Posts Tagged ‘Manhattan’

First, a bunch of videos.

Folks on the right like to accuse liberals of “indoctrinating” our nation’s youths. Here is a clip of Glenn Beck explaining an upcoming segment (it starts Monday at 4:00) on GBTV. It’s called the “Liberty Tree House” and it is intended to… indoctrinate our nation’s youths.

“The restoration [of what Glenn counts as true America values] must begin with us teaching it to our youth. That is why we created the Liberty Tree House — a program for you and your kids.”

Is it just me or do the “Liberty Trees” sound a lot like the current Occupy movements? “Before long, most towns and cities had their own Liberty Tree in the town square. The protests continued, eight months after the uprising the Stamp Act was rescinded, the colonists celebrated, but the fight had just begun…”

B’also? I love that the logo on Glenn’s Web site if for “Liberty Treehouse” even though it’s “Liberty Tree House” everywhere else (including the video above).

Here’s Michael Moore on CNN’s Piers Morgan Tonight. I think the entire interview is worth watching, but here’s the first 15 minutes:

If you can’t wait for Fox’s complaints about the War on Christmas, maybe you’ll enjoy their new War on Halloween:

Man, immigrants ruin everything in this country!

Here’s Lawrence O’Donnell making fun of Donald Trump (again). It’s like a greatest hits album:

And now, the Post.

BADGE BETRAYED

Dirty cops smuggled guns: feds

“A rogue band of NYPD officers moonlighted as gun, cigarette and slot machine smugglers, acting on the orders of a reputedly mob-connected ringleader, the feds charged yesterday.”

“‘Retired cop, active cop, ex-cop, bad guy,’ Brooklyn cop William Masso boasted to an FBI informant of the crew that he could pull together for any crime. ‘You want a guy who beat the shit out of somebody who bothers him, we got that. We got cops with vests and guns,’ Masso, 47, told the informant, according to a criminal complaint. ‘I’m setting up a good army here. A good fuckin’ army,’ said Masso, who on Sept. 22 allegedly drove 20 illegal guns — including M-16 assault rifles — to New York with his NYPD jacket displayed in the window of his car.”

Here’s Masso:

…and here’s nine other folks who were busted along with him:

What really breaks my heart is seeing Mort from the Bazooka Joe comics (bottom left) turn to crime.

Erik Kriss and Sally Goldenberg’s ‘Tax the rich’ union rally: Push to keep state levy is about a rally held yesterday at City Hall by “minority lawmakers and union leaders” who were protesting Gov. Cuomo’s refusal to restore the millionaire’s tax that is set to expire at the end of the year. The quote that Erik and Sally chose to blow up to almost half the size of the article is from state Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos (R-LI) regarding Alec Baldwin’s support of the tax extension:

“We can’t be influenced by the Alec Baldwins of the world that are just buying a $17 million condo in Greenwich Village — and he’s going to tell us to that we should tax everybody else.”

Actually, Dean, he’s saying that we should tax him. The Democrats proposed keeping the tax only for people who make at least $1,000,000, but the GOP said no. So, actually, it’s the GOP who are shifting the burden to “everybody else.”

Josh Margolin’s EXCLUSIVE (MAYOR ABOARD SUBWAY TO NJ: Supports No. 7 extension to Secaucus) begins, “Mayor Bloomberg is pushing forward with a proposal to extend the No. 7 train to New Jersey and get the project locked in before he leaves City Hall in two years, The Post has learned.”

“With an estimated cost of $10 billion, the project would take a decade to complete.”

Isn’t the MTA currently facing a $10 billion deficit — after raising fares and cutting jobs?

And the MTA’s track record with estimates leads me to think that the project would cost $17 billion and take 17 years to complete.

In O laughs with Leno, Geoff Earle complains, “On a campaign swing through Tinseltown, President Obama derisively compared his Republican opponents to conniving contestants on Survivor.”

Actually, Jay Leno asked him if he had been watching the Republican debates (Obama was a guest on The Tonight Show). Obama replied, “I’m going to wait until everybody is voted off the island. Once they narrow it down to one or two, then I’ll start paying attention.”

How dare Obama refer to the 2012 Republican contenders as conniving contestants!

(turns head slightly to the left)

Oh, look! It’s S.A. Miller’s Perry flattens ‘fat cat’: Rips Mitt on taxes, which begins, “It’s turning into a Republican catfight.”

How dare Miller refer to the 2012 Republican contenders as foxy boxers!

Carl Campanile reports that Italian-Americans are mad at Herman Cain because the Godfather’s Pizza mascot is “a negative portrayal of Italian-Americans.”

Cain’s spokesman J.D. Gordon’s reply: “Mr. Cain often says that America needs a sense of humor. I’ll second it.”

In other words, forget about it.

Correction

“An article published on Oct. 24, 2011, incorrectly stated that the Jonas Brothers ‘kept’ their 2009 opening act, Korean pop group Wonder Girls, in an illegal dorm above a New York studio. In fact, the Jonas Brothers were not responsible for the Wonder Girls’ accommodation, nor were they aware of the band’s living conditions… The Post sincerely regrets the error.”

Oops.

Rebecca Rosenberg, Jamie Schram and Bob Fredericks teamed up to report on the Occupy Wall Street movement in a non-partisan and informative way. Just kidding.

Grubby lowlifes: Rikers cons flood Zuccotti for free eats is all about how Zuccotti Park is filled with “boozy, drug-fueled parties,” “gang activity” and “assault [and] theft.”

There is, however, a kernel of actual news: “The NYPD inspector who pepper-sprayed a protestor has been quietly transferred to an administrative post on Staten Island, The Post has learned. Anthony Bologna had been docked 10 vacation days after he was caught on video spraying teacher’s aide Kaylee Dedrick, 24, in the eyes. His new assignment, as the borough’s special-projects inspector, will ‘get him out of the line of fire,’ a source said.”

1) Note the English spelling of protester (“protestor”).

2) Bologna sprayed way more than one protester.

3) Someone should explain to the NYPD that the public would be more accepting of stories like the one on today’s front page if people like Bologna actually faced consequences for their (very public) criminal actions.

