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June 30, 2004
Iraqi Politics and Computer News Galore!
The handover of partial sovereignty to Iraq two days early certain made its presence felt in BlogPulse, but the boys at Apple Computers grabbed their share of the limelight, too. Among Monday's top links, Steve Jobs' double-whammy announcement of Apple's upcoming update to OSX 10.4 (called "Tiger") shared the spotlight with Apple's new 30-inch flat-screen monitor. Let the drooling begin... Apple, in fact, appeared in eight of Monday's 40 top links. (By comparison, Fahrenheit 9/11 was mentioned in five top links, and the Bush Administration's ceremonial hand-over of power to the Iraqis is mentioned in six).
And perhaps it's just coincidence that Bill Gates is considering his own blog?
Meanwhile, couldn't help but notice an item about the predicted swelling of the call-girl population in New York City during the Republican National Convention, as reported by the New York Daily News).
Most of Monday's bursty phrases and blog bites were a mix of the comings-goings in Iraq (Bush, Bremer, Iraqi officials) and the Supreme Court's decision that enemy combatants held at Guantanamo Bay are entitled to basic legal rights. Yaser Esam Hamdi, the American-born citizen held in Cuba as an enemy combatant, was Monday's burstiest person, no doubt because of the coverage of his suit before the Supreme Court. In the No. 3 position is essayist Larry Eastland, who takes voting-pattern analysis to a whole new...and totally theoretical....level.
TREND GRAPH OF THE DAY: Euro 2004 soccer tournament...who's left standing, and who's getting blogged?
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:29 PM | Permalink
June 29, 2004
Publicity of the Double-Edged Sword Kind
Over the weekend, references to the Bush re-election campaign's new video ads began appearing in blogs and BlogPulse. And not too flatteringly (see Saturday's BlogBites). By Monday, the official web site of the Bush re-election campaign emerged as the top link of the day. The video ads, called "The Coalition of the Wild-Eyed," (and found on the Bush web site under "Latest TV ads"; click on one to get to the wild-eyed entry) intersperse images of Adoph Hitler with clips of former Vice President Al Gore, former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, (gloating?) filmmaker Michael Moore and Democratic hopeful Sen. John Kerry.
Perhaps not surprisingly, on the same day that the Bush web site jumped to top spot among key links, Fahrenheit 9/11 creator Moore jumped to the top spot among key people. The weekend release of his movie (on a limited number of screens nationwide) broke all-time box-office records for a documentary film.
Might as well keep the political theme going, which explains why NASCAR driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. pops into the No. 33 spot among key people. And it's not because he took the checkered flag. Turns out he encouraged his crew to see Fahrenheit 9/11 as a good bonding experience. Some bloggers are speculating whether fan reaction will be supportive...or Dixie Chick-like?
TREND OF THE DAY: So how is the incumbent president tracking compared to his Democratic challenger? Check out this week's Bush vs. Kerry BlogPulse Trend.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 09:30 AM | Permalink
June 25, 2004
And the Full Moon is a Week Away....
Maybe there's something bizarre in the air. Maybe the imminent release of filmmaker Michael Moore's movie, Fahrenheit 9/11, has legislators, politicians, elected officials and average folks everywhere a little on edge. How else to explain what's floating to the top of the BlogPulse world in today's results?
Probably not surprisingly, Moore has risen to the top of the key people list, and references to his movie -- with reviews and commentary covering every possible slant and opinion -- appear throughout BlogPulse's key links. And apprently Moore's isn't the only political film generating buzz. More films to be released between now and the November election include The Hunting of the President, Silver City, and The Corporation.
But that's not the bizarre part of today's results. I'll let the references to Judge Donald B. Thompson stand on their own. Hold the puns, please. Meanwhile, over in spam-land, AOL engineer Jason Smathers managed to bolt from obscurity to instant notoriety among BlogPulse's key people after being arrested on federal charges of selling 92 million AOL screen names to spammers. Let his sentence be an inbox filled with e-mail come-ons for mortgage refinancing offers, enhancement pills and cheap prescription drugs...every day, for the rest of his life.
There's also news of the genetically abnormal musclar baby from Germany and Dick Cheney's potty mouth. (For the curious, the Washington Times printed the verbatim comment).
But a bow of the head in deepest respect, please, for the late 84-year-old Bob Bemer, computer pioneer who developed the code that allows computers to understand text as a series of numbers. He passed away June 22 in Possum Kingdom Lake, Texas. His USA Today obituary says his personal motto was..."((((DO SOMETHING!) SMALL) USEFUL) NOW!"
