• Judy Miller finally figured out why her Times career went to hell: It was the bloggers' fault. Of course it was. [Slate]
• Six weeks later, ABC anchor Bob Woodruff is released from the hospital to continue his rehabilitation elsewhere. [ABCNews]
• And 18 months later, NYT researcher Zhao Yan is released from prison after the Chinese government withdraws state-secrets charges. [NYT]
• Jon Friedman's doesn't love Mike Wallace. [MW]
• Coming soon: Isaac Mizrahi: The Magazine? [WWD (second item)]

We weren't going to pay much attention to the "36 Hours: Lower Manhattan" feature in today's Times Escapes section, mostly because we never pay any attention to the Escapes section and especially because there's something a little bit ridiculous and galling about the Gray Lady of 43rd Street attempting to telling us about the cool things to do below Canal Street. But then someone sent us a link to the accompanying video, narrated by Ariel Kaminer, which we found surprisingly delightful to watch. It drags a bit in places, but hang on till the 5:46 mark, when you'll have the rare pleasure of watching a Bulgarian Bar waitress berate a Times arts editor.

• After two articles warning about its dangerous effects (sleepwalking, sleepdriving, sleepeating, appearing in Times pieces), the NYT editorializes against Ambien. Someone on 43rd Street must be fat, tired, and cranky as hell. [NYT]
• Blogger teaches you to Photoshop yourself into a picture with David Cross. Other option: Take a picture with one of the ten million guys below 14th Street who look just like David Cross. [Low Culture ]
• Manolo Blahnik thinks Sarah Jessica Parker "vulgarized his name." Just wait until he sees what happens to his shoes in the SJP-produced Jessica Cutler series. [Daily Transom]
• Writers demand money for blogging. Yeah, like there's a successful business model behind that concept. [Washington City Paper]
• Former recording artist Tom Robinson ("2-4-6-8 Motorway") thinks that the only thing wrong with James Blunt is that he's too successful. This explains why Tom Robinson is now a former recording artist. [The Guardian]
• Remember that hairy lobster that freaked everyone out last week? He's now an adorable plush toy! We're suddenly excited for the next Flaming Lips tour. [mediatinker]

Ah, to be Alex Kuczynski: the house in the mountains, the great rack, the ability to use phrases like "drinking yourself stinko" without embarrassment. But all may not be well in the world of Special K. This week, she jets off to Vegas "at the urging of friends" to catch a Stones show (cue the anecdote about her encounter with Keith Richards). While there, of course, she gets a little shopping done. After hitting up the oxygen bar, as you do, she wanders over to Victoria's Secret where she discovers

• More subpoenas for the Times and Judy Miller, this time from Scooter Libby. Fun! [NYT]
• Times reporters win $25k Harvard prize for domestic-spying story. But, of course, the Bushies already knew that. [E&P]
• Newspapers are not, in fact, dying. Apparently it only seems that way. [WSJ]
• Advertisers hate men. [Medialife]

First came The Carpetbagger. Then The Walk-Through. Then The Opinionator and Diner's Journal and Dealbook and, finally, yesterday, The Pour. The way blogs are metastasizing at the Times, we figured that were just about out of things to cover. What's left, we wondered; blogging about — ha! — Newark?

• Beloved perv Dan Savage discovers another note left by Village Voice Media tribal warlord Mike Lacey: "I recently discovered that many of the young ladies who advertise in the back pages of the Voice actually have PENISES. They appear to be ladies until it s too late." [Slog]
• The Huffington Post agrees: Tomatoes are delicious. [Media Mob]
• Everyone's favorite lady from the now-defunct Black Table takes her act elsewhere: Amy Blair writes Week in Craig for Animal mag's online venture. [Animal NY]
• The Times online is all hopped up on bloggy goofballs: today they launch yet another blog, The Pour. Written by resident wino Eric Asimov, it promises to be an exciting look at the world of, uh, overanalyzing your booze. [The Pour]
• Determined to win an Ellie in the court of public opinion, the Atlantic puts all of its nominated material online. [Atlantic]
• Blondie builds stuff. [The Gutter]
• Grammar cop cites a Paris Hilton-inspired advertisement on the Drudge Report. Isn't that, like, a triply offensive violation? [Banterist]
• The only thing truly worth failing: the Ann Coulter Quiz. [Minor Tweaks]

Monday Washington Mutual bought you the Daily News. Yesterday Fresh Direct bought you the Post. Will the madness ever end? Oh, no; it won't. Here are today's reports:

It's only Wednesday, but this is the clear frontrunner. From today's Times:

