Is Graydon Carter putting lives at risk? Yes, says Page Six. Seems that the swells who dine at the Vanity Fair editor's Waverly Inn are blocking the street with their big fancy limousines.

The Post finally gives the wood to this week's revelation that Jim McGreevey (former New Jersey governor, Gay American, etc.) plans to become an Episcopal priest. (The news gives the paper an opportunity to summarize the recent conflict in the Anglican faith over the ordination of gays. It may be the most informative article the Post has ever provided its readership.) In any event, while we applaud the paper's vague restraint in its choice of headline, we think an event this joyous calls for a little more pizzazz.

• Post calls out News' circulation figures: The "paper's overreliance on bulk sales is propping up a single-copy sales disaster." Expect some lame News response involving the phrase "New York area" tomorrow. [NYP]
  

Rupert Murdoch is offering to throw down a rather large chunk of change for Dow Jones—and the union that represents Dow Jones employees, IAPE CWA 1096, is dead set against it. Perhaps they know folks who toil in the underbelly of Murdoch's New York Post, who are grumbling that it'd be nice if Murdoch spent some cash to make their lives a little more pleasant and functional first. Here's what we hear from the staff of the Post.

• Newspaper circulation falls pretty much everywhere. Here on the home front, though, both the Post and the News saw increases. Other (slight) success stories: USA Today and the Wall Street Journal. [WSJ]
  

At 6:30 this morning a camera crew was—for whatever reason—filming the guy who sells papers outside of our subway stop. Your correspondent, whose aversion to appearing on camera is as deep-seated as it is pathologically ridiculous, somehow braved the fear of the lens to plunk down a quarter for the Post, at which point he was advised by the vendor that the price was now 50 cents. For the record, we broke a dollar to pick up the paper, but be advised: Rupert Murdoch's people are out there, and they're rolling film. Be wary, friends.

Turns out that guineas all over the country are mobbing up to donate to the campaign of America's Cousinfucker, Rudy Giuliani. That's right: This morning's Post reports that Eye-ties across the nation are so excited by the prospect that someone with a vowel on the end of his name might be president (yes, yes, Millard Fillmore, give us a break) that they're taking time away from their busy schedule of wifebeating and "sanitation" work to drop money into the Giuliani coffers. Still, we found the Post's lead—"Rudy Giuliani for president. That's amore!"—to be lacking in whatever the wop version of je ne sais quoi is. Herewith our suggestions; probably you can do better.

Today's New York Post Home real estate insert conveniently gathers all the ridiculous slogans that upscale condos are using to lure rubes into laying out $2,000 per square foot. Let's get a gander at what the best advertising minds of our generation have to offer!

Meredith Dolgin has stepped down from the presidency of NYU's student council in the wake of not one but three separate scandals! The one that directly precipitated her resignation is of course the most boring (something about the improper disbanding of an election committee.) Here are the two fun ones.

Yeah, Sean, she's not the only one.

Perhaps the saddest example of not going gently into that good night comes from today's Liz Smith column in the Post. Smith, recently reduced to three days of meandering on about celebrities of the fifties by that paper, at least, ends today's ruminations with the following:

Meet "Andrew." He's an investment banker who enjoys fine cigars, small-batch bourbon, and being a gigantic douche in local newspapers. He also has a pitifully low investment banker salary of $190K including bonus. Doesn't that mean he's actually in the mailroom? Anyway. In today's Post feature on "Tools of the Trade"—those are the clothes, gadgets, and toys New Yorkers "can't live without" (should we take them away so that they die?)—never has a headline so accurately captured the essence of its subject.