In a related story (that you won’t find anywhere in this horrible newspaper), Occupy Oakland was met with brute force yesterday — they were gassed and (as shown below) shot with rubber bullets by police:

According to Page Six (today on pages 12, 13 and 14), Brett Ratner’s new movie, Tower Heist (co-starring Eddie Murphy), had a premiere at the Ziegfeld Theater on Monday night. Ratner reportedly told the crowd, “They’re [sic] a lot of Jews here tonight, a lot of executives, a lot of gays. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 84th Academy Awards!”

Fun Fact: Eddie Murphy is hosting the 84th Academy Awards and it is being co-produced by… Brett Ratner.

Cindy Adams is still trying to be funny.

“So how bad is the US economy? Angelina Jolie adopted a child from America.”

Cindy Adams is still trying.

“A Manhattan couple who kidnapped their eight kids from a Queens foster-care center have copped a plea deal that cuts more than 199 years off their possible prison term, their lawyer said yesterday. Mom Shanel Nadal, 27, and her partner, Nephra Payne, 34… pleaded guilty to two counts of custodial interference, while the more serious charge of kidnapping was dropped.”

They faced up to 25 years for each count of kidnapping. They were each sentenced to… 90 days.

John Podhoretz’ A Pack of Nonsense: Will GOP 2012ers get serious? includes one of the funniest sentences I’ve read in years: “It’s impossible not to like [Herman] Cain.”

I mean, what’s not to like about a guy who says liberals have brainwashed most Black people, wants to completely outlaw abortion — even in cases of rape and incest — and who wears his ignorance of foreign policy as a badge of honor?

Why We Must Lose The Darn 1 Percent is another humorless piece of political humor from Frank J. Fleming, author of the upcoming e-book Obama: The Greatest President in the History of Everything.

“That’s what the wealthiest 1 percent do to us a [sic] nation: It’s just impossible to appreciate our affluence while other people are allowed to have so much more than us.”

“Let’s say you had two apples and another person — let’s call him ‘Rich’ — also had two apples. If you then got one more apple and Rich got 80 more apples, would you now have more apples? No, you’d have fewer apples — fewer than that other guy who has an unfair number of apples!”

It’s so true! Everyone in Zuccotti Park (and around the world) should appreciate their affluence!

Let’s say you don’t know how to use different tenses correctly and have to write some “humor” and you love misrepresenting people who disagree with you — let’s call you Frank J. Fleming. Then let’s say you get violently beaten to death by methed-out gorillas.

Now that’s political humor!

(No, it isn’t. Still, which of the two attempts at humor made you smile more?)

Crude oil is up to $93.17/barrel.

Linda 3Starsi reviews MTV’s Mike Judge’s Beavis and Butt-Head.

“The big problem with bringing B&B back is a that [sic] there’s already an idiot surplus on TV.”

She gives it…

(yawn)

…three stars.

And that’s Wednesday.

See you tomorrow!

“An alert Transportation Security Administration screener at Newark Airport found a ‘bullet’ in a passenger’s luggage — but not the kind that a terrorist might carry. Passenger Jill Filipovic told New York magazine that it was a ‘$15 bullet vibe… about the most basic sex toy you can imagine.’ And, she said, he left her a note on the back of a TSA notice that read, ‘Get your freak on, girl.’”

Actually, he (or she) wrote GET YOUR FREAK ON GIRL according to this photo:

But what infuriates me most about this story is that I trusted the Post when they told me that TSA stands for Transportation Safety Administration. Turns out the S stands for Security.

I regret the error. And the fact that I read the New York Post.

The last sentence is my favorite.

“The city Design Commission yesterday refused to sign off on a $10 million Parks Department pilot project to pave parts of the [Coney Island] boardwalk in cement — a precursor to paving through the entire 2.5-mile walkway except four blocks in the amusement district that would remain wood. After viewing photos showing thousands of cracks in two small sections of the boardwalk recently replaced with cement blocks, commissioners said the cement plan was unattractive.”

“Department officials argued they need a cement pathway to handle emergency vehicles, adding it’s more cost effective and sturdier than wood or plastic planks. But commissioners said there was no evidence to back up these claims.”

S.A. Miller’s It’s do-or-d’Iowa time for Perry notes that “After losing serious ground in the debates and polls, the GOP presidential contender hopes a $175,000 TV ad buy in Iowa, bulked-up campaign staff and hot new flat-tax plan [where everyone pays a flat tax of 20 percent] will reignite his run.”

Surprisingly (I write sarcastically), there is no mention of this:

As for his TV ad, I doubt it will be as hilarious as this one for Herman Cain (wait until Mr. Block stops talking and try not to laugh):

“A Long Island couple dreaming of cashing in on the Occupy Wall Street protests has filed for trademark rights to the movement’s name so they can peddle bumper stickers, T-shirts, beach bags and other gear bearing the OWS logo. Robert and Diane Maresca paid $975 for the application filed with the US Patent and Trademark Office on Oct. 18. Robert said he might even share some of the profits he could make with the protesters — if he can figure out who to give the money to.”

I told a cat about this. This was his response:

They might give some of the money to the protesters?

Someone please file for trademark rights to “Robert and Linda Maresca.” You could sell T-shirts with this picture of Robert on them:

Just erase the chicken-scratch on the piece of paper he’s holding and add I AM A JERK and an arrow pointing at his misshapen head.

From Laura Italiano and Frank Rosario’s DA to offer deal on arrests:

“Manhattan prosecutors are planning to offer a deal to 340 Occupy Wall Street protesters that would dismiss the charges if they stay out of trouble for six months, a lawyer representing some of the demonstrators said yesterday. The deal would apply only to those-issued desk-appearance tickets — but exclude more than 300 others who were charged with a misdemeanor or issued a summons, said the lawyer, Martin Stolar, one of the National Lawyers Guild members volunteering to represent protesters ree [sic] of charge.”

I can only hope that the other 339 protesters are as brave as Lauren Digioia, 26, who was charged with disorderly conduct. Her response? “The police were wrong, their actions were unjust. If I have to go to court to fight this, I will.”

And the whole world will watch.

