"TMZ seemed to be straining to find material" when it posted video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg last week, the New York Times reports today. A week later. Then reporter Maria Aspan cites a Valleywag commenter at the end of the article. Clearly, we're witnessing the decline the of an old media dino — Wait. The New York Times quoted a Valleywag commenter? OMFG! JediTilo, you got quoted in the freaking New York Times. Count me impressed. Me and your mom.

"Web 2.0 has already decided that if you don't vote for Obama they'll all unfriend you." — commenter zerogee on the prevailing winds South of Market Street.

Those wacky shoe-screening cards at the TSA started a blog! It's got a catchy name ("Evolution of Security"), a thriller trailer tagline ("Terrorist Evolve. Threats Evolve. Security Must Stay Ahead. You Play a Part." COMING THIS FALL.), and incredibly bitchy comments. Like "DHS and TSA are fundamentally broken. Disband both immediately and return our civil liberties." That's one of the mild ones! They deleted most of the not mild ones. Also it's hosted on Blogger. Some more entertaining of the remaining comments, below. [ThinkProgress, WP]

Commenter ABMW writes:

Commenter ex_yhoo_music writes a letter to Microsoft offering "helpful" tips on how to run its Yahoo acquisition.

Our Tom Cruise videos continue to attract attention from near and far, as well as some choice comments—including a number from Germany, where the government is taking a hard line against the religion. And from Poland, where they are terrified.

1. sample032: 596

What does Michael Arrington have against women? A lot, apparently. His latest target: A blog commenter named "Shelley," who spoke up on behalf of a photographer, Lane Hartwell. Hartwell, as we'd guessed, was the copyright complainant who knocked the popular "Here Comes Another Bubble" video off YouTube. Canadian blogger Mathew Ingram said Hartwell was wrong. Shelley responded in Hartwell's defense. And that's when Michael Arrington joined in and turned the conversation awkward.

Earlier I noted Jason Calacanis's recent gem from LeWeb3. At the Parisian conference, he told the crowd, "As Internet people we shouldn't bother with people who don't understand the Internet because they'll soon be dead." I also noted that Calacanis hung up on me when I called to confirm he actually said it. It's not as harsh as it sounds, at least according to Calacanis himself, who left a whopping 337-word comment on the post. Here's the 100-word version.

An apocryphal retail-store study recounted to me once by a professor supposedly found that any revamp of a grocery store lowered sales. No matter how the aisles were reconfigured, the mere fact of switching things around left shoppers confused and prone to buy less. I worry that my publisher's fixation with frequent redesigns may have much the same effect on you, gentle readers.

We never know for sure if the commentards are who they claim to be. But one prodigious poster with the new account "gamespot" is telling what reads like a credible insider story — it's written in editor-speak — of what happened to ex-CNET GameSpot reviewer Jeff Gerstmann, supposedly fired for low-scoring an advertiser's new game. "Gamespot"'s posts are in need of a 100-word-versioning, but it's Friday so forgettabout it here's the whole thing pasted in. I've bolded the newsy parts.

The wisdom of crowds? We'll believe it when we see it. Charting the social graph? Best left to people without friends. Forgive me if I greet our parent company's latest upgrade to our site with a mix of hesitation and chagrin: You can now follow other commenters on Valleywag.

"Hey Em, I hear that we may see you during the Thanksgiving holiday. Great," my maternal grandfather wrote to me in an email last night. "Tell me later about the stable of bloggers (?) who do comments on your varying stories. They seem to repeat themselves. Do you liven up the comments by using in house people ? Is this a serous attraction for your readers? Does it build the number of hits to the site? It appears that the commentators view avidly each others comments. A sort of incestuous aura. Take care, stay employed, and have a good retirement plan." My grandfather is so correct (except maybe about the part about staying employed): The Gawker comments do have a sort of incestuous aura. And it's about to get even incestuous-er!.

Reader comments have been added to the front page of NYTimes.com. Disgraced stock analyst Henry Blodget writes that "it will definitely help increase the site's popularity." Hank, this is the New York Times. Having reader comments next to top headlines won't increase their popularity. It will dilute the brand. I guess the Times really is just a fancy blog.

From the comments, a fresh rumor about Brad Fitzpatrick, the LiveJournal founder widely believed to be working on social networks at Google. The commenter, who claims to work at Google, says Fitzpatrick is actually working on free, ad-supported Wi-Fi. Curious, since Google's Wi-Fi projects have faced trouble recently. A deal with San Francisco for free Wi-Fi fell apart thanks to Google partner EarthLink's straitened finances. Why would a tech star like Fitzpatrick work on such a seemingly doomed project? With that caveat, the report on Fitzpatrick's new project, from googleyes, after the jump.

We asked if you would pay extra to buy a Googler's bookshelf — listed, for a premium price, on Craigslist. If you work at Cisco, apparently the answer's yes. [Valleywag]

"Vint Cerf adds weight to Google in the same way that Whoopi Goldberg added mental tonnage to Flooz.com and Lee Majors added gravitas to Kozmo.com." — GhostSites [Valleywag]

In the comments to my piece raising questions about the deal between Indiana University and "human-powered" search engine ChaCha, PR flack Liza Dittoe says she'd like to point out some "errors." By which we assume she means her client's copious mistakes. Oh, but "inadvertent mistakes," she says. How exactly does a CFO and general counsel "inadvertently" make the mistake of signing and certifying as true a form being submitted to the SEC? Isn't it his job to be attentive to these matters? And how difficult is it to know whether or not someone's still on your board?

Says commenter The Default Attorney about Facebook recruiter Meagan Marks, one of the Valley foxes we featured recently:

Talk about your disproportionate responses. In answer to a 45-word item on Valleywag, employees and executives at Wellsphere, the poorly managed wellness portal savaged by Uncov, posted 1,800 words worth of comments. When a company takes up that much space to answer its critics, you know that the problems run deeper than mere logorrhea. Uncov has suffered a similar comments barrage, as has GigaOm, despite posting a mostly rah-rah story about the company. In the comments, Wellsphere executives offered their phone numbers and email addresses. Valleywag readers, I can only encourage you to take advantage of their offers.