Ah, the New York/Boston debate. While many point their fingers at Boston for stoking the flames on a regular basis (chants of "Yankees Suck" heard everywhere might have something to do with it), we can now point a little of the blame back to NYC.

Gawker, having decided that they'd chastised Britney Spears' parenting techniques enough, shocked readers across the globe today by turning its typically New Yawk-centric eye beyond the boroughs. But, in characteristic form, they were determined to show that New York still rocks more than a couple of the lesser cities in America. Whoo hoo, shoutout to Boston! Our fair city was pitted against Washington D.C. for a poll on which city sucks harder.

While Philly got nominated as a sucky city as a write-in vote, it's pretty much a Boston/DC cagematch, with the District City winning out at the moment (probably because of President Bush's mere presence). DCist has plenty to say about this silly stunt.

And yes, it's silly. We could list off a litany of reasons why Gawker shouldn't talk trash about Boston. New York accents are just as grating as Boston's, like "two hands full of nails on a chalkboard," to quote Boston Brat. Their sports teams suck (Eight words, friends: Seven game lead and the Knicks are lousy). We got Kevin Garnett and they didn't. We got Eric Gagne and they didn't. Can we say bitter? Oh, and your football teams play in Jersey.

Fair is fair - we'll take the criticism that the T sucks and L'Affaire Aqua Teen Hunger Force was really embarrassing. But much as we loathe the Us vs. Them mentality, we've gotta say that we can gripe on our fair city's little annoying quirks, but someone who fled Boston for New York doesn't have the right to say jack.

For every Boston issue that comes up, New York's got a good seven or eight issues of its own. We still chuckle when we think of the day Popsicle sludge caused chaos on the streets of Union Square! You don't hear about chowda crisies like that here in Boston. (The molasses flood was a long time ago, people.) And don't even get us started on the NYC subway system.

What puzzles us most, however, is what prompted Gawker to start picking on other cities. New York is an exciting, thrilling place. There's a lot going on there. There are so many socialite behinds for Gawker to sniff! There are countless hipsters in Park Slope to photograph for "Blue States Lose" - a feature that makes Bostonist shiver on a regular basis! There is in fact so much going on there that we wonder why Gawker and a few commenters on their site have the spare time to make fun of other cities. What's the point?

Boston may be "provincial." If so, we dig that. And we either head out to check out other cities and places to remark on them or stick with what works for us - focusing on Boston. We'd gladly offer our blogging peers at Gawker an invitation to leave fair Gotham for a day and see what Boston's up to (read: say that shiz to our faces on our turf!). Otherwise, they should get back to checking in on what party Anna Wintour's daughter is hitting up or reading Stereogum to read about on the hot shows in the city this week.

Tag-team post by Victoria Welch, Michael Femia, and Caroline Roberts. Image of Dirty Water license from Chowdaheadz.com.