Andy Soltis’ Sharia-lite for Libya begins, “Libya’s new leader backed off his vow to govern the country according to strict Islamic Sharia law. ‘I want to assure the international community that we, as Libyans, are moderate Muslims,’ Mustapha Abdel Jalil said yesterday.”

You may remember Mr. Jalil from yesterday’s paper, when he was referred to as Mustafa Abdul-Jalil. Anybody think his addendum will prevent Michael Goodwin and/or Andrea Peyser from warning us that Libya is going to turn into a radical nation?

Me neither.

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai sought to distance himself yesterday from remarks he made saying Afghanistan would back Pakistan against the United States if the two ever went to war.”

The editing on this clip is awful, so I’m not entirely sure that Karzai said what everyone claims he said:

On the other hand, Karzai is a scumbag. So let’s just assume he did.

According to Page Six (today on pages 12 and 13), Demi Lovato, 19, has gotten back together with Wilmer Valderrama, 31, and was “making out all night” at Seth MacFarlane’s birthday party.

Remember when Wilmer was dating Lindsay Lohan? Hey! That reminds me! Remember Michael Lohan, Lindsay’s absentee father? Guess what! He got arrested again! For the hilarious reason why, read this article on TMZ.com: “Mike Lohan’s Ex — He Attacked Me ‘Cause I Wouldn’t Perform Oral Sex“

There’s a link in the article to the actual police report, which provides Michael’s version of events (including this gem: “[Kate Major] did not want Michael to ejaculate inside her. Michael Lohan stated he did ejaculate in her and his girlfriend got very angry.”).

Poor Lindsay Lohan.

“A third Pee-wee movie’s coming down. Judd Apatow producing. Who plays Pee-wee, who knows? Maybe Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.”

Is Cindy Adams:

a) kidding?

b) serious?

c) having a stroke?

d) the bane of my existence?

Answer: Get in the box.

Andy Campbell and Amber Sutherland’s Pack it in!: City targets cop’s cheap cigs begins, “A Lower East Side tobacco shop co-owned by an NYPD captain is by illegally peddling smokes for less than $6 a pack, city officials say.”

That’s almost a sentence.

The captain’s name is John Kimball. Here’s a photo of him:

Jennifer Fermino and Helen Freund report that “The MTA — inundated with complaints about overflowing garbage and nibbling rats on subway platforms — is trashing trash cans at several stations, part of an effort to curtail the massive amounts of rodent-luring rubbish left in the system every day.”

Fun Fact: The “several” stations are “the 8th Street Station in the Village and Flushing/Main Street in Queens.”

“To tell straphangers about the new policy — which has been in effect in the two stations for a few weeks — officials said they handed out fliers and hung posters… One guy at Main Street dumped his trash into the corner where the can used to be, oblivious to the fact that he’d just littered.”

Sounds like a success to me! Great work, MTA!

Jennifer and Helen would also like you to know that “Riders leave behind ann [sic] astonishing 40 tons of trash every day underground.”

Well, more trash cans certainly aren’t the answer, right?

Rich Lowry writes, “When President Obama took the podium last Friday to abruptly announce the imminent end of the Iraq War… [he] was the same as the Obama of the Democratic primaries, with his heedlessly irresponsible commitment to a hasty retreat from Iraq. Back then, he was only capable of vaporous posturing.”

Actually, Rich, it was George W. Bush who made the commitment to have our troops out by the end of 2011. Obama actually wanted to amend that commitment to allow some troops to stay but Iraq said no.

The Post pays Rich to write about current events — he isn’t obligated to understand them.

This is kind of funny.

On the left side of page 22, there’s the editorial Grabbing Guns — for Real. It begins, “The mindless murder of a Brooklyn mother [Zurana Horton, 34] on a Brownsville street last Friday should teach a little humility to critics of the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk effort to cleanse the city of illegal guns.”

Fun Fact: We don’t know who killed Horton, or if the gun that shot her is illegal. So it’s weird that the Post would conclude that Horton would still be alive if the police were stopping and frisking more people on a regular basis.

But what makes their assertion funny (to me, anyway) are the letters directly to the right of the editorial — under the heading Biden’s Rape & Murder Cry: He’s Doing Obama’s Bidding.

Manhattan’s Sam King writes, “Biden’s repeated threat that crime rates will rise if we oppose stimulus pay for municipal workers definitely uses fear tactics.” Um… any threat is a fear tactic, Sam. That’s why it’s called a threat.

Cincinnati’s Paul Bloustein writes, “Biden is at it again, claiming that if we don’t support Obama’s jobs plan, we favor increased rates of rape and murder.” I wonder if Paul will write to complain about today’s editorial that claims that if we don’t support more “aggressive street-crime policing,” we favor increased rates of murder.

Bonus Points: Apple Valley, California’s Dan Jeffs writes, “Biden’s campaigning for the president’s jobs bill in front of 4th-graders is an invitation to expose the liberal indoctrination of students from elementary school to college.” Oh, please accept that invitation, Dan. Please expose the liberal indoctrination of our children! You’re our only hope!

Scott Gottlieb (“a physician and American Enterprise Institute resident fellow”) writes the op-ed Slashing Doc Pay: Making US rates more like Europe’s. It begins, “A key government panel voted this month to whack what Medicare pays most doctors to treat patients. It’s an important step on the path to ObamaCare — because the only way to make European-style health entitlements work in America is to pay US doctors lower European wages. This is going to hurt doctors — and hit patients even harder, as American physicians scale down their medical practices to adapt to the lower pay rates.”

Wait… if doctors are paid less, wouldn’t that make them want to expand their practices? B’also? The American Enterprise Institute is not the most reliable of sources.

Crude oil is back up to $91.27/barrel.

Back in the day: TV celebs confess their youthful obsessions lists the childhood passions of various stars. For example, Anthony Bourdain loved Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention (“They played great music and were not above a good poo joke.”) and Brian Williams loved The Monkees (“My favorite was Michael Nesmith”).

Also asked about their youthful obsessions were Victoria Justice (“Pokemon cards!”) and Sarah Hyland (“Sabrina the Teenage Witch“).

Fun Fact: Victoria is 18 years old. Sarah is 20.

Great reporting, Maxine Shen!

And that’s Tuesday.

