Though billionaire investor and Yahoo pain in the ass Carl Icahn was supposed to start blogging today, about corporate governance, at IcahnReport.com, the website's only piece of content thus far is this: "This page is parked free, courtesy of GoDaddy.com." Perhaps the domain Carl should've registered is Icanh'tReport.com.

Credit card company Advanta is offering a business credit card aimed specifically at blogger types. [Blueprint]

When Reed Elsevier "quietly asked" a blogger to stop chronicling its hopeful sale of Reed Business Information, the blogger complied.

With its revamped website and Graydon Carter's video introductions to each new issue, Vanity Fair clearly considers itself a major player in the Internet leagues. That VF grasps so desperately at each new meme, however, isn't a publishing industry triumph; it's a sad little whimper from inside Conde Nast, where they've been unable to trade up their celebrity currency for online relevance.

And then came "How the Web Was Won," the lengthy "oral history" of the Internet, which debuted online as the biggest piece of link bait yet. (You know how us Internet types like to link to things that talk about our own kind.) And with it, a Web 2.0 sidebar: "Blogoptican," which throws a few dozen Internet titles – many of them not even blogs – on a matrix, measuring them vertically between news and opinion, and horizontally between scurrilous and honest.

That Jossip appears toward the scurrilous pole is not so much an honor, but an expectation; of course we'd end up there.

And then there are the celebrity gossip titles, which generously populate the list, and go a little something like this:

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Blogging grandpa Jeff Jarvis wants reporters to identify themselves when leaving comments. Newsweek's Jonathan Alter wants bloggers to identify themselves when conducting interviews, especially ex-president Bill Clinton.

In this era where "citizen" and "journalist" are paired as often as "drunk" and "uploaded the video to YouTube," who's responsible for disclosing what here?

Should we just assume everyone is, at some level, a reporter? And if they aren't doing the reporting, isn't everyone at least a source?

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Sadly, it appears those interning at 20th Century Fox have not learned the lesson of Chrissy Torres, the University of Southern California student who thought airing her complaints about her gig – like her boss giving her a "Meryl-Streep-in-Devil-Wears-Prada long list of things to do one day, 3 hours before I had to leave" – would be a good idea.

Some of her fellow interns aren't so pleased with her actions. Which is why they're doing some blogging of their own … aimed at Torres.

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Can we fault the world's worst entertainment blogger, Liz Snead, for merely living up to what her Los Angeles Times paycheck asks her to do, which is to publish on the Internet whatever thoughtless rants run through her head? Or is she culpable for trying to take the struggling Tribune paper into generation Web 2.No by leading them down a path of bumptious observation?

It didn't take long for Snead's Angelina Jolie items to paint her as a bottom-feeding gossip hound. Now, she's taking great joy in calling Liv Tyler, who is in the middle of trying to save her marriage fat — directing this bit of advice her way: "Even if you're wearing a very loose dress, suck that tummy in, girls!"

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… and she's Chrissy Torres, who's likely out of an internship, like, right this second. Not only did she give away the damning details about her identity while blogging about her internship, she also listed the fact that she was interning at Fox and contributing to CollegeOTR.com, where the blog was published, on her Facebook profile. Idiot.

Bad news, kiddos: The USC student who was said to be interning at FNC is actually just interning at one of the bajillion divisions of Fox (okay, it's 20th Century Fox in LA). Not that writing about her experience there is any less stupid.

[Update: Turns out this isn't an intern at FNC, but 20th Century Fox.]

A student at the USC appears to be blogging on the website CollegeOTR.com about what it's like to intern at Fox News. As anybody working in the media, or having interned in the industry, understands, this is an incredibly stupid, stupid idea. Especially since, while you might be blogging "anonymously," it won't take staffers very long to finger which of their interns is female and attends USC. And writes things like this:

This has been the back and forth of working at Fox. Somedays are incredibly busy — my head boss, a fairly well-known producer, gave me a Meryl-Streep-in-Devil-Wears-Prada long list of things to do one day, 3 hours before I had to leave. The list included finding out the name of some upcoming directors at an agency, searching for ad rates on popular websites, and finding the HOME address of a popular celebrity CEO [NOT an actor, and NOT Ben Affleck], so he could "play a trick" on them.

"Oh, well, do you have any contacts for them?" I asked, hopefully. "I mean, can I drop your name to get it? I just don't know how I could get access…"

"No, no, no," he said, annoyed. "That would RUIN the prank. Just you know, google it or something"

…oic.

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Los Angeles Times blogger Elizabeth Snead has a simple solution to ending all this madness about whether Angelina Jolie actually gave birth: Show yourself!

"So where is Angelina? It's her 33rd birthday today," Snead wrote yesterday. "If she would only show her face — and her bump — all these birth rumors would be instantly put to rest, without having to waste money paying expensive lawyers to write threatening letters to news organizations."

Yes, Angelina, feed the beast. That's some brilliant advice, Snead. This, from the same supposed Hollywood expert who thinks it's coincidental that Jolie and Gina Gershon, along with every other Hollywood talent, hired the big-mouthed law firm Lavely & Singer.

