As some of you have noticed, Anderson Cooper 360° has, it seems, colonized our website, often occupying every ad space around the perimeter of the page. We couldn't be happier — presumably CNN's paying our bosses nicely for the privilege, and, well, we've long dreamed of being inside Anderson. (Others, meantime, aren't as unequivocally pleased. "What's up with Anderson Cooper all over the fucking place?" Sven wondered in a comment.)

Dear Diary,

The signs were there. We saw them. But we chose to ignore them. Because we didn't want to believe such a thing. Come on, our beloved anchor? Our favorite sister? They wouldn't do that to us. They couldn't. They just couldn't!

If anything was going to come between us and our beloved Wonkette, we always knew it would be a man. And so we're both entirely distraught and, deep down, not at all surprised, that she's trying to take Anderson Cooper away from us. So, though we're ashamed she brought her readers this news before we brought it to ours, we'll just steal her writeup and remind her that, when all's said and done, he's not on her team, anyway.*

• Simon Dumenco doesn't buy the revisionist history that Jann Wenner pushed out Kent Brownridge, but he knows the often-incompetent mag business will miss the man Dumenco dubbed Dr. Evil. [AdAge]
• New Plamegate wrinkle: Now the prosecutor wants to talk to Time's Viveca Novak, who's so far cooperating with the investigation. It's nice to officially know that at least one Novak is, even if the wrong one. [NYT]
• Bad news for our favorite gray-haired boytoy: Anderson Cooper's rating are down 19 percent relative to Aaron Brown's last week as anchor. [Mediaweek]
• It's hard being Bob Woodward these days. [WP]
• For its 1,000th issue, Rolling Stone to go 3-D on its cover. Because flashy sales gimmicks are always a sign of a strong, vibrant product. [NYT]
• Another reason you can never leave the city: Newly hired report at Manchester, N.H., newspaper is fired for having "a New York attitude." [Boston Phoenix]
• Hearst's new Quick & Simple simply ain't selling very quickly, suggesting the women's-mag market is cooling — or even cooled off. Also: Maxim learns to appreciate older women. [WWD (second and third items)]
• Four years later, the de-anthraxing of American Media's former HQ in Florida is nearly complete. They're still working on how to de-Bonnie. [Jossip]
• Kazakhstan takes four-page ad in New York Times to refute allegations made by Ali G's Borat. Next week, USPS will take four-page ad to refute allegations made by Seinfeld's Newman. [E&P]
• Good editors protect their staffers. Except, you know, when they don't. [MB]
• Forthcoming New York mag article on Hasidic sect ruffles feathers even before its published. [Canonist]

We read La Stanley's tribute to Ted Koppel in this morning's paper, and we were doubly pleased. First, because it was a nice, appropriate farewell to an esteemed and accomplished journalist, and second because the error-prone writer seemed to have made her way through a full 900 words without any obvious fuckups. Then we read TVNewser, who reminded us of this sentence in Stanley's piece:

• Jessica Simpson gets dumped by her publicist, who's tired of lying to the world about miserable state of Simpson's marriage. Could the PR industry be having its Jerry Maguire moment? Nah.
• Wenner honcho Kent Brownridge is (possibly) forced into an early retirement, courtesy of big Jann himself. Sadly, his possible successor is fresh from rehab — that's no fun.
• Sexual assault suspect and fake fireman Peter Braunstein continues to flit about New York, and yet no one can seem to catch the mofo. Especially not the hipsters or Greg Lindsay.
• Kimberly Stewart, eager to be more Paris Hilton than we can stomach, gets engaged to barely-legal Laguna Beach star Talan Torriero.
• Anderson Cooper and Ryan Seacrest could adopt the most beautiful gay babies.
• Time mag begins its debate on the person of the year, and you predictably voted for Mother Nature.
• Gawker Media makes a distribution deal with Yahoo!, which sanitizes us without completely selling out.
• Inside TV folds, and TV Guide lays off editors who need to take a personal leave.
• And Mort Zuckerman reminds his staffers that in the Jew's house, Christmas doesn't mean shit.

People's Sexiest Man Alive issue is out today, and, while we already knew Matthew McConaughey is the winner, we're for the first time discovering that Anderson Cooper is a ranked runner-up. [Click on the photo at right to enlarge.] We're not surprised by his inclusion — both because he is, objectively, sexy, and also because his fucking publicity blitz is everywhere — but we are, as always, surprised by some of his quotations, all of which are at least moderately gay. Then there's this one:

Ryan Seacrest, subbing for Larry King last night, checked in with Anderson Cooper for a teaser of what was coming up on 360°.

Happening across this on Flickr, we realized: We really wish we had this shirt. And we even more wish we'd come up with this shirt.

Never mind kids and parents. We're wondering: Should a news anchor spank his viewers, Anderson? We'll promise to call you Daddy...

