Another two journalists who oughta have their tushies paddled: first, our old classmate from NYU journalism school, Maria Bartiromo, CNBC’s puffy-lipped “money honey,” has been caught accepting private jet rides from ex-Citigroup honcho, Todd Thomson, a person she was supposed to be objectively covering. Commenting on Bartiromo’s “close friendship” with Thomson, Steve Adler, Editor-in-Chief of Business Week, where Bartiromo writes a regular column, said, “We’re confident that she’s been complying with our journalistic code of ethics…we think it’s a useful column for our readers and we’re continuing with it.” In other words: she’s hot. On a second front, the New York Daily News published a non-apology for its shmaltzy and completely innaccurate coverage of Cesar Borja’s death, and Cesar Jr’s grief.

Our favorite snow storm story is Mayor Bloomberg’s bizarro decision not to suspend parking regulations, even though thousands of cars were plowed in and couldn’t be moved unless owners — many of them elderly — grabbed shovels and chipped away at frozen drifts. For years, the Mayor has tried to prove he’s not just another insensitive billionaire, dangerously out-of-touch with the peasants. He rides the subway sometimes, he listens to Aretha Franklin, and unlike his creepy predecessor, he makes nice with everyone. Fortunately, the picture of cops issuing tickets to snow-bound cars created such outrage, the Mayor back-tracked today.

CUNY students pay more than ever. In addition to tuition, CUNY students now spend as much as $5000 per year for personal expenses, including $1500 for room and board at home. Yo, mom and dad, you like totally suck.

Are you a good witch or a bad witch? We know this will provoke merciless laughter among those who couldn’t give a turd about Third World suffering, but now you can invest in companies that don’t do business in lands with brutal dictators. Yes, you can be a socially responsible investor whose money doesn’t fund landmines, child labor, countries with no civil rights, or Yankee fans. Socialfunds.com describes itself as an “ethical family” with a social and and political conscience. Those who don’t give a damn, can give their dough to the Vice Fund – a fund that (we’re not making this up) invests only in tobacco, alcohol, gambling, and weapons.

Better yet, sell something to the folks building the new World Trade Center. The Freedom Boondoggle, er, Tower’s price tag has risen to $3 billion–quite reasonable when you consider no one’s going to rent the upper 200 floors.

Cops: the new Wallmart stockers. Having slaved at the Board of Education for a number of nightmare years, we could have told Police commissioner Raymond Kelly the obvious–that cops making a maximum $59,588 will eventually head for Long Island, where police salaries top out at $90,000.

Dumbest sports story of the week: Much boo-hooing these past days over Willie Randolph not getting an extension on his $800,000 contract. Now he has–a three-year deal at $2 million per, plus, we expect, incentives. Whoopde-fucking-do. Randolph is a Yankee in Mets clothing. His Joe Torre impersonation–dour, sober, keep-calm-at-all-costs demeanor supposedly brings dignity to the game.

Please give us a break.

Memo to sports writers who believe and write this garbage: major-leaguers are idiot savants. They have god-given talent and teeny-weeny brains. They have nothing original to say about anything–and if someone does get original now and then–e.g. Gary Sheffield–he gets sqashed faster than an uppity cockroach.

Earth to everyone: Randolph got $2 million per annum for not making the series.

We love this story. Jennifer Rubell, niece of the late Studio 54 owner, is suing Daniel Kim, her live-in boyfriend for being a pot-smoking, sex-obsessed, lout. According to the suit, Kim “repeatedly pressured me to allow him to film and photograph me while we were having sex..in various compromising positions.” Rubell wants to evict the Kim and get custody of their baby daughter.

New York Post “discovers” tipping scam. Hey, Jennifer Fermino (the Post’s shoe-leather reporter) waiters tacking fake charges to make up for the tips Europeans never leave (many times, we’ve defended the French against ignorant know-nothing Americans–and many times the French have paid us back by, well, acting French) has been going on since at least 1979.

94 years Old & Homeless. The Brooklyn Paper, which often does harder-hitting stories than the gossip-heavy dailies, has a horrifying story about Dominck Diomede who has lived in Carroll Gardens who is being evicted because he doesn’t have a lease. He didn’t need one; he rented from his best friend. Now the long-dead friend’s grandkids want Diomede out because he pays only $500 rent.