See you tomorrow!

First, this:

Madonna’s 55-year-old brother, Anthony Ciccone, was fired from his family’s vineyard (Ciccone Vineyards) 18 months ago. So now he lives “like a vermin under a bridge in a gritty little Michigan town… Ciccone lives under the Union Street bridge in Traverse City, collecting bottles and cans, doing odd jobs for cash, and trying to fend off frostbite in the bitter Michigan winter.”

“Ciccone didn’t explain [why Madonna] hasn’t helped him out. He was more concerned about his already bluish toes, considering some of his friends on the street have died of hypothermia.”

Anthony, I hope that your sister reads about you and agrees to dress you up until you’re burning up and not frozen so that you’ll live to tell everybody your story and can die another day in the far future — that would truly be cause for a celebration on La Isla Bonita.

(can you find the eight Madonna songs in that sentence?)

According to TaxLifeboat (“a California-based company that works with delinquent taxpayers”), actor Peter Scolari has $19,039 in tax liens and singer Judy Collins owes $51,366 in taxes from 2009.

Scolari is currently avoiding the IRS by pretending he’s a woman; Collins is hoping that she can substitute monetary payment with clowns, which she has already started sending them.

An EXCLUSIVE from Susan Edelman (PARENT FUROR AT BAWDY SEX ED: City’s eye opening [sic] lessons) tells us that “parents may be shocked by parts of the Department of Education’s ‘recommended’ curriculum.” Like what, Susan?

• High-school students go to stores and jot down condom brands, prices and features such as lubrication.

• Kids ages 11 and 12 sort “risk cards” to rate the safety of various activities, including “intercourse using a condom and an oil-based lubricant,” mutual masturbation, French kissing, oral sex and anal sex.

How dare they recommend these things that would educate children! I bet there’s a lot of parent furor over this (see headline), right, Susan?

“[O]ne Manhattan middle-school mom said, ‘They seem pretty outrageous.’ Shino Tanikawa, a SoHo mother of two daughters, including a high-school junior, also was taken aback. ‘I didn’t know how much detail they would get,’ she said. But she added that many city kids learn about hanky-panky on their own.” Wow, Susan! Those women are furious! Is there anyone else you spoke to about this?

“‘Kids are being told to either abstain or use condoms — that both are responsible, healthy choices,’ said child and adolescent psychiatrist Miriam Grossman, author of You’re Teaching My Child What?“ Wow, Susan! The author of an anti-sex education book published in August of 2009 (and whose full title is You’re Teaching My Child What?: A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Ed and How They Harm Your Child) doesn’t like the new sex ed curriculum?

Headline: PARENT FUROR AT BAWDY SEX ED

Actual article: Two parents who are mildly surprised and the author of Unprotected: A Campus Psychiatrist Reveals How Political Correctness in Her Profession Endangers Every Student, who may or may not have kids.

This is a terrible newspaper.

I’m only going to comment on two of Michael Goodwin’s pieces today.

First, Cain can dream, too (in its entirety): “The vicious attacks on Herman Cain by black and white liberals are shocking. In winning broad support for the GOP presidential nomination, Cain is an embodiment of the universal wish of Martin Luther King Jr. “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character,” the civil-rights icon said in 1963. He didn’t limit the dream to one political party.” The content of Herman Cain’s character would make Dr. King nauseous. King’s dream and Cain’s dream are radically different. But I guess all Black people’s dreams look the same to Goodwin.

(see what I did there?)

The other piece is Goldman getting it (also in its entirety): “Goldman Sachs is finally showing some spine. The piñata at the Occupy Wall Street party withdrew its $5,000 donation for a dinner that was honoring the vagabonds in Zuccotti Park. ‘We lost their $5,000 but we have our principles,’ an event host said. Betcha those principles will make a delicious dinner.”

Michael Goodwin is mocking The Credit Union (a small bank on the Lower East Side that lends to low-income families) for deciding that they would still honor the Occupy Wall Street protesters at their dinner, even though it cost them $5,000 from Goldman Sachs — he believes that money is more important than principles. Which tells you pretty much everything you need to know about Michael Goodwin.

Page Six (today on page 10) calls Jessica Simpson “probably still pregnant.”

Keep up the great work, kids.

Ginger Adams Otis’ THEY WANT $LICE OF THE OCCU-PIE: 500G fight at Zuccotti begins, “Even in Zuccotti Park, greed is good. Occupy Wall Street’s Finance Committee has nearly $500,000 in the bank, and donations continue to pour in — but its reluctance to share the wealth with other protest-Ers [sic] is fraying tempers.”

The article goes on to claim that there is great unrest among the protesters — particularly because the Pulse Working Group wants $8,000 to replace their drums that the Post repeatedly reported were ruined by the rain (but are now saying were destroyed by “a midnight vandal”).

The Post is obligated to write about the protests (they’re too big to ignore), but they certainly aren’t going to focus on anything of import. Case in point, the other OWS piece: The ‘art’ful dodger. “Shortly after receiving a ticket for public urination yesterday, an Occupy Wall Streeter scaled a 70-foot sculpture in Lower Manhattan, demanding a cigarette, a jacket, and Mayor Bloomberg’s resignation… Dylan Spoelstra, 24, of Toronto, was brought to Bellevue Hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after surrendering just after 9 a.m.”

Keep hatin’, haters. And watch the movement continue to grow.

Caroline Perry’s Inside ‘clueless’ Lindsay’s life of ‘delusion’: LOST IN LOLO LAND begins, “Slumped on the sofa at a private house party in Malibu, Lindsay Lohan reaches clumsily for her bag. Her artificially plumped lips parted company with their last cigarette several minutes ago, and she’s clearly in need of a nicotine fix. Fumbling among the detritus in her designer tote, she pulls out a box of Parliament Lights and a tattered notebook, and begins scribbling pensively. ‘I write absolutely everything down,’ she tells a partygoer after asking him for a light. ‘It’s the only way I can make sense of everything that happens in my life.’ While the ramblings of the child-star-turned-absentee morgue cleaner would no doubt make for fascinating reading, many would find her thought processes harder to decipher than the Dead Sea Scrolls.”

