Thanks to his brilliant campaign maneuvering, Bloomberg earned a landslide just-over-50% victory over Bill Thompson, a local man who is notable for not being Mike Bloomberg.

It was a slimy, scorched earth campaign. Bloomberg didn't campaign for a third term of Mike Bloomberg, he campaigned on the utter pointlessness of bothering to show up to vote for anyone else. Bloomberg won 50,342 more votes than Bill Thompson. Again, we remind you, because no one else bothers to: every night, 40,000 people sleep in New York city homeless shelters. (At the peak of the '80s homelessness crisis, that number was 29,000. It was around 30,000 when Bloomberg began his first term. Thousands more sleep on the streets.)

All the papers have done the math, pointing out that Bloomberg spent $151.27 on each vote. That's not really accurate. He spent that $100 million convincing people not to vote. And it worked.

To sum up our feelings this morning: fuck the New York Democratic Party, fuck Christine Quinn, fuck Barack Obama, fuck Valerie Jarrett, fuck Anthony Weiner, hard, and, in closing, fuck Howard Wolfson and his fucking Cosby sweaters and his fucking boring taste in fucking terrible indie music. (And fuck Jimmy Fallon.)

When an incumbent runs for reelection, it all comes down to whether or not people think he's doing a good job, not a normal comparison between two candidates. Love him or hate him, Mike Bloomberg is sweeping toward a third term not because of his heavy spending or his weak opponent, as the credulous local press thinks, but because his job approval rating is 60%. New Jersey proves the same rule from the opposite direction: Gov. Jon Corzine's approval is about 35%, so even in a heavily Democratic state, he'll be lucky to scrape by. And! There's a Virginia governor's race, a special election for Congress upstate, big mayors' races in Boston, Detroit, Miami, Houston, Seattle, Pittsburgh and Atlanta, and gay marriage is on the ballot in Maine and Washington.

Yes, Bloomberg's spending wildly. He's hired half the city's Democratic consultants just to tie them down, robo-calling everyone who still has a land line, stuffing your mailbox, and taking out redonkulous ads like one in the Jerusalem Post edition that comes with the Sunday NY Post. His consultants have a vested interest in convincing a very rich man to spend a lot of money he won't miss. But they can't take credit for making the sun rise.

And sure, Bill Thompson's a weak opponent. He explains why NYC's Dems, despite a 4-1 voter registration advantage, incredibly haven't elected a mayor since the 1980s. As a fixture in local politics for the last few decades, one suspects that if Thompson had any stirring leadership qualities we would have seen them by now. He's made Bloomberg's override of term limits the center of his campaign. But the sad reality is people care more about quality of life than the niceties of the political process. If they like the incumbent, they don't even look at the challenger, those are the rules. You can't beat someone the voters don't want to fire.

But if you're an incumbent who the voters do want to fire, like poor Gov. Corzine with his 58% disapproval rating, is all lost? Well, you still have one option: disqualify your opponent. Making voters hate him even more than they hate you. Which explains the relentless, ungracious ads attacking Republican Chris Christie. Driving up Christie's negative ratings — together with the Democrats' strong edge in New Jersey, and the presence of independent candidate Chris Daggett to drain the anti-incumbent vote (as well as the all-important Chris vote) — is what has Corzine clinging to life. But that doesn't mean he'll pull through.

Join me below in the comments as the returns come in.

UPDATE, 11:30: Tonight's 49%-45% loss for New Jersey's Democratic governor Jon Corzine to Republican Chris Christie is a blow to Barack Obama, as is the 18-point victory in Virginia for Republican Robert McDonnell over Democrat Creigh Deeds.

But the President's biggest headache is likely to be blowback from the narrower-than-expected victory of Michael Bloomberg, edging Bill Thompson by just under five points, 51%-46%, after Obama gave Thompson only the most grudging of endorsements and declined to invest any political capital in the race. Democrats are going to look at this near-miss with anger, and at a time when Obama is already under fire from Democrats for falling short of last year's promised changes, and losing ground to Republicans in NJ and Virginia, he's likely to bear the brunt of the recriminations.

