We at Intel have a come-hither go-away relationship with hedge-funder John Paulson. On the one hand, we find the way he made billions of dollars off the financial meltdown — essentially, other people's grief and misery — repellent and vaguely unethical, like he "bought insurance policies on houses he didn’t own along the Indian Ocean just moments before the tsunami hit," as Gary Weiss puts it in his comprehensive portrait of Paulson in the February issue of Portfolio. On the other hand, it was pretty smart. And we don't find him unsexy … at least, we didn't think we did, until we read Weiss's description of him.

Paulson is in his mid-fifties, hair thinning at the top just a bit, with a slight paunch that he fights by jogging in Central Park … He is of medium height, medium build, medium disposition. He favors old-fashioned tortoiseshell bifocals and dark-gray suits

Okay, so maybe it was the billions of dollars that we found alluring. We're only human. But to be fair, that's all there is to Paulson, at least the way it seems from reading this story. He went straight from business school into the highest-grossing sector of his field, and has been hopscotching after the money ever since. There's no personality in evidence, no there-there. He doesn't watch birds or catch fish or practice Christian Science, like that other Paulson we love to hate. So what is it that drove Paulson to become an empty shell of a human being, driven solely by the desire to attract more lucre? Daddy issues, of course. Actually, granddaddy issues. His grandfather, Arthur Boklan, was a banker at a Wall Street firm who prospered, amazingly, during the Great Depression.

In a videotaped interview full of gripes, excuses, and criticisms, Sarah Palin sets her sights on another seemingly untested woman trying to prove herself: Caroline Kennedy. Palin perceives that Kennedy has been receiving better treatment than she did (though the two have been compared) at the hands of the media:

“I’ve been interested to see how Caroline Kennedy will be handled and if she will be handled with kid gloves or if she will be under such a microscope,” Palin told conservative filmmaker John Ziegler during an interview Monday for his upcoming documentary film, How Obama Got Elected. Excerpts from the interview were posted on YouTube Wednesday evening. “It’s going to be interesting to see how that plays out and I think that as we watch that we will perhaps be able to prove that there is a class issue here also that was such a factor in the scrutiny of my candidacy versus, say, the scrutiny of what her candidacy may be.”

Inveterate New York cabaret singer Cynthia Crane and her playwright husband, Ted Story, sent out an invitation recently for a "moving out party" at their 1855 townhouse on West 11th Street: "THE PARTY GOES ON! SURE HOPE YOU ARE COMING!" the invitation said, and went on:

"How could we possibly explain why we would leave our beloved home of 40 years and all the other changes which we will be making in our lives, without sharing our tale of woe? So I'll say it once, get it over with, then on with the show. Our nemesis was Bernard L. Madoff. It's probably enough to say that name, for you to understand the magnitude of the disaster that has befallen our entire family. We are bloody but unbowed. I am blessed with my family and my dear husband, Ted Story. We have our health, we have each other, and we will survive. PLEASE join us for a last fling ... give this 1855 Grand Dame a proper send off. Madoff will be hung in effigy. There will be Ponzi Punch and some kind of prison food yet to be determined. (The wonderful Carolyn Montgomery and Lea Forant of Café Forant will perform their magic and keep us all from starving). So come on down."

But for all that jauntiness, "It's like opening my veins," Crane told us in an e-mail.

When news broke yesterday that Ramalinga Raju, the head of India's largest outsourcing company, Satyam Computer Services, had admitted to massive and long-running fraud on the company's balance sheets, our first thought was: Now who are we going to call when we need someone to exasperatedly tell us to try turning our monitor off and then on again? Our second was: Wow, I bet Thomas Friedman used this guy to make an inane point about the new, flat world. We were not disappointed. A Google search instantly scoured the flat globe and found this in a February 2008 exchange between Friedman and one Daniel Pink, education guru and author of A Whole New Mind.

Like we needed more proof that Bernie Madoff was a creep. Today's news ensures that whoever has to write the script for the inevitable movie about him is going to have a hell of a time, since every day the real dude shapes up to be about as sympathetic as Al Pacino in The Devil's Advocate crossed with the Javier Bardem character in No Country for Old Men. First off, we find out that the jewelry Madoff mailed to family members for, his lawyer had previously explained, "purely sentimental reasons" was actually worth around a million dollars, which makes him seem like an asset-hoarder/incorrigible criminal as well as a narcissist. (Beyond the $200 mittens, the box contained Cartier watches, a diamond necklace, and an emerald ring, according to the Journal.) To keep him out of jail, his lawyer suggested that they impose tighter bail restrictions, such as putting a custodian in charge of Madoff's assets and having someone monitor his outgoing mail. Which raises a number of questions, such as: Why weren't they doing that in the first place? And then there's the other question: Who puts a million dollars' worth of jewelry in the mail? Grandmas aren’t even supposed to send $20 bills anymore.

