Mother Jones compiled this great video coverage from Saturday's United for Iran protest at City Hall, which reportedly drew thousands of participants. It was part of a Global Day of Action taking place in more than 100 cities worldwide, organized to call attention to civil rights violations following last months questionable election results in Iran. Event speakers at the local rally included 2003 Nobel Peace Laureate Shirin Ebadi, CA senator Mark Leno, and former captain of Iran's national soccer team Parviz Ghelichkhani. Code Pink was also present, naturally. more ›

KQED listeners and Howard Deaniacs patiently lined up in the on-again off-again drizzly evening outside the Roxie, reading complimentary copies of Mother Jones and blocking the entrance to Dalva, as a sodden and trodden election flyer featuring Matt Gonzalez endorsing Calvin Louie for treasurer looked forlornly up from the sidewalk. Before Howard Dean vowed to take back the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party, there was Paul Wellstone. The voluble and ebullient Carleton political science professor was advocating against both Iraq wars before it was cool, and fought tirelessly for universal health care and energy reform in the 12 years he spent as the senior senator from Minnesota, and is reputed to be one of the inspirations for the West Wing's President Bartlet (down to their diagnoses of multiple sclerosis). Tragically, Wellstone, his wife and daughter, three other campaign staffers, and two pilots were killed in a plane crash 11 days before the 2002 election, right as the Democrats were pulling ahead of Republican (and now Senator) Norm Coleman. We all know how the rest of that election turned out. Now, Wellstone supporters have put together Wellstone!, a documentary about Wellstone's life and the power of idealism to make a positive change, which showed as part of the Mother Jones Agitators and Instigators series of the 21st Film Arts Film Fest Saturday night at the Roxie. more ›

Even though the Webbies award ceremony is moving to the East Coast this year, Bay Area-based websites cleaned house in the actual awards (link is mysteriously slow). A big liver-flavored rawhide with a ribbon on it to SFist Ted and his adorable Dogster, which runs and fetches the Webby Community award. Arf! Other local winners, in both the webby and people's choice categories that we've selected completely randomly: Craig Newmark (Person of the Year), Flickr/Yahoo (breakout site of the year), BoingBoing (best blog), McSweeney's (writing), Google (design), Yahoo HotJobs (employment), PayPal (financial), Mother Jones (politics), CafePress (retail), and the Palo Alto high school newspaper (student), among many, many others. Complete list of winners and nominees here -- and congrats to all the winners! We can't wait to get the full report on Rob Corddry from SFist Ted! more ›

In the interest of full disclosure, SFist Ted, our new weatherman, also happens to be Dogster Ted. And while we've harshed on the Webby Awards only just recently, we're still proud. You can register to vote for them to win the "People's Choice Award" in their category, "Community" -- and as Ted points out, they don't seem to be too picky in letting you use as many emails as you like to register again and again (not that the stringent ethical guidelines at SFist would allow us to do that). more ›

One of SFist's favorite writers, Michael Pollan, was interviewed in California Monthly magazine. And we have the link! more ›