Those (like me, above in this post) who derided Mayor Bloomberg's huge spending as excessive now look a little silly: Just as JFK's father infamously forbade his son from buying one more vote than necessary — "I'll be damned if I'll pay for a landslide" — Bloomberg's $100 million campaign now looks to be a model of efficiency. (On the other hand, the heavy spending may have turned voters off.)

For the President, and liberals, the special election in upstate NY is one bright spot. Democrat Bill Owens is holding a reliable lead of 49%-45% over Conservative Doug Hoffman after Republican Dede Scozzafava withdrew, with 84% of the vote counted.

In Maine, supporters of gay marriage are narrowly behind, 48%-52%, with 76% of the vote in (with a number of Portland votes yet to be counted). But gay marriage holds a narrow, 52%-48% lead in Washington State, with 42% of precincts reporting.

I know the Awl and Gawker (where I'll be live-chatting tonight's results) have joined the haters who want to throw out the best mayor this city has had in my lifetime (which is longer than some). Here are the top ten reasons you shouldn't join them.

10. Term limits are for suckers. Seriously. Fuck ‘em. Gold stars to all the Council members who voted to override. Who are a bunch of Ron Lauder-manipulated voters from the anti-incumbent craze of the early '90s to tell me who I can and can't vote for? Oh, you say, the sacred will of the voters can't be touched. Well, go to California, where decades of voter-passed propositions that can't be changed have smothered the governing process in quicksand. And don't you support overturning the California voters' ban on gay marriage? Ah, as I thought. And if that still doesn't convince you, think of it this way: if the term limits law included a provision allowing the City Council to override it, then the override was totally legitimate.

9. He doesn't care what people think of him or the niceties of the political process, which often comes in handy. He just cares about outcomes. He's outside the city's established, still-clubby political structure.

8. The 311 system and NYC.gov. What a concept: customer service for everyone who lives in NYC.

7. He's kept crime going down without the Mussolini-like police tactics of Giuliani. There have been no mayorally-sanctioned police hate crimes like Diallo, Louima and Dorismond.

6. He supports the arts, instead of attacking them as Giuliani did.

5. Fuck Critical Mass. A bunch of spoiled, self-righteous kids who think they're striking a blow against… something, by indulging their free-floating aggression toward everyone and tying up neighborhoods. If they can't stop at red lights, take their bikes and slap them with citations.

4. Unlike Giuliani, who tried to shut down and sell off the city's community gardens, Bloomberg has been a champion of open space, reclaiming traffic lanes for de facto parks around Times Square, Herald Square, Madison Square Park, the Lower East Side and elsewhere. He's closed down Park Ave. during the summer and was key to rescuing the High Line. His planning commissioner, Amanda Burden, has waged war on overdesigned developments that would have disfigured neighborhoods, and works constantly to increase New Yorkers' access to waterways.

3. The Nanny State. I don't care what people say, using government to direct people away from habits that are bad for them is 100% awesome. I don't believe those studies that say posting calorie counts doesn't work - I've myself been surprised to find out how many calories certain foods contain, and grateful for the info that helped me avoid them. And the trans-fat ban is great for fighting obesity. Fuck "free choice" - you think you had free choice at age 13 when Joe Camel convinced you and your friends that it would be cool to adopt a deadly, addictive habit?

2. So: the smoking ban. If nothing else, this alone would make Mike Bloomberg a national hero. Don't you like not having to strip off your clothes, enclose them in a hazmat bag and drop them straight off at the cleaners after a night at a bar? Notice how it's spread to other cities and states, and even longtime smokers' bastions like Ireland and Italy? That, plus high taxes on cigarettes that come closer to paying the true cost smoking and smokers impose on society has nearly driven smoking onto New York's endangered species list, where it belongs, and strongly discouraged underage smoking when people have the least ability to resist adopting self-destructive habits.

1. He kept us from going under after 9/11, as many expected. Not caring about politics, he forced an austerity budget on the city and an 18% property tax hike - which he ended as soon as the budget was in the clear.

You know those idiots who don't know anything about politics but think it sounds smart to say "I am a social liberal and an economic conservative?" Bloomberg is the candidate for them, if they love a liberal nanny state and a conservative religious fervor for the eternal goodness of private enterprise.