It concludes with: “‘She has been exploited for most of her life,’ [Lindsay's] pal says, ’so it’s unsurprising she doesn’t have much grip on reality.’”

I wonder how Caroline pitched this article to Lindsay. Did she say, “Wouldn’t you like a chance to finally tell your side of the story?” or “I want to show the world the real Lindsay, not the cartoon that they think you’ve become.” or “Would you like some more free publicity, you uninsurable has-been?” Or did she just sit down next to her at a club?

Well, however Caroline landed this piece, Lindsay will die in the next three years.

Steve Forbes is given all of page 23 to pitch a flat tax (FEELING FLAT: Rise of Cain’s 9-9-9 and other Republican plans show the nation is hungry for a flat tax). “The nightmare on Main Street — the federal income tax code — is ending, which is fantastic news for our beleaguered economy. Dramatically simplifying this monstrosity would unleash a powerful wave of prosperity and job creation.”

Not mentioned: How many millions of dollars Steve would save if a flat tax was enacted.

There are two Quinnipiac polls in today’s POSTSCRIPT:

Do you favor the plane to provide 10,000 rental bikes to New York City?

Support  %72

Oppose  %23

Don’t Know  %5

(72 + 23 + 5 = 100)

Would you use the bikes yourself?

No  53%

Yes  45%

Don’t know  5%

(53 + 45 + 5 = 103)

All of page 39 is devoted to Mandy Stadtmiller’s FRANKEL-Y, MY DEAR, YOU LIED!: Will ‘Real Housewife’ Bethenny’s reputation as a fibber undo her?

[SPOILER: The answer is maybe.]

“If [Frankel] has one great protector it is Bravo chief Andy Cohen, who has sheltered the hottest commodity on his channel. To get better treatment than the other Housewives, ’she pulled Andy’s strings like a master puppeteer,’ according to one gossip columnist. But even those close to Frankel know her time is limited. ‘The minute she stops being viable for Andy and making money, he’ll walk away from her just like he walked away from everyone else,’ says the insider.”

I wish everyone would walk away from Bethenny Frankel. And Andy Cohen. Then they would both stop being viable and making money.

ASK ASHLEY!

My boyfriend of two years talks about his ex-girlfriend all the time. It began when we first started dating, but calmed down when I talked to him about it. She’s come up again recently, probably because I’m financially unstable at the moment and he loves powerful women. We haven’t had sex in a while, and during an argument, he reminded me how many times he and his ex used to get it on. They broke up four years ago! It’s breaking my heart and I can’t take it anymore. Please help! — Anonymous

ASHLEY: “Let him know that inappropriate remarks upset you — as does his small package. That is, compared to YOUR ex. Give him a taste of his own medicine.”

ME: “I disagree with the prostitute — her advice is petty (and possibly inaccurate). What you should do is remind your boyfriend about your previous conversation(s) about his ex. If he continues to talk about her, end your relationship. That’s what a powerful woman would do. And if you still love him, you can always take him back (if his ex doesn’t).”

My friend and her boyfriend of several years broke up a few months ago. He lives in my neighborhood and I see him occasionally on the street. Our runs-ins are so fleeting I often forget about them. My friend, however, recently heard that I saw him and got angry I didn’t tell her. I wasn’t intentionally not telling her, it was just so quick and they’ve been broken up for so long, I didn’t think I needed to call her right away. How long after a breakup do I have to keep providing a play-by-play? — Anonymous

ASHLEY: “Well, the fact that it got back to her shows you clearly told someone you ran into him.”

ME: “Or that he told someone he ran into you.”

ASHLEY: “But if the next time you see him you think you might ‘forget,’ don’t tell a soul. That’s the only way to be sure it stays drama-free.”

ME: “Unless he tells someone. Look, if you care about your friend’s feelings, then the next time you bump into her ex, text or call her and tell her about it. That’s the only way to be sure it stays drama-free.”

And that’s Sunday.

More to come…

I think I found an ad for the worst Halloween costume of 2011.

For $20, Target will sell you this costume… but not all of it. I did a little research, and the costume doesn’t include the pants or the rubber ducky. It’s almost like the guy at the costume factory forgot that he was about to give a presentation and hastily threw together a shirt that kind of looks like Ernie’s (but not really) and a mask for your forehead that makes it look like Ernie is vomiting your head.

For the person who wants people to know that he put no time or effort into his costume (and wants to spend $20 to do it).

From Erik Kriss’ Frackers’ exit threat: “Proposed state regulations for hydrofracking upstate could drive natural-gas drillers to other states, the energy industry is warning. ‘Industry is in favor of a high environmental bar, but not in favor of a program fraught with uncertainty, potential delays and unnecessary costs,’ said Thomas West of the state’s Independent Oil and Gas Association.”

From “don’t worry, it’s safe” to “come on, you’re expecting us to be way too safe” in record time.

Fun Fact: The IOGA of NY is paid to represent oil and gas professionals to the citizens and lawmakers of New York.

Harold Camping predicted that the world would end yesterday.

It didn’t.

Just like it didn’t end on May 21st.

And yet, there are still people who believe he is a prophet. Which would be hilarious… except that their votes count as much as the votes of people who aren’t incredibly stupid.

Phil Mitsch is a Republican running for New Jersey state Senate.

On September 2nd, he tweeted something mildly offensive to his 44,000 followers. The Post claims it was “that the way for a woman to keep her man is to be a ‘whore in the bedroom.’” Actually, that wasn’t the really offensive stuff. First, here’s the full version of the aforementioned tweet: “Women, you increase your odds of keeping your men by being faithful, a lady in the living room and a whore in the bedroom.”

The Post also claims that “Democrats attacked Mitsch for the tweet as well as others that the candidate claims were doctored.” If only there was some record of the tweets that Mitsch claims weren’t his… oh, wait! Look what I found!

If you can’t read them, here are my three favorites:

“Survival Tip – pay, play, now get the f ??? away !!”

“your new survival philosophy toward women should be ‘pay, play, now get the fuck away’ !! Trust me, you will live to be 150. Why? No stress”

“tell your women they can’t talk to you but they can moan. Life is far far less stressful when implementing this sex survival tip !! lol”

I should point out, though, that these weren’t tweets, they were private messages sent to someone on Twitter. For a more in-depth version of the story, click here.