JOSSIP REPORTS

So how did the "ANGELINA GAVE BIRTH!!!" rumor – that got Entertainment Tonight in a giant cauldron of boiling shit for its fake world exclusive – even get started?

As all terrible things in life do: On a blog.

It all started May 26, four days before ET's since de-bunked report, when someone, identified only as "Jenah" and supposed from New York City, posted to famousbabesblog.blogspot.com (since disappeared from the web) claiming to be "the best friend to one of Brad & Angelina's nannies, I believe I can report this before any other news outlet: THEY HAD THEIR TWINS!"

And as these things are wont to do, the item got circulated all over celebrity message boards, before winding up on the French website PurePeople, which noted the report came from a blog, and thus shouldn't be treated as fact. (BLOGS LIE!!, after all.) That item got picked up by JustJared, which cited "media outlets in France" but noted, "This rumor has not been confirmed by any reps of the Jolie-Pitt clan."

From there, Entertainment Tonight got wind, claimed the exclusive as their own (and even copying the babies' names given in the original report). Then the tabloid magazines posted the news on their blog, until word arrived that the report was false, everyone backtracked and debunked the rumor, while ET remained its source was reliable. Cue Jolie's attorneys at Lavely & Singer to begin circulating letters explaining how somebody was impersonating Jolie's assistant Holly Goline, all the while ET has sat idly by pretending the whole thing never happened, even though they knew their source was bad.

All of which brings up two big questions:

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Washington D.C. political bloggers live together. In a "flop house." And then they watch the cable news networks together. And then blog their reactions. And then link to each other's blog posts. And then finish off the Jim Beam and make sweet, sweet link love to each other.

Thanks to the lovely Google Cache, a blog's since-pulled offline report about Chris Matthews' revelation and Tucker Carlson's confirmation, during a Portfolio photo shoot at MSNBC's D.C. studio, that Arianna Huffington had hired a private investigator to tail a NBC colleague (since identified as Tim Russert) can still be read. [Google Cache]

As it the censored item now reads: "The original author of this post and the editor of this blog would like to sincerely apologize to Conde Nast, Portfolio, Chris Matthews, Tucker Carlson and the photographer on set for any problems or inconvenience we might have caused. We had no intention to bring harm to anybody involved."

Except, well, too late? The blogger, Douglas Thompson, has officially screwed over his friend, the photographer, who he tagged along with. No more Conde Nast work for you, buddy.

If you're tied of this gossip girl, perhaps another real life NYC blog chronicling of inside baseball anecdotes and trite tidbits will pique your interest. It's called Miss ITK (for Miss In The Know), and it's a gossip blog that titillated, and caused heartbreak in, the inner sanctuary of Manhattan's elite offspring: high school. An unidentified teen traversed the hallways of private schools like Dalton, writing in Gossip Girl speak, until he or she was, somehow, brought down. And now the kids who were its most avid readers are saying terrible things about it, like labeling it "immature." Yeah? You're immature!

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The excellent fashion mag blog Glossed Over has returned.

"When the Backstreet Boys came to visit my junior high, I didn’t even flinch! Granted, that was over 10 years ago, so they weren’t at the peak of their game, but even so I was cool and collected. I also type fast like lightening and I’m extremely perceptive. As for Harry Potter vs Spiderman, I doubt they would fight to begin with - maybe Harry loaned his vibrating broomstick to Harry’s main squeeze Lily, causing fireworks at Hogwart’s? - but if so, I imagine Harry would win. Spidey could easily fling himself out of the way, and scoop up Hermione as he hit the road. But then Harry could retaliate by turning Spiderman into an actual squishable spider, so there goes that plan. But I digress! I also have a winning smile, an ability to speak to/about Mike Meyers without imitating any of the characters from Austin Powers (thought I would be happy to give it a try, even at the risk of humiliating myself), and the ability to be sarcastic without being offensive. My written and verbal communication skills are phenomenal, and my commentary would crack everyone up. Finally, I’m also a whore for pop culture, so I’m up to date on who’s with who, what movies will be the next mega-hits (can we say Twilight?), and what everyone should and shouldn’t be wearing"

That is one girl's application essay to be MTV's 2008 Movie Awards blogger. [MTV]

"I do sincerely regret the way in which Leitch was treated because it did undermine the valid points that I was trying to make." So you're sorry you were an ass because it kept the focus away from your very valid points? [VF]

ZINCZENKO LOSING HIS LIBIDO? Tomorrow will be the 50th day since Men's Health washboard Dave Zinczenko posted to his Yahoo blog about relationships and sex. And his last post was only rated "helpful" by 30 percent of its readers. [Yahoo]

Blog hater and Friday Night Lights author Buzz Bissinger is kinda sorry for being a douche on HBO: "I believe in what I said (although the emails I received have also directed me to some excellent information-based sports blogs I was not aware of). But I made a terrible mistake in the manner in which I said it. I am a man of passion and my passion truly got the better of me. I should have considerably toned it down, in particular in terms of my treatment of Will Leitch. Without going into details, I have taken steps to remedy that. I have also publicly apologized on several radio shows that have been widely disseminated. Those apologies are sincere, just as my passion was sincere if terribly misplaced. I treated Mister Leitch like the worst kind of blogger." [TBL]