Popular internet gossip weblogger Mario "Perez" Hilton-Lavandeira 's late endorsement of Senator Hillary Clinton in the California primary might have been the deciding factor, according to venerable ABC journalist Sam Donaldson, who was trotted out by terrorists of some kind and forced to interview Lavandeira by phone, to his utter befuddlement. Donaldson explains that he knew Perez's grandfather Conrad, he wonders why there was "this hugely pregnant woman" on Ms. Hilton's internet site, then he promises to watch Perez Hilton's website every day. Buzz buzz! [ABCNews]

When you're a freelance writer and blogger forced to come all the way from Connecticut just for a Suzie Wong event, you'd better get in or there will be hell to pay. When Adam Bernard was shamefully denied entrance to the party last week, he decided to take out his wrath on the organizers, the PR firm of society mover and pedestrian runner-over Lizzie Grubman, by posting a video on his blog. Wrathful! Listen with sympathy as Adam details the "horrific" experience of being turned away at the door:

Wacky entrepreneur-turned-egoblogger Jakob Lodwick has vowed that from here onward, he'll reveal "less, not more" about his life online. A wise move that would prevent him from, say, deleting entire blog entries as soon as they're reported on. Buried deep within his Normative nonexplainer is his new philosophy of revealing "a morsel" rather than his whole "lunch" because he's learned some sort of lesson. The real reason? Without Julia Allison, he's just not that interesting.

Will Morris, AOL's man in Silicon Valley — they still have someone in Silicon Valley? — is mad as hell, and he's not going to take it anymore. His peeve? Commenters who say "silly" things about AOL. He's vowed to track them down and respond to their comments. The response on Morris's blog has shown off the scintillating intellect AOL users are known for. The latest comment:

"WASHINGTON (AP) — It's the government's idea of a really bad day: Washington's Metro trains shut down. Seaport computers in New York go dark. Bloggers reveal locations of railcars with hazardous materials." That's right: bloggers are the new terrorists.

In a desperate bid to strip dangerous "bloggers" of their growing influence, presidential candidate Hillary Clinton announced this weekend a devious plan to legitimize internet scribblers by employing them in government agencies, thus ensuring that no one will ever take them semi-seriously again. In the attached clip, Hillary suggests the radical new blogger policy as a convenient means of avoiding a question about HOW THE CIA KILLED JOHN KENNEDY. [HuffPo]

Mark Cuban was happy to sit with Deadspin blogger Will Leitch for an interview to go into GQ. (Deadspin, a sports blog, is owned by Gawker Media, Valleywag's publisher.) But then Cuban saw Leitch's subsequent post on Valleywag. "While I respect the magazine," Cuban writes on his blog, "I am not a fan of the site [Leitch] works for, or of its affiliated site that the blog ran on. I would not have done the interview had I known he would blog about it for this site." Which is too bad, really. We're normally fans of the outspoken, outrageous entrepreneur-blogger. Except when he engages in phony self-righteousness. "Is this ethical?" he asks.

So we dinged Yahoo for not updating 8 of their 26 official blogs in the last month. Apparently word got around. In the image to the left, find the reply from Yahoo's Digital Home Blog. Click to expand it. It's either as fine a demonstration of snark you'll find or a snapshot of a very sad reality. Either way, the message is clear: At Yahoo, somebody forced somebody to start these pointless blogs and nobody likes writing them. So leave us alone. (Snark only goes so far: The blog post, ostensibly about the launch of Flickr photos on Apple TV, does not mention that the demo of this feature during Steve Jobs's Macworld keynote completely failed.) Here's a note, more to the point, from the Yahoo! Research Berkeley bloggers.

A source close to the company tells us Yahoo has dismissed the entire Brand Universe team that reported to the already-booted Vince Broady. "Guess that was a real stinker, wasn't it?" our source notes. A separate source with inside knowledge has other fresh details on the impending Yahoo layoffs.

Yahoo maintains 28 "official blogs." Eight of them haven't been updated in a month, Internet gadfly Steve Baldwin notes on his blog. Here's the rundown.