Fun Fact: Phil Mitsch is divorced.

Remember Joseph Brooks? He’s the Oscar-winning songwriter who was charged with raping (or sexually assaulting) 11 women who went to his apartment for what they thought were auditions. Brooks killed himself before the trial began, but his assistant — the woman who placed the ads on Craigslist that lured the women to Brooks’ apartment — was just sentenced.

Shawni Lucier, 44, faced up to 15 years in prison if convicted at trial. But she took a deal and will serve… four months (in order to “let prosecutor [sic] dispose of the case without further traumatizing the women”).

Thankfully, God has already sentenced her to a lifetime of looking like this:

From Antonio Antenucci and Carl Campanile’s Health expert condemns park rats: “Close this pigpen! Filth-ridden Zuccotti Park is a breeding ground for bacterial infection loaded with potential health-code violations that pose a major risk to the public, an expert who inspected the area warned. ‘It’s like Walmart for rats,’ Wayne Yon, an expert on city health regulations, said yesterday.”

Actually, Wayne Yon is a senior regional food safety specialist at EHA Group. Previously, he worked for Pillsbury.

B’also? Isn’t Walmart the Walmart for rats?

But the most Occupy Wall Street coverage goes to AWOL FLA. MOM OFF WALL: Neighbors: She’s a bizarre hippie, which is a follow-up to yesterday’s Fla. mom of 4 bolts for NY protest: SHE PLANS TO STRAY AWHILE, which I ignored (because it was incredibly unfair… just like Bobby Martinez and Liz Sadler’s follow-up).

“The Florida mom who ditched her banker husband and four kids to live in Zuccotti Park squalor is a hippie homemaker whose neighbors are horrified by her latest antics — but are hardlt surprised that she flew the coop. Stacey Hessler, 38 — a self-described ‘vegan freak’ who’s into dreadlocks, roller derby and ‘unschooling’ her kids — acts like a self-obsessed college sophomore who never grew up, said a neighbor in her hometown of DeLand, Fla.”

“‘She believes everything should be free,’ the neighbor added… ‘She’s very bizarre,’ the neighbor insisted.”

Here’s paragraphs #16 and #17 (of 25): “‘She had been following this movement on her own through Facebook and YouTube and whatever, and she decided she wanted to come up to New York. And her family said, ‘Go, mom, go. This is what you want to do,’ said Lauren Napoli, 28, a waitress and home health aide. ‘This is what she believes in, and she feels she needs to be here,’ Napoli said. ‘She’s not being irresponsible.’”

I can understand why those quotes didn’t appear earlier in the piece — it directly contradicts the assertion the Post has made for the last two days (that Hessler “bolted” from her family, “abandoning” them without warning).

This is a terrible newspaper.

“A convicted child molester and kiddie-porn collector filed a jailhouse lawsuit to get his stuff back — and an appeals court has ordered a Long Island judge to wade through a mountain of slimy porn to look for personal memories to return to the jailed pervert. Music and choir teacher Anthony Correnti, 37, was charged with having sex with five underage girls in Manhattan and on Long Island and cops seized more than 10,000 images of his victims and other kiddie porn from him.”

Hey, I have an idea: When you are convicted of collecting child pornography, you lose all of your pornography. Actually, I have a better idea: If you plead guilty to “use of a child in a sexual performance” (which Mr. Correnti did), you get killed slowly and painfully.

Remember Deborah Bradley and Jeremy Irwin? They’re the couple in Kansas City, Missouri, whose 10-month-old daughter (Lisa Irwin) is missing. They hired Joseph Tacopina to represent them (even though they haven’t been accused of anything yet).

“An FBI cadaver dog reacted to the scent of a dead person inside the Kansas City home where a baby girl disappeared nearly three weeks ago, according to a police affidavit released yesterday.”

“The affidavit said the dog taken into the house Monday indicated a ‘positive “hit” for the scent of a deceased human in an area of the floor of Bradley’s bedroom near the bed.’”

When do you suppose Tacopina will step down as their attorney? Or do you think he’ll be able to get them off?

I was wondering how the Post would cover Obama’s announcement that all of our troops will be out of Iraq by year’s end. Geoff Earle gave me my answer on page 9.

“President Obama announced yesterday that the United States would pull the remaining troops out of Iraq by year’s end, setting up another foreign-policy milestone to crow about just a day after the death of Moammar Khadafy in Libya.”

“The president had hoped to keep a small contingent of US forces in Iraq but failed to secure legal protections for soldiers in talks with Iraqi President Nouri al-Maliki — a fact that drew criticism from Republican hawks. So the administration is removing the last troops — currently numbering 39,000 — on a timetable established by President George W. Bush in 2008.”

Let me repeat that last sentence: “So the administration is removing the last troops — currently numbering 39,000 — on a timetable established by President George W. Bush in 2008.”

“Mitt Romney slammed Obama, saying his ‘astonishing failure to secure an orderly transition in Iraq has unnecessarily put at risk the victories that were won through the blood and sacrifice of thousands of American men and women. The unavoidable question is whether this decision is the result of a naked political calculation or simply sheer ineptitiude in negotiations with the Iraqi government.’”

Or maybe Obama is following the timetable that George W. Bush established in 2008.

Bonus Points: The White House’s response to Romney’s comments made me smile. “Mitt Romney’s foreign-policy experience is limited to his work as a finance executive shipping American jobs overseas.”

According to Page Six (today on page 10), Chris Tucker owes the IRS $11.5 million in taxes.

Do you know how much that is, Chris?

Close enough.

“A British ferry crashed into a French fishing boat, killing its skipper, because the ferry’s crew members were chatting about Halle Berry when they should have been monitoring their radar screen… [T]he 56-year-old French captain of the Condor Vitesse ferry and his crew were chatting about Berry’s ’sexy outfit’ in the 2004 movie Catwoman during foggy conditions between St. Helier in Jersey and St. Malo, France, in March.”

“‘She was jumping from everywhere like a cat. She is very beautiful. She was wearing a sexy outfit,’ the captain said of Berry, according to the report’s transcript.”

