Jennifer Lopez deserves your respect. Here you were, thinking that she was just some middling pop star who's made a career out of having a big booty and being a mediocre triple threat, and then she turns it all around by showing her true face as one of the most devious con artists since that guy who dated Anne Hathaway.

How, you may ask, has J-Lo managed to swindle big bucks from networks like NBC and TLC?

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Clarifying speculation that Jennifer Lopez would continue pimping out her children post-People magazine with her new TLC show, manager Simon Fields insists the new series "is not a reality show. It’s a show that will track the creation, production and eventual launch of a new fragrance. Jennifer will appear in a creative, entrepreneurial capacity and will absolutely not feature her children and family life."

Oh good, glad we made clear the new show would be … an informercial.

Coming up on the craptastic medium that is reality TV: Jennifer Lopez is teaming with Kelly Ripa and Mark Consuelos to produce a new TLC documentary series about the new mom's life as a living, breathing brand mechanism. Over at Fox, the trend of ruining lives continues after The Moment of Truth, with Deadbeat Dads, where the National Child Support Center goes after fathers who are skipping out on child support, because public shame is the only way to get them to pay up. And on the History Channel, the genre's L. Ron Hubbard, Mark Burnett, will re-create Henry Morton Stanley's late 1800s search for explorer David Livingstone. Somehow all of these reality projects got off the ground without any promise of attractive twentysomethings hooking up in a hot tub.

Did you hear the news? Miss America is abandoning her perch over at Viacom's Country Music Television and heading over to The Learning Channel instead.

Because there's truly nothing more educational than watching a bunch of tiara-wearing debutantes parading around in their bikinis while entreat us to enthusiastic, off-key (and slightly nasal) rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner" while articulating their irrepressible desire for world peace.

God bless America.

[B&C]

Like you, us, and your grandma on the UES, the tabloids are in uproar – uproar! – over the new cab fare hike, brought to you by the TLC and the number 2. That's 2, as in two times the cost you're currently paying to idle in traffic. (And you thought the transportation bad news bears would end with the subway floods, huh?)

Riders now pay 20 cents a minute for "wait time" - a price that hasn't changed in 16 years - but yesterday, officials voted unanimously to raise the rate to 40 cents a minute at a meeting in TLC headquarters.

Adding insult to injury, the wait-time rate will now click in when a cab starts going less than 12 miles per hour. Currently, the rate takes effect at under 6 mph.

Traffic experts say the average speed on avenues in Manhattan is 10.2 mph and on crosstown streets its 7.5 mph - meaning that most rides in the Big Apple will now be charged at 40 cents a minute.

Even better news? The Post predicts more cab drivers will be taking up the rush hour shift because they can make more money as commuters idle in traffic. And certainly adding more drivers on the road during peak hours will ease those jams. Oh, and a new ruling also handed down yesterday – that cab drivers need only provide a driver's license and social security card, but not need to prove they're legal U.S. residents – is sure to add to the fun.

While cab drivers would never be entrusted to, say, lead a group of elementary school kids around a museum, the Taxi and Limousine Commission is reporting our 42nd Street-loving cab drivers are turning over a new leaf and becoming nicer.

There's been a 26 percent drop in "rudeness" from cabbies, according to so called "city records." And leave it to TLC chairman Matthew Daus to point to the city's non-emergency 311 hotline, which somehow holds cab drivers accountable for rude behavior. (Because "You better not take me through Times Square or I'm calling 311!" works so well.)

But while the rudeness between the partition may have narrowed, that's not saying much for their behavior when you're not paying their meter.

Some frequent cab riders said drivers generally are not discourteous - but they're not exactly ambassadors, either. "Only when I'm a pedestrian do I find rudeness, when they try to run me down in the crosswalk," said Les Cohen, 51, a Manhattan sales rep.

Sounds like someone needs to understand what hussle means. Or at least put 311 on his speed dial.

With gas prices on the rise (oh, you heard about that too?), taxi drivers are sweating through their turbans trying to get the Taxi & Limousine Commission to approve a surcharge for rides.

The New York State Federation of Taxi Drivers is asking for a $1.50 per-trip surcharge while gas prices hang between $2 to $4 and, should they exceed $4 per gallon, they want to levy a $2 surcharge. Meanwhile, the yellow taxi org Taxi Workers Alliance is looking for similar fees, claiming drivers are losing $60 to $90 a week while the president dilly dallies in the Middle East. But TLC commissioner Matthew Daus so far says he's only willing to "discuss" the issues.

But should we see any yellow cab surcharge hikes in the coming weeks, we suggest you do what we do: Wave around your HSBC ATM card and wait for the free HSBC cab to pick you up.