Signs of the Times: Blast Wrap, Robots, Spied-Upon Quakers and Those Darned Activist Judges (But Not In the Way That You Assume)

Perhaps it's just a sign of the times when an odd collection of products and ideas converge in the blogosphere. To wit:

Protect it with...Blast Wrap!
If it's an explosion you're worried about, pack your precious cargo or treasured items in the subject of today's No. 30 most-shared news story: a Popular Science article about Blast Wrap, one of 2005's most innovative products from (honest) Blastgard International. The perlite-packed packets can diffuse the blast of a bomb in seconds, and they're being used to line public trash cans in D.C. (many cities, in case you haven't noticed, have removed trash cans from public streets because terrorists used to like to toss bombs into them). "No word if it also would also work on the movie Battlefield Earth," deadpans the SethJones blog.

Awesome-O
Eric Cartman would be more than proud at today's No. 6 top link. It's the Honda site for its Asimo robot, which now (for those with broadband connection) jogs with bizarre human-like movements. (Even in Japanese, the web site's pretty fascinating). What do you supppose Asimo carries in that backpack? A Mega-Bytes Lunchables?

Questioning(able) Quakers?
Did you ever get the sneaky feeling that someone's spying on you? Like your own government? (today's 4th most-shared news story). Evy Grachow, a member of a Quaker group in Florida, is today's burstiest person because her peace-loving group has been named a Dept. of Defense "threat" for a meeting in which Quaker activists discussed ways to curtail military recruiting at a local high school. Pam's House Blend isn't the only blogger to call such snooping an "outrage."

It's satire. Honest.
But lest you think the world is without a funny bone, think again. The folks at The Onion combine the vitriol of the debate over "activist judges"' with the vitriol over the attack on Christmas to come up with this: "Activist Judge Cancels Christmas." (It's today's No. 16 top news story). Says Daily Kos, tongue firmly in cheek: Uh-oh.

BlogPulse Spotlight today looks at reaction to the recently released trailer of The Da Vinci Code, movie version.