In this ruthlessly funny video–especially for such a sweet-looking young lady–singer Taylor Swift manages to ice pretty much everyone who ever dissed her.

And Kanye West’s attention-grabbing antics at the MTV Video Music Awards in September are not the only ones getting a musical smackdown from the 19-year-old, who won the Country Music Association’s entertainer of the year award last night.

In her opening on a recent “Saturday Night Live,” the NBC television comedy show, which she hosted, Swift strummed a guitar and sang “Monologue Song (La La La).”

My favorite line, which I was completely not expecting: “I like writing songs about douche bags who cheat on me.”

Sing it, sister.

Here’s the video:

In a genius pairing of subject and artist, here is the best online viral video this week from Conan O’Brien’s “Tonight Show,” featuring actor William Shatner reciting outgoing Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s recent farewell speech verbatim.

You simply can’t make this stuff up.

Done in Shatner’s perfect Captain James T. Kirk/”Rocket Man”-style, here is the video from NBC (as well as Shatner interpreting the Elton John-Bernie Taupin hit song, and also my favorite impression of Palin by Tina Fey on “Saturday Night Live”):

For all the noisy hubbub over should-we-or-shouldn’t-we-publish confidential documents hacked from password-protected accounts of Twitter employees, as well as a Twitter spouse, it is actually pretty simple.

Stolen equals stolen.

But, because this is a “hot” issue and it concerns an even hotter Web 2.0 company–Holy traffic-gooser, Batman!–the debate will surely go on and on, even as the stolen information inevitably leaks its way out.

Still, let’s not pretend what it is and is not.

It is most definitely not, for example, one of those great dramatic moments in journalism.

Thus, comparing the ruminations over whether to publish egregiously obtained information–however true–to the debate over a major event like the New York Times publishing the Pentagon Papers is pathetic.

It is, though, a tempest in a Silicon Valley teapot.

In point of fact, my colleague Peter Kafka, who works from New York, wrote me tonight:

“Was at a fancy schmooze tonight packed with digital media bigwigs: Viacom, NBC, News Corp, plus lots of start-up guys. TwitterGate was on *no one’s* lips. I talked to one guy who has a stake in the company and he pretty much shrugged about it–several people had no idea about it at all. Total non-news.”

It is not, however self-righteously (and pompously) put forth, much of a dilemma.

As the very clever John Gruber of Daring Fireball put it: “What you may ask, is the dilemma, since it is clear that any decent human being would simply refuse to have anything to do with something so lurid?”

Indeed, it is unequivocally wrong to publish documents you know or think were stolen or hacked, because it is aiding and abetting that theft.

In this regard, then, there should be no difference between “Web” journalism and the old-fashioned journalism–acting as if the former gets a “process journalism” (what a crock!) pass at standards and ethics that should be eternal and unwavering, no matter the medium.

And it is a little like pitting “gay” marriage against marriage, in order to create a false dichotomy, designed only to obfuscate the issues.

So, it also isn’t kosher to try to take focus of your own wrongdoing by pointing to other practices, which is almost always an obnoxious reach by the willfully immature.

While comparisons to leaked company documents have been made–and BoomTown knows from leaked corporate memos–this is a lazy-man’s argument, since it simply does not track.

The Twitter docs were stolen from personal accounts, an obvious pilfer, which immediately changes the equation completely.

While you certainly can have a lively debate about whether Yahoos should pass along some widely distributed memo that CEO Carol Bartz penned to the company, it is not even close to the same thing.

And, more to the point, if someone sent me emails jacked from Bartz’s own email account, I would not need even a second to know I would never use such information.

As I tweeted earlier today: A credible source a reporter knows giving accurate info is clearly different from a thief rifling through someone’s sock drawer.

That is especially true when you use material from a person you do not know. For the record: When I post a company memo, for example, I know and check out exactly who’s giving it to me and I don’t publish stuff just because it happens to land in my email box.

And, a minor beef, blaming victims for the theft by saying they have weak or inadequate passwords is also pathetic. It’s kind of like blaming people for being robbed because they had crappy locks.

