So what's going on in the world? Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi backed the wrong horse in a leadership election, a decision that could have potentially devastating effects on the Democrats' tenure as the majority party. France moved a step closer to electing its first female president. And New York's top court may revive the death penalty here in the state. All of that pales, however, before the Post EXCLUSIVE that made the cover of today's paper: Some dude pissed on a grave. Gather 'round children, and hear the tale of Brooklyn resident Itomor Khaimov, who was out for a walk with his dog near his grandmother's final resting place.

Did you accidentally ingest poison this morning? Well, stop hunting around for the ipecac: Judith Regan has thoughtfully shared her opinion on the whole OJ-interview thing with her Newscorp buddies at the Post and it's the foulest, most sick-making thing we've ever read. REALLY. In it, she defends her decision to profit off of murder and suffering by telling a long sob story about how she, too, was the victim of spousal abuse. So try to follow the twisted logic here: Judith Regan is shoring up her position as an "advocate for women who have been victimized" (uh, except for the ones who've worked for her) by extracting a hedgy, if-I-did-it confession that will be 'duh' news to everyone. Also, If I Did It is a historical document, like Mein Kampf. Well, we're totally buying it! Blechh. Ok, but here's the money quote:

Increasingly irrelevant media ex-mogul Ted Turner appeared in Denver yesterday for a college fundraiser. The famously mouthy philanthropist couldn't resist taking a shot at a former rival:

"We hope Ms. Regan takes full accountability for promoting the wrongdoing of criminals and leveraging this forum and the actions of Simpson to commercialize abuse," the Post (btw, way to cross-promote!) quotes Denise Brown (Nicole's sister) as saying about the whole OJ/Judith Regan/most unholy ReganBook yet thing. You tell 'em, Denise! Wait, we seem to remember seeing Judy and Denise's names together somewhere before . . . oh, maybe in this 2004 Larry King interview.

The New York Post's twin pillars of biddy gossip, Liz Smith and Cindy Adams, each have their own particular style. To the average reader, though, it can be hard to discriminate between the elderly pontifications of Smith versus Adams — and what if you only have the time and inclination to choose one of these fine specimens? It may be next to impossible to directly compare Adams's prose ("Trust me, a dress shop on Madison is a college course on life.") to Smith's wit ("Speaking of diamonds, consider Sharon Stone."). Best trust to science and statistics. After the jump, Intern Mary plumbs the last ten columns from both ladies to track the frequency of jokey turns of phrase, celebrity name-dropping, and backhanded or overt bitchy comments.

In this lengthy interview, Tinsley Mortimer shares her thoughts about the works of Marx and Engels. PSYCH! The Post has no idea what the word 'socialist' means, and Tinsley Mortimer gives the most retarded quotes imaginable. Seriously, more retarded than you are currently imagining them to be. A little tease:

Great news! The Daily News, reports the Daily News, is still on top, circulation-wise, provided you squint and use a different system of metrics than the Audit Bureau of Circulations:

Okay, so the Wilson who's getting into fights with Kate Beckinsale on the set of Vacancy isn't a "blond funnyman with [a] distinctive nose," as the Post is reporting. But at least they got the photo right. Honestly, we wouldn't have been surprised to see Ann or Nancy Wilson of Heart fame up there. Unrelated: wouldn't a reality show featuring both sets of Wilson siblings being forced to live in a house together be an awesome idea? It would be called, like, "Butterscotch Barracuda" or "Try, Try, Try to Understand."

The gentrified neighborhood story never gets old, it seems—even when said neighborhood has been gentrified for years. Today's victim was Alphabet City, which the Post breathlessly notes was really crappy back in the day. Why, people even did heroin in Tompkins Square Park!

• Mika Salmi, the new head of MTV (Global Digital Media) will be an "enabler," helping MTV's various websites work better together. [NYP]
  

At right, an ad in today's Post that reproduces an editorial from yesterday's Observer. The pink sheet congratulated the Post for its recent rise in circulation, saying that "the paper has worked overtime to create a voice that appeals to its readers, capturing both the street-smart and the smart-aleck, while becoming a brash player in the political arguments of our age." It's heartening as it is to see one money-hemorrhaging organization salute another; we can't wait until the Observer finally reaches profitability by shedding half its staff and the Post reciprocates with a similar reach-around. Celebrations continue in the nation's fifth-largest paper, which runs a gossip item quoting Donna Dees, the recently-axed News flack. "If I were still there," she says of her former employer, "I most likely would have been under my desk drinking kamikazes and committing hara-kiri instead of at Nobu noshing on sushi and sipping sake." We're not sure why Zuckerman canned Dees: we can count at least three alliterations in that one sentence alone. Talent like that is hard to come by.