Just when you thought that Catwoman couldn’t cause any more misery.

Cain refines his 9’s tells us that “Herman Cain yesterday redefined his tax plan to exclude the poorest Americans and to allow some deductions — abandoning the zero-exemption feature of his ‘9-9-9′ proposal that helped win headlines but would have meant a tax increase for 4 out of 5 Americans.”

But wait. He said that his plan wouldn’t raise taxes for anyone and that people who said it would weren’t analyzing his plan properly. So… does that mean that he’s admitting that he wasn’t analyzing his plan properly?

I’ll just assume the answer is yes.

“Mallie’s Sports Bar and Grill is now serving a huge burger that weighs a whopping 338.6 lbs.”

How much does this shockingly unappetizing monstrosity cost?

$2,000.

Which is a good price for wasting hundreds of pounds of food.

“The new iPhone’s voice-activated virtual assistant uses a male voice in Germany because studies have shown that German men have issues with taking orders from females. The proof came in the late 1990s when BMW was forced to recall a female-voiced navigation system on its 5 Series cars after being flooded with calls from German men saying they refused to take directions from a woman.”

They said they preferred taking directions from a yelling anti-Semite.

“Target is recalling some 3,400 frog masks for fear that kids may suffocate — and warning parents to return the masks immediately, the federal Consumer Product Safety Commission announced yesterday. The plush, $1 masks lack proper ventilation, the commission said.”

It’s still a better costume to wear than their Ernie.

“Lindsay Lohan arrived at the Los Angeles County morgue at 5:35 a.m. yesterday, nearly 90 minutes ahead of her scheduled 7 a.m. community-service starting time.”

She literally can’t do anything in moderation.

“The train-wreck actress was also rapped by Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter yesterday after she tried to have 36 fancy, pink-frosted cupcakes delivered to morgue staff to apologize for Thursday’s fiasco. ‘When they were delivered, morgue supervisors would not let them into the building,’ her spokesman said. ‘It is unfortunate that Lindsay’s well-intentioned actions were not taken in the spirit in which she intended.’”

“Later, [Lindsay] apologized on Twitter. ‘I’m sorry for the confusion that I may of caused to those at the Coroner’s office. Won’t happen again, now I know where to go! Thank you for your help,’ she wrote.”

Oh. I guess hiring a spokesman might not of been a bad idea for Lindsay.

The editorial Is Mike Waking Up? begins, “Mayor Bloomberg yesterday suggested that he’s finally losing patience with the incipient public-health crisis masquerading as a protest demonstration in and around Zuccotti Park.” Sigh.

“Wall Street business isn’t affected by the ‘occupation.’ It’s small businesses and other job creators that are being hurt.” Did the Post just admit that Wall Street business doesn’t create jobs?

“The Zuccotti Park encampment is long past its sell-by date. Time to shut it down.”

As Shelley Winters and her kids sang in Pete’s Dragon, we’d like to see you try it.

“Eight hundred million users are not enough. Facebook, the world’s biggest social network, is now building profiles of non-users who haven’t even signed up, an international privacy watchdog charges. The claim is made in a complaint filed in August by Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner. It alleges that users are encouraged to hand over the personal data of other people — including names, phone numbers, e-mail addresses — which Facebook is using to create ‘extensive profiles’ of non-users. Facebook categorically denies the allegation.”

“Lifetime’s Dance Moms has been banned from the popular StarQuest dance show — after StarQuest officials accused the show’s producers of editing an episode to create a false impression of the competition.”

“[StarQuest associate producer Michael Ian] Cedar also says that the producers of [Dance Moms]… told him the show was about young girls in the competitive dance world. In fact, the show really focuses on the girls’ mothers.”

And how could Cedar have known that Dance Moms focused on dance moms?

And that’s Saturday.

See you bright and early tomorrow!

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!

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!

Also in Page Six (still on page 10) is the news that “Lindsay Lohan’s reps are ordering clubs where she parties not to play songs by rapper Pitbull, whom she’s suing over his lyrics, ‘I got it locked up like Lindsay Lohan.’”

In case you had forgotten, Pitbull (real name: Armando Christian Pérez) released a song (“Give Me Everything”) whose lyrics Lindsay claims in her lawsuit are “defamatory statements [that] are destined to do irreparable harm” to her (who is described as “a professional actor of good repute and standing”). More like a professional defendant of ill repute who’s rarely standing, am I right?

“Yesterday it was reported that Lohan was supposed to serve 360 hours of community service at Los Angeles’ Downtown Women’s Center, but was given the boot for violating the rules. TMZ reported she missed nine scheduled visits and would leave others early… She’s due back in court on Wednesday.”

I hope the judge gives her a seventeenth chance.

Bonus Points: Here’s a recent picture of Lindsay’s teeth (she was on the red carpet at a video game release party in Hollywood, so it’s not like she wasn’t expecting to be photographed):

In Perry gusher: Cap energy regs, Geoff Earle would like you to know that “Texas Gov. Rick Perry yesterday announced a plan to ‘kick-start’ the economy by rolling back ‘aggressive’ environmental regulations… ‘The quickest way to give our economy a shot in the arm is to deploy American ingenuity to tap American energy. But we can only do that if environmental bureaucrats are told to stand down,’ [Perry] said.”

Earle doesn’t seem to have a problem with Perry’s plan and you might not either… unless you read more about it.

Rick Perry thinks what this country needs is less regulation. And you might, too… if oil companies paid you as much as they pay him.

Erik Kriss devotes three sentences to ‘Don’t frackin’ do it,’ which is buried in the bottom-right corner of page 12. Here are the first two: “Gov. Cuomo should go and check Pennsylvania fracking’s ‘devastating effects’ before allowing it in New York, Sen. Greg Ball (R-Putnam) said yesterday. He also urged lawmakers to visit Pennsylvania communities impacted by hydraulic fracturing before granting permits to drill for gas in upstate’s Marcellus Shale.”

A Republican warning Cuomo about the dangers of fracking? Now I truly have seen everything.