I suppose there is a point in there, but the real finger of blame should always be firmly pointed at the burglar and those who fence his nicked goods.

That brings me to my final point–thinking you can handle dirty material and then act as if your hands are clean.

How hands get dirty is a concept even my children understand.

And if my kids ever said: “Hey, this stolen stuff is going to get out anyway, so let me be the one to ladle it out as I see fit”–I’d ground them for life.

Well, here’s a photo that was forwarded to me showing an advertisement on top of a taxi in Manhattan of a goodbye message from Bing, as well as GE (GE) entertainment unit NBC, to the late pop legend, Michael Jackson.

It was a joint effort from Bing and NBC, said a Microsoft source. The software giant and NBC have a strong partnership surrounding the launch the search service.

Done by Show Media, which specializes in this form of advertising, the text–with a picture from Jackson’s “Thriller” album–reads: “We will miss you Michael.”

Presumably, enough of a condolence to get fans to search about him on Bing–instead of on Google (GOOG) or Yahoo (YHOO)–and get news updates from NBC’s many media outlets.

Jackson’s sudden death last week caused a massive surge of activity all over the Web, including at search engines.

Here’s the taxi-topper image (click on it to make it larger):

Even if it never makes any money, Twitter certainly does provide fabulous material for television spoofs.

So far, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have done several funny bits on Comedy Central, deftly mocking the microblogging service.

And now, Conan O’Brien is doubling down with two skits so far dubbed “Twitter TRACKER” on GE (GE) unit NBC’s “The Tonight Show.”

In them, a loudmouthed voice delivers pointless celebrity tweets as a flock of blue cartoon Twitter birdies is murdered in various ingenious ways.

What’s not to like?

O’Brien, who is nicknamed CoCo by the Twitter TRACKER bully, hardly needs to work hard to make fun of real tweets like Ashton Kutcher’s mundanities, such as “Going to the grocery store need some fixins for a salad.”

There is also, of course, a snark-laced Web site and a Twitter page, so it looks like this Tweet-beatdown might just go on and on.

It should, if only for terms like: “Schprechen sie Tweetenshlize!”

Here are the online spoof videos so far (and click here to see the full interview with the Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams onstage at the D7 conference):

Just after he got the job 10 days ago, BoomTown got the chance to chitty-chat a bit with Scott Moore (pictured here), the former Yahoo media chief, who is returning to Microsoft, where he will lead online content efforts in the U.S for its MSN online service.

Apparently, you can go home again!

It’s a touché tale because it feels like Moore was pretty much rehired by MSN exec Greg Nelson (also in on the conversation with Moore) to give Yahoo a wallop where it really will hurt–its powerful content business, one of Yahoo’s few bright spots.

And to add another layer of irony, Moore replaced Jeff Dossett, who replaced Moore at Yahoo (YHOO) after Moore suddenly left the troubled online company late last year.

In our conversation, Nelson began talking first about the continued commitment of Microsoft (MSFT) to compete in the online media business despite its lackluster record over the years.

“We are making a big bet with Scott because he understands the key themes for us, which is that this is a scale business,” said Nelson (pictured here). “We all have a conviction that Microsoft has what it takes to compete in that arena.”

Moore agreed, noting that “very few companies have the scale that Microsoft has and you look at the size of the audience and the tools and great assets we can weave in and you realize the possibilities as the market is changing.”

But that scale has not helped Microsoft so far, although Moore argued that it still has a chance as the online content landscape changes.

By change, Moore posits that the Internet is now shifting from being a place to get news and information to becoming a primary entertainment medium.

“You can see that phenomena is somewhat in social media, the idea that it is not only about entertainment, but about making all kinds of choices through the Internet,” he said.

Because of Microsoft’s large audience, which still lags behind Yahoo and Time Warner (TWX) online service AOL, Moore thinks it has the opportunity to leverage the distribution strength with a variety of entertainment partners.

But he said he is not ruling out more original content from Microsoft.

“Most of it is still aggregated content, but MSN also has to think about having stuff no one else has,” Moore said. “You can make it, license it or partner.”

