesant Town, declares Mitt Romney the winner (“Romney came across better, more sure of himself”) and Michele Bachmann the loser (“Michele Bachmann is a robot”).

Professor Michael Chan, 65, of Midtown, declares Rick Perry the winner (“His talk of job creation in Texas was impressive”) and Herman Cain the loser (“I oppose a federal sales tax in his 9-9-9 plan”).

What a young panel!

The highlights (according to Earle) include Bachmann’s dismissal of Cain’s 9-9-9 plan on religious ground (“When you take the 9-9-9 plan an turn it upside down, the devil’s in the details.”) and Mitt Romney’s defense of the 2008 bailouts (“We were on the precipice and we could’ve had a complete meltdown of the entire financial system. Action had to be taken.”) and criticizes Rick Perry because “he was mostly on the sidelines, and missed chances to swipe at Romney.”

Not mentioned anywhere in today’s paper: After the debate, Perry went to the Beta Theta Pi fraternity at Dartmouth College for a Q & A and was asked about states’ rights. He responded that one of the “reasons we fought the revolution in the 16th century was to get away from that kind of onerous crown.”

Fun Fact: The Revolutionary War lasted from 1775 to 1783. Which, according to my calendar, was during the 18th century (I have a very thick, very old calendar).

Carl Campanile’s Christie throws weight behind Romney’s run tells us that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has endorsed Mitt Romney “because he’s the class of the field.”

He went on to say that Christie also thought Romney was “the top of the cream, the sweetest of the best, and the choice of the head.”

“Sixteen actors dressed as zombies were injured yesterday when they fell from a platform during filming of a new movie in the Resident Evil series — and rescue workers at first were startled by the seemingly catastrophic scene. ‘I could see the first paramedic, saying, “Oh, my God,”‘ emergency medical services chief David Ralph said with a laugh.”

Luckily this happened in Toronto. If it happened in most of the United States, the EMTs would have tried to sever the victims’ heads.

The good news: Obama’s job bill wasn’t shot down by the GOP in the House!

The bad news: It was shot down by the GOP — and two Democrats (Ben Nelson of Nebraska and Jon Tester of Montana) — in the Senate.

Sigh.

Michael Goodwin believes that Chris Christie’s “enthusiastic endorsement of Romney yesterday could turn out to be a pivotal moment in the 2012 race — emphasis on could.” What trenchant insight!

But he spends the bulk of his page mocking the Occupy Wall Street folks. He suggests that by accepting Mayor Bloomberg’s offer to stay in Zuccotti Park, they’re missing out on the chance to protest at all of the properties Bloomberg owns. “If they take the deal, protesters would be passing up a rich target. In fact, because the mayor has at least six houses around the world, they could camp out at all of them and strike a global blow for whatever it is they want.”

I can’t decide if Goodwin is playing dumb or if he really is that dumb. Or both.

Rally hits ‘home’: Marchers target biz bigs’ UES digs is about the “Millionaire’s March” (which was the “Millionaires March” yesterday) and how it “attracted about 450 demonstrators.”

In response to the march (which protested, in part, the expiration of the millionaires tax in December), Mayor Bloomberg defended Paulson & Co. President John Paulson (whose home was one of the many visited by the protesters). “He’s brought more business to this city than any banker in [the] modern day. To go and picket him, I don’t know what that achieves.”

They aren’t picketing him, Mike. They’re picketing the fact that he’s about to get a huge tax break at the expense of almost everyone else in the city. And we don’t know what that achieves.

“A teachers aide who was pepper-sprayed last month during the Occupy Wall Street protests is demanding that Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr. prosecute the deputy inspector caught on video spraying her… She is now demanding misdemeanor assault charges against Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, said her lawyer, Ron Kuby.”

“‘[NYPD] Spokesperson Paul Browne stated publicly that the pepper-spraying was justified as part of a “continuum of force that obviated the use of batons.” This suggests that my client should be grateful that she was not beaten to the ground with police clubs, but it does not explain why D.I. Bologna discharged his pepper spray,’ Kuby wrote.”