From the Lens column in today's Metro section:

• That Times front-pager on Saturday about the Iraqi prisoner who was photographed robed, hooded, wired up, and quasi-crucified at Abu Ghraib? Yeah, well, they maybe didn't get the right guy. [Salon]
• One bit of good news on Cooper Square? Voice art critic is said to be a Pulitzer finalist. [Arts Journal]
• Times announces it will stop publishing daily stock listings; a five senior-citizen amateur investors give a shit. [NYT]
• Al-Jazeera can't get U.S. distribution for its new English-language channel. Imagine that. [NYS]

We understand that Ambien is also linked to long late-night conversations about how fucking cool it would be to just, like, quit our jobs and buy an old car and just hit the road, man, you know, drive across the country, meeting people, seeing the world, getting away from all this bullshit. Yeah, that's what we really should — sorry, what were we talking about again?

• More on HBO's new multi-wived drama, Big Love: If you liked the premiere or just needed more reason to hate it, behold the show's cruel marketing tactics. We'll let you plaster the background of Page Six with your logo, but defiling the Times Vows section is simply unacceptable. What was once pure is now maimed by marketing whores. [City Specific]
• A study finds that bloggers do very little original reporting and, less surprisingly, cable news is the most shallow and ephemeral of media outlets. This has been brought to you by the Captain Obvious Center for Media Research. [NYT]
• Even less original reporting from bloggers today, as we hear that Blogger has been down. We love it when bloggers can't even bitch about being unable to bitch.
• Surprise, surprise: They just might shut down The Falls, where ex-con Darryl Littlejohn worked as a bouncer and was last seen with murder victim Imette St. Guillen. While it's still open, try to have your birthday party there — should be plenty of room for you and yours. [NY Sun]
• Remembering better days, before Angelina Jolie was rescuing orphans and was just another crazy dyke. [Stories You Cannot Tell]
• Mariah Carey buys her own winery — because that's how rich boozers roll. Rest assured, the zinfandel is very full-bodied. [omg blog]
• The best of Amazon, as presented by Andrew Krucoff. [Young Manhattanite]

If you hadn't read the Automobiles section — which, in fact, we usually don't, and we have no idea what possessed us to do so this week — you'd have missed this delightfully jarring bit:

With its representation of two plain cowboys who fell in love in plain old Western wear, ["Brokeback Mountain"] hit the fashion bull's-eye. Cowboy boots, snap-button shirts and big ol' belt buckles standards that have come and gone several times before are striding back into style.

Think the only benefits of TimesSelect are Maureen Dowd's musings and a blog by that Frank Rich look-alike? Oh no. Not at all. Yesterday evening, TimesSelect members became the very first to learn about this incredibly exciting opportunity:

It's not so much that we don't quite understand this fish-nor-fowl business of Bruce Bartlett's work being billed on the Times homepage as though he's an op-ed columnist when he's more of a Suellentropian highbrow blogger. It's not that he's seemingly using the Times and this quasi-op-ed gig as little more than an ongoing plug for his new book, which his bio helpfully notes "has just been published by Doubleday." It's not even that his latest bit — the offering being flacked on the homepage — is just repeating the same stuff Paul Krugman has been saying for months.

From today's Publishers Lunch deal roundup:

Another Timesian spy, this one who attended the afternoon State of the Times session yesterday, reports that the second meeting was very much like the first. Except, apparently, a bit more polish on the why-I-get-stock-and-you-don't answer and a bit more explanation on the why-I-don't-want-you-reporters-to-report-anything request:

• A very special collection of letters to the editor regarding the Village Voice's grounded houseboy Nick Sylvester. Dismay isn't quite the word to cover public sentiment. [VV]
• We hear that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Suozzi has hired former New York Press editor Harry Siegal as his policy director. Siegal saved the Press, so maybe he can — er, nevermind.
• The House & Home section at the Times gets an extreme makeover, kind of. [Architect's Newspaper]
• More on Kate Moss' totally unexciting drug use from 1998: She traveled with her stash in a Faberg egg. The woman is nothing if not classy. [This Is London]
• Writing about how Matt Haber wrote something that you actually wrote two years prior is deliciously meta. [FishbowlNY]
• MySpace: the movie. [Big Shiny Thing]
• Yanni is arrested for domestic abuse. Being forced to watch his Live at the Acropolis VHS during our junior high music classes, we can't help but feel relieved that he's off the streets. [CNN]
• Twee music is fine. Twee comics, not so much. Fine by us — too much twee and comic geeks in this world, anyhow. [Salon]