Both Moore and Nelson said it is important that the small amount of premium content is special, such as Microsoft’s deal with NBC during the Olympics.

“It’s a pyramid with the original and premium content on top,” said Nelson.

That does not mean going too far afield though. “I think we have to choose a spot where we already have a large audience and then program to keep them coming back,” said Moore. “It’s not doing something out of whole cloth–that’s not the idea.”

That’s presumably the exact idea behind MSN’s launch of Wonderwall last week, a slick, standalone celebrity Web site (pictured here), designed to compete with AOL and Yahoo offerings.

Moore, who was involved with the creation of Yahoo’s top-ranked omg! pop culture site, was not part of the Wonderwall effort and he did try to tamp down the idea of going head-to-head with former colleagues at Yahoo.

“I have a lot of friends and a lot of great memories there, but it is also great to go back to my roots,” said Moore.

Nonetheless, he still managed to add that he wanted to get MSN sites to top status as soon as possible. “When I got to Yahoo it was not No. 1,” he said.

Nelson said Microsoft was committed to content, even after a history of less-than-stellar results.

“Ideas are free, and so it is all about execution,” said Nelson. “What is our level of conviction? How committed is Microsoft? Very committed, because it’s the future of the company.”

Republican Vice Presidential candidate and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin did a very smooth--if a tiny bit sweetly awkward--job in her appearance on "Saturday Night Live" last night.

It was a good decision to go low-key and also do a bit of stunt casting by bringing in Mark Wahlberg, who was mocked in an impersonation last week by SNL, and also Alec Baldwin.

The well-known liberal actor did a nice turn pretending to insult Palin, while thinking she was his "30 Rock" co-star Tina Fey, whose many turns at impersonating Palin have become a huge Internet hit.

Palin came on again later in the NBC television comedy show on its "Weekend Update," rocking out to a perfect rap by a very pregnant Amy Poehler.

These two from SNL will surely be the biggest Web video hits this week.

And, goodness gracious, do Palin and Fey really look alike, passing by each other at the end of the opening skit without speaking.

Sometimes politics can be really ugly and sometimes silly--and this time Palin managed to poke fun at herself without being either.

You betcha' she did.

Here's the two videos from last night and also the other three that already aired on SNL:

Opening:

Weekend Update Palin Rap:

VP Debate:

Interview with NBC's Katie Couric:

With Sen. Hillary Clinton:

Well, here’s a good reason not to write off Joost quite yet: When the London-based company officially debuts its new Web-based service in mid-October, it will have some pretty hot content with its half-dozen seasons of the former NBC hit, “Friends.”

Also, there will finally be no more irksome plug-ins.

In other words, anyone with an Internet connection can watch streaming television shows and movies on Joost, with advertising embedded in various forms.

There will also be social-networking elements–you can see what your friends watch and form groups, make comments with cool tools and the rest of that sort of thing.

While all this is not going to make up for the lost time the online video service has wasted with its annoying P2P-based desktop client download, going to a Web-based, all-Flash service with more robust content is certainly the right way to stop rival service Hulu from continuing to clean Joost’s clock.

Joost was first out of the gate last year with a giant slug of funding, fancy founders (Janus Friis and Niklas Zennström, who were also founders of Web phenoms Skype and Kazaa) and blue-chip investors (Sequoia Capital, Index Ventures, as well as CBS, Viacom and wealthy Hong Kong investor Li Ka-shing).

In any case, Hulu quickly grabbed the lead in terms of press praise (I ate my words even!), ease-of-use and, most importantly, user numbers.

In the most recent stats, for example, Hulu had more than 100 million monthly video streams and 3.3 million unique monthly visitors. (But since Joost has just soft-launched its new Web-only service, it’s hard to make comparisons just yet, although the competition is now clearly afoot!)

And, although it has been written off by some, I do not think it is too late for Joost.

First, it is still early in the premium online video game.

Second, success will depend on having increasing amounts of quality content. And Joost–with CBS, Warner Bros., Sony and other unusual content like anime–certainly can keep up with Hulu’s programs from its partner parents, News Corp. (News Corp. is the owner of Dow Jones and this Web site) and NBC Universal.