• Are Men Necessary? is "a very odd, occasionally entertaining mish-mash of politics and sex, biology and Cosmopolitan-ology, gravity and wit, insight and carelessness." We don't care what it is; we'd just like to stop hearing about it. [NYO]
• And Maureen should go away for a while, too. [MW]
• Republican senators want another investigation of a leak to reporters. You know, because the last one worked out so well for their party. [WP]
• Anna Wintour may or may not be out to kill The Devil Wears Prada film. [Radar]
• Teen People lands racist teenie-boppers Prussian Blue, who apprently think — wrongly — they'll be getting editorial control. Isn't it fun to pull one over on Nazis? [NYP]
• Memogate producer Mary Mapes was right and everyone else was wrong, insists Memogate producer Mary Mapes. [WP]
• Less demand than expected for lunch with Rupert Murdoch. Which is fine news indeed. [Guardian]
• HBO documentary chief likes both highbrow and porn, and, likely, she'll soon snag Ted Koppel. [NYP]
• Apparently, Esquire had cool covers in the sixties. [MB]
• Meet Judy Miller without traveling to Sag Harbor — only $375! [HuffPost]
• As a kid, New Yorker essayist Adam Gopnik used to sneak out after bedtime — to read. Which is somehow unsurprising. [S.F. Chronicle]
• 135K paid users have signed up for TimesSelect. As if you can't get more than enough Maureen for free these days. [E&P]
• Anderson Cooper does the self-deprecating shtick well, too. [Philadelphia Inquirer]
• Prediction: New ABC anchors will be Elizabeth Vargas and Bob Woodruff. Peter, however, would have wanted Charlie Gibson. [Newsday]
• Because one is never enough, negotiations continue at the Times continue over another fired reporter. [Media Mob/NYO]
• No one wants to read TV Guide offshoot Inside TV. [WWD]

Knowing what we do about Matt Drudge, none of us should be surprised that this Anderson Cooper item is receiving top placement on the Drudge Report. In Matty's world, elections and Euroriots don't hold a candle to a handsome gay icon talking about his special sauce.

We were realizing that it's been far too long since we checked out the e.e. cummings dadaism of Rosie O'Donnell's blog, so we reset our expectations to free verse and navigated our way to Rosie.com, where we were shocked to find this:

• Never mind Judy Miller; everything about working at the Times sucks right now. [WP]
• Of course, the entire newspaper business sucks right now, at least judging from the new circ numbers. [E&P]
• In a bid to create the most conservative editorial page in the history of the planet, Rupert Murdoch wants to buy the Journal, although he knows it's not for sale. [WSJ]
• Microsoft leads the crowded pack of companies interested in buying AOL. [NYT]
• The problem, however, is that AOL sucks ass. [AdAge]
• Anderson Cooper is termed a "boyish metrosexual," in which five of the seven syllables are accurate. [Boston Globe]
• New MSNBC show will be like dinner at the Chung-Povitch's. Just what we've always wanted. [NYT]
• Libby trial might be toughest on reporters — Miller, Cooper, and Russert. [WSJ]
• Glamour editor discovers gender imbalance in top mags' bylines. Glamour, on the other hand, we're sure has a masthead that, to use Clinton's term, "looks like America." [NYT]

• Anna Wintour celebrates her 56th year of making you feel fat and unfashionable!
• Big fun at Wenner Media: Because if you want something done properly, you do it yourself, Jann crowns himself EIC of Men's Journal while simultaneously killing off an upcoming celebrity title. But? At least the man gives his slaves flu shots.
• You may think avian flu is frightening, but the possibility of an inter-media flu is absolutely devastating. At least Wenner's safe.
• Comedian David Cross addresses the matter of his nasty doppelganger while also giving you handy tips for discerning the Real David from the Fake David.
• Page Six plans a weekly insert mag, full of Top 10 lists and other magazine-y type intellectualism.
• Gawker Media's attempt at sporty masculinity, Deadspin, breaks some real news, and perhaps ESPN's heart.
• CNN reshapes its lineup and puts Anderson Cooper at the top of the heap (right where he belongs). Sadly, lead anchor Aaron Brown is now collecting unemployment.
• We really just don't know what the hell is going on with Judy Miller. If she goes, there will be trouble, but if she stays? It will be double. Meanwhile, Andrew Hearst reminds us that, no matter how bad Judy may seem, a sense of humor and some finesse with Quark goes a long way.

A job-seeking Time Warner mole today passes along the listing for our dream job:

CNN pops on its homepage today a fresh Anderson Cooper Details column from the archives, this one from December 2004, about New Year's Eve. (Because, hey, who's not ready to read about New Year's on the first day of November?) The Coopster first reveals his profound distaste for the holiday — "If you go to a party and drink on New Year's Eve, it's inevitable: You will at some point find yourself alone and despondent," he writes, and we can't imagine why he'd feel alone — but confesses that ultimately, when he started covering New Year's for CNN, he grew to like it. Oh, the wacky times he had doing the broadcast:

• Now could someone please make Judy Miller stop testifying? [E&P]
• And maybe make her write something for her newspaper about what's going on? [NYO]
• Anderson Cooper book is officially sold; Harper will pay $1M for a memoir to "deal with the last year of [Cooper's] life as a journalist and human being in Sri Lanka, Africa, Iraq and Louisiana/Mississippi." Naturally, we can't wait to read about Coop's life as a human being. [Book Standard]
• Erstwhile New Yorker (and presumed ongoing porn aficionado) Joel Stein nabs op-ed column in L.A. Times. [L.A. Observed]
• At Harvard, Kennedys and friends, remember John-John and George. [NYDN]
• Breaking news from Public Eye! Local news gives viewers what they want; so does network news, to a much lesser degree. [Public Eye]
• Esquire food critic may have sent a Chicago restaurant a four-page list of demands before he'd deign to eat there. Or maybe he didn't. [CS-T]
• AOL survey says half of all bloggers consider it a form of therapy. Which we're thrilled to hear, as we gave up the shrink when we took this insurance-free gig. [WP]

Sad thought it is, we knew an Anderson Cooper backlash would begin soon enough.