For all the talk of Bloomberg the power-player who at least gets things done without worrying about the unions and special interests, he's been unable to win any political battle with anyone he couldn't literally buy off. Like Sheldon Silver, who (thankfully) killed the West Side Stadium and (annoyingly) ended all that "Congestion Pricing" talk. And those unions and special interests were just bought off, which worked fine back when the boom whose end Bloomberg never saw coming was in full swing.

And about that stadium: what the fuck was that? And the Olympics thing? After bitching about Giuliani's disgraceful subsidizing of the fucking Yankees, Bloomberg both turns around completely on that particular issue and attempts to build the fucking Jets a stadium, so that New York could get an Olympics that it did not want. And that failed, and everyone forgot about it. Meanwhile: 40,000 people in shelters! Bloomberg could personally buy every single one of those people an apartment in a vacant Williamsburg luxury condo building and still have enough left over to bribe a City Council member into supporting his fifth term.

And those luxury Williamsbug condo buildings, by the way, that stand vacant? Yes, well, that was part of this brilliant plan to utilize rezoning to spur the free market (which always allocates resources more efficiently than anything else in the history of civilization but sometimes it needs government help, like with tax breaks and stuff) to create affordable housing all over the waterfront. This did not work, as developers decided to just not bother to build all those affordable housing units they were supposed to build. More than 2,200 promised new affordable apartments in Williamsburg and Greenpoint have turned out to be 768, 20 percent of which are renovations of apartments that were already affordable. There are lots more of these stories.

His record on housing, like his record on nearly everything having to do with the outer boroughs and poverty and human beings who make less than $100,000 a year, has been a ridiculous disgrace. His entire philosophy of development solving everything turned out to be precisely, 100% wrong, and suddenly the city itself was driving the real estate boom, driving up land prices to absurd levels across the boroughs and tearing down neighborhoods only to replace them with vacant lots and half-filled cheaply built hideous high-rises once the bottom fell out of the City Hall-inflated market. But hey, we got the High Line and 311! So you can sleep in that fancy park while you call 311 asking if there is room in a shelter because you can no longer afford your home.

Eight years into the Bloomberg administration, Ground Zero is a still a hole that everyone continues fighting about.

The MTA has raised fares while cutting service (without actually cutting service, officially—it's just that whatever line you happen to ride is suddenly experiencing a whole lot of track work every single goddamn weekend).

The Gays: still not married! And also a lot of them are getting beaten up on the streets these days for some reason?

Bloomberg is also the beneficiary of the most friendly news coverage of any big city mayor in the nation. Easily. It helps that, you know, he is a media mogul, himself, and he is good, close, personal friends with the three publishers who run the newspapers that went after each one of his predecessors for shit they've let slide under this mayor, because they know he's a good, decent guy, at heart, and the only one who can Fix New York, because of his Money.

Can you imagine how the Post would've blown up if David Dinkins lied about taking the Subway to work every day? The Daily News response to discovering that John Lindsay flew to Bermuda every weekend?

Let's talk about the cops, for a second: they are still operating under Giuliani levels of complete disregard for the law. They are getting drunk and running people over and shooting unarmed black people and sodomizing people in subway stations. The Civilian Complaint Review Board has become a joke, unless your case gets a lot of publicity. There's obviously no accountability, whatsoever, and no attempt to recruit and train more cops from the communities they actually police. The NYPD remains, primarily, the home of roided-out white people from outside the city with a great deal of contempt for civil liberties. The Mayor always sounds properly upset when some of them rape someone, but he's never done a damn thing to rein them in or change the culture.

What he has done is Keep Us Safe by never once giving a shit about Civil Liberties. The cops stop and frisk thousands more people every year, your 4th Amendment rights do not apply in the Subway system, and expensive and completely ineffective new rings of cameras are going up across Manhattan.

Bloomberg deserves to be run out of town on an inadequately funded public rail line for the 2004 GOP convention alone. Remember that ridiculous farce? No, of course not, no one does, besides the thousands of people improperly spied on, arrested, harassed, and detained by the NYPD. All of this was completely illegal. No heads rolled.

One more special bonus factoid: New York leads the world in marijuana arrests! Specifically, marijuana arrests of black people!

