What does Michael Arrington have against women? A lot, apparently. His latest target: A blog commenter named "Shelley," who spoke up on behalf of a photographer, Lane Hartwell. Hartwell, as we'd guessed, was the copyright complainant who knocked the popular "Here Comes Another Bubble" video off YouTube. Canadian blogger Mathew Ingram said Hartwell was wrong. Shelley responded in Hartwell's defense. And that's when Michael Arrington joined in and turned the conversation awkward.

European TechCrunch competitor BlogNation imploded two weeks ago. Yesterday, its founder Sam Sethi wrote a long post to explain how it was all Michael Arrington's fault. Today, Arrington responded. Both are blowhards who love nothing more than to spew verbiage at each other. Logorrhea as a lethal weapon. How to get your dose of schadenfreude without getting bored to death? By reading these 100-word versions of each missive.

One would think the nasty three-way between BlogNation's Sam Sethi, his unpaid editors, and Michael Arrington, his former boss at TechCrunch, would be over. Sethi is stepping down and putting the Euro-focused startup blog up for auction. But, no, the saga continues.

Hotflation — HotorNot meets Google Maps — may not be the very best mashup idea we've ever heard. But that's probably only because you haven't seen TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington's profile page yet.

Wow, and we thought last week sucked. Googler Larry Page is marrying the Chiclet-toothed Lucy Southworth tomorrow, but no one has posted photos of the lucky couple yet, so as far as we're concerned, it didn't happen. The week's other near-misses that were nonetheless hits:

I'm sure TechCrunch editor Mike Arrington was joshing when he threatened "war" on Facebook for hiring away one of his technical staffers. After all, the amount of damage a full-on TechCrunch assault of negative articles about Facebook would inflict on the site's business rounds off close to zero. Still, even jokingly warning another employer to stay away from "my" employees is a Valley faux pas. Such posturing is seen as a sign of weakness. If you want your tech workers to stay, you just offer them a better deal. Right, boss?

The store of Googlers worth poaching must be running out. Facebook has turned to taking geeks from TechCrunch — specifically CrunchBase product manager Ben Meyer. Michael Arrington groped for the appropriate words to express his outrage.

In the wake of its Beacon fiasco, Facebook has launched a new blogger appeasement campaign — starting with TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington. His early Christmas gift? Facebook notifications now carry the entire text of messages sent via the social network. Arrington says this will have a "big impact." Yes, in the sense that it might get him to shut up about Facebook's privacy violations. [TechCrunch]

Blognation, the mostly Euro-focused competitor to TechCrunch, founded by former TechCrunch blogger Sam Sethi, is imploding — according to TechCrunch. Michael Arrington must find this all delicious: Oliver Starr, a blogger who left Arrington's MobileCrunch site and later landed at BlogNation, is now writing about Sethi's troubles.

This week on Valleywag was a first-class tour of Narcissistan. It began when Tinkerbell called in sick and sent us a half million pageviews. Then TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington went Tori Amos nuclear, claiming "I'm watching as the blogging world crucifies me." Finally, TheFunded.com founder Adeo Ressi complained his splash outing in Wired wasn't enough — he wanted the magazine's cover (and we gave it to him.) It all calls for a bulldog chaser. After the jump, a pic so cute it's NSFW. Can you handle it?

"After the public lynching over the weekend where I was attacked for not attending a conference that I never agreed to attend," blogs TechCrunch honcho Michael Arrington, "I've canceled all upcoming speaking engagements." But he's still going to Davos in January. Do the math: Arrington isn't going to make any public presos at Davos — he's just part of the audience. They'll let him blog it. So don't get all huffypants about how Mike's going and you're not.

(Photo by Dan Farber/ZDNet)

"I am watching as the blogging world crucifies me," TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington writes, after he didn't attend a Las Vegas conference where he'd been advertised as a star panelist. Crucifies? Mike, rent a copy of The Passion of the Christ before you, like John Lennon, reach for that self-aggrandizing metaphor again. And if you think your fellow bloggers hate you now, wait'll they find out you've been invited to Davos. Elsewhere over the weekend, funtrepreneur Jason Calacanis got himself booted from the insidery Gillmor Gang podcast. No, we don't listen to it either. But we did play the you're-fired phone call Calacanis posted to his Twitter page. Mental note: Calacanis records his calls.

