Holy Box-Office, Batman!

Let's begin with "Batman Begins," which obviously did well enough at the box office in its opening week to propel star Christian Bale and Katie Holmes into the Top 5 personalities cited most in the blogosphere. In fact, seven celebs or director/producers involved in the movie (Bale, Holmes, "Bruce Wayne," Gary Oldman, Cillian Murphy, Michael Caine, Christopher Nolan) appear in the top 20 key personalities today. Tempus Fugit blog calls it the "best Batman movie ever."

Ms. Holmes and Tom Cruise also are creating "buzz" because of their recent Paris engagement, which is captured quite nicely in a BlogPulse trend graph:



The pesky Downing Street Memo won't go away, no matter how hard conservative bloggers try to downplay and discredit it. Captain Quarter's blog (today's top link) is raising the possibility that they're fake because they were retyped; PowerLine blog thinks anything fake would at least be a bit meatier; Loaded Mouth blog investigates independently and conclues that the British government's acknowledgement is proof enough.

Sagging polls, support
Sen. Chuck Hagel's blunt assessment of the war in Iraq and President Bush's performance makes it to No. 4 among today's top links, while Condoleeza Rice now says the nation was told Iraq would be a "generational commitment." Huh?

Fat soap
Here in Cincinnati, a city that knows a thing or two about making soap thanks to two guys named Procter & Gamble, couldn't help but notice the $18,000 bar of soap sold last week. Obviously not for the guest bathroom.

BLOGPULSE TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: Iraq continues to occupy the minds of bloggers as one of the world's hot-spot countries.