And he is personally a jerk. He is a thin-skinned, unpleasant, sanctimonious asshole. His company is being sued for a culture of sexual discrimination that plaintiffs say Bloomberg himself contributed to. He is a tremendous dick to reporters whenever he gets cranky. He is fucking race-baiting with Rudy Giuliani again, because why not?

He has been a shitty mayor and he does not deserve the support of anyone who claims to be a liberal. Though what all of his most destructive missteps as mayor have in common is that they do not in any way upset or inconvenience the well-off self-professed liberals who support him. Besides maybe a couple Critical Mass riders arrested in illegal sweeps. (Though he sure does like bike lanes, so it's a wash, right?)

We cannot encourage you to vote for the Democrat in the race, because even we still aren't sure if we'll go for him or the much more delightful Billy Talen. Just don't fucking vote for Michael Bloomberg.

Eccentricity has its charms, of course, but woman cannot survive on excitement alone! But thanks to the magical duo of Michael Bloomberg and that other guy who keeps threatening to run for political office again before recalling how much he likes to golf, NYC is now a magical wonderland where street cleaners dedicated to their craft slap giant green post-its on your car windows if you dare obstruct their work. This new NYC populated by Cornell grads where the NYPD tows its damn breakdowns is the reason Bloomberg will be Mayor forever and ever!

But what is this?

New Yorkers are fleeing this Utopia for Florida? Well, yes. Turns out all this wonderful service comes at the cost of some of the highest tax rates in the country, which... well, duh.

Things have gotten so bad, Manhattanites are moving to the Bronx and Brooklynites are moving to Staten Island. The end times are here, people!

If you're looking for someone to blame, the Wall Street Journal helpfully suggests you look under "Liberals: Just Desserts."

[Pic: AIP History Center Web Exhibit]

"This city could very easily be taken back in a very different direction," he continued. What direction is this, exactly? "It could very easily be taken back to the way it was with the wrong political leadership." Hmm! He must not mean taken back to the way it was when he was mayor. So maybe he means the way it was under the guy before him? What does that guy, David Dinkins, have in common with Bloomberg challenger Bill Thompson, exactly? Oh, right, they are Democrats.

When Bloomberg was asked if he agreed with Giuliani's statements, on how the blacks are going to take over the city and mug all the Jews to death forever, Bloomberg said he was worried that New York could become Detroit.

As usual, Bloomberg means real New York, not the bits that are basically already as bad off as Detroit.

[Photo: AP]

At last night's mayoral debate (sigh), Bloomberg announced that he thinks Rudy would be a "good governor." That right there should disqualify Bloomberg from holding any elected office, that he'd just straight-up lie like that. He knows full well that Rudy is a corrupt, race-baiting little would-be tyrant who'd make Spitzer's tantrums look like shrewd political deal-making.

From when Rudy attempted to run for a then-illegal third term through when Bloomberg bitched about the deficits he inherited to when Rudy got pissed at Bloomberg for dipping his toes in the 2008 presidential race, theirs has been a friendship for the ages. We are thrilled to see it still so strong.

At the end of the press briefing today, Robert Gibbs said this:

"The president is the leader of the Democratic Party and as that would support the Democratic nominee," Gibbs said in response to a question from DN reporter Kenneth Bazinet.

"The president obviously has had a chance to, throughout campaigning and his time both as a candidate and as president, to meet, know and work with Mayor Bloomberg and obviously has a tremendous amount of respect for what he's done as well," Gibbs hastened to add.

Hah. "The Democratic nominee." That's Bill Thompson, though you wouldn't know it from Gibbs' statement.

Bloomberg might be the single most self-impressed person in New York, which is frankly a stunning feat. But he happens to think that his career making a lot of money and then semi-competently steering New York during an economic boom makes him basically more qualified to be President than anyone else. He still lives in that bubble where "management" skills are proof of political acumen and not evidence that you're just a dick. And "management" contempt for underlings generally goes unpunished if you're profitable.

Bloomberg didn't like Barack Obama. He never endorsed Barack Obama. Even after making a big deal of meeting with him, he offered only perfunctory compliments. But, you know, if they back a loser, they'll look weak!