Rosie O'Donnell's raunchy emceeing had the ladies at the N.Y. Women in Communications luncheon hiding under their tables in homophobic, offended shame! Either that, or she had everyone in stitches. It depends whether you ask Richard Johnson or Cindy Adams. The Page Six overlord made sure to mention the "17 sweet-faced high school girls who won scholarships to pursue their dreams of careers in media," whose virgin ears were ostensibly traumatized when Rosie "concluded a rant about Donald Trump by grabbing her crotch and shouting, 'Eat me!'" But his gossiping colleague Cindy had a different take: "In elegant clothes instead of her usual sweatshirt, newly smart-looking Rosie O'Donnell emceed. Hilarious." How to make sense of it all? Well, WWD mentions that "emcee Rosie O'Donnell skewer[ed] Rupert Murdoch, who presented an award to Cindy Adams, and the New York Post at every opportunity." Hot! Cindy Adams is a dangerous dissident trying to take down the Post from within!

By virtue of our job we tend to consume more media than most folks we know; by virtue of being old we tend to consume more of that media in print form. Our mornings generally consist of waking up at an ungodly hour and reading the Times, then walking to the train station, where we buy a copy of the Post, wait for the 6, and head down to the office. We generally pick the Post over the News for two reasons: It's only a quarter, and it's quick enough that we've finished it by the time we hit SoHo. So the recent announcement that the Post was going to hike its cost back to 50 cents gave us pause: Would we still pick up the paper at that price point? Then we recalled an incident that happened a few weeks ago.

Each Monday, Intern Alexis uses a rigorous scale to rank the happy pair-bonds cemented in the Times wedding announcements. But surely, the Times can't contain all the nuptial bliss to be experienced in the metro area. Ergo, the Post's weddings section, where the couples require a more flexible scale that can take into consideration differences in, say, life experience, and body type.

The custody battle between New Jersey's gay ex-governor and his straight almost-ex-wife continues to rage, just as her counter-memoir Silent Partner is being published. Random coincidence! Anyway, the latest bone of contention is whether the McGreeveys' daughter Jacqueline, 5, ought to be sharing a bed with Jim and his boyfriend (pictured). "It is one thing for children to sleep with a parent or parents. It is quite another for children to sleep with a parent and a third party...This situation is very different from our child getting in bed with me—there is never anyone else, male or female, in my bed," Dina said in a written response to Jim's divorce filing. Does that mean there won't be as many steamy lovemaking scenes in Silent Partner as there were in The Confession? Never mind then!

Longtime Daily News reporter Austin Fenner is jumping ship to the Post. It's not a particularly remarkable move; Fenner is a respected rewrite man and enterprise reporter, if not a marquee name. But Daily News staffers report that Fenner's departure is a sign of something more ominous for the tabloid—they're having trouble keeping people because of the money.

• The Post names the "9 Hottest Celebs on the Web." These include Amanda Congdon, Tila Tequila, and Brooke Parkhurst. [NYP]
  

Sometime minor-league Met and Sex and the City actor Joe Petcka has been charged with a felony count of aggravated cruelty to animals for allegedly brutally beating and killing his girlfriend's orange and white tabby Norman. "The cat bit him, then any injuries to the cat were in response to being bit," claims his lawyer, but per authorities, the attack was motivated by jealousy: the night before, he'd stormed out of Sports Illustrated reporter Lisa Altobelli's apartment after shouting "You love that cat more than you love me." So sad and fucked up. Ms. Altobelli clearly had her priorities straight: Pussies before dicks. Every cat lady knows that.

'Sex' Jock A Cruel Cat Killer [NYP]
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Dina Matmos McGreevey's answer to her estranged husband Jim's Confession —remember, our twelve hundred "whispering, masculine kind of love" jokes?—comes out May 1st. How convenient, then, that the Post is reporting today about Jim's ramped-up custody demands and accusations of homophobia! Jim also doesn't want Dina using their daughter Jacqueline as a prop on her book tour: in a motion he filed, he takes issue with Jacqueline's visits to the set of GMA and to Kelly Ripa's dressing room. He also "groused about artwork in their home, demanding that one nude photograph be removed." Um, do he and Dina have some sort of nefarious deal in place? Something along the lines of "you stand there looking supportive while I come out of the closet, and in a while I'll help you sell your book."

McG Rips Wife's Gay 'Fear' [NYP]