The Post Makes News [NYO]
Happy Escapee [NYP]

Halloween (we're in week two — can it please be over?) is still in the Post's reliably Post-y headlines — yesterday's cover story, about a Brooklyn teen named Walter Petryk who was dumb enough to show up dressed as Hitler at Leon H. Goldstein HS (blackface at Martin Luther King Jr. HS might have played better, seriously) gets a follow-up today as the misunderstood Nazi defends his choice. But even larger than the shot of Petryk in his SS regalia is this picture of one Michael Loweth, a "heckler" notable for shouting "You're pathetic!" at Petryk. Also, "This is ridiculous, kid. Grow up! Millions of people died for a schmuck like you!" In a way, we totally understand the prominent coverage of Loweth's insightful heckling. Sure, anyone can toss out a "Boooo" or a "You suck" or a "Go back to (a place)!", but it takes a scholar to come up with that line about the millions of people. Michael, if you're reading this, and you'd like to take your nascent heckling stardom to the next level, get in touch. There are some offices we'd like you to start standing outside.

• Tabloid Wars: Mort Zuckerman "panicky," "furious." Nice color: Although News staff knew about the circulation numbers on Friday, they kept them from Mort until Monday. [NYP]
  

The rumble between the Post and the News to see who can give away more sponsor copies to boost their circulation shows no sign of abating: In today's Observer, News EIC Martin Dunn calls shenanigans: "If you'd lost $300 million over the past five years, spent $200 million on new presses, carpet-bombed neighborhoods with free copies and lost fortunes to sell a few thousand papers in Las Vegas and Los Angeles, you'd be desperate to celebrate creeping a few copies ahead of us." Post EIC Col Allan counters that "the Post is half the price, and twice the value." There's some particularly nice bitchery in the Times, where Dunn's party line about the News still outselling the Post in "the New York metro area," elicits the following response:

We'll admit it, we've always looked favorably on Charlie Rangel, the Harlem congressman who's got one of the best "New York politics" voices going. He's blunt, he's down-to-earth, and he's not afraid to tell it like it is. Take, for instance, his views on Vice President Cheney:

As mentioned in our earlier post on the Post's self-fellation over the fruition of its six-year plan to beat the Daily News is the 1,400-word (!) article by Kevin Fucking Federline.

When it was announced yesterday that the Post had finally overtaken the News in circulation, we expressed our fervent hopes that the latter would celebrate its victory in a gracious, restrained manner; those hopes were quickly dashed. Comes today's Post, which, in addition to a two-page opening spread full of charts and graphs and gleeful cackling from Ed Koch, includes a four-page "souvenir pullout," featuring some of the paper's finest wood and an embarrassing encomium by Steve Cuozzo which actually compares the Post to the United States during the Cold War and ends with the line "The good guys won again." (You'll find it right after the article by Kevin Federline.) There's a lot to digest here, including the chart we've posted at right: We're just going to say that in our dictionary, "scourge" is defined as "a whip or lash, esp. for the infliction of punishment or torture." So, you know, they got something right.

In case you haven't heard by now, the Post is #1! The Post is #1!. Because they are so humbled by the accomplishment, they simply can't stop thanking us New Yorkers, as you can see from a reader submitted photograph of Times Square.

The Post's strategy of hemorrhaging millions of dollars annually has finally paid off, as they've passed the News in circulation, becoming the country's fifth largest paper. Expect Post editor Col Allan to cover the story in the tasteful, restrained manner we've come to expect from those folks.

With every war, there is collateral damage, and then there is wartime propaganda. In today's wonderfully alliterative editorial, New York Post comes out swinging against AM New York and Metro, pointing its fingers squarely at the free dailies for tragedies that may or may not occur sometime in the future. Because they are a major -not the only, or even the most significant- cause of subway floods and fires.