I had a bit of time tonight, so I decided to go through and clean all the "dead" links. By "dead", I mean those that haven't been updated in a calendar year, or have lost all their content. To my surprise, only three needed to be culled. Gone, but not forgotten:

• Asian Labour News: the content is gone, and the URL is being hawked to the highest bidder.
• BrainySmurf: left with a single root directory to its name. 
• Living in China: got ourselves a 404, and won't be visiting any more.

Still, that's a mere 2% extinction rate, and all the local blogs seem to have survived quite nicely - some with new domains, but all just chugging along. Admittedly, Long Xuyen (after nearly a year of inactivity) escaped the chop by the barest margin, and I quote: "I am still alive. I am still alive."  Phew. No autopsy needed, then.

What's better is all the new bloggy goodness I've added on. You can read Dennis the Peasant's long standing vendetta against Pajamas Media, or Driftglass's take on James Frey (blame it on the writers' groups, I think) or Peak Energy on Peak Oil. Or you can just read James Wolcott; that's its own reward. I've also added Global Voices, which gives you a nice little blog aggregate for this country. So feel free to check out my mighty blogroll, with real Senators and Princes included for free.