I sincerely hope Vance decides to prosecute. And that Bologna loses his job, his pension and his teeth.

Page Six is on pages 12, 13 and 14 today.

Cindy Adams

is off today.

Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.

John Podhoretz’s And Then There Was Mitt: Romney cleans up in debate declares that, by the end of last night’s debate, Romney “seemed to be the only even remotely plausible presidential candidate on the stage” — and not because he did a great job.

“Romney, as is his wont in these situations, simply spewed forth blizzards of words to fog the minds of listeners about his Massachusetts health-care plan and its similarity to the hated ObamaCare. It’s dazzling to watch, though substantively it’s rather shocking just how disingenuous Romney is on this key matter of his own policy record and what it means.”

Romney/Christie ‘12!

Davidsonville, Maryland’s Faul Alessandri writes in to praise Herman Cain for some reason. “The way Cain handled MSNBC’s Larry O’Donnell suggests he will overcome all the traps from the liberal media.” I believe Faul is referring to Cain’s recent appearance on The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell:

PART ONE:

PART TWO:

The way Faul praises the way Cain “handled” Lawrence O’Donnell suggests that Faul isn’t very bright.

And Staten Island’s C. Honadel (aka Charlie Honadel) writes, “All you need to do to be in the GOP is hard work and have a conscience — two things lacking in the Democratic Party.”

There are two things lacking in Charlie Honadel, too. The Scarecrow and the Tin Man thought they were lacking them, too, until they learned they had them all along. Charlie doesn’t.

Fox Business Network senior correspondent Charles Gasparino’s Beating a Dead Goose: Wall Street slumps, city suffers begins, “Here’s an important irony lost on those zany and sometimes violent Wall Street protesters: On the day that they extended their near riots from the financial district to the swanky uptown neighborhoods where many of the Wall Street millionaires live, we got proof positive that the ranks of the wealthiest Wall Streeters are shrinking.”

1) The protesters aren’t “zany.”

2) The protesters aren’t “sometimes violent.”

3) The protesters do not participate in “near riots.”

“The number of Wall Street fat cats is shrinking fairly dramatically, and will continue to shrink in the years ahead — meaning even less money coming from one of New York’s most important sources of tax revenue.”

So… you agree that the “millionaire’s tax” shouldn’t expire in December, right, Charles? Right? Hello?

Chales goes on to blame the cause of the protesters’ dismay not on folks like Jamie Dimon and Rupert Murdoch, but on the people who inacted “the jobs-killing Dodd-Frank financial reform.” But not the folks who deregulated Wall Street, setting the stage for the economic collapse that pre-dated Dodd-Frank. Funny that.

Did I mention he works for Fox Business Network?

“National chain IHOP plans to open a franchise in the upscale Limelight Marketplace in Chelsea.”

Max Gross rates seven new sandwich shops across New York City. One of them is Potbelly, which I used to frequently frequent in Chicago. Gross rates it two subs (out of four). Either Potbelly radically changed their menu/ingredients or Gross doesn’t know what he’s talking about (or both). In fact, I’m going to go to Potbelly ASAP and get a Wreck with Pepperoni just to see if the New York version holds up to the ones I ate in Chicago.

“Amar’e Stoudemire said last night if the NBA lockout wipes out the season, he believes the players will form their own league instead of trying to catch on in Europe. ‘If we don’t go to Europe, we’re going to start our own league, that’s how I see it.’”

I know I said I don’t care about basketball, but I would pay big money to watch the meetings wherein NBA players try to put together their own league.

Theo Epstein, the former general manager of the Boston Red Sox, has been hired by the Chicago Cubs.

My dream of a New York Yankees-Chicago Cubs World Series is slowly coming true.

Linda 3Starsi reviews A&E’s Bordertown: Laredo.

She gives it two and a half stars (but we’ll round that up to three).

The end.

Happy Hump Day!