"How would you like to use your mobile device to see a map of available parking spaces in your neighborhood," Mayor Bloomberg asks in a Daily News op-ed, "and also use it to pay your meter?" That would be amazing, if we had a car. (Though we don't think people should be using their "mobile devices" while driving around our neighborhoods maybe?)

Then Bloomberg promises to get rid of the dreaded alternate-side parking in the nicer Brooklyn neighborhoods, and announces that "soon, we'll begin a pilot program in the Riverdale section of the Bronx."

Oh, good. A pilot cell-phone parking meter project will begin soon, in the Bronx.

Man, that reminds us, what were we just reading about the Bronx again? Oh, right, it remains America's poorest urban county with more than a quarter of the population living below the poverty line. And that is not counting the homeless!

"Last year, according to the Coalition for the Homeless, there were more than 110,000 people who spent at least one night in a shelter," said Joel Berg of the New York City Coalition Against Hunger.

The report also found 26 percent of Hispanics are at poverty level — the highest of any ethnic group in the city. The Bronx and Queens are the only boroughs that saw the overall number of poor go up between 2007 and 2008. The Bronx came in with nearly 22,000 people.

"One of the reasons that is, is poor people are being pushed out of places like Manhattan and forced to relocate to the Bronx," Berg said.

Well, hopefully the 2009 numbers will show the effects of Mayor Bloomberg's ambitious, poverty-fighting "mobile device parking meter pilot program."

Bloomberg famously wants to regulate what you eat and how you eat it—he banned the use of transfats in the city, forced restaurants to post nutritional information, and has nagged New Yorkers about all the salt they eat. So it's a worthy enterprise to point out, as the Times does, that he eats like shit and puts salt on everything and is a cosmic, nagging hypocrite:

But Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others' lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt shaker.) He sprinkles so much salt on his morning bagel "that it's like a pretzel," said the manager at Viand, a Greek diner near Mr. Bloomberg's Upper East Side town house.

Not even pizza is spared a coat of sodium. When the mayor sat down to eat a slice at Denino's Pizzeria Tavern on Staten Island recently, this reporter spotted him applying six dashes of salt to it.

Also, he doesn't really ride the subway as frequently as he seems to claim to! This is all well and good, and we really do enjoy reading about Bloomberg's unhealthy relationship to food. He's basically Cathy: "[T]he sight of an unflattering photo of himself can trigger weeks of intense dieting and crankiness, according to friends and aides." But maybe the Times should spend more time looking into why Bloomberg hired Brad Tusk, who spent four years as deputy governor of Illinois under Rod Blagojevich—four years during which Tusk's boss was the target of a federal corruption probe? Or maybe how he seems to still be running his business and using it to reward political allies? We know salt is an important issue, but sometimes people are interested in money and corruption, too.

We took the V (for Vogue) train all the way out to Queen's Center in Rego Park, Queens to find the queen of the fashion world. The Mall itself looks like any other mall in any city in America, and the Macy's is like any other Macy's.

When we arrived, it appeared totally empty, a security guard pointed us toward the Fashion's Night Out event, and that's where all the people were clustered.

We talked to Keyana, one of the girls who works in the store. She said that on a normal Thursday, the place is packed with shoppers. Tonight, there was no one there but the melee surrounding the upcoming event. So, there are fewer people shopping than usual? "Yeah," Keyana said. Did she know what all this was about? "There are some people coming, but I don't know who." Who do you want to come. "Tommy Hilfiger or Kimora Lee Simmons. I'd want to see them."

On the other side of the stage was the line for the fifty people who got tickets to have their Fashion's Night Out T-Shirt signed by Wintour and Michael Kors, who was also in attendance. A group of nice ladies in line said they got there at 4 pm, an hour before the event started, and got tickets no problem. They had come up from south Jersey just for the event. "We wanna see Michael Kors. We're big fans," one said. They each bought a T-shirt, and one woman spent $80, so Anna's scheme is working—a little.

Nearby, Rose wasn't lucky enough to get in line. Why was she there. "I love Project Runway. I just want to see Michael Kors," she said. "Some Anna woman is going to be here too, but I don't know who she is. Some magazine woman. I know who Nina Garcia is though."

