The ubiquitously annoying program, Twitter, finally has bragging rights to being useful: UC Berkeley graduate student, James Karl Buck, alerted his Twitter network to his arrest in Egypt, sparking an international campaign for his release. Buck was in Egypt doing a project on Egyptian bloggers who tend to be, according to The Mercury News "mostly leftist, anti-government bloggers." When photographing a demonstration, Buck and his translator, Mohammed Salah Ahmed Maree were both arrested. Buck sent......

In a sensationalist piece that has been e-mailed to every blogger's inbox this morning, the New York Times has added another bit of fuel to the "journalists vs. bloggers" fire: Bloggers will die... soon. Using a scant two examples of prolific bloggers dying in the past few months, New York Times decides that these deaths are due to constant stress, long hours and the need to always "break" stories. My, that doesn't sound like being......

Weep no more, my lady. After handing over an apology to the sobbing mother of a Chinese journalist that they helped imprison, Yahoo now must hand over an undisclosed amount to the scribes. Wang Xiaoning and Shi Tao, the latter a former journalist at Contemporary Business News, will receive a hefty, unknown amount from Yahoo, Inc. The Chinese journalists sued Yahoo, blaming them for their imprisonment and torture by Chinese government officials. "According to......

Remember the Jamba Juice hepatitis A scare? And remember how we said there were gymnasts competing in a national meet in San Jose a few weeks ago? Well -- you guessed it -- it turns out the gymnasts might have been exposed to the virus. The hepatitis A carrier made smoothies for the gymnasts during the meet and in the trade shows outside. She claims she used good hygiene and food safety practices throughout (wearing......

SFist interviews Chris Wiggum of Larsen Associates...

Beloved Jennine from The Coveted writes here about how this year’s San Francisco Fashion Week denied her and other bloggers precious invitations to cover the event or (worse) any of its VIP, open-bar parties. Enough to drop your coke bullet into the toilet, right?! Anyway, this isn’t all that astounding seeing as how SF Fashion Week is notorious for being a tad behind the times (New York City all but begs such bloggers as......

When we talked to Phil Bronstein, the publisher of the San Francisco Chronicle, a few weeks back, he told us that "the Chronicle will continue to be packed with talented journalists who will keep providing what (SFist) Rita called 'an essential public service.'"...

As you know, here at SFist, we love stealing other peoples' ideas. And we've found that it's even easier to do when the idea belongs to our siblings! So we're pleased to inaugurate "Touch Up SF," a semi-regular feature in which we invite you, the reader, to Photoshop your way to fame by constructing your own SF-centric versions what journalists like to call a "photo montage." The attached image was created in timely response......

Phil Bronstein is the Editor of the San Francisco Chronicle. Mr. Bronstein agreed to answer a few questions for us. His responses directly address issues brought up by SFist and SFist's readers a short time ago. Notably, you'll see from his answers below that he'd appreciate more of the same. Here's a chance hear and be heard from one of the most important drivers behind news coverage in our area. See what he had to say to us below -- and let him know what you think....

It's almost the end of April and we didn't even realize it was National Poetry Month! We're going to make it up to everyone by passing along tonight's Poems Under The Dome event. Poems Under The Dome is an open-mic poetry event in the big reception area of the SF City Hall and sponsored by the city -- show up and read whatever poem you'd like! (One poem per reader, time limits will be......

The Chronicle has been doing a lot of back-slapping over their work in the BALCO case, turning their two reporters, Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, into full and official Martyrs of the Constitution, complete with the victory lap around the newsroom. Yay, Chronicle. But maybe they shouldn't be so excited....

Almost 20 years after the death of graffiti artist turned art star, Jean Michel Basquiat, we have a new documentary about graffiti in the art world, Next: A Primer on Urban Painting screens at Mezzanine (444 Jessie St. near 5th) courtesy of SF360 Film+Club. Directed by Pablo Aravena, the film combines cinema vérité of artists in action and interviews with painters, journalists, collectors, sociologists, DJ's, art critics and others. There will be a live......

The scene: everyone is standing around the bar, taking sips from wine glasses. One of the attendees comments that she can't believe that a room of (mostly) journalists, even after being offered free booze, is predominately drinking water. We were fortunate last night to attend what was basically a book launching party to celebrate "Fine Waters: A Connoisseur's Guide to the World's Most Distinctive Bottled Waters." Appropriately, the event centered around tasting bottled water, many different types of it. The event was co-sponsored by Quirk Books, the publisher, and Chow. ...

-Last night, a vigil for the slain officer, Bryan Tuvera, was held at St. Mary's. There will be a funeral procession today which will affect traffic as Geary will be closed....

Before we start our daily roundup of news items, we would like to talk about an issue of utmost importance-- SFist MattyMattt needs help choosing which glasses he should wear. So please, please, go to his site and help him choose. Matt and SFist thank you. -It's c-c-c-c-old out there. -San Mateo resident doesn't get voted off the island, wins the prize on "Survivor." -Grinch steals solar powered Christmas Tree from Union Square and......

Monday is our favorite day to do laundry, thus we are thrilled by the possibility of satisfying our dire needs for both clean socks and weird live music at once at the Brainwash Café (1122 Folsom St. @ 7th). The Jardin Noir Dark Circus Radio Project blends psychedelic jazz improv and world music with strange and compelling results for free. (7-10pm) We instantly got a craving for pancakes when reading about this one: CalHOP......

A Federal Appeals Court today ruled that Josh Wolf had to turn over what is quickly becoming the hottest video since the Paris Hilton sex-tape or else go back to prison. The three-person court ruled unanimously that Wolf had to turn over the tape because there were no grounds for resisting the subpoena. The reason? "He simply videotaped what people did in a public place," the judges wrote. ....

