Somehow, when The City films here in New York, the gossip blogs and columns aren't filled with evidence of how fake and staged it is. That may be because star Whitney Port didn't grow out of the New York scene, but rather was transplanted, rootless, into it.That is not the case for Tinsley Mortimer, the socialite who has reigned over the New York party scene for several years now. Tinz is surrounded by people who are only too used to blabbing to gossip columns and doing their best to undermine one another. One would think this would be great fodder for a reality-TV show, especially one that purports to "lift the curtain on New York's most talked-about Park Avenue Princess and her young, elite society friends." But the only thing that's been exposed by curtain-lifting so far is how baldly fake this show is going to be. For example, reports that nobody wants to be on the show are regularly cropping up.

Hedge-fund rock star John Paulson is not celebrating the publication of WSJ reporter Greg Zuckerman's epic biography of his life-changing trade, so it falls to us celebrate his life for him. Yesterday, we brought you some tales of what JP was like back in the day. Today, we present you with this picture of the man at approximately 14 years old, long before a razor ever nicked his skin. After the jump, our friend with the rest of his class at Junior High 194, in Queens, none of whom likely suspected they were in the presence of financial greatness.

New York attorney general Andrew M. Cuomo filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Intel, the world’s largest chip maker, today, not because he has far-reaching political ambitions (though also that) but because Intel's competitors IBM and AMD have invested billions of dollars in chip plants in New York, and that's what Cuomo does, he watches out for us, the people. The 80-page suit, which alleges that the company threatened and paid kickbacks to computer-makers to stop them from using chips from competitors like Advanced Micro Devices, is peppered with dialogue lifted from internal e-mails, some of which is actually kind of juicy. Such as the following damning excerpt, about Intel's increasingly desperate attempts to hang on to a major client, Dell, which chief executive officer Paul Ortellini described as "emotional":

When Mayor Bloomberg finally won his third term late last night, we knew, out of all the broken hearts in this city, one in particular would be especially broken. "For the people to vote for Bloomberg again," Jimmy McMillan of the Rent Is Too (Damn) High Party, told us, with an exasperated sigh, "the people love to be lied to. People will say, 'You can't buy me,' but you're lying, because you were bought yesterday." McMillan's own showing — 2,615 votes, or 0.24 percent — was down about 1,500 votes from his last run in 2005. Nevertheless, he says he was "very satisfied" with his performance. One reason for the dropoff is that the city's Board of Elections had removed "damn" from the party name for space considerations. Without the passionate adjective, McMillan told us, some of his loyal voters didn't even realize he was on the ballot. That seemed implausible, but McMillan explained, "They're used to Rent Is Too Damn High. Most of them don't even know my name," he said. "They call me, in my neighborhood, Papa Smurf."

The morning after an unusually interesting and closely watched set of off-year elections, the air is filled with the sounds of Republicans gloating, Democrats fretting, and the White House saying, in effect, “Move along, everyone, move along, there’s nothing to see here.”

None of these reactions are surprising in the least, for even with New York’s 23rd congressional district having delivered Barack Obama and his party a nice consolation prize, the GOP victories in Virginia and New Jersey — and, more important, what voters in those states told exit pollsters about their attitudes — made it a very good night for the out party, and that laid bare a number of realities that are troubling indeed for Democrats.

With a new semi-autobiographical novel coming out, an elusive half-brother of Barack Obama, Mark Ndesandjo, has finally allowed himself to be interviewed for the first time. With the world's rapt attention, he opens up to the Associated Press about the only thing anyone cares about — his insight into the president of the United States:

Ndesandjo, who said he attended Obama's inauguration as a family guest, declined to discuss his earliest memories of the president or describe their relationship over the years.

What? Seriously? Thanks for nothing, buddy. You can go back to being elusive now.

Obama's Half Brother Recalls Their Abusive Father [AP via ABC News]

According to the writers of this Times story about Mayor Bloomberg's surprisingly narrow victory last night, "voters from Park Slope in Brooklyn to Morrisania in the Bronx seemed torn." Dutifully, in their coverage, they talked to six regular New Yorkers:

• "Stav Brinbaum, 37, a Web producer from Prospect Heights."
• "Paul Ranson, 56, a designer also from Prospect Heights."
• "Ken Ficara, 40, a Web developer from the same neighborhood."
• "Luke Geissbuhler, 39, a cinematographer in Prospect Heights."

Maybe we owe Bill Thompson an apology. When his campaign released an internal poll a few days before the election showing him within just a few points of Mayor Bloomberg, we were dismissive, in light of every other poll showing Hizzoner leading comfortably by double digits. But last night's election was closer than anyone had expected, and Bloomberg ended up winning a third term by a mere 5 percentage points. When your campaign is backed by a record-breaking $100 million, that's just not the kind of victory that inspires much awe. (Though perhaps his "overkill" spending down the stretch has now been validated.) So today, the papers and pundits are wondering what Bloomberg's meager victory means for him going forward — and whether Thompson could have won with just a little bit of help from his friends.

It's not exactly a secret that reporters can be deferential, even sycophantic, to valuable sources. An old editor of ours, who was Jewish, actually embraced Jesus as his savior for a little while so that he could get an interview with a subject's mother. We've never done anything like that, but we, like most other people in the media, would still be pretty embarrassed if someone published some of our more ... heartfelt missives. Happily, most of the e-mails we send aren't to people whose correspondence is available under the Freedom of Information Act, unlike those that Times reporters Danny Hakim and Jeremy Peters, the Daily News' Celeste Katz, and Newsday's Melissa Mansfield sent to Spitzer's communications people around the time news of his prostitution scandal broke, which Gawker has obtained in order to provide "an unvarnished peek inside the media machinery."

Sushi isn't Jeremy Piven's only problem. The Entourage star said he grew man boobs from drinking soy milk. Hugh Grant chatted up Kirsten Dunst at Rose Bar's Halloween party. Chris Martin says he never kissed Kate Bosworth, even though Star reported that he did. After supposedly breaking up with D.J. Slinky Wizard, Sienna Miller took him to buy unworn vintage lingerie in Soho. Beyoncé and Jay-Z left a $500 tip on their $1,200 lunch at Nello. Rather than heeding Rabbi Schmuley Boteach's advice to stay away from Hailey Glassman, Jon Gosselin took her to P.D. O'Hurley's on Halloween, where several bargoers were dressed as him. They tried to take pictures with Gosselin, but he refused.

So, last night, Republican Bob McDonnell cruised to victory for governor of Virginia over Democrat Creigh Deeds in a purple state that went for Barack Obama last year. Republican Chris Christie pulled out a win against incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine in New Jersey, despite Obama's frequent visits to the reliably blue state on behalf of Corzine. And in upstate New York, Democrat Bill Owens defeated Conservative Doug Hoffman in a congressional district that went for Obama in 2008, but hasn't sent a Democrat to Congress in over 100 years. But nobody cares what these results mean for the individual victors except for their staffs and wives. Everyone is more concerned with figuring out what they say about one formerly invincible man — President Obama.

Yesterday, an unexpectedly high number of voters turned out in Maine to vote on a referendum to repeal a bill passed last May legalizing gay marriage there. This morning, with nearly 90 percent of the votes tallied, the measure has succeeded with 53 points — killing marriage equality in Maine before it got off the ground. It was a severe blow to the well-funded and well-organized supporters, who had viewed this battle as a chance to put to rest the notion that their goals could not be achieved without the help of courts or a liberal legislature.