• New York mag's sex columnist Amy Sohn spares us her return. Instead, she'll be writing in-depth features for the magazine on matters such as breast milk and bjorns, reasoning that "parenting is hot right now." Yeah? Tell that to our Ortho Tri-Cyclen, crazy lady. [NYO]
• A glimpse into Jared Paul Stern's future at Page Six: "Insiders say that Walter Ripley, currently serving a six-and-a-half-year sentence for racketeering, has been slowly moving in on the cigarette and pornography concession previously run by kidnapper George 'Two Thumbs' Theophilus." [McSweeney's]
• More on Ron Burkle's power in Democratic party. [Kausfiles]
• And even The Onion weighs in. [The Onion]
• MySpace is so dangerous, they've hired former federal prosecutor Hemanshu Nigam to keep the kiddies safe from internet predators. [NYT]
• The only Ann Coulter movie we'd ever see. [Towleroad]
• "JT Leroy" continues to write, albeit for something called Lemon. [FishbowlNY]
• Smirnoff will teach Brooklynites "how to do graffiti." Brooklynites, in return, will teach Smirnoff how to fuck off and die like the corporate whores they are. [Consumerist]

So. The Park Slope hat. New York reported on it this week, and we brought you the whole email exchange yesterday afternoon. All sorts of things were debated: Is it a boy's hat or is it a girl's hat, or is it for infants with abnormally large heads? Does headgear reinforce gender roles, are parents inadvertent sexist, are Park Slopers crazy P.C. Nazis? (Um, yeah, definitely yes to that last one.) But one thing was never really resolved: What ever became of the hat? This morning, thank God (whomever your god might be), there was an answer:

New York mag has a cute front-of-book item today on an only-in-Park-Slope battle that recently raged on an email list for earnest and progressive parents in that earnestly progressive Brooklyn neighborhood. As Ben Mathis-Lilley explains:

We like the idea of the planet occasionally swallowing a gas-guzzling, ozone-depleting SUV. But doesn't it defeat the whole purpose if mass transit is knocked out as part of the deal?

God we love pissed off old New Yorkers.

Bruce Ratner is happily bulldozing his way through Brooklyn, molding Marty Markowitz's borough to his whims. Nothing can stand in his way; nothing can stop him. Well, only one thing, according to the Sun: Fake email.

Has the struggling-to-stay-on-top Daily News adopted the Sun's give-it-away circ strategy? A favorite source files this report from Brooklyn Heights:

The city is apparently thisclose to reopening the Brooklyn House of Detention, that hulking highrise jail between Atlantic and Pacific Avenues in Cobble Hill. The move may be necessary to ease imminent overcrowding at Rikers Island, according to the Times, and it will pose no risk for the yuppie-hipster neighborhood, as the prisoners will be kept safely under lock and key. To further ensure minimal neighborhood disruption, immediately upon arrival the prisoners will be issued horn-rimmed glasses, iPods, and, of course, magazine jobs.

Was this really shot late one recent night on Brooklyn yeshiva scene, as we were told it was by the hipster Hasid who sent it in? Who knows? But it's one teenage Hasidic boychik, complete with tzitzit and the big hat, rocking out Michael Jackson-style, as all his little Hasidic friends cheer him on. And it's kind of freaking hilarious. L'chaim!

Last week the Times's Metro metrosexual Nick Confessore brought us an elegiac 750 words, teased prominently on B1, relaying the general-contracting news that a Windsor Terrace bar is replacing its floor.

A neighborhood bar in Windsor Terrace closes. For a few days. To replace its floor. And somehow Metro metrosexual Nick Confessore spins that general-contracting squib into an elegaic 750-word narrative with a huge B1 teaser.

Finally, after a seemingly endless spat of noncommittal and emotionally unsatisfying renting, Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams have decided to buy in Boerum Hill. The two shelled out $3.5 million for a four-story corner spread two blocks "south of Smith Street" (or says the Australian paper). The price makes the 'hood almost the new Park Slope, but the nearby housing projects help to maintain just enough grit for Heath Ledger to grouchily ride his skateboard without worry.

We know you're all considering the move to the sixth borough — Dumbo is so played out, man — and so we want to pass along this warning about the risks of that move, as noted by Philadelphia Weekly:

This is neither the time nor the place to get into our very conflicted feelings about Park Slope, but suffice it to say we think The Muk Report's proposed t-shirt designs are hilariously funny:

Direct from the other borough's hot neighborhood du jour, South Slope, signs that the wilds of Brooklyn are increasingly safe for gentrification: a new sort of working professional is moving in, and they don't operate out of '82 Oldsmobiles.

So what if The Washington Post got scooped on its own ur-story a few months ago, when it allowed Vanity Fair to beat it to outing Mark Felt as Deep Throat? The paper is still breaking all sorts of news (even as its star investigative correspondent keeps secrets from its editor for years at a time).

By the time we got to the third page of Mark Lotto's ode to Brooklyn in today's Observer, we were starting to think that, in fact, Brooklyn might be the way. The borough's celebrity-friendly neighborhoods, sprinkled with "Sesame Street idealism" and domesticated couples clutching soy chai lattes, very well may be the antidote to the perpetually adolescent woes of Manhattan living. And, God, it just sounds so damn nice out there. Why don't we just take the leap and cross the river?

A Manhattan-bound commuter reports on a unique F-train ride this morning:

When the Flatbush Pavilion movie theater went dark, its marquee remained unchanged, a memorial to the movies that killed it for good: Van Helsing and Man On Fire.

Not that anyone who knows anything about Brooklyn politics would have bet against this hondler, but, almost two years after Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz first proposed the idea, he's finally getting his way. The city's Department of Transportation two weeks ago approved a sign now posted on the Williamsburg Bridge, directed at Manhattan-bound drivers: "Leaving Brooklyn; Oy Vey!"