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:58 PM | Permalink
June 23, 2004
Blasting Off....Getting Blasted
"Let private enterprise do it." That pretty much summed up the sentiment when private investors this week blasted a rocket into space and landed it safely in the Mojave Desert in California. The X-Prize Foundation is offering money to the group that pulls off the first privately financed manned space flight. Pilot Mike Melvill appeared among June 21's bursty people, and many of Monday's top-appearing phrases included the White Knight Jet that launched the rocket into space; Scaled Composites, the company that pulled it off; and Burt Rutan, the company's owner. Off we go, indeed.
Government intelligence-related links and phrases keep appearing with regularity, and Monday's second-most cited key phrase makes one wonder about the amount of intelligence (or lack of it?) that goes into background checks for politcal appointees. Seems Thomas B. Griffith, a Bush Administration nominee for a federal appeals court seat, has been practicing without a state law license in Utah for four years -- a habit he apparently developed during a similar three-year no-license stint in Washington D.C.
And dare I go out on a limb and admit that I actually liked playing dodgeball, lo, those many years ago in elementary school? Dodgeball the movie, which ranked first at the box office in its opening weekend, kept actor and Dodgeball star Ben Stiller alive among this week's key people in the blogosphere.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:39 PM | Permalink
June 18, 2004
Deja Vu...All Over Again
Suddenly, the blogging world has that hint of political yesteryear. Former President Bill Clinton has moved steadily up the "key people" list in anticipation of the release of his book and the media appearances that will accompany it. Al Gore's in there too, mostly (and still) for reasons of comparison and contrast. And hey! So is Ken Starr, report writer of note in this week of hefty national reports. Not to be outdone, Newt Gingrich makes an appearance, too, although not for anything political. Turns out he has a secret life as a reviewer of spy novels on Amazon.com. Which probably begs the question...CAN you judge a book by its cover?
Science, however, blasts us right back into the present and future, with these two interesting tidbits. From the journal Nature comes news of scientists transporting atoms for the first time. Beam us up, Scotty? And from another world of energy comes this disquieting interview with Ron Oxburgh, the chairman of Shell, who openly admits his fears about growing amounts of carbon dioxide in the earth's atmosphere. He tells The Guardian that climatic changes make him "really very worried for the planet." Possible solutions? Trapping the gases in solids or burying it under the sea. The Little Mermaid isn't going to be happy about this...
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:07 PM | Permalink
June 16, 2004
Blog Respectability...and Blog Frivolity
In the opinions of more than a few bloggers, Time magazine got it right with Lev Grossman's June 13 article "Meet Joe Blog." Grossman does a respectable job describing what blogs are, why they're suddenly so hot...and why everyone else should care. The Time article checks in at No. 8 among top links for June 15.
But enough seriousness for a while. In the frivolity department, there's plenty of near-mindless "stuff" in the blogosphere to keep everyone's minds off politics, prison abuse, terrorism and the Supreme Court for a while. Such as this No. 4-ranked ditty among BlogPulse's key phrases: frozen french fries now count as fresh vegetables. So does that mean fries dipped in ketchup -- another Department of Agriculture "veggie" -- count as a two-fer?
From reality-TV land, "Survivor" creator Mark Burnet is planning to use a show called "Rock Star" to find a new lead singer for a band. (The music world awaits with equal parts bated breath and low expectation).
Have you ever wondered who will show up at your funeral? The Random Obituary Generator of Doom at least lets bloggers toys with the idea. The generator is a tool for creating one's own obituary -- creatively, of course. Just in case it's, you know, one of those days. The fake obits are showing up as memes in numerous blogs.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 04:11 PM | Permalink
June 14, 2004
The Reagan Coattail Ride Is Cut Short for Bush White House
The Bush White House might have wanted to ride the Reagan coattails for a while longer, but the Diplomats and Military Commanders for Change aren't letting it happen. Even though they won't officially announce their positions until June 16, this group of 26 former senior diplomats and military officials who served under Reagan, Bush I and Clinton are urging Bush II's defeat in November because of ongoing diplomacy and military policies that they claim damage America's national security and international interests.
All but three of the 26 names appear among the "key people/bursty movers" list in Sunday's BlogPulse. And under BlogPulse's key phrases, links to the complete list and announcement appear more than once.
