The union and SEPTA won't meet for another couple of hours — and really, what's the rush? — by Gov. Ed Rendell has inserted himself into things, telling the Daily News that the union should suck it up through the weekend.

"This is a great opportunity for the city to shine in these next three days," Rendell said of the series, with games scheduled at Citizens Bank Park tomorrow, Sunday and Monday.  "It's not like the union can get leverage by doing this because the leverage goes away in three days. By the time the weekend is over, the leverage is gone. All they do is give the city a little bit of a black eye."

Yeah, I know … stating the obvious.

But here's the thing: If SEPTA doesn't roll over — which I kind of doubt; nobody likes to be dicked around like this — what happens? The TWU could strike, and reap (deservedly so) the lion's share of the blame if shit goes south this weekend — and then, maybe, have to deal legislation that would force transit contracts into arbitration and prohibit strikes, as is the case with cops and firefighters, because I promise you that Harrisburg will not be amused.

Were I a betting man, however — and hey, I am — I'd wager that all of this posturing is just that, posturing. Sometime between now and midnight, SEPTA and union officials will announce some sort of compromise, or union officials will say that, in their beneficence, they've decided to extend negotiations and work through the weekend, because they love their city and they're team players and some other such pabulum. Maybe I'm green in this part of the world, but I can't see the TWU being bat-shit crazy enough to go through with it. And I have to imagine that SEPTA officials know they're bluffing.

We'll see how accurate my prognostication skills are in about six hours and 40 minutes.

Friday: James Spooner and Matthew Morgan's idea for the Afro-Punk fest came out of their 2003 doc, which is apt because your Mischief Night is going to be movie-themed. In addition to hitting up music/lit/sometimes sports fest, you can check out Lars Von Trier's Antichrist, which I guarantee will show you more than any Saw movie could hope to do. Or go for the OG of horror, Nosferatu, accompanied by the lovely former covergirl T. Desiree Hines (and had a cameo on It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia last night!).

Saturday: Please, like Mama Omnibus even needs to tell you what day today is. Of course, Rodney Anonymous and the Dead Milkmen hold it down tonight at the Troc. Read his pre-show diary. Seriously. It's beyond hilarious. But don't forget Holly and Lauren's suggestions, like Revival Burlesque or the Day of the Dead Festival. Erin's got some foodie suggestions over on Meal Ticket as well, and Pat's got Making Time's Halloween for you over in Music.

Sunday: But Halloween doesn't have to end when November starts. Josh Middleton has the Name that Tune lowdown in Critical Mass' Art Phag, not to mention the darker than the darkest dark sounds of Dethklok and Mastodon hitting the Electric Factory (study up by reading A.D. Amorosi's interview with Dethkok creator Brendon Smalls). Mama gets it if this ghoulish weekend tuckered you out so how about a little Dia de Los Muertos menu from Xochitl.

Governor Ed Rendell says he expects a clause in the pending table game legislation — one that would allow PA casinos to extend credit to their customers, whether they're playing table games or just slots — to die before reaching his desk. In a phone conference today, Rendell referred to that clause and others as "ancillary," and said, "I think a lot of that stuff is going to go out of the bills before it gets to me." Pressed on the issue of casino credit specifically, Rendell said, "I don't think that will survive the final bill — but if it did, I would have to sign it. That's not a core issue for me." Listen to the exchange here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

The General Assembly is supposed to reconvene on Monday, Nov. 9 to settle the issue. Meanwhile, we noticed that today's Inquirer editorialized against the credit clause:

Even when Pennsylvania's flawed gaming bill was passed in the dark of night in 2004, the legislature had enough sense to prohibit the extension of in-store credit. Why back off now? The gaming industry says it needs to be able to provide credit to the high rollers expected once the slots parlors morph. But the credit access will also be there for problem gamblers and those who can least afford it. That's especially troubling in Philadelphia, where about a quarter of the population lives in poverty and many are on the edge.

Oh, awesome! Union negotiators have postponed talks until 5:30 this afternoon — six hours and 31 minutes before the strike deadline. SEPTA blames the delay on the union; the union isn't talking. Is the union is overselling its hand with this rather obvious ploy? The closer the strike gets, the more pressure SEPTA comes under to get something, anything, ironed out before all hell breaks loose (translation: bending over and giving the union whatever it wants). Then again, walking out of negotiations in the eleventh hour when you're already demanding raises and benefit increases while everyone else is dodging pink slips might not be the best way to engender public sympathy.

