And what about our comptroller?

The latest news is that the Naked cowboy is running for mayor of New York.

"No one knows how to do more with less than yours truly, and that's the kind of thinking I plan on sharing with my fellow New Yorkers when you elect me," said Robert Burck, announcing his bid to run against Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

I'm sure that Michael Bloomberg is actually very happy that the Naked Cowboy's candidacy may cut into Reverend Billy's support base; nobody knows what William Thompson thinks about this development, though he will only find it even harder to get in a word edgewise, running against a billionaire, a street preacher, and a cowboy in his underpants.

Turns out, the Cowboy has some political roots.

“The whole world lives together in New York. And we use a lot of poly bags.”

[photo by Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times]

There is apparently a century-plus-old dispute between Japan and South Korea regarding the Dokdo Islands. Chang-Duck Jeon, president of the Korean Dry Cleaners Association, has been trying to raise awareness of it by having dry-cleaning bags printed with this image and slogan, selling them mostly to dry cleaning businesses in New York City.

“It was a way to speak out,” Mr. Jeon reasoned. “What’s ours is ours.”

The islands, known as Takeshima in Japan, are not as big of an issue for the Japanese-American community in the city. From the New York Times:

“The conflict doesn’t really come up,” he said. A spokeswoman for the Japanese Embassy in Washington said she was having a hard time finding someone to comment on the dispute, and she referred a reporter to the Web site of the Japanese Foreign Ministry. There, “Japan’s Inalterable Position on the Status of Takeshima” is spelled out in 10 languages.