Lastly, despite decent consumer uptake, the business is still in its nascent popcorn-stand stage of revenue and profit generation.

And while spending too much money and having too many employees did not help Joost, it seems as though CEO Mike Volpi has finally gotten control of the start-up beast.

Thus, while in London this week, I stopped in at the offices of Joost (near the famed King’s Cross train station, where, of course–to no avail–I tried to make it through the wall at Platform 9 3/4!) to chat with Volpi about all the changes at the much-hyped company.

Here’s a longish video, in which the always-well-turned-out former Cisco exec talks about all that and more:

Our premise has been simple: That online video in both short and long form is the future and its development is important to pay attention to.

As a huge fan of the now-defunct “The West Wing” television series, I noticed the freaky similarities between the out-of-nowhere Democratic presidential campaign of the fictional Congressman Matt Santos (played by Jimmy Smits) and the real-life Barack Obama.

That included a maverick Western senator, played by Alan Alda, who was Santos’s opponent and whom the right wing distrusted a la Sen. John McCain.

As it turns out from this great video from SlateV, the writers of the NBC hit used Obama as a template for their creation and now that template seems to be following their plot.

Here’s the video:

5. Because his World Wide Pants production company took only two weeks to bang out a separate agreement with writers to go back to work at his “Late Show” on CBS from their strike after saying they would try to make a deal.

4. Because he will get the best guests now, because actors would rather forgo Botox than walk across picket lines over at places like NBC’s “Tonight Show” and “Late Night” to flack their latest movie, TV show or whatever.

3. Because his show will be funnier than competitors, who are also resuming production with their writers still on strike, because writers are funny and nonwriters are, um, not.

2. Because this might prove to be a small return to sensibility between the two sides in the fight–writers and studios–both of whom are not negotiating at all as much as conducting what is now a pretty senseless PR fight in which everyone is a loser and no one will win.

1. Because he named his production company World Wide Pants.

But that’s just the feeling I got when I read the always sharp Joseph Menn of the Los Angeles Times, who penned an interesting piece earlier this week about writers in Hollywood turning to venture capitalists as the strike drags on.

Wrote Menn: “At least seven groups, composed of members of the striking Writers Guild of America, are planning to form Internet-based businesses that, if successful, could create an alternative economic model to the one at the heart of the walkout, now in its seventh week.”

That includes meetings with Silicon Valley VCs like Jim Breyer of Accel Partners, whose investment in Facebook gives it insight into the creation of new audiences.

The hope for the–let’s just say it, shall we–unnatural pairing of tech VCs and Hollywood folks?

That the sour lemons being thrown between studios and writers–ironically over future Internet revenues–will actually yield delicious lemonade, spurring the creation of quality online programming using the Internet’s massive distribution system that could also make lots and lots of money.

“Could” is obviously the operative word here, because–as we have noted many times in this column–very little original content created on the Web has had any true payoff yet.

Um, well, none, actually. (Save porn, which is an almost perfect content format for the Web.)

To be fair, there have been promising signs.

Ex-Yahoo exec and Hollywood player Lloyd Braun struck a deal with PepsiCo to pay for and create online content.

MySpace has been backing a range of online-only shows made by Hollywood types (although none has shown strongly increasing popularity and even seem to display worrisome declines in viewership, despite the justified potential touted by creators).

Of course, there’s the high-profile Sequoia Capital-backed and Will Ferrell-fronted FunnyorDie.com, as well as MyDamnChannel.com, from former MTV executive Rob Barnett.

And Viacom agreed this summer to create a new online entertainment studio in a 50-50 split with the creators of the popular “South Park” TV program.

Finally, Creative Artists Agency, which is the biggest talent agency in Hollywood, is apparently working with Silicon Valley VC firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson to raise up to $200 million to invest in the digital entertainment sector, even as other such firms as UTA and William Morris are making similar moves.