The CEO of Macy's comes out and introduces Kors and Kate Hudson. Wait, no Anna? The pair introduce the cast from Hair who do a few numbers. Then Mayor Bloomberg comes on the stage and introduces Wintour and Diane von Furstenberg. Bloomberg says when Wintour and DVF first pitched him the idea was crazy, but no one says, "No" to these two women. How true.

Wintour and Kors come sit at a table and sign autographs for the 50 people in line. Wintour is uncharacteristically all smiles and greats each person very pleasantly. We're just trying to get a good photo. There is a huge rush to get pictures of the two at the table.

While standing there a nice older Latina asks me to take a picture with her cell phone. I kindly oblige. I hand her back her phone and she says, "Mayor Bloomberg?" No, he left. "Oh, who is it?" Anna Wintour. "Not Bloomberg?" Sorry.

Suddenly a woman starts screaming something about Anna Wintour being the enemy because she wears fur and how Vogue should be ashamed of itself. Security quickly sees her out. We can't see Anna's face at this point, but she appears unfazed.

After about 20 minutes it's time for the bob to leave, and we snap a pic of it from behind. "Who was that?" an older lady nearby asks. "She's the head of Vogue," her friend replies. Did the pair enjoy the event? "It was fun, but it was so short." Are you going to stay and shop? "Not here. We're going to JCPenney."

Anna was off to Bloomingdale's on Lexington Avenue, and we followed. This time, we were behind the press line, waiting with the rest of the paparazzi and a swarm of people who were there to see Gwen Stefani. It appears that Anna was a last minute addition to the roster. When the PR girl comes out and tells the paps that Gwen and Anna will be coming out, they get all upset. Apparently, a photo of Gwen and Anna is worth way less than one of Gwen alone.

One shooter asks his friend, "What's happening?" "Anna Wintour is coming out with Gwen." "Who's that?" "She's the real life Devil Wears Prada."

The pair come out and everyone takes their pictures. After a minute, Anna pushes Stefani into the spotlight and leaves with a quick "Goodbye, Gwen." Stefani follows her. The photogs are all in a tizzy because they didn't get their solo Gwen shots. After a couple minutes, Stefani comes back and the flashbulbs start going off and everyone is shouting orders for poses.

We think it's rude that on Anna's special night, everyone would rather see some pop star turned designer. We leave in protest, happy with our blurry pictures and knowing that we got close to our obsession twice in one day.

Apparently a bird of some kind—possibly a goose or a starling or a Romulan Warbird—struck a Dassault 900EX carrying Bloomberg and others to Ted Kennedy's funeral. The plane landed safely and everyone was unharmed, but this was obviously just a warning.

In an effort to test the waters, Giuliani has been meeting with Republican leaders and even convinced the state's Republican Party chairman Joseph N. Mondello to resign so that his friend, Henry F. Wojtaszek, can take the position. In addition, Giuliani held a meeting with leaders in Buffalo and told them that he will decide his fate over the course of the next 30-60 days. It shouldn't take that long.

There's very little chance that current Governor David Paterson will run, because only 32% of New York voters view him in a favorable light. And, more importantly, he's trailing 65-23% when pitted against his most-likely challenger, Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. It's unlikely the state's Democratic party would pick Paterson over Cuomo. It's just common sense. So, let's assume Cuomo runs... Giuliani's people insist he's not thinking about the competition, but you know that's just talk. How could he not be eyeing Cuomo, who's approval ratings are sky high: 67% of Empire State residents gave him the thumbs up at the end of June, only a slight dip from his personal high of 71% in March.

Even if Giuliani's not worried about current polls, he should remember the presidential primary. In January of last year, about 40% of New Yorkers said they would likely vote for John McCain, Giuliani's then-rival. That's not very inspiring for Giuliani, who liked to highlight his post-9/11 leadership abilities, which inspired his ridiculous "America's Mayor" projection.

As if that's not enough, there's another Cuomo-related hurdle: the Clintons. Cuomo worked as President Bill Clinton's Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Then, during last year's primaries, Cuomo was a voracious Hillary Clinton supporter.

The Clintons remember their friends (and their enemies), so we're assuming the power couple would throw their weight behind Cuomo. Yes, Giuliani has become tight with Sarah Palin, but even the former Alaska Governor is no match for the Clinton machine. And that machine which will no doubt be handy when it comes to raising campaign for Cuomo, who as of last month had $5.1 million on hand.

