After slapping our beloved sweaterbear Owen Thomas for his description of Sheryl Sandberg's "reign of terror" at Facebook, Kara Swisher has left the lower 48 and hopped on a boat bound for Alaska. While bears may seem cuddly, danger may lurk in their embrace. Since we wouldn't want anything bad to happen to our favorite mommyblogger, here are some helpful tips on bear safety from your friends here at Valleywag. (Photo by B Mully)

Dropped calls. Flaky high-speed connections. Short battery life. The San Francisco Chronicle rounds up not one, but two unhappy iPhone users and an analyst who backs them up to prove that this new iPhone thing isn't working as planned. Not to get all Fake Steve on these guys, but look: The problem isn't the iPhone. It's you two. The iPhone is so popular that AT&T's networks can't handle the load. The onboard apps — so easy to install, just go to the store, click, and boom, it's that simple — are so hypnotic that you're running out your batteries playing with them. Pull your pants up and look in the mirror. If you can't handle it that your phone is more popular than you are, maybe it's time you and the iPhone went your separate ways.

Did you know that Russian troops are thrusting into the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia? That's what readers will learn from a Google Maps graphic accompanying a news story about Russian incursions into Georgia — the nation-state in the Caucasus, not the Caucasian-pride-ridden state in the southern United States. Google's mixup will not help Yahoo Answers user Jessica B., who presciently asked, "i herd on the news that rusia has invaded but i dont see them no where wats going on." A screenshot of Google's erroneous invasion map:

So far, no one has published a workaround for YouTube's block on Americans trying to reach the site's beijing2008 channel. But lazy reporting and glib posts from reputable sites make it sound like the geeks (i.e. me) have solved the problem already. Wired, Silicon Alley Insider, and Om Malik's NewTeeVee are the worst offenders. I spent most of today actually trying their suggestions. I am obligated to report they're all worse than useless. Here's how each of them failed:

Three French reporters for Global Security Magazine attending this week's Black Hat Security Conference in Las Vegas were booted, after they "allegedly" (that's reporter-speak for "they won't admit it") sniffed the private network set up for the press. The private network is meant to be a sort of chill room for journalists, so they can file a few articles without getting pwned by conferencegoers every five minutes. Note to the French: We'll be more impressed if you hack Rachel Marsden's Facebook page.

At least four of the nine women chosen by Playboy editors for their hottest blogger contest are actively playing to lose. None of them would let us run their emails from Playboy.com's editors, but there's a clear pattern: Playboy emailed blogstars like Xeni Jardin for a chaste headshot photo to go into an article about sexy bloggers. The emails didn't explain that (a) it was a poll, and (b) the point of the poll was to get the winner to pose "topless or nude" — no G-rated shoots — for the magazine's website. Only sex writer Violet Blue seems openly thrilled to be in the running. Here's an idea: Everyone vote for Violet. Spare the rest of us the awkwardness. [UPDATE: TechCrunch has one of the emails.]

The whole Xeni Jardin / Violet Blue thing continues to backfire on us. A female editor at Playboy.com alerted us to a "Who's the Web's hottest blogger"? contest they thought up after ogling last week's photos of the two cozied-up lady bloggers. The prize? Playboy will offer the winner a "topless or nude" photo shoot for their site. I fact-checked it with them, and let's be clear: Topless, nude, or forget it. The contestants are Jardin and Blue, plus Julie Alexandra, Veronica Belmont, Amanda Congdon, Brigitte Dale, Sarah Lacy, Sarah Austin and Natali Del Conte. I know what you're thinking: Good luck getting the winner to take it off. As a former Playboy reader (many of the articles are good) I wish they'd asked around first. It'd be easy to solicit nine very photogenic girlbloggers eager to claim the prize. Who'll be #1? Right now the obscure-but-well-shot Brigitte Dale is ahead, but I expect Veronica Belmont's Gadgetboy Army to mobilize today and sweep her to a decisive win — and a decisive NO. Sarah Austin sums up her cognitive dissonance: "Not sure how I feel about being in Playboy's popularity contest. Maybe I'd feel better if I was winning?"