Is Chronicle editor Phil Bronstein the new Jerry Seinfeld? Every year, he steps on the stage of the SF Opera in the Park, which the Chron generously helps produce. And people are semi-drunk on chardonnay, satiated on taboule and tomato-and-mozarella salads, they are baking in the sun: they are warmed up already. Yet every year, Phil's attempts to warm up the crowd even more end up in a train wreck. Here are this year's jokes......

The 'Gate is reporting that Josh has been granted bail by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, to wit:In a brief order, two judges of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Wolf was entitled to bail because the government had not shown his appeal of a judge's contempt-of-court ruling was frivolous or intended solely to delay the proceedings...The court said another panel would rule on Wolf's appeal of the contempt order while he......

Joe Rosenthal, the man who took the famous picture of the troops raising the flag at Iwo Jima died on Sunday at the age of 90. Rosenthal was born in DC, but moved out to San Francisco to shoot pictures for the San Francisco News. He was working for the SF branch of the AP when he was sent out in 1944 to cover World War II. The picture is actually of the second raising......

It's been over a year since high-profile law firm Gonzalez and Leigh filed suit over former SFUSD chief Arlene Ackerman's "platinum parachute" termination package. They lost the case in August, but appealed the decision. A lot can happen in a year, which might be why no one from the law firm managed to show up for Tuesday's hearing appealing the decision. (If a case is pro bono, is "well, you get what you paid for"......

Before we get to this week's comic books, we must first point out that Issue 2 of Kevin McShane's Toupydoops has, as the kids say, hit the stands. (We reviewed Issue 1 a few weeks ago.) This latest installment sees our heros standing in line to get into a club where, it turns out, everybody sucks. Poseurs and floozies and five dollar beers deflate their enthusiasm for Los Angeles, but just when all seems......

We just got a note from Lauren Gelman at the Center for Internet and Society that Apple has been handed a total loss at the hands of "Does," AKA O'Grady's PowerPage and Apple Insider, who published leaked details of Apple's firewire peripheral for GarageBand. In other words, it was not within Apple's rights to wander around demanding that journalists reveal their sources, under trade secrets protections or any other law. SFist and the rest of......

Hey, the Examiner said it first, not us: BALCO Reporters Could Face Prison Time reads the thrilling headline to their article on Lance Williams and Mark Fainaru-Wada, who have been have been subpoenaed to testify before a grand jury regarding leaked testimony in the BALCO case. Could they really go to jail over this? We at SFist are watching this case eagerly, and watching the comments on Phil Bronstein's post on the Chron's not......

Arrrgggghhh. Sometimes that is the one reasonable response to what people write about Craigslist. Of course we realize that due to network effects Craigslist will reach a critical mass in a city and that those cities will then be transformed. We also know that along the way the people involved with Craigslist, the posters, responders, discussion forum arguers, will touch many lives and be used by many different people. However, what we can't stand is......

All good San Francisco political junkies have Usual Suspects bookmarked on their browser. The local clearinghouse of all things political keeps everyone up to date, diligently reading and summarizing all the articles about anything even remotely related to local politics -- and not just the articles featuring Chris Daly doing something vaguely embarrassing, like some other websites we might mention. We sat down (virtually) with the seven folks behind the scenes and chatted 'em......

Last week, San Jose newspaper publishing company Knight-Ridder was purchased by another company, McClatchy. McClatchy then decided it didn't want to keep publishing the hometown newspaper of the company it had just purchased, the San Jose Mercury News, and put it up for sale. If the Merc News can't find a buyer, it may be forced to go under. The Merc News is a great paper putting out hard-hitting local journalism, and it would be a shame to see it go under. A couple of buyers have expressed interest, but readers and writers have expressed concerns that the interested parties will kill off the good qualities of the Merc. So the Merc News employees (and employees at other papers being sold off by McClatchy) are banding together -- they may try to buy the papers themselves. Also, the Merc News folks have launched a website, Save The Merc, to encourage a "news-friendly" organization to purchase the paper and keep high-quality journalism alive in the South Bay. It's not the best-designed website in the world, but the sincerity of the effort is totally real. Click here to lend your support to the Merc News journalists. ...

In an interview with Bloomberg News, Yahoo CFO Susan Decker said that Google has the dominating market share in Internet search, and it's no longer Yahoo's goal to be number 1 in the field. Last week, after Yahoo's share price dropped when the company's profits failed to reach analyst's expectations, Chairman Terry Semel conceded in an interview with SFGate, "Frankly, Google has done a better job than us." Bloggers are talking about Decker's comments......

The local blogosphere seems to have shaken off their collective hangover, so lots to discuss today. Om Malik pours cold water on the Google PC rumor, points toward Google Video and says "getting warmer." An ever bigger rumor is that Microsoft might swallow Yahoo whole. Meanwhile, Evil Signtist Courtney lauds Google for shouting out Louis Braille on his birthday. And Nivi asks that you "Donate to Wikipedia if You Love Your Mom." Alternately, donate......

Realtor-slash-blogger Matt Lanning points up a new information site, San Francisco Bay Window, for that rare beast known as a San Francisco homeowner. Hey, it's free to dream, right? Cheesecake Factory employees dreamed of being able to take breaks, and now their dream has come true. The video game industry is none too happy about Arnold Schwarzenegger signing Leland Yee's bill restricting minors from purchasing 'mature' titles -- the Interactive Entertainment Merchants Association is......