Today is as good a time as any to update you on the current state of gay marriage in our theoretically homo-lovin' city. Indeed, it's a particularly good time, because this afternoon the New York State Court of Appeals — the highest court in the state — is hearing oral arguments on whether gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry. Here's where it gets fun: Among the lawyers arguing against gay marriage are those employed by New York City, where last year a trial-court judge ruled the state's ban on gay marriage unconstitutional, a decision the city's lawyers, at the direction of Mayor Mike Bloomberg, have been fighting in appeals since.

From "Mayors Discuss Efforts on Gun Crimes," a Times article by Sewell Chan reporting on the meeting Mayor Bloomberg organized at Gracie Mansion today, in which 15 big-city mayors pledged to work together to reduce gun trafficking and gun crimes:

We've long held a theory that New Yorkers, while superficially gruff, are actually some of the nicest people in the world. (Californians are forever asking how you're doing — no, really, how are you? — without ever actually caring; New Yorkers don't bother with that bullshit but do pay attention to what you say and will, at the drop of a confused look, eagerly give you directions anywhere.) So we were actually somewhat pleased to see a story on the frontpage of yesterday's Times with the hed, "New York Leads Politeness Trend? Get Outta Here!" We thought it was going to provide empirical proof of our we're-actually-nice theory, but it turned out we were mistaken. The point of the article wasn't so much that New Yorkers actually are nice; the point is that the city is attempting to regulate New Yorkers into niceness, with everything from a ban at spitter on ballplayers (why bother going out to the stadium, then?) to a $50 fine for putting your feet on a subway seat. And to these measures we can only say: Fuck that shit, you fucking assholes.

Mike for Monarch: The TV Campaign [Politicker/NYO]

So after Bloomberg pushed through the huge cigarette tax a few years ago — this was before he pushed through the smoking-in-bars ban, that brief window when enjoying the delicious nicotine rush of lung destruction was merely expensive but not yet inconvenient — you thought you'd be clever and start ordering your smokes online. Hell with eight bucks at Duane Reade, you figured, you could save a fortune by getting your Camel Lights shipped in from out of state. Or so you thought. According to the News:

Second terms are traditionally the time for hubristic chaos. Domestic spying! Intern blowjobs! Chris Ofili and New York's bus-ad campaign and criminalizing jaywalking! But Mike Bloomberg — rational, pragmatist, focused, technocratic Mike Blooming — he'd never turn into a fascist (or more of a fascist, as smokers might point out), would he?

From today's News:

If we may be enormous fags for just a moment, we'd like to say how embarrassingly excited we are to learn that Liza Minnelli will be singing "New York, New York" at Bloomberg's inauguration Sunday.

So Bloomberg's been getting crap for saying during the transit strike that union leaders were behaving "thuggishly." But perhaps no more. Reports today's Newsday:

So last week, you'll recall, brought us World AIDS Day, which reminds us of all the millions infected and the cure that's still lacking. Then there's all that talk about the nasty avian flu that could hit at moment and for which the United States is, as we understand it, woefully undersupplied on vaccines. And, of course, there's that nasty bedbug resurgence in the city, which can't be a particularly healthy. Still, amid all this, it's nice to see the city's Department of Health can keep its focus on the big things, according to the Post:

Lately Freddy Ferrer has been doing his bit to remind us that he's one of the biggest losers you've ever seen. (The it-was-all-the-media's-fault explanation for his mayoral loss, promulgated Monday, was a nice bit of loserdom, ignoring, as it did, the multimillions by which he was outspent, the popularity and competence of his incumbent opponent, and his own general hackiness.) But it turns out today that, Freddy's best efforts to the contrary notwithstanding, the mustachioed Democrat was not, in fact, the biggest Democratic loser in any New York City mayoral election ever.

There's an interesting story on the front page of the Times metro section today about voter research conducted by the Bloomberg campaign. Typically, you see, voter lists like these are constructed from publicly available information — magazine subscriptions, voting registrations, neighborhood, race, ethnicity — and then different messages are targeted at different subsets. But because Bloomie had so much money to throw around, his pollsters could afford to call hundreds of thousands of voters to find out about voters' interests and preferences.

After-election analyses are fun, when political reporters parse returns and exit polls and work to determine who voted for whom and why. But the real challenge in that effort isn't the data crunching, it's figuring out the socially acceptable ways to express what that crunched data says.

Oh, election morning. That heady mix of anticipation and dread. The uplifting possibility that the good guys might, finally, win, and the pit-of-the-stomach terror that the bad guys will win again and become even smugger. All that armchair Russerting — "It's a beautiful day — easier for people to turn out!" "A packed West Village polling place shows the Dems are excited!" "The college kids seem to care, and that can only be good for us!" "A friend's ex-boyfriend whose roommate works for the campaign is hearing good numbers!" All that waiting for Wolf Blitzer to yell the results at us as they come in. It's seat-of-our-pants drama, is what it is.

Slutty sis Wonkette calls our attention this morning to a little political race going on here in the Big Apple. (Seems there's someone running against Bloomberg for mayor. We had no idea.) We'll let Wonk take it from here:

Not that we have any interest in hearing another word about it, but we guess we can understand why the Johnson & Johnson billionaire who owns the New York Jets is suing the Cablevision billionaires who own Madison Square Garden over the blissfully dead West Side Stadium project.

Mayor Bloomberg has, according to the Post, hired Brian Ellner, failed candidate for Manhattan borough president, as his reelection campaign's token homosexual. You remember Brian, right? His campaign revolved around a) not being George Bush, and b) being, instead, the gayest gay in gaytown. And he created the only memorable commercial of the campaign: "I'm Brian Ellner and this is my partner, Simon," he says, as he pulls Simon into the frame long enough to hammer home that whole gay thing, but not long enough for Simon to, you know, say anything. And as liaison to the gay community for Mayor Bloomberg, Ellner himself can now expect similar treatment.

An AP lede, moved last night:

Now you can get the fun of endless security lines and invasive security checks, without schlepping all the way to the airport:

• Some random Conde Nastie also doesn't like us. Which is fine, as we don't much like them, either. [Radosh.net]
• Matt Drudge is obsessed with animal sex. Not, you know, that he's displacing any particular urges. [Underhyped]
• It's no fun reporting from the celebrity rope line. But at least you get some good quotes. Or not. [The Reeler]
• It didn't rain at the Siren Festival in Coney Island Saturday. [Brooklyn Vegan]
• Bloomberg digs Teachers College, Dr. Ruth. [The Politicker]