While that is a very little amount of money considering the billions of dollars that slosh around Silicon Valley to fund things like dopey widgets and yet another movie-comparison site, it is still a start.

The presumable goal is that by creating and distributing content for the Web in a lower-cost way, many kinds of revenues could be garnered via everything from advertising to getting back investments by selling the online material to television and the movies.

That sounds like a plan, except for the fact that the current state of advertising innovation related to Web videos is quite nascent, even pre-fetal.

While a lot of companies are focusing on this and advertisers seem willing to move in the direction of more online ad spending, it will simply be a long time before these investments pay off.

Which is just not part of the no-risk-and-all-reward mentality of most players in Hollywood, who wouldn’t know a start-up unless it took their prime table at the Ivy.

In all seriousness, it seems unlikely that the high cost of production now in place in the entertainment industry would in any way lend itself to the critical need for that kind of massive shift in economics required to make online content pay off now.

Currently, studios still only grudgingly want to consider sharing ownership of content, and the talent seems even less willing to take the burden of risk required onto its shoulders.

Still, I admire all the efforts on the part of writers to not just strike, but strike out from their current comfort zone and move into the future, where online entertainment production and distribution seems obviously inevitable.

The problem is that it might take a longer while than those creators have patience for and they will prematurely abandon their efforts and return to propping up a system that is destined for, while not oblivion, then certain diminution.

So what’s needed–as in all marriages–is a crazy leap of faith, like this one from “Heroes” Peter Petrelli on NBC.

I am definitely no expert on this topic, except to say that the problem is that the delta between falling flat and succeeding is frighteningly close.

In other words, I Has No Idea what to do.

We did not think it could get worse than NBC honcho Jeff Zucker (pictured here), who demanded a vig for every iPod sold because “Apple sold millions of dollars worth of hardware off the back of our content and made a lot of money.”

And then came former Disney pooh-bah Michael Eisner, who blamed the writers’ strike on Apple head Steve Jobs, because he was ruining the entertainment business with that darn iPod.

“[Movie and television studios] make deals with Steve Jobs, who takes them to the cleaners. They make all these kinds of things, and who’s making money? Apple! They should get a piece of Apple,” said Eisner. “If I was a union, I’d be striking up wherever he is.”

And now comes Morris, who heads up the Universal Music Group and who was interviewed by Seth Mnookin of Wired, trying again to skewer Jobs.

Of course, he ends up poking his own petard. From his private dining room (I kid you not) at the company HQ, the 68-year-old veteran music exec talked about plans to take aim at Apple’s popular music player and service, blamed college students for the music industry’s troubles and generally sounded like a woefully out-of-touch exec.

Says Morris in a refrain you would think he might have gotten over after all this time and all those stolen songs ago: “Is it correct that people share their music, fill up these devices with music they haven’t paid for? If you had Coca-Cola coming through the faucet in your kitchen, how much would you be willing to pay for Coca-Cola? There you go.”

We know, we know, there you go. Piracy is wrong! We agree! Of course, that begs a solution.

And Morris’s have not been so very consistent. On one hand, he’s pissed and, thus, has aggressively gone after companies like YouTube and MySpace for copyright infringement and has held up Microsoft by taking a piece of Zune sales. On the other, Universal has offered some unprotected songs on sites like Amazon and has been doing well in the ringtone business.

Still, Morris seems proud of coming off as an anti-geek, a stance that has apparently messed up the good thing the music business had going–mostly milking consumers and not delivering product in the way they wanted it.

“There’s no one in the record company that’s a technologist. That’s a misconception writers make all the time, that the record industry missed this. They didn’t. They just didn’t know what to do,” said Morris, without a trace of regret about the rank incompetence of dealing with the changes created by digital distribution. “It’s like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do?”

Mnookin correctly suggests getting a vet. But I would go a step further: Get a new dog.

Instead, he is kicking a few others, such as Jobs, mostly for out-negotiating the labels to get them to sell on iTunes. “We were just grateful that someone was selling online,” said Morris. “The problem is, he became a gatekeeper. We make a lot of money from him, and suddenly you’re wearing golden handcuffs. We would hate to give up that income.”