Giuliani would be much better off remaining in the private sector, where he can lord over his two companies — both of which he would have to abandon should he choose to run — and make thousands giving motivational and policy speeches. Of course, this is politics and things could change at any moment, especially if Giuliani asks current NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg to be his running mate, as many believe he will.

Still, we're not convinced Giuliani should run. But he probably will, because he's a cocky kind of guy and if he's delusional enough to think he could be president, he's absolutely convinced the Governor's mansion has his name on it.

• Paula Abdul definitely got the invite to be a judge on Dancing With The Stars, and also as a guest star or contestant. Reports the NY Daily News: "ABC Entertainment President Steve McPherson said Saturday he called her right after he heard about her exit from Fox's "American Idol" to say she'd be welcome anytime on ABC's "Dancing with the Stars." This is in addition to the offer she got from the British guy on So You Think You Can Dance. I haven't watched American Idol since they stopped summarily executing the losers, but can someone tell me if Paula Abdul is actually coherent enough to take one of these jobs? I always assumed she still has to be wrangled by a group of handlers who keep on feeding her Sour Skittles and telling her that SkatKat's coming to get her if she doesn't show up to work, but again, I'm not completely up to speed on these things. If true, however, how unfair is it that someone who fights the effects of gravity daily in a Herculean struggle to stand up (which sounds like it could be a Paula Abdul song) actually sit around judging how someone dances? That'd be like having me be the deciding vote at next year's Pulitzer ceremony. [NYDN]
  
  
• Jessica Simpson is apparently training for the Coyboys' Hell Week or something to get back at Tony Romo by being really thin. She's going about this all wrong. The best way to get back at Tony Romo is to keep showing up at his football games. For the uneducated, Simpson had the unique skill of being able to make him throw the football in the exact opposite place it's supposed to go (in some circles, this is referred to as "cooling" or "fucking up one's mojo"). Seriously. Someone buy this woman season tickets. [Page Six]
  
  
• Cheech Marin got married! And the wedding cake was actually shaped and functioned as a gigantic gravity bong! Oh, just kidding, but you'd believe it, wouldn't you? So would I. [People]
  
  
• Rush & Molloy's big item of the week is a snoozer about Bloomberg. Get this: he used to think less of Obama than he does now, thought he'd make a better president, likes to say "fuck" a lot, and likes shiksa girlfriends. Where'd they get all this incredible information? Bloomberg's friends. Crazy talk! Meanwhile, people have opinions, egomaniacs always think they can do better than someone else at anything, everybody says "fuck" a lot, and Jewish dudes love dating The Goyim mostly because it freaks their overbearing mothers out. Mazel, Mike. [R & M]
  
  
• Ha, was Joe Jonas dumped?!? Asks Page Six today in which case someone's going to need a SWAT unit to protect them because a bunch of teenage girls are about to come at your face with the burning fury of a thousand suns and then some. [Page Six]
  
  
• Kelsey Grammar says his heart attack gave him a way to "re-tool" his life. What was so wrong with it in the first place? [Reuters]
  
  
• Some writer at E! has a conspiracy theory that Vanessa Hudgens' nude shots were leaked recently to drum up publicity for her new film, to which I say: Vanessa who has a new film? Guess it didn't work. Maybe make her jump through a burning hula-hoop or something. Or send us a press release. Or make her eat toast. [E!]
  
  
• More denial by Will and Jada Pinkett Smith about whether or not they're Scientologists and whether or not they fired the principal of their new Scientology school. [Page Six]
  
  
• Former child actor Mark Lester says that he's the father of Michael Jackson's child Paris. He says he's coming forward now out of concern for the welfare and well-being of the children, and that he wants to take the paternity test. The knee-jerk reaction to this kind of thing is now?! Actually, that's more or less just the full-on reaction. And why can't this guy "come out" in a more private space? Does everyone have to get a bullhorn and start screaming about how they "gave Michael my sperm so that he could have kids," now? (Actual Quote). Anyway, his film career is basically him playing "Oliver" so don't go looking too deeply through that IMDB page when you get around to it, nothing really interesting there unless you count the fact that the dude inseminated Michael Jackson's baby mama and he was a child star, ahem. [NYDN]
  