Blogger obsession No. 1 meets blogger obsession No. 2 in this 1,185 word daydream by relatively unknown blogger John Ellis that's climbed onto Techmeme. If the market cap of the New York Times Co. falls below $2 billion, he says, "The company that has the most to gain from buying the New York Times is Google." Ellis envisions "a fascinating and challenging project: the reinvention of a great newspaper across multiple platforms and within a variety of applications" that will "attract people of great talent." Gee, who would that be. Not that it's a bad idea — it's just that by wishing for the Gray Lady to be taken over by media-savvy, deep-pocketed management eager to try new ideas, Ellis makes a great case for Rupert Murdoch.

Doree is bored by The Wire's Baltimore Sun storyline. Choire is at a seafood restaurant in South Carolina. Emily is posting photos of her dog (and criticizing books about sad literary men). Balk is really sorry he hasn't updated in a while but it's been totally crazy at work!

We stopped by the Blogger Lounge within the Microsoft booth on the Macworld Expo floor. Inside, it was rather comfortable, considerably more so than the press areas at CES — except the internet didn't work. While we were there though, we found M&M's graced with the Microsoft Office, Word and Excel logos, comfy leather couches. And a computer that everyone in the lounge was very interested in — but not the one you'd suspect.

Star Wonkette commenter FlakJack listed additional punishments the Consumer Electronics Show people should mete out to Gizmodo's TV-remote prankster. Edited version:

Richard Blakeley, the scamp behind Gizmodo's TV-turnoff stunt at CES, has been banned from attending the show. Here's the CEA's official response to the Gizmodo TV-B-Gone prank:

Self-styled serious bloggers are tripping over each other to distance themselves from Gizmodo's childishly funny prank at CES, in which Gawker Media class clown Richard Blakeley turned off entire banks of TV displays with a remote control. The critics advocate for more maturity and morality, in posts titled "douche" and "crap." The bloggers' real concern is that they'll lose their recently acquired just-like-old-media access to PR dog-and-pony shows and the snack room at CES. It used to be bloggers bragged about not needing those things, and not being corrupted by them. The guy at TechCrunch's gadget blog weighs in: "Will Denton's kids grow up? Absolutely." Then he posts a photo of a douche box. When I grow up, I want to be just like him.

Entrepreneurs. Engineers. Bloggers. You keep asking: Why does a writer like me hate people like you? Nick Denton's new traffic-based pay scale has backfired wonderfully, giving me a few minutes to explain it.

"Words Without Borders, an online magazine for literature in translation, is looking for writers with a distinctive voice and point of view to blog literary festivals, readings around town, and international literary and translation news. Literary bent, reliability, a good grasp of grammar, and global cosmopolitan outlook a must. ... Contributions can be frequent or more occasional upon mutual agreement. 6 month commitment minimum. ... If you are unfamiliar with our magazine, please read it first to get a sense of what would fit with our content: www.wordswithoutborders.org. We are a general interest magazine. Position is unpaid."

Saudi blogger Fouad al-Farhan was arrested by government authorities and detained for "purposes of interrogation." Fouad says, in a letter posted on his blog, that he was arrested because he "wrote about the political prisoners here in Saudi Arabia, and they think I'm running an online campaign promoting their issue." A friend of Fouad's claims he was the first blogger to post items in Arabic and to use his real name. And the first to be detained by Saudi state security. A Saudi official said "he is not being jailed. He is being questioned, and I don't believe he will remain in detention long. They will get the information that they need from him and then they will let him go." I'm glad I live in America. The worst I can get from a post is a critical comment from Nick Denton. Which is, despite rumors, a bit easier to take than a visit from some intelligence officers.

That dude Alan Colmes who is the nominally liberal half of FOX News' duo Hannity and Colmes has what is described as a "secret" blog by the Huffington Post. On it, he posts reader mail, uses his full name, and talks about the show. Ah, we get it, secret like "We didn't know about it so it was a secret!" Also, there's a Bob Dylan video on the blog which we guess means he really is a liberal. [Inside Cable]