The House and Senate will convene today, over objections from football fans, to count the electoral votes cast in the presidential election. Unless Dick Cheney decides to unleash on another one of his peers, this should pass without drama. Irritatingly so. New York has seen another election come and go in which its allegiance to the Democratic candidate was obvious from the outset, granting the state about as much attention from the presidential campaigns as Alabama, despite being at least four times as important. With the fate of our electoral votes a given, Obama and McCain rightly focused the lion's share of their energy on a small coterie of swing states. As they promised help to corn growers, automakers, and steelworkers at small-town gatherings and spirited, sometimes menacing rallies, New York's special interests, like hedge-funders and investment bankers, were simply villainized. Sure, we got some scraps of attention here and there — when they wanted our money. Look, we're big fans of the Founding Fathers. Most of their legacies have aged remarkably well (the Bill of Rights kicks ass), and they had some top-notch ideas. But, as New Yorkers are reminded by their unjust marginalization every four years, this Electoral College scheme just isn't one of them.

Lawmakers from both parties told the AP this week that they don't expect any resistance to confirming Hillary Clinton in the State Department, despite fears that her husband's international deal-making might get in the way. Just to make sure, Clinton's been meeting with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to seal the deal. Since everything she's hearing points to go, she's already picking out the appointees she'd like to line up under her.

According to the Times, Hillary plans to keep on the popular current undersecretary for Political Affairs, William Burns. Kurt Campbell, a former Defense official under her husband, will take over East Asian affairs. She'll also bring in Wendy Burns, who advised Bill on North Korean affairs. It's also rumored that Bosnia peace architect Richard Holbrooke will work on India-Pakistan relations, and Middle East expert Dennis Ross will work on Iran — the latter pick underlining Obama's pledge to interact diplomatically with Tehran.

The takeaway from all this? We get to find out who Paterson is going to pick to replace Hillary soon!

Clinton Is Moving to Fill Senior Posts at State Dept. [NYT]
HILLARY POWWOWS WITH KERRY AHEAD OF HEARING [NYP]

People were left wondering if Hiram Monserrate would show up for his Senate swearing-in yesterday after he missed two appearances this week, and in light of the fact that he was arrested last month for assaulting his girlfriend with a broken bottle (an "unfortunate accident," he says). But the Queens Democrat breezed into the chamber at the last minute yesterday and made a beeline straight for Senator Martin J. Golden, who authored a resolution calling on the Senate to bar Monserrate from office until the charges are resolved. According to the Times, Golden was in the middle of shit-talking Monserrate to a group of reporters when he came up and tapped him on the shoulder:

“I don’t think he should be seated,” Mr. Golden said as Mr. Monserrate approached him and extended his hand, apparently taking Mr. Golden by surprise. The two men shook hands and exchanged brief pleasantries.

Well that's awkward. Hiram! Hey! I was just telling everyone what a thug you are! Also kind of unsettling, we think, for Golden. Last thing you want is for a dude with assault charges pending against him to have you in his crosshairs like that.

New Senator, Under Fire, Appears Cool and Collected [NYT]

Will Leitch’s dispatches from recent visits to the Giants locker room will run every day this week leading up to Sunday’s game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Today: the Eli Manning Quote Bot whirs.

Eli Manning is the reason sports journalism is often so boring.

That’s more of a compliment than it sounds. When Eli was drafted by the Chargers and subsequently traded to the Giants, the fear was that the small-town Southern boy would never hack it in the big city. As famously documented by Michael Lewis, Eli was aloof, mysterious, a little weird. He didn’t come to the NFL as neatly polished as his brother, lacking both Peyton’s rocket arm and obsessive film study habits. Had the Giants drafted Manning simply because of his name? Would anyone consider Eli anything like Peyton otherwise?

Allow me to confirm: When it comes to speaking to the media, Eli is exactly like Peyton. He’s as dull as dirt.