Taking On The Big Guys: The Prez and AOL

It's a day for mobilizing the troops against big targets in the blogosophere today, with political pundits lining up against President Bush and Internet diehards taking aim at AOL.

More than the war in Iraq, the budget deficit, Supreme Court nominees and torture issues, the looming sale of the operation of six major U.S. shipping ports to a company owned by the royal family of Dubai (United Arab Emirates) is an issue (and today's burstiest phrase) that's coalescing Republicans and Democrats against the Bush Administration, with mixed opinions.

Bloggers react
Instapundit (No. 2 top blog post) discusses the pros and cons. Wall Street Journal Online (today's No. 3 top link) editorializes for some context and history. Todays' top blog post, from Think Progress, casts doubts about the "thorough review" that the administration claims went into the decision. What terror threats create buzz?



MoveOn.org to AOL: free e-mail
Eli Pariser of MoveOn.org climbs to the No. 4 spot among today's burstiest people for the group's petition asking AOL to drop its plan to charge companies the equivalent of an e-mail surcharge for spam-free, filtered e-mail service. Their theory? A two-tier e-mail system leaves the folks at the bottom -- everyday users, non-profits, small businesses -- with secondhand service, and that's not what the Internet's about. Move On, MoveOn, encourages one blogger. BlogPulse's Conversation Tracker picks up a day's worth of discussion.

Funny? True? Fun?
Several other discoveries from the blogosphere. From the realm of artistic endeavors comes a Lego version of Brokeback Mountain set (today's No. 14 most-cited link). And from the Is It True? department comes a Capitol Hill Blue post that questions the sobriety of a certain newsmaking hunting party in Texas. Engadget predicts "fun new products" next Tuesday from Apple, and Larry Brilliant is today's burstiest person ...and the newly announced Executive Director at Google.