And why are so many movie stars and authors suddenly appearing in the blogosphere? Seems a popular movie meme and a book meme are making the blogging rounds (memes are contagious ideas/catch phrases/behaviors/bits of info that get passed around from person to person to person). The goal is to add to two separate lists (one for movies, one for books), by italicizing those you've read/seen part of, bold-facing those you've finished reading/watching, underlining those you own, and adding three to the list before posting to a personal blog. Here's a sample. Which explains why Forrest Gump and Johnny Depp, Mary Poppins and Bridget Jones, William Shakespeare and Barbara Kingsolver, and George Orwell and Amy Tan (and others of print and silver-screen fame) are suddenly...and simultaneously...popular personalities in blogs.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 12:27 PM | Permalink
June 09, 2004
Presidential Tributes....or Posthumous Excess?
Seems that Ronald Reagan has become far more popular in death than he was as a B-movie actor or a U.S. President. Before he's even been laid to rest, there's a bit of Reagan mania (or is it political opportunism?) going on. First, an Ohio state legislator wants Regan's likeness added to Mount Rushmore. Not to be outdone, U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky is tossing around the idea of booting the nation's first treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, off the $10 bill and replacing him with our now-deceased 40th President. And the folks at Jelly Belly, the maker of the candies that Reagan loved, have posted a jelly-bean portrait of their once-famous fan (BlogPulse top link #35 for June 8). But in the oh-so-insensitive department, ex-Smiths singer Morrissey nonetheless drew cheers at an Irish concert when he suggested that the current inhabitant of the Oval Office should have checked out instead....
Even though the networks seem to focusing on all-Reagan/all-the-time coverage, events in Iraq continue to heat up and unfold. And many critics of the entire situation, including the prisoner abuse and ongoing abuse investigations into the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, have responded to the leaked Pentagon memo with a catch phrase in the best of Washington traditions: "Torturegate."
On a lighter gee-whiz note for the techie world, folks are gushing over Apple's latest wireless hub, the Airport Express. According to Apple, it packs "wireless networking, audio, printing and bridging capabilities into a single affordable, portable unit." It's $129 (plus $39 for a connection kit), in case you were wondering.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 02:44 PM | Permalink
June 07, 2004
Illustrating The Power of Blogs
If you ever wondered whether blog content really does mirror what's going on the world, June 6 results make the perfect case. In a weekend dominated by the release of the box-office-leading third Harry Potter movie, the death of former President Ronald Reagan and the surprise marriage of wasn't-she-just-jilted J-Lo, guess whose names showed up as key people? Yup. Harry, Ron and J-Lo. Among Key Phrases, the 60th anniversary of the D-Day invasion at Normandy also drew its share of newsy buzz.
On another illustrative front, trend graphs created by BlogPulse have begun appearing with more regularity in other blogs. Some useful examples include Ethan Zuckerman's blog, which uses the trend graphs to compare blog buzz about foreign countries/trends. And the Schee.info blog duplicates an original BlogPulse graph comparing money, sex and chocolate and adds a new graph that compares Taipei vs. Shanghai vs. Tokyo.
BlogPulse users can view current trend graphs or create you own graphs in the Showcase section, under "BlogPulse Trend Tool." Be sure to re-read the tips on refining your search to get the best possible results. Blog on!
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 03:38 PM | Permalink
June 03, 2004
Backwards That Say You Can?
Who or what is Dooh Nibor and why are references to him/her/it suddenly showing up in BlogPulse? Seems that New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman's June 1 piece about Bush's economic and tax policies is being passed around and linked liberally among bloggers (2nd on the bursty people list, 4th on the bursty phrase list). "Dooh Nibor" is Robin Hood spelled backwards, and it's Krugman's way of describing the Bush Administration's tax and spending policies that, in his opinion, represent "a large-scale transfer of income from the middle class to the very affluent." You know, steal from the rich, give to the poor...only backwards.
Also getting some play is a movement called Spirit of America, which is the top BlogPulse link for June 1. It's an organization promoting and organizing "informal humanitarian activities" by Americans for the people of Iraq and Afghanistan. These are good-hearted folks teaching Afghan children how to play baseball, collecting plumbing and electrical supplies for Iraqi contractors, rounding up sporting goods and academic supplies for schools and orphanages...and open to any ideas from the general public. If you're asking yourself, "But what can I do about these foreign conflicts?"...Spirit of America has some ideas.
On the media front, which news outlets are linked to most often in the blogosphere? June 1 tallies show the Washington Post with six of the Top 40 Links, with NewsMax.com, Time.com, the Baltimore Sun, Public Broadcasting System, San Jose Mercury News, New York Daily News and CNN.com in the media mix.
Posted by Sue MacDonald at 02:26 PM | Permalink
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