Left: The head-turning photo that appeared all over the world yesterday. Right, the original photo. The New York Times, which ran the altered version, explains how the photo spread "from the Web site of Sepah News, the media arm of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards," to "the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites." We lucked out by running other photos for variety. (Photo by Sepah News via AP)

Shortly after discontinuing her own blog, Nye's byline appeared on TechCrunch, where she's become a regular contributor.

Did you read our post that said a contractor at NBC had been fired for updating Tim Russert's Wikipedia page with news of the Meet the Press moderator's death? Um, never mind: Silicon Alley Insider reporter Michael Learmonth has confirmed with NBC executives that "the dude," as he puts it, wasn't fired, although he was briefly suspended. Since the earlier New York Times report was credibly reported from NBC employees, I emailed Learmonth to double-check his sources. Turns out he'd had the correct story all along, but we all liked "fired" better.

What's the classiest finish to an Internet catfight? The shining example will be July 2008's Boing Boing vs. Violet Blue. It wasn't about player-hating and girl-on-girl sex, we'll all say. No no, it was about freedom and blogging and privacy and good versus evil. Now that we've all moved on, the New York Times steps in a week later to clean things up with a G-rated rehash that suggests Violet Blue may be the real winner. What have each of the participants learned?

"Did Google use its network of online services to silence critics of Barack Obama?" asks New York Times reporter Miguel Helft today, in what reads like the Gray Lady's attempt to do Valleywag-style gossipmongering. There's something very wrong with the post: Read it and see if you think Helft believed for a minute that any Google employees deliberately and maliciously turned off a few Google-hosted blogs supporting Hillary Clinton and John McCain.

After two years of playing footsie with Valleywag, I've finally been hired full time to write for what these kids call The Olds — that means winning over Fleetwood Mac fans and Fortune subscribers. Waist-high ace reporter Kara Swisher goaded me to start my first full day today with a journalistic "disclosure" statement like hers. She assured me that coming clean of my conflicts of interest would assuage Internet geezers suspicious of eww bloggers. Ok, but just this once. I hate journalism about journalism, plus I need to get back to nagging Arnel Pineda for an interview.

Google will partner with "Family Guy" creator Seth MacFarlane to create a new Google-distributed Web video series, the New York Times reports today. The Times story, already on the top of Techmeme, hails the deal as "innovative" and "a bold step into the distribution business," which is true — or at least was, when Valleywag and the rest of the Google-watching press reported the same news on August 17, 2007.

Can Glam Media keep up the pretense of being a way for advertisers to reach a mostly female audience much longer? The ad network has used some of its latest $85 million in debt and equity funding to acquire London-based Monetise. Monetise is an ad network that buys inventory low, aggregates it, and then sells it a bit higher — just like Glam! Except that Monetise's clients are outfits like Flixster, TVGuide.co.uk, and ArtistDirect — none of which sound like they serve overwhelmingly female audiences. The move does allow Glam to grow its raw numbers of represented sites at such a pace that clueless investors may continue funding it at ridiculously high valuations, giving Glam more cash to continue the process — until someday, somebody buys the whole thing and the founders walk away.

Jason Harris, a freelancer for GigaOm's Web Worker Daily site, was caught plagiarizing an article about Gmail. The truly sad part: This is the first time we've heard someone mention Web Worker Daily in months. [Regret the Error]

Michael Arrington has made no secret of his ambitions to off CNET. The TechCrunch editor might want to spend some time studying the ways of his prey, though, before he moves in for the kill. For example: Gadget critics normally spend time with the devices they report on before reviewing them. Citing an embargo he didn't care to observe, Arrington panned the Flip Mino camcorder without ever touching it.

Privacy advocate and executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy Jeffrey Chester wants you to worry about Google's plans to allow other companies to track user behavior through its advertising platform. "Google has now sanctioned behavioral targeting on its network, and users have no idea what the implications are," Chester told PC World. He said these third parties — ad agencies and ad networks, mostly — "are using the Google network, and you don't even know about it." Boogity boogity boo! Don't let Chester scare you. On the Internet, your privacy is an illusion and you know that. PC World just likes to remind you — today's story is the magazine's ninth to feature Jeffrey Chester since November — because it helps pays the bills. Don't believe us?