Banned Books...Not So Outmoded as It Seems

Suddenly, I feel as if I'm back in college, spending time in the library while bonding with the authors whose words filled my hours and met all my requirements for American and British literature classes. But today, they're dominating the list of the burstiest people on BlogPulse.

In fact, every single name on Sunday's BlogPulse Bursty people list is an author -- from children's book author William Steig to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, from Daniel Defoe to Ralph Ellison.

The reason? It's all because of a web site, The Forbidden Library, which lists books (by title or by author) that at one point or another in their existence have been recommended for "must-be-banned" lists for various and sundry (and mostly ill-informed) reasons.

In the land of politics, can you name the holdout Cabinet member of the Bush Administration? That would be Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who -- according to the Bull Moose blog -- wouldn't pass even basic standards to survive the rigors of Texas high school football. According to Scotland's Sunday Herald, Rumsfeld already has been told by advisors that the U.S. already has lost the hearts/minds of the Iraqis.

Meanwhile, we've also lost Osama bin Laden, too. (Remember him?) Bloggers continue to examine the war on terror. One of Sunday's top links is a Washington Post, an investigative piece which finds that former pro footballer-turned-Marine Pat Tillman was actually killed by friendly fire. In another war of sorts, they're dropping "Peace Bombs" in Thailand. Meanwhile, the U.S. "war" in Iraq continues to rack up huge costs on numerous fronts, according to the Cost of War web site.

Anyone interested in buying a ghost for the holidays? An Indiana woman is selling her father's ghost on eBay to help her son overcome his fear of the spirits.

The Big Bad Wolf might not like this: cardboard houses for futuristic living. What if it rains? Or the recyclers go a little bit overboard?

TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY" If you plan on flying anywhere for the holidays, guess which airline might go bankrupt first? If that's too taxing, see how the airlines fare (no pun intended) in blog discussions>