“The rash of sex attacks in Brooklyn is even worse than anyone feared. Cops yesterday added seven additional cases to the list of sex crimes believed to be part of a disturbing pattern. The attack toll in Park Slope, Sunset Park, Windsor Terrace and Bay Ridge over the last seven months has now reached 20, officials said. Of the new attacks, six of them occured at one busy Park Slope F-train station, cops said yesterday.”

And that station is… Seventh Avenue (the stop before ours). And the only train that takes us from our house to Manhattan is… the F train.

I’m buying my wife some mace.

Rich Lowry discusses the “puerile ideology of Occupy Wall Street” (which he also calls “insipid”) because he is a smug prick.

The editorial Showdown Postponed complains that “what might have been an ugly confrontation between the trustifarians of the Occupy Wall Street movement and the NYPD was avoided at the last minute yesterday morning.” Damn it! We wanted to put violence on our front page!

Later, the Post takes solace in the fact that the protesters, upon learning about their victory, “several hundred protesters” took to the streets, “leading to clashes with cops throughout the Financial District — a reminder that there has been a violent element to this movement from the start.” Um… what? Tea Partiers brought assault rifles to Town Hall meetings! The protesters on Wall Street have no weapons — and get pepper-sprayed and beaten with nightsticks by overzealous (and/or deranged) police — and they’re the violent ones? That is some fair and balanced thinking.

“Meanwhile, police overtime costs — which hit $3.2 million this week — will continue to grow. (Maybe it’s just time to redeploy them to where they can be more useful — like actually fighting crime or something.)” Mark your calendars. Today is the day the editorial board at this horrible newspaper actually published something intelligent. I’m sure it was an oversight.

“Rep. Edward Markey (D-Mass.) sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos yesterday expressing his privacy concerns with the e-commerce giant’s soon-to-be-launched Kindle Fire tablet. Amazon developed a Web browser called Silk to run on the new device, which was unveiled last month and will be in stores Nov. 15. The browser facilitates speedy Internet surfing but also directs all traffic through its cloud service, allowing it to collect a treasure trove of consumer data.”

“The Silk browser… gives Amazon the ability to track users across the Web as they surf and shop. As a default setting, all users’ online activity is recorded on Amazon servers… Amazon has said consumers can opt-out of routing their activity through its servers, but that slows down their connection.”

If only we had some (¿cómo se dice…?) net neutrality or something.

“In Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Manny Ramirez pleaded not guilty to a domestic battery charge involving his wife… He is free on $2,500 bail.”

It’s just another case of Manny being Manny pleading not guilty.

“ABC has cancelled the low-rated Charlie’s Angels after just four episodes, according to multiple reports.”

I hope co-star Minka Kelly doesn’t get depressed and kill herself over this.

Yes, I do. Derek Jeter should only date me.

And that, finally, is Saturday.

More to come…

“A decade after losing its church in the Sept. 11 attacks, a Greek Orthodox congregation will be allowed to rebuild next to the World Trade Center.”

I am outraged. The Greeks are all violent, smelly trustafarians who spend all of their parents’ money on Apple products and then want free handouts from the government and also want to destroy the government.

Where’s Pamela Geller when you really need her?

“An angry Mayor Bloomberg blasted local politicians yesterday for strong-arming the owners of Zuccotti Park into reversing a decision to clear out encamped Wall Street protesters — and allowing the activists to claim a victory over the city.”

Fun Fact: Mayor Bloomberg’s girlfriend, Diana Taylor, sits on the company’s board of directors. If only she could have told someone with political clout about the threats her company had (allegedly) gotten…

“One source said Brookfield [Properties] caught the city off guard when it first requested help Tuesday night from the NYPD to clear the park, which is open to the public 24 hours a day.’They sent a letter without checking with anyone at City Hall or the Police Department,’ the source said. ‘The city had no choice but to respond.’”

There’s minimal coverage of Felix Rivera-Pitre and the National Lawyers Guild observer who “was apparently pinned by a police scooter,” but most of the coverage is about how though thuggish hippies (?) and their political lackeys strong-armed the city into letting them continue to do drugs and have sex and poop in the street. Right, NYPD spokesthing Paul Browne? “You had a large number of individuals breaking the law by remaining on the street, disrupting traffic, and some of those individuals [were] resisting officers and fighting with them when they were being arrested.”

And yet, out of that “large number of individuals,” just over a dozen were arrested. Funny that.

“A judge yesterday recommended holding al Qaeda liable for nearly $9.4 billion in damages to several insurance companies for the payments they had to make after the 9/11 terror attacks.”

Collecting that money should be easy. Unless al Qaeda hires Joseph Tacopina.

“An ailing Brooklyn priest who had served as an FDNY chaplain for a quarter-century was arrested yesterday on charges of trying to sexually abuse two boys in the rectory of his parish, officials said. Msgr. Thomas Brady, 78, was placed on administrative leave by the Diocese of Brooklyn, which alerted authorities to the alleged crimes in the Good Shepherd Parish in Marine Park… Brady was released on $2,000 bail after appearing in Brooklyn Criminal Court on charges, including attempted sex abuse.”

In a related story, Kansas City’s Catholic bishop [Bishop Robert Finn] has become the highest-ranking U.S. Catholic official indicted on a charge of failing to protect children after he and his diocese waited five months to tell police about hundreds of images of child pornography discovered on a priest’s computer, officials said Friday.

Jesus Christ.

A month ago, Dominique Strauss-Kahn was on French TV claiming there was “no act of aggression” against Tristane Banon that night in 2003. But when he was questioned by police, he told them, “I tried to take her into my arms. I tried to kiss her on the mouth. She pushed back firmly. She cried out, more or less, ‘Are you mad?’ I immediately relaxed my grip. She grabbed her things and left the flat, furious.”

Geez, this guy is almost as bad as that Nafissatou Diallo lady! Pick a story!

Michael Ramirez drew the political cartoon featured in Page Six (today on page 10). It’s a picture of what Ramirez believes the typical Occupy Wall Street protester looks like and has helpfully labelled his various accessories, including: NIKE HAT, COCA COLA T-SHIRT, DOLCE & GABBANA PANTS, APPLE IPHONE and a bag of food from MCDONALDS [sic].

That’s all I have time for today. Off to yet another rehearsal.

Enjoy what remains of the weekend.

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.

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!