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:

It seems that some downtown bars, including the Tribeca Tavern, the Bubble Lounge, and several places we've never been to, are in danger of having their liquor licenses pulled. Why? From today's Sun:

So there are all these feel-good stories today letting us know that George Pataki is feeling hale and hearty and all of that. His brother-in-law says he looks "tremendous." His wife says he's coming along well. His spokesman says he's up and about and reading his email on a laptop. But no one is telling us the detail all his Empire State constituents must be dying to know: Can the governor shit yet?

With a new City Council session started, the council members have of course buckled down to take care of the people's business. And what exactly is our business? The Observer's plucky Politicker reports on some of the very important legislation that has been introduced:

You know what's even more unpleasant than reading about whether or not the governor can take a shit?

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?

We'd like, if we may, to direct your attention north of our fair city for just a moment, to New York's 19th Congressional District. It stretches from the New Jersey border to the Connecticut border over parts of Putnam, Orange, Dutchess, and Westchester counties, covering upstate arts mecca Beacon, Edna's Edibles hometown Peekskill, and Mt. Kisco, the birthplace of Arthur Sulzberger Jr. We didn't bother to look up the incumbent, or his or her party, or who has what chances of victory in the upcoming midterm elections.

From today's News:

Who knew so many of you speak Swedish? After something like 472 emails, we have a pretty good handle on what our boy Freddy was saying in his gay Swedish personal. First, and most important, sambo there apparently means something very different than sambo here. (In Sweden, it seems, it means living together.) Here's the full translation, from one emailer:

So what happens when you've been thoroughly trounced for mayor of New York City? If we didn't know better, we'd think that vanquished Democrat Fernando Ferrer has taken his moustache and moved to Sweden. We speak no Swedish, but, if we're interpreting correctly, it certainly seems that the dashing photo at right is in some sort of Saab-loving singles ad. (The pic — of one "Fernando Ferrer" — took up nearly a full page of QX, Sweden's leading gay monthly.) Ferrer's full blurb is below, and we bet it'd be truly hilarious if we understood what it meant.

You know how those run-of-the-mill beat cops — young guys, presumably rookies — standing around on, say, the West Fourth subway platform or near the Astor Place cube, just keeping an eye on things, always seem thoroughly unhappy? How sometimes you start to feel a little Bedford Fallsish and try to catch their eye as you walk past so you can say, "Mornin', officer," but they always sullenly look away? We always assumed that's because, well, they're New Yorkers, and New Yorkers are always a little bit sullen, and also because it must suck to spend hours at a time standing up, walking around, in the cold, and not really doing anything.

We're as excited today as the next Manhattan fag and fag hag that Christine Quinn was just elected City Council speaker, becoming, as the Times dutifully reports, the first openly gay person to hold such a high-ranking position.

One hopes they'll at least be dueling with legal guns.

Here's a Christmas-season tale to warm your otherwise black and withered heart. From today's News:

See, it's not so much that a New York State appeals court yesterday overturned a Manhattan judge's February ruling that would have allowed gays to marry. (That was, alas, to be expected.) It's more the language that was used in upholding the status quo. No "we're sympathetic but the court overstepped its bounds"; no "it's fundamentally unfair but a matter that must be left to the legislature." Oh, no. Instead it was grafs like:

What makes politician types totally different from civilians like you and us? Ultimately, it's that special ability to take anything at all — and especially anything garnering lots of headlines — and make it about them. Even when it isn't, at all.

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.

Oh, good. It just doesn't feel like New York these days unless there's a political fight going on about a stadium. The Post reports today:

We've always imagined that the hardest part of being a political flack — or any sort of flack, really — is having to pretend to believe in someone and his cause just because he's the guy signing your paychecks.