  
• Cry-alert: Jerry Orbach's widow says she talks to her deceased husband every day in what might be the most bittersweet Page Six item I've ever read. [Page Six]
  
  
• Simon Cowell's ex-girlfriend Terri Seymour won't get back with him, and isn't saying why. Not because he's an asshole, maybe? I don't know, Cowell doesn't seem like the worst dude in the world to me. I'd sincerely like there to be some kind of investigation into this. Maybe it has something to do with those gawdawful black shirts. Or maybe his pillow-talk? You just didn't give enough, Terri. I'm afraid a second go at it is going to be a no. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• E! scored an exclusive interview with Jon Gosselin, and it's going live tomorrow night, the evening after Kate goes on the Today Show. Think of this as the Katie Couric/Sarah Palin of braindead celebrity journalism. [E!]
  
  
• Gerard Butler likes dumb women, and I like Gerard Butler. Not necessarily because he likes dumb women, but because he has no reservations about saying so. Good on him; shamelessness is an underrated virtue. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Chris Brown wants to drop a track with Leona Lewis. Insert obvious "Bleeding Love" joke here. [Showbiz Spy]
  
  
• Via E!, here's video of Lady Gaga performing an all-piano version of Poker Face with an Elephant on her head. No indication about whether or not she's hiding a weenus somewhere under there. Meanwhile, officials note she is still the most patently ridiculous person ever, and we should elect her the Mayor of Savantland. Happy Sunday.

After two terms of not giving a shit about transit, and despite not having any control over the MTA, nor any real chance of gaining control of the MTA, and despite the fact that the MTA always and forever claims to be completely out of money and unable to reliably provide the service we are supposed to have now, Mike Bloomberg laid out a 33-point proposal for transit in his third term that amounts entirely to "a list of awesome things that will magically happen if you vote for me, for free, I promise."

Free crosstown buses! The V will run into Brooklyn! Express service on the F! Countdown clocks for every train! Reopening LIRR stations in Queens! Military technology to track buses! More ferries! New smart cards to replace MetroCards!

All of this sounds great to us! It is just too bad that the mayor is only responsible for 4 out of 17 votes on the MTA board, and so therefore he does not have the authority to implement any of these ideas that he stole from Anthony Weiner and others! (Hey, he could get Albany to give him more control, like with the schools, right? The could take care of it right after the State Senate gets around to giving him back control of the schools, which they might someday do, maybe.) So reelect Mayor Bloomberg and he promises an express train that runs directly from your apartment to work, and it will be free, and it will have a non-stop open bar!

Reports the New York Times:

The Bloomberg administration, which has struggled with a seemingly intractable problem of homelessness for years, has paid for more than 550 families to leave the city since 2007, as a way of keeping them out of the expensive shelter system, which costs $36,000 a year per family. All it takes is for a relative elsewhere to agree to take the family in.

The city, which spends $500,000 a year on the program, employs a local travel agency, Austin Travel, to book one-way tickets for domestic trips. Department of Homeless Services employees do all the planning for international travel.

The story goes on to report that city officials say there is no limit on where entire families can be transported. So far, they have placed people all over the country and on 5 continents. Financial aid is also offered to help ease the transition, with the city willing to advance a family up to four months worth of rent money and pay their security deposit, plus an allowance to cover the cost of new furniture and any broker's fees involved.

Reading this story caused two things to enter our minds: The first thing being this woman that we've been seeing for years panhandling with her kids on the subway, the 6 train if we remember correctly. Over the entire span of time we've seen her working the trains, she peddles the same tale of woe—that she and her kids are from out of state and that her car broke down and she just needs money for a new battery or something to get back to where she and her kids came from. We're going to print a copy of this story out and carry it inside of our trusty backpack so we can give it to her the next time she asks us for change on the train.

The second thing we thought of was how we've always wanted to live in Paris and how we're pretty deft at dirtying ourselves up, to the point where people have actually thought we might actually be homeless. Just saying.

City Aids Homeless With One-Way Tickets Home [New York Times]
pic via