11 hours, 47 minutes to go.

Photo | Lucinda Lunacy

Frank and Charlie and CP

Received a flurry of texts/tweets/fb messages last night informing me that our dear newspaper had a cameo in last night's episode of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

I get all my Sunny on Hulu these days, so I've got a seven-day wait for the full episode featuring Carolyn Huckabay's May 28 cover on the lovely and talented T. Desiree Hines. Molly Eichel has the deets over on Critical Mass.

At 12:01 a.m., the Transport Workers Union Local 234's 5,100 members may go on strike, rendering the city's public transportation system inactive — and what do you know, just in time for the World Series, the Saturday Flyers game, the Spectrum's last concert, Halloween, and the Eagles vs. Giants contest. This, the TWU would have you know, is purely coincidental. The union insists, and we totally believe them, that they're negotiating in good faith, and not merely using the potential calamity that such a shutdown would surely cause this weekend as leverage to force their SEPTA overlords to accede to their demands.

The TWU is seeking 4 percent raises each of the next four years, a freeze on employee's health contributions at 1 percent (!), and an increase in pension benefits. SEPTA, which has seen ridership revenue decline about 5 percent since its peak last year, wants a wage freeze for two years followed by a 2 percent increase in the two years that follow, an increase in employee health contributions from 1 percent to 4 percent, and a freeze on pension benefits. Judge for yourself who's being more reasonable.

Who blinks first? Will SEPTA call the union's bluff? Is the union in fact bluffing? (Or, to put it another way, are SEPTA workers willing to endure the wrath of a very pissed-off city if they pull this kamikaze stunt now?)

We'll find out, in the next 13 hours and 25 minutes. Your countdown is on.

On the cover this week, our fave Aid or Invade columnist Rodney Anonymous chronicles all kinds of hilarity in preparation for his Hallow's Eve reunion with The Dead Milkmen.

In Naked City:

• Isiah Thompson tames the Wild West that is Pennsylvania, on a bicycle.
• He also points out the presence of evil in our city AND in his microwave.
• Bruce says: The Reading Terminal Market is Everybody’s Market, with or without Dr. Phil fans.

In Movies

• Make way for The New Year Parade at the Ritz, with bonus video.
• Sam Adams shudders at the Antichrist protagonist’s immersion in her fears.

In Music

• Hang The DJ compares the coyness of hostility in Miranda Lambert and Marduk.

In Arts

• Deni Kasrel tells us how On Pointe the silly dance company BodyVox really is.
• Mark Cofta waits patiently for the birds to come home at the Wilma Theatre.

In Agenda

• Check out more Halloween events, like Yellow Fever, online.

In Food

• David Snyder on health-conscious Fuel.
• Trey Popp explains why Bala Cynwyd’s Avril is Firing Blanks.

Photo | Ray Skwire

Today's Star of the Photostream comes from friend of the Clog Ray Skwire, whose Flickr photo stream and blogs Philly Bits and Scene in Philly you should check now and often.

Submit your Philly photo to City Paper's photostream here.

CP founder/Loose Canon columnist Bruce Schimmel will take part in a panel discussion being thrown by Young Involved Philadelphia and Technically Philly with the goal of gleaning The Future of News Media in Philadelphia.

Schimmel's panel mates will be:

• Matt Golas, Managing Editor, PlanPhilly
• Joey Sweeney, Editor & Founder, Philebrity.com and
• Sandra Shea, Editorial Page Editor, Daily News

The discussion will be moderated by WHYY's Executive Director of News and Civic Dialogue Chris Satullo.

The discussion, scheduled or 6-7:30 p.m. at the WHYY Civic Space at 6th and Arch, will attempt to answer such questions as:

- What is the state of the current crisis in Philadelphia’s news industry?

- Where would you get your local news if the Inquirer and the Daily News ceased to exist?

- How has social media already begun to change the way we receive our “news�?

Fittingly, you can RSVP for the event on Facebook.

Courtesy of Laurel Hill/West Laurel Cemetery

Here's an official MLB urn from the West Laurel Hill Cemetery, although it's sold at other funeral homes as well. For $650, you can spend eternity with the Phillies, purchased from the final resting place of early Phillies owner Alfred James Reach, Ben Shibe (who created the two-piece cover baseball), his sons Thom and John who helped Connie Mack out with the A's and, of course, HK.

On the face of it, the effort to introduce table games to Pennsylvania casinos didn't seem like a major expansion of gambling. Table games, after all, are expected to produce only about $200 million a year, including licensing fees, in state  revenues, compared to the nearly $1 billion that came in from slots last year (with some casinso yet to open).