GigaOm head Om Malik and TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington were supposed to lead a talk on the "Cult of Blogging" today at some blog conference in Las Vegas. Neither showed. Om, apparently called in sick, while Arrington, according to Leo Laporte, "forgot" about his commitment. The replacement? A chat with Justine Ezarik, who hosts a lifecasting videoblog under the name iJustine. For attendees who were disappointed by the switch, we offer one consolation: The comely video blogger is far, far easier on the eyes than Arrington or Malik. Hail the new cult leader! (Photo by b_d_solis)

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington notes the launch of European blog netowrk MyKinda with a swipe at MyKinda's competitor BlogNation. He published emails sent by BlogNation founder Sam Sethi, a former TechCrunch writer, to Blognation's employees and potential venture capitalists. Why? Well, there's bad blood here. And we're not talking about Sethi's feud with Arrington, either.

Business advice, that is. Despite Paul Boutin's entreaties, I find I just can't leave Automattic founder Matt Mullenweg alone. Neither, apparently, can acquisitive buyers. TechCrunch reports that Automattic, maker of the popular WordPress blog software, just turned down a $200 million offer. Interesting timing, considering that Mullenweg was spotted just last week at David Hornik's Hawaiian funconference, The Lobby, having a very close chat with Harde. In the moment when the two were spotted by gutter-minded gossips having a tête-a-tête, was Harde advising Mullenweg on whether or not to take the offer? And, in the process, helping score an exclusive for TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington? (Photo by True Ventures)

Would someone please shut down the Valley and lock the doors? I don't know if I can take another week like this. Seriously, can you remember another week filled with such drama? Microsoft showers Facebook with cash, making Mark Zuckerberg a paper billionaire — and turning Facebooker Dave Morin's relationship with a Googler into forbidden fruit. Meanwhile, venture capitalist David Hornik attempts to have an off-the-record conference in Hawaii and completely fails — because gossip will out. Gossip like BusinessWeek's Sarah Lacy throwing a drink at TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, while his CEO, Heather Harde, stays up suspiciously late with WordPress creator Matt Mullenweg. Yahoo loses a devoted cheerleader and its top marketer. Larry Ellison tries to reel in BEA. Special correspondent Nick Douglas, meanwhile, demands I stop reading all of my favorite sites. I need something. Not a unicorn chaser. How about ....

In May, former Creed frontman Scott Stapp hurled an Orangina bottle at his beauty-queen wife.

The Lobby, David Hornik's Hawaii funconference, may have no agenda — but a lot is happening all the same. One delicious incident recounted to us: TechCrunch editor Michael Arrington, who'd previously wooed BusinessWeek columnist and Valley fox Sarah Lacy onto his TechCrunch40 judges panel, apparently said something that made her throw a drink in his face. That's the first thing I've heard about The Lobby so far that actually made me wish I was there. Update: We hear the glass was empty. Okay, so make that two wishes: That we were there, and that Lacy wasn't so quick to sling back her booze.

CrunchBase is Michael Arrington's online database of seemingly every Web 2.0 play ever profiled on his TechCrunch site. I counted 594 of them, but I was on a BlackBerry. Quick, someone point the Wayback Machine at this thing to archive it for posterity.

Really, we're confounded. David Hornik's Lobby conference is ostensibly an invite-only affair. But some of the attendees had us scratching our head. Spotted, Yahoo's Bradley Horowitz, Brad Garlinghouse and Kiersten Hollars enjoying some sun instead of participating in Jerry Yang's 100-day turnaround of the company. Then there's Jessica Livingston and Paul Graham from Y Combinator. There's nary a 22-year-old wantrepreneur in sight, so what's the draw of this conference for them? Other inexplicables: Kara Swisher from AllThingsD, and TechCrunch heavyweight Michael Arrington, two notoriously gossipy hacks. Wasn't this event supposed to be off the record? And does Arrington even know what that means? (Photo by bradley23)