Aol employee Mike Arrington is angry! The TechCrunch founder and co-editor fired off a histrionic screed yesterday directed at Caterina Fake, founder of Flickr and Hunch, with an explicit threat aimed at anyone who doesn't kowtow to him. [Gizmodo]

After a post on the blog A Gay Girl in Damascus claimed its author, Amina Arraf, had been abducted by Syrian security forces, questions arose about her true identity. A widely-used photograph has turned out to be someone else.

If you're stupid or horrible enough to want RedState.com founder and habitually wrong professional right-wing shit-thrower Erick Erickson to publicly vouch for your product or candidacy, you're in luck! All you need is to pay him, money, in order to compensate him for his credibility among idiots.

A prominent Syrian American blogger, Amina Arraf, author of A Gay Girl in Damascus, was kidnapped yesterday in Damascus by several unidentified men carrying weapons as she walked to a meeting. Yesterday afternoon, Arraf's cousin posted this on her blog:

Tonight marks Katie Couric's final broadcast as the anchor of CBS Evening News. It's the end of a well-intentioned but fruitless experiment. Sad. Sadder still, Katie still doesn't officially have a new job lined up. That's what friends are for!

Hey, terrorists! If you're considering blowing up New York but were worried about the NYPD's crack anti-terrorism team foiling your plot, don't worry: Here's what the largest police department in the country is on the lookout for. A blogger just found the plans in the trash.

Derek Miller's public goodbye would properly be called an "auto-obituary," but the title affixed to his final blog entry is plainer and more effective. "The last post" is both a touching farewell and evidence that blogs can still surprise and move people.

Elusive Hollywood rage-blogger Nikki Finke has a well-earned reputation for skirting the bounds of rationality and surrendering to fits of apoplexy. It's part of her charm! But a couple recent episodes, including a pompous, unhinged email to a flack for the Motion Picture Association of America that she cc'd to half of Hollywood over the weekend, suggest that things may be trending south for her.

If you're ordering in tonight and you live in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, watch out: Some vigilante bicycle delivery guy has set up a blog posting the names and addresses of people who give him crappy tips.

TechCrunch's editor has a mounting conflict of interest problem, a problem that will inevitably alter the tech blog's coverage. But don't take our word for it—that's what TechCrunch says.

Today, CNET social media blogger Caroline McCarthy announced she had been hired by Google to join its "Trends and Insights team." She's far from the first tech blogger to become a tech employee.

After 18 years of toiling under the Kumon-math-driving whip of Tiger Mother Amy Chua, Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld has launched a blog. Noooo! Don't waste your perfect brain on blogging! Don't you know bloggers are LOSERS, Sophia?!

A 26-year-old blogger named Maikel Nabil has received a three-year sentence for insulting the Egyptian military by writing about its habit of conducting "virginity tests" on female detainees. Under Mubarak he probably would've gotten like 10 years. So, you know, freedom marches on.

In your serene Wednesday media column: Jay Severin gets canned, a blogger sues over working conditions, Pinch defends his paywall, Hearst is full of catty status-seekers, and Rachel Maddow will make you a martyr.

Now that the Huffington Post has taken over editorial operations at AOL, freelance AOL movie writers will be transitioned to a new compensation model that replaces contractual pay with deep, deep appreciation and possibly compliments.

Former Engadget editor Joshua Topolsky and a bunch of his old staff have defected from Engadget owner AOL to a blogging company run by their former boss. But not before making clear how much AOL sucked.

More than 175 million people have registered for Twitter accounts. Which sounds very impressive. Sadly for the microblogging startup's multi billion dollar valuation, at least 68 percent of those registrations are considered dormant.

For years, the pop culture blog Hipster Runoff has puzzled, intrigued and enraged the "alt" and "mainstream" world in almost equal measure. Gawker honored him in 2009 with the much-coveted "Hipster of the Decade" award. But this afternoon Hipster Runoff's enigmatic boss Carles has signed of forever with a short blog post:

Across America, millions upon millions of despondent mothers (3.9 million, specifically!) have started blogs to share their feelings of anomie, their existential despair at the trap that their lives have become, and cleaning tips. Many of them aspire to one day be used as a small cog in a vast corporate marketing machine. They work cheap!

For years, a current photo of the reclusive and bilious blog empress Nikki Finke has been the holy grail of people who care about Nikki Finke. It now appears that such a photo exists, and may be published soon. But Nikki says it's not her.