As another week draws to a close it is time for the weekly wrap of what's what.

The Blogosphere's answer to reality TV, Blog Survivor, is back with prizes. Go have a look and get ready for emaciated, bitchy, backstabbing blogging (not much different to what already happens, really).

Here in Hong Kong there's a new political candidate on the scene. Hemlock in 2008. It's time to get the English running Hong Kong again. The campaign picture at the bottom of this entry will soon be plastered over every pole and bumper in the city. What an improvement on what's there now. Even if the design was outsourced and offshored.

Marmot gives us a world tour of stupid territorial disputes, showing that Asia is not alone in this soon-to-be Olympic sport. While on Olympic sports, Giles has found two new ones. He also has an important health warning.

Tom Paine sums up the never-ending battle against anti-Semitism (although at the moment they seem to have bandwidth problems).

The always-interesting Jeff G starts an interesting discussion on wife-beaters and Jim (amongst others) responds as does Ilyka. Dean has a very different view. Helen gives us her common sense view of feminism.

Iowahawk follows reaction to George Bush's apology over the Iraq prison abuse. Ace has another apology that should of been made but wasn't.

It's been a big week for blogs. Following the disgusting beheading of Nick Berg it seems that much of the "Big Media" did not provide the information many were looking for. So they naturally turned to the internet, as Instapundit shows. Ace notes the double-standards at play. The power of Google and blogs combined and lead to massive spikes in traffic to many sites, as Kevin demonstrates (also try here and here for other examples) and fellow Wizbang-er Paul thinks this proves the power of blogs. He's right. Blogs come into their own on issues that aren't well-served by the general media because there are so many of them, because they aren't subject to editing and because if you fill enough niches one day you're going to hit gold. Belmont also has an interesting take on the double-standards over Abu Ghraib and Nick Berg in the media. Meanwhile Harry finds another American atrocity. The last word goes to Mr Green, who neatly and succinctly summarises the difference between the two cases.

With all the bad news streaming out of Iraq, Bill's wife Alice is part of Operation Smile and doing something to turn the tide for only a small donation.

Via Paul, Hog on Ice helps us understand the curious American tradition of "frat-hazing".

Emma explains yet another benefit of working from home. It gives new meaning to "home-work".

While trafficking in people is undeniably bad, especially in these enlightened times, there is absolutely no excuse to permit trafficking in children.

LeeAnn meets stupidity face-to-face and lives to tell the tale.

Binary Circumstance explains a tad about that bastion of democracy, the USA, and how the Electoral College works.

Da Goddess will soon turn two.

Tim Blair notes the end of footy as we know it.

The good Professor plucks victory out of the (academic) jaws of defeat and lives to tell the tale.

Movable Type, the free software used to make this and numerous blogs, is now offering Version 3. Problem is the only free version they are offering is for single author blogs; otherwise it's US$100 a pop. While I understand the need to make a commercial return on a product, this seems to be shooting themselves in the foot with both barrels. Judging by the reaction (look at the trackbacks and while you're at it ask yourself why any such announcement would have trackbacks enabled?) it is not a popular move and will see plenty of blogs look to move to other free systems such as Wordpress or the soon-to-be Minx. It seems they've taken a well-liked program and imposed overly-onerous restrictions on the free version. Given blogging remains mostly a hobby rather than a way of life for 99% of bloggers charging such a high price for the new version is unlikely to work. They will need to repackage their licences and quickly to contain the damage from this. In the interim many will remain on the older (still free) versions.

Oh, and I helped cause a Beltway traffic jam.