Table games are also less directly tied to gambling addiction and problem gambling.

But a tiny clause in table game legislaiton – one that has gone almost completely unreported – makes table games, expected to pass any day now, potentially a much bigger deal indeed: a clause that would let casinos extend credit to slots and table games players.

Why is this a big deal?

When I first began reporting on the ever-growing casino industry and its ever-growing dependence on slot machines for its profits, I encountered horror stories about what happens when casinos extend credit lines to gamblers.

Some of those stories related to Foxwoods – not the facility being built here but the one already operating in Connecticut. Foxwoods' owners, acording to work done by journalist and professor Jeff Benedict,  had pursued gambling debts to the point of placing liens on the debtors' houses and appearing as creditors in foreclosure documents.

The idea that casinos – which, according to respected studies, make a disproportionately large amont of their profit from problem gamblers – would be acting as mini-banks for those very gamblers seeemed pretty disturbing.But the issue, i was told, was a red herring: because Pennsylvania doesn't allow casinos to extend credit to gamblers.

Apparntly, however, they're about to.

Both table games bills being considered – Senate bills SB711 and SB1033 – contain the following clause(1326A.b):

A certificate holder may make credit card advances and debit card withdrawals available to patrons at its licensed facility [ . . . ] A certificate holder may extend credit to patrons for the purpose of playing slot machines or table games.

This goes directly against the current law, which states, in unusually direct language, that:

Slot machine licencees may not extend credit. Slot machine licensees may not accept credit cards, charge cards or debit cards from a player for the exchange or purchase of slot machine credits or for an advance of coins or currency to be utilized by a player to play slot machine games or extend credit in any manner to a player so as to enable the player to play slot machines.

The Daily News recently called table games "a trojan horse," but mentioned the extension of credit only briefly. Other than that, this news has gone – as far as I can make out, anyway – virtually unreported.

The idea of this legislation being a trojan horse demands serious attention. Were table games really just a way to get previously-banned practices, like the extension of credit, into the slots parlors?

And why is no one talking about this? The difference between a casino that can lend money to its lots players and one that can't would seem pretty significant.

Hoodie | Birdland/The Fightins

Beat NY: What they can't buy, we're gonna take

Running a little behind on this, but tell us who's gonna win the World Series and how:

Yesterday our own contributing sports editor  E. James Beale sat down with Daily News sports editor Josh Barnett on Marty Moss-Coane's Radio Times to talk about the World Series. Listen below.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Philly Boy Roy, in his natural habitat

Last night, in the early moments of The Best Show on WFMU, PBR made a bold prediction: It will only take one game for nem Phightens to humiliate nem Yankees and win the World Series.

This led to a very improbable bet between the show’s host Tom Scharpling of Newbridge, North Jersey and Philly Boy Roy Ziegler of Roxborough.

Also discussed in this clip:

• Lipstick City, Barney Miller and Raul Ibanez guitars
• The appropriate age to begin dropping the F-bomb
• The Cin-A-Bon/milkshake deathwish
• Spinal Tap, Drum Power and WaWa Records
• An army tank driving through a lake of fudge pudding
• The time Peter killed a grip on the set of the Brady Bunch
• Whether pimpin’ is easy or not
• Whether it’s OK to put Peanut Chews into piñatas
• Whose bathroom area hurts

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Julia Harte with your morning fix.

A Daily News report found that of the $157 million Philadelphia has so far received in federal stimulus money, the city has spent less than $1 million and saved a paltry 52 jobs.

The lending branch of General Motors was begging the Treasury Department for a third infusion of taxpayer money, which would make it the only U.S. company to receive three rounds of aid and possibly make the government majority stakeholder in the company.

A $500,000 shower was among the ostentatious expenses racked up by French President Sarkozy during his European Union presidency -- one of the costliest in history -- and funded by EU taxpayers.

The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was found to be paying Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of Afghan president Hamid Karzai and suspected opium lord, to organize a paramilitary force in Kandahar that follows C.I.A. orders.

The former presenter of "Afghan Star" -- that country's version of American Idol -- sought asylum in the United States after a documentary he produced about the show earned him death threats from extremists. He now works at Voice of America radio, and says "in America, I was born again."

The Philadelphia-based Rhythm and Blues Foundation, which has provided cash assistance to R&B artists in need for twenty years, is now out of money itself because donations have dried up over the last year.