Brooklyn tops Lonely Planet’s “best” life for ‘07. Headscratcher of the week. Iconoclastic travel guide, The Lonely Planet, has picked Brooklyn as one of the “hottest” places to visit on earth. We have endured Brooklyn since 1979, and while we find many things here, uh, endearing, we find many other things about Brooklyn red-neckish. Like murder, for instance. Like the Park Slope Food Co-op. Like creepy landlords who evict 94-year-olds who always pay the rent. Like anything having to do with Borough President Marty Markowitz. Like hipper-than-thou trendoids who laughingly socialize with each other as the World Trade Center burns in the background (click to see photo and critique of Frank Rich’s famoust NYT article). Like 100-degree days and middle-of-the-night boom boxes on wheels, and pols who kiss anyone’s ass who’ll get them elected, and boring movies, and DUMBO becoming a millionaires enclave, and Little League organizations that force tens of thousand of kids to live in bench-dwelling misery each summer.

Yeah, this place is hotter’n a pepper sprout.

New assault rap for Busta Rhymes. Another reason why “rap” is short for “crap.” According to cops, Rhymes beat up a driver who had the balls to ask for some back pay. As we reported here a few months back, Rhymes, champion of the underdog, is refusing to help cops find the perps who shot his bodyguard, Israel Ramirez.

City cop finds raising her six kids so hard, she looks forward to foot patrol. Now she’ s on the popular TV show “Nanny 911.” Reminds us of the interview for our first cabbie job. Dick the manager asked what we did before. Stupidly, we mentioned our kindergarten teaching experience. Dick goes, “Driving cab ain’t no kindergarten.” Uh, Dick, driving cab is a whole lot easier.

A real hero. Everyone loves Wesley Autrey, the guy who rescued a stranger who’d fallen on the subway tracks. Now the city’s giving him a year pass on the subway and his family a trip to Disney World.

Oh shut up. New York City opera diva calls her night with a few bedbugs “a terrifying experience.”

We liked new governor Eliot Spitzer, we really did, until washed-up, Christmas-song yodeling has-been sell-out James Taylor performed at the inauguration.

Bronx grandmother murdered by asphyxiation: we guarantee, this is the last you’ll hear of this story that merited a teensy box on page 16 of the Daily News. Thugs tied up 65-year-old Teresa Reyes, a day-care center cook, ransacked her apartment and left her to die. This is a wild guess, but we don’t think Rosie O’Donnell will skip skewering Donald Trump for giving teen beauty queen Tara Conner a second chance in favor of this story.

Giuliani Running: our ex-mayor, whose pre-9/11 mistakes might have cost the lives of more than 100 firefighters as well as approximately 1000 office workers (read Dwyer and Flynn’s 102 Minutes), yet emerged from the disaster a national hero, is throwing fund-raisers, presumedly for a presidential run. Our only comfort is that John Lindsay, the last New York mayor to run for president, crashed and burned in the Florida primary.

Murders spike in NYC by 40%. Read about it on New York 1.

Rate Those Bastards! Want to find a broker who’ll make you rich? Start at Brokerate.com.

Can I get a job here? Google to open new HQ at gigantoid 111 Eighth Avenue. Read about in the Village Voice.

Why are we not surprised. A Long Island money manager (is that close to a hedge-funder?) defrauded elderly investors of an estimated $20-50 million. Read about it in the NY Post.

Yawn, another murder: As the media continues to recoil in horror at Alan Hevesi’s chutzpah to spend state money on a driver for his very sick wife, it all but ignores the murder of another insignificant deli clerk in Brooklyn. Ahmed Shaibi, a Yemeni immigrant, was murdered while fending off a gang of thugs who, according to cops, have robbed a string of other groceries.

Armstrong declares NYC Marathon much much harder than Tour De France. What are we to make of 7-time Tour De France winner Lance Armstrong, at his post-NYC Marathon press conference, declaring “I can tell you, 20 years of pro sports, endurance sports, from triathlons to cycling, all of the Tours — even the worst days on the Tours — nothing was as hard as that, and nothing left me feeling the way I feel now, in terms of just sheer fatigue and soreness”? That he forgot the ‘roids in Texas? That competitive bicycling isn’t all that hard? That after dumping Cheryl Crow he’s boinked so many chicks lately that he’s once-magnificent body has withered from alcohol and debauchment?

Dating Wars Update: Men do make passes at girls who wear glasses. Christine Whelan’s new book Why Smart Men Marry Smart Women, claims that smart girls, contrary to popular opinion and a casual glimpse into nearly any marriage, do not make guys cringe in red-faced humiliation at the obvious gender IQ differences. Citing Whelan’s study, an AM New York piece reassures smart women that

1) they WILL get married. Just later.

2) Men do NOT want to marry the maid. Oh, now we get it–maids are dumb.

Size Does Matter. Recharger does not hate the delirious, sometimes scary designs hatched from the fevered minds of urban architects. But, we wonder, why must everything be so BIG? (don’t bother answering, we already know the answer). The diamond atop Diane von Furstenberg’s new HQ at the corner of 14th and Washington Streets is refreshingly smallish, Gothamist reports.