Convention Talk Quickly Turns To (What Else?) Sex

No sooner had the red-white-blue balloons and confetti dropped from the ceiling of the Fleet Center in Boston than blog talk -- while still focused heavily on presidential politics -- turned to (what else?) sex.

Namely, sex toys. Thursday's burstiest phrase involved coverage of an appeals court decision about an Alabama law that provides a one-year prison fine for anyone caught selling sex toys. (Georgia and Texas have similar laws). Which raises the question: does Viagara qualify as a sex toy?

Of course, politics is still on the minds of many bloggers. In fact, Thursday's top phrases include several references to Rev. Al Sharpton's crowd-rouser convention speech on Wednesday, and the Democratic ticket of Kerry-Edwards took the No. 1 and No 2 spots among Thursday's key people...with Harry Potter managing to maintain a longstanding position in the top five most-blogged personalities.

Science lovers also pushed the late Francis Crick, Nobel Prize winner and co-discoverer of the double-helix structure of DNA, to the top of the burstiest people list. He died this week of cancer at age 88. (Note: The first link in Crick's list is to a weird blog called The Dead Pool, in which site visitors take bets and earn points on which pre-designated celebrities/personalities of note actually pass on within the year. A sampling from the list: the Pope, Courtney Love, Fidel Castro and Julia Child).

And what is it about anti-depressants and the White House? Thursday's top link (which began surfacing a day earlier) is to an article in Capitol Hill Blue hinting that the sitting president is popping "powerful antidepressants" to control erratic behavior. In a similar vein, Prozac is on the mind of Bush-Cheney campaign spokeswoman (and third-burstiest personality) Susan Sheybani, who was quoted in a Reuters article as saying that Americans unhappy with low wages should find new jobs...or pop a Prozac. Does that perhaps qualify as a different kind of "outsourcing?"

And in cinema land, fans are already drooling over a trailer for the 2005 Batman movie. "This is going to be good..." gushes one LiveJournal blogger.