(WaPo: WTF is an “internet year?” Oh, and Slate: that cake-thing is **** ing CREEPY. )

Happy ten-year anniversary of terrified stabs at relevance in the face of plummeting circ and influence! Let’s celebrate with smug self-congratulation! The future of media, you say? Someone get Jay Rosen on the line! Let’s pat ourselves on the back for realizing back in ‘96 this whole internet thing would be huge! Hey, remember when that brilliant guy had that awesome idea to put news and opinions on the “World Wide Web?” Who could’ve known that now, ten years later, we’d still be trying to figure out how the hell to make money off of it.

Slate
Opinions [WP]

When Mike McCurry posted his “Telecommunication companies have paid me to tell you that they should own the internets” thing, everyone else on HuffPo just got mad and wrote mean things about him, they didn’t demand that he take it outside. That’s why we like Cenk Uygur.

See, Michael Smerconish (and we don’t actually know who he is, but he blogs on HuffPo, so he’s a CELEBRITY) repeatedly called everyone in America a “sissy” in a HuffPost for not killing Zacarias Moussaoui. Uygur objected to this, and, reasonably, responded by calling Smerconish a “pussy” and challenging him to a fight. Like, a real fight.

Violence is seldom the answer. But it is in this case. An organized, controlled, consensual beat down. You agree to fight me, and I agree to crush you. Of course, I don’t want anyone getting the wrong message. I am not advocating vigilante justice against idiotic conservative talk show hosts. I don’t want anyone else to kick Smerconish’s ass. Just me.

Yes! Liberals be violent! There is hope for the party! Also, does this mean all the HuffPo bloggers will start fighting each other? We’d like to see Deepak Chopra and Peter Daou arm-wrestle. We think Chopra could probably win just with the power of his mind. But Daou would win the real way, with actual arms. Also, Rachel Sklar/Jay Rosen staring contest! It’s on!

The Final Word on Moussaoui [HuffPo]
Michael Smerconish is a Pussy [HuffPo]

Demonstrating once again the old “anything new media can do I can do better” spirit, the New York Times gave restaurant critic Frank Bruni a blog. And, because they want to get back on Jay Rosen’s good side, they have comments. Comments which have already proved their value as a means of “extending the conversation” or whatever the hell blogs are supposed to do. To wit:

Dear Mr. Bruni, I find it valuable that you were reporting from the White House.
Are they canibals? Being now a restaurant critic you could throw some lite also on the background of policy making.

Come on. “Cannibals” is unfair. While this administration may hunt Man, it’s purely for the sport.

Diner’s Journal [NYT]

Jay Rosen is an official, licensed expert on New Media, Old Media, Blogs, Newspapers, and Getting His Name Out There. In a lengthy interview with Rachel Sklar, late of FishbowlNY, he reiterates his recent claim that the Washington Post has become (more or less by default) the best newspaper in America.

Does WaPo’s recent retreat from online transparency change your evaluation of its star power/staying power at the top? Nope. Problems teach you what you can and cannot have. What you know and don’t know. Based on what I know of Brady’s regime, he is going to keep moving forward.

Look, if the best scandal that the Post can come up with is that they deleted comments from a blog, can they really be the nation’s top paper? I mean, the Times has three bigger scandals than that break daily between their early and late editions.

We must admit, though, that we were unable to make a compelling argument against Rosen — not because of his superior knowledge of the media industry, but because we were distracted by the interview’s accompanying photographs, more of which are presented after the jump.

PressThinking with Jay Rosen: The Times of Our Times, and Other Media Preoccupations [FishbowlNY]