Which is why he and others are trying to blow up the whole thing, by attempting to do damage to iTunes by pulling songs off the service (evil to consumers who love the iPod, but it could work) and offering alternatives like a competing subscription music service that seems destined for failure too.

Worst of all, Morris incorrectly compares the music industry to the Shmoo of the cartoon Li’l Abner, as if the creature was a loser. In fact, the Shmoo is beloved and helpful to all, as well as delicious and entertaining, characteristics the music industry could take a clue from.

“Shmoos haint make believe,” said Li’l Abner. “The hull (whole) earth is one.”

Morris should wish he were a Schmoo.

Since NBC will not let me embed it and it has not hurtled over to YouTube yet, here’s a link to the short chat, in which Zuckerberg did acquit himself well and Vieira not so much (did she have to resort to the what-will-those-crazy-kids-think-of-next attitude and can she really be that perplexed by what the social-networking site might offer someone over 25 years old?).

Still, it is more of the same kind of fluff that needs to be replaced by a rigorous look at the company’s business strengths.

In that vein, the always entertaining Owen Thomas, Valleywag’s newest, I guess, um, Wag, floated an interesting notion in this post that Jim Breyer (pictured here, with his doppelgänger Tony Soprano) of Accel Partners–the big venture backer of Facebook–might use his inside track to measure the popularity of third-party application developers now proliferating on Facebook.

And then, in a move that would make Ma Soprano proud, Breyer would muscle the winners into accepting his investment dollars on his terms.

Thomas also speculates–with no actual proof, although I was riveted by the story line–that Breyer would unleash the specter of uncooperative apps makers getting quashed by Facebook, if they did not acquiesce to his nefarious demands.

Even though I have known Breyer a long time and it is my definitive impression that my 5-year-old son could handily best the doe-eyed VC in a fair fight, it’s apparently always the quiet ones you have to watch out for.

Here’s why: No users, no track record and no revelations about what it is actually going to look like. Also no firm launch date either, it now seems.

And did I mention no name?

Well, at least as of yesterday, the No-no-no-no-no company had a new CEO–former Amazon executive Jason Kilar (right).

The 36-year-old left the online retailer last year, after almost a decade at the Seattle-based company. While there, he had a lot of different jobs, including heading up Amazon’s foray into the video and DVD businesses. Before Amazon, he worked for a short time at Walt Disney.

He’ll need all the digital and Hollywood mojo he has to get this project flying, I suspect, given that it is an attempt to get two traditional media companies–neither of which is exactly a shrinking violet–to cooperate to try to catch up in the race to distribute video on the Web.

While No-Name is often called a YouTube-killer (and good luck with that, given that the powerhouse MySpace can hardly keep up), that’s not really its aim nor should it be.

The company is probably more like Joost, except without the closed-system approach that effort is using, to find the best ways to put their professional television and film content across the Internet. As I understand it, there will be no new original or user-generated content at first.

As one smart online exec with knowledge of the venture told me, it is much more about compiling a distribution network rather than creating a destination site, which is a good idea, because there are very few of those that succeed.

Since few big Hollywood companies want to rely on YouTube and its owner Google to get their fare out there and reap the ad dollars hoped, it is imperative that they find as many ways as possible to make their content available digitally.

According to News Corp.’s COO Peter Chernin and NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker, the project has 30 employees in new offices in Santa Monica, Calif., and a dozen charter advertisers.

Some possibly worrisome news: It might or might not launch in September, as some had suggested.

“We’ll launch when we’re prepared to launch with a world-class product,” said Chernin on a conference call yesterday.

At least, he didn’t say no.

Please see this disclosure related to me and YouTube (which is owned by Google).

In this post on his NewTeeVee site, Om Malik said organizers of the still-in-the-planning-stages joint venture between NBC Universal and News Corp. are making the rounds, trying to raise $100 million for the online video service designed to counter the growing power of YouTube.

That puts the valuation of the still-unnamed project at $1 billion.

Is it worth that much